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Oriental involved in a disturbance, caused when someone accidentally touched the Oriental and was dismembered for it, that would have been a conclusive.
This time, the computer gave Dr. Smith only one report. A man had jumped from an airplane without a parachute and lived.
Smith's eyes widened in anticipation and then became their normal steel gray again. The man had indeed jumped from an airplane and lived. He had been injured and was now at Winstead Memorial Hospital, outside of Ramage, South Dakota. His condition was critical.
So much for the whereabouts of Remo and Chiun. They were not at Ramage, South Dakota. It would have taken more than an airplane jump to put Remo in the hospital.
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CHAPTER FOUR
The Master of Sinanju had heard it and did not believe it. He would have asked again if he thought he could bear the answer. He asked again.
"What have I done to you that you would commit so foul a deed on me ?"
"Maybe it's not foul, Little Father," said Remo.
"I cannot believe it," said Chiun.
"Believe it," Remo said. "I will not kill again."
"Eeeeeeah," said Chiun and Remo's words withered his tired old ears. "The pain I can bear. But knowing that I have betrayed my ancestors by giving so much that will not come back to the House of Sinanju, this I cannot live with."
"I'm not going to feel guilty," Remo said. "I have my life to live, too, and I wasn't born an assassin."
"That need not be mentioned now," said Chiun. And then, in the darkness of his morning, a shaft of light appeared. "You have killed, Remo. By your act, you kill. You kill the House of Sinanju by what you do. Who will pass on what we know? Who will take the sun source of the martial arts and give its essence to another to keep it alive? Who, then, if not you ?"
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"You," said Remo. "You found me. Find someone else."
"There is no one else."
"What about all those wonderful Koreans you always claim could master Sinanju, but in a moment of weakness you chose a white instead of a Korean ? Get one of them."
"I am too old now."
"You're not more than eighty-five."
"I have given so much, there's nothing left."
Remo watched the steaming pot on the boat's butane cooking stove. He was leaving for his new job after this lunch. The rice was steamed perfectly and the duck was a few moments from completion.
He had reservations for a Delta flight out of West Palm Beach to New York City. What he did not mention was that he had reservations for two.
"Do you want ginseng on your rice or not?"
"Ginseng is for happy times. Ginseng is for hearts that have not been broken or betrayed," said Chiun.
"No ginseng?"
"A little," said Chiun. "To remind me of happy days which will be no more." He made sure with his eyes that he got the proper amount. Remo crumbled the root into the boiling pot.
He saw Chiun's face raise a bit, concentrating on the ginseng. He added another pinch. The face lowered.
"But I will not enjoy it," he added. During the meal, Chiun added how he was not enjoying anything. Yet he knew there were worse things in the world, he said. Much worse.
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"Yeah, what?" asked Remo, chewing his rice to liquidity. Eating, properly pursued, was no more enjoyable at this stage of his development than a breathing exercise. It was, properly done, the tak-ing-in of nourishment. To enjoy it was to do it wrong. For that could lead to eating things for enjoyment instead of nourishment, and that could be fatal, especially to Americans who ate like that all the time.
"You think more of your rice than what I think is a desecration," said Chiun.
"That's right," said Remo.
"Perfidy," Chiun said. "Eternal perfidy. I have one wish in life. And that is never for my eyes to settle upon the waste of Sinanju doing what it was not trained for."
"Okay," said Remo.
"I do not even want to know what you will do."
"Good," said Remo. "It will be better for you that way."
"You know," Chiun said, "not everyone appreciates assassins, no matter how great they are."
"I know," Remo said and there was no mocking in his voice now.
"They call us murderers and killers."
"Well, they have a point. To a degree."
"They don't understand what we do."
"How could they?" Remo asked. He wondered if he needed duck. A young man normally had enough fat in a grain food not to need the duck. A bead of fat glistened on the whitish flesh of the boiled duckling. Remo decided no.
"And in this country, your country, it is worse. You have amateur assassins working everywhere.
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Anyone who owns a gun thinks he has a right to kill."
"I know," Remo said.
"But a good assassin, why, even the victims respect him. Because the victim has a better death than if old age attacked, for in old age one is tortured into the grave. One sees one's limbs stiffen and breathing go and eyesight wither and all manner of ills befall. But, when a person goes with the assistance of a great assassin, he lives one moment and all but painlessly does not the next. I would rather be assassinated than be in one of your car accidents," said Chiun.
""I'm going, Little Father," Remo said. "Are you coming?"
"No," said Chiun. "This is too much to bear. Goodbye. I am old and poor. Perhaps you are right and this is the time to leave me."
"You're not poor. You've got gold stashed all over in little packets. And besides, there never has been a time when an assassin can't find work."
Remo packed everything he owned in a small blue canvas bag. An extra pair of chinos, three pairs of socks, four black T-shirts, and a toothbrush.
He thought he would be interrupted by Chiun any moment but the interruption did not come. He zipped up the bag. Chiun worked on his duck, taking little pieces with his long fingernails and chewing them as Remo had chewed his rice, into liquid.
"I'm going," said Remo.
"I see," said Chiun. Remo knew Chiun had
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giant steamer trunks that had to be labeled for shipments. He had not asked Remo to label them.
"I'm going now," Remo said.
"I see."
Remo shrugged and let go a sigh. He had worked more than a decade as an assassin and he could not, if he wanted to at this moment, fill his bag with valuables. He was going to a new life. He was going to where he would have a home and a wife and a child. Maybe several children.
Chiun had said children were like orchids, best appreciated when someone else had to do the labor of growing them. They had had this discussion before. Many years before. And many times since.
Remo did not know if he was going to that home and family. He did not know if he really wanted it anymore but he did know he wanted to leave. And he did know he did not want to kill again for a long while, if ever. It was not a big new thing that came on him, rather something that had been coming for so long and so slowly it felt like an old friend whom he had suddenly decided to say hello to.
Chiun did not get up.
"I don't think 'thank you' would be enough," said Remo to the man who had given him that new life.
"You never gave enough," said Chiun.
"I gave enough to learn," said Remo.
"Go," Chiun said. "A Master of Sinanju can do many things. He cannot do miracles. You have allowed yourself to turn into corruption and rot. The sun can make some things grow. It makes others spoil."
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"Goodbye, Little Father. Do I have your blessings?"
And there was silence from the Master of Sinanju, a silence so deep and so cold that Remo felt the shivers through his bones.