"What are you worried for?" asked Remo. An exercise class, apparently of employees, filled the far end of the gym. They puffed back and forth across the wooden floor two times, then stretched their muscles in exercises that Remo recognized as contrary, that is, one exercise worked against another so that people strained instead of increasing in power.
"Was I that bad, Little Father?"
"Worse," said Chiun. "You were a drinker of alcohol, an eater of meat, violent in your movements, and contemptuous and venal in your character."
"Yeah. What a change."
"Yes. You no longer drink alcohol or eat meat."
Walking to Smith's office overlooking Long Island Sound, Remo told Chiun of the incident at the hospital.
"What of that nurse?" asked Chiun. "Did she remind you of anyone you have met before?"
"No."
"Were you concentrating when you met her?"
Remo paused. "No. I was thinking of something the computer said."
"Well, we shall see," said Chiun.
"See what?"
"I do not know. But we will know. We will know because we will not seek. We will let whatever looks for us find us."
"That's a minor problem, Little Father. The whole organization may be going under."
"Wrong," said Chiun. "Your problem is your life. Your organization's problem is your organization's problem. If it is not to survive, then it is not to survive. Have you heard of the Aztec kings? Where are they now? Where are the czars? Where are the pharaohs? They are not. The House of Sinanju survives because it does not wallow in foreign trivia."
"I've got a job, Little Father."
The receptionist in Smith's office said he was not in that day.
"Any calls for him?" asked Remo.
"With all due respect, sir, that's none of your business. He is in a hospital in Cape Cod. You might try telephoning him. He told me there were certain items he would be able to handle by phone, and if your…"
"When did you speak to him?" interrupted Remo.
"This morning."
"What?"
"Forgive him, child," said Chiun. "He does not know what he is doing."
Remo phoned the hospital. It was true. There had been an incident the night before, but Cape Cod General could not be held responsible, and the patient wanted no notoriety.
Remo and Chiun reached the hospital by late afternoon. Remo explained to Chiun that he couldn't exactly go in. He might be recognized. He was, well, sort of running from the police yesterday.
"Why were you running from the police? Are you trying to be a thief now, as well as an emperor?"
"I can't explain," said Remo. They waited until nightfall and entered through an alley basement door and walked up the stairs to Smith's room.
The same nurse was on duty.
"I want to talk to you," said Remo.
"Doctor Smith will see you now," she said.
"Hold," said Chiun. "Do not go farther, Remo. Get away from that nurse."
"The old one remembers me," said the nurse. "Breasts and makeup do not fool the old man, do they?"
"What's going on?" said Remo.
"If you want to see Doctor Smith, enter," said the nurse.
"Remo, is that you?" came Smith's voice from the room.
"I'm going in," said Remo, but he felt the long fingers of Chiun on his back. He tried to bend away from them, but they kept with him, and he skidded on the slippery floor wax.
He saw the nurse make a move toward them, but then Chiun was up, circling in his deceptive slow movements, making almost imperceptible feints with the long fingers. The nurse, too, circled. Remo noticed that she limped.
"Gracious," she said in the flat mechanical voice. "I remember exactly. I think you have me, gook."
In Korean, Chiun ordered Remo to join in. For a nurse? The Master of Sinanju needed help with a nurse?
Remo moved into Chiun's circular pattern so that he was opposite the Master, with the nurse in the center.
"Maybe you can help me with a paraplegic sometime, Little Father," said Remo.
"Do not joke. This one moves backwards equal with forwards and does all things with balance beyond men."
"I was pretty well programmed that way," said the nurse. "But I still doubt that I could duplicate some of your moves."
"Who are you?" said Remo.
"What is a better question," said Chiun, and in Korean, he ordered Remo to hold.
The nurse's head spun around like the turret on a tank. She looked at Remo, smiling, her chin directly above her backbone.
"Oh," said Remo.
"I see you remember," said the nurse. "I wouldn't attack right now if I were you, human. It would result in the destruction of Smith. Immediately."
"Remo," called Smith. "Who's out there?"
"Do not move, oh, Emperor. We are saving your life," said Chiun.
"There's somebody after you," said Smith weakly. "I think it's Mr. Gordons."
"You're a great help," mumbled Remo.
"I see we are at an impasse, gook and orphan," said the nurse.
"What's happening?" yelled Smith as loudly as his strength let him.
"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning," Remo yelled back.
"There was a high probability that you should enter the room with Smith. Why didn't you?"
"Do not tell him, Remo," said Chiun.
"Let's finish the old business now," said Remo.
"No," Chiun said.
"I see you are the better thinker, gook," the nurse said.
"One does not need special wisdom to see that," Chiun said. "What do you want?"
"Your destruction," said the nurse.
"Why?" said Chiun.
"Because while you live you are a danger to me."
"We can share the earth."
"I am not here to share the earth. I am here to survive," said the nurse. "You and your pale whelp are the one force I must destroy."
As the nurse spoke, another nurse passed them in the hall, nodded toward the nurse between Remo and Chiun and entered Smith's room.
Remo watched her go in. A moment later she came out. She walked away down the hall.
"See, you may go in now," the first nurse said in that flat voice. "It is safe now."
"Remo, stay away from that door," said Chiun. "Why do you wish to destroy us?" he asked the nurse.
"Because you two represent a force that has been continuing for centuries and centuries. Is that not right, gook?"
"Correct," said Chiun.
"Then there is no reason that it might not be many centuries more. I have determined that I could outlast any country just by disappearing for a while, until it is no longer the country it was. But you humans of Sinanju stay around forever. Better we meet now, rather than I unexpectedly meet one of your descendants centuries from now."
"Blow it out your transistors," Remo said and moved into a two-line attack that could converge the maximum force upon the target. He needed only a piece of this thing to rip it apart. A normal blow to the heart or brain was useless. The motor responses could be anywhere. The last time they were in the creature's stomach; now they could be under the nurse's hat. Inside the white shoes.
"No," said Chiun to Remo. "Smith will die. Stop."
"He knows," said the nurse.
"What's going on out there?" yelled Smith.
"What have you done, thing?" said Chiun.
"That is for you to find out. I am leaving, but remember, I will destroy you. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, thing, and let me tell you this. All that was made by man disappears. But man continues."
"I'm a new generation of thing, gook."
Remo watched, puzzled, as the nurse walked smoothly to an exit door.
"It is good that you have learned to listen," Chiun said.
"What's going on?" asked Remo.
"First, how did it hurt Emperor Smith to begin with?"
"Exploding sculpture," said Remo.