Remo swam for one of them and floated before it.
He touched it. It was like a jug, stoppered with a glass plug. The edges were sealed with clay or tar to make them waterproof Inside, a man floated. He was shriveled into a near-fetal position. Remo saw a wizened face, the eyes closed as if in sleep. He went to the next vessel. A woman, young and peaceful of face, hung up against the glass. Her feet touched the bottom, but the narrow base kept her from slipping into a pile of inert flesh. Her shoulder leaned against the wall nearest Remo, and Remo felt as if he could reach out and touch her.
Every vessel contained a body floating in a reddish fluid.
Remo paddled away from them, suddenly horrified by the great number of dead people.
He found Chiun searching among the vessels. Remo had started toward him when the Master of Sinanju suddenly darted away like a frightened fish.
The walls trembled. The water stirred. Remo felt a sudden current. He saw wood particles swirl up from a top shelf. The shelf began to tilt. Remo moved, impelled by an unexplained fear. He got under the shelf, took it in both hands. His kicking feet sought purchase. They touched a glass stopper and, in fear of upsetting the jug, recoiled.
Chiun swam into view. He made quick lifting motions with his hands. Remo nodded. He understood. He was to hold up the shelf. Chiun would do the rest.
One by one, Chiun wrapped his frail-appearing arms around the vessels and carried them to the floor. He made an arrangement of them until the shelf was bare. Then Remo yanked the shelf free and sent it floating away.
Chiun began making hand signs toward the roof opening. Remo nodded. Then a wall cracked. The shelving held, but one vessel teetered. Remo darted for it. He was too late.
The jug broke apart soundlessly. Red fluid billowed and spread like a bloody cloud. Remo kicked into reverse. He tasted alcohol. Wine. The bodies had been preserved in wine. He spit furiously, knowing that alcohol was dangerous to his system.
The body-it was that of a middle-aged man in a toga-lay covered in glass. One foot floated away, severed by glass. It looked as if it were trailing blood, but Remo knew that the dead didn't bleed.
Chiun was suddenly tugging at his bare forearm and Remo floated for the ceiling opening. Chiun squeezed through easily. Remo had to break off more coral before he made it.
Emerging from the outcropping, Remo was suddenly aware of the vast falling-away of the ocean floor on this side of the encrusted building. For miles to the east, there was rank upon rank of the strange coral formations. Not all were coral. There was a shattered tower not far away. A dome like an inverted cracked bowl expelled a string of blue-green fish. Silt kicked up from the ocean floor.
And Remo felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the ocean temperature. He was looking upon Old Moo-what was left of it.
When his head broke the surface, Chiun was already there, taking measured breaths.
"It's all down there, isn't it?" Remo said. There was moisture on his face that wasn't seawater. His voice was twisted.
"Yes, my son," Chiun said sadly. "You have been privileged to visit that which no man-not even Moovian man-has seen since the young sun of earth's past touched those buildings. Old Moo."
"We shouldn't have disturbed them. Look what happened. "
"Have no regrets, Remo. We did not cause that disturbance. It was a shifting of the ocean floor."
"Moo really sank. The whole thing. And it stretched forever in all directions."
"Think not that any empire is forever. Even your America exists only at the whim of the universe."
Remo was silent a long time. "What was that place? With the bodies?"
"The Royal Tomb of the Line of Moo. The High Moo told me that it would be found there."
"You led me there on purpose. Why?"
"You were just along for the ride," Chiun said. "I wished to behold the face of the High Moo whom Master Mangko knew. "
"Why?"
"Call me sentimental," Chiun said. And Remo laughed. They struck off for land. Chiun paused at the junk and climbed aboard. Remo waited at his command. Chiun threw over a bag. Remo caught it. It jingled. He didn't have to open it to know it contained the coins given to Chiun by the Low Moo.
"Planning a shopping spree, Little Father?" Remo asked when Chiun splashed to his side. Chiun had donned an emerald-and-gold kimono.
"The High Moo kindly offered to store the entire payment in his treasure house while we sojourn on his island."
"I wish there was someplace we could store this junk."
"The typhoon season is months away," Chiun assured him.
They made land at the coral reef where the night before they had fought the octopus men. Remo passed the coins to Chiun while he plunged into the Grove of Ghosts. He found his shoes where he had left them and, sitting on the ground, tried to put them on. They wouldn't fit. His toenails were too long.
Cursing, he carried them out, past the totems. He knocked one off its base out of pique.
"Don't say you told me so," Remo said when Chiun saw him carrying his shoes.
"I won't."
"Good. "
"But I did."
Remo's retort died in his mouth. Plunging through the jungle was a bouncing-bosomed maiden.
"Wiki-wiki! Oh, come! Men of Sinanchu!" she cried. "An assassin has struck down the High Moo. Hurry! Wiki-wiki!"
Chapter 24
Shane Billiken recognized that people had different tastes. He could get next to that concept. It was real. People were individuals, after all. We shared the same planet. We were all connected, all part of the dao, but human diversity was one of the universal constants too.
"Okay, so you don't like cheese," he said. He tried to keep his voice even. It was hard when you were facing a half-dozen mercenaries armed with automatic weapons and there was no place to run. Unless you counted a hundred square miles of ocean. "But you could get used to it," he added hopefully. He smiled under his Ray-Bans.
"Cheese gives me gas," said Dirk Edwards, AKA Ed the Eliminator. He had decided that since they were over a hundred miles out of Southern California and the wind was good, it was time to chow down.
He had gone below to the larder whistling. He came up like a rogue elephant. When the word passed through the crew that the provisions aboard the newly christened New Age Hope consisted of three kinds of hard cheese and two soft, Shane Billiken, taking his turn at the wheel, found himself surrounded.
"I once wrote a whole book about cheeses," Shane went on quickly. "Do you know it's the perfect food? It provides calcium and iron, reduces stress, and is a natural anticarcinogen. Best of all-and I know you guys will appreciate this-when you apply it to boils and wounds, it promotes healing."
"Sounds like Southern California bullshit to me," growled Dirk Edwards.
"Maybe you heard that penicillin was first discovered in moldy bread. They used to apply moldy bread to wounds. It helped. It really did. My discovery is like that."
"That will come in real handy if we decide to shoot you," Dirk Edwards said.
"You wouldn't do that."
"We will if we don't eat."
"I'm sure there are other kinds of food on the island."
"We can't wait that long. Okay, men," Dirk said, turning to his people. "Keep an eye out for pleasure boats. Maybe," he laughed, "we can arrange a swap. In the meantime, we eat cheese."
No one looked happy. Their stony expressions darkened when they heard Shane Billiken answer Dirk's next question.
"Where's the water supply?"
"The bucket's down with the cheese," Shane told him.
"Bucket?"
"Yeah, and I brought a rope. You can help yourself," Shane said, flinging his arms out to encompass the entire Pacific with its cool sweet water.