All around Moo, the water was turning to brownishblack mud.
"Can't we move faster?" Remo cried.
"The wind is not with us," Cliiun returned. He stood on the bow, his feet apart, his back stiff.
"How can it just sink like that?" Remo moaned.
"It is not. Use your eyes, not your heart to see, Remo." Moo was not sinking. It was spreading out. It lost height.
It lost shape. With sick eyes Remo saw tiny figures being pulled under the shifting porous volcanic soil. It was like dry quicksand. Others climbed palms and rode them down to the water. The boles snapped apart with thunderous splinterings. Remo lost sight of every tiny figure he picked out.
The junk wallowed closer. Remo's eyes searched the water for survivors. He saw none. He pushed at the tiller, sending the boat around.
"Might be some survivors on the other side," he called. Chiun said nothing in reply. Remo couldn't see his face. He wondered what thoughts were going through the Master of Sinanju's mind as he watched an important link to Sinanju's past crumble.
On the far end of the island, the soil was spreading even further into the water. The summit of Moo was barely ten feet above sea level now. And still it shifted and spread. It was all going to go.
"There!" Chiun cried. "I see the High Moo."
Remo peered past the rakish sails. He spotted the High Moo splashing helplessly in the water. His arms waved at them. He called for them to rescue him.
"Hurry, Remo," Chiun called back. He went to the rail.
"I can't get out and push this thing," Remo snapped back.
Then other figures appeared in the water. They surrounded the High Moo. At first Remo feared they were sharks. But they were Moovians. They grabbed at the High Moo, pulling at his face and hair and arms. They were beating on him, dragging him down with them.
They pulled him below the brown water, which was turning chlorophyll green from crushed vegetation. Bubbles marked the spot where the High Moo disappeared. One head surfaced after a while. A girl's. Remo thought he recognized her although her wet hair was plastered to her face. It was the Low Moo.
"Hold on," he called in Moovian.
"Nah," the Low Moo called back. "I am the last. All the others have perished. There are no more. Go away. Moo is no more. I have no subjects, no throne. There is no place for one such as I in your world. I no longer wish to live. Go, Remo, but never forget us."
"No chance," Remo said, diving into the water.
He set out for the Low Moo, but she saw his intentions and jacknifed under the water. Remo slipped down after her. He followed the trail of air bubbles that spilled from her open mouth. She wasn't even trying to hold her breath. She went as limp as a starfish and Remo knew before he reached her that she was gone.
He pulled her to the surface and tried desperately to squeeze the water from her lungs. He touched his lips to hers, and puffed steady breaths into them. "Come on, come on," he urged.
Her lips remained cold, her eyes closed. Reluctantly Remo let her go. The Low Moo floated away, her face brown and composed and nearly innocent.
Remo fought back the burning sensation in his eyes as he climbed aboard the junk. He couldn't understand why he should care that the cruel Low Mo had perished. He took the tiller, sending the junk around for another circuit of the island.
There were few bodies. They floated facedown, many of them.
The hammerhead sharks closed in.
"Shouldn't we stop them?" Remo asked. Chiun kept his back to him.
"No," Chiun-said distantly. "It is the way of the sea."
"That was the Low Moo I tried to rescue back there, you know."
"So? "
"I know it sounds strange, but I wish I could have saved her."
"Why?" Chiun asked in a cold voice. "If we took her back to America, she would only try to eat you again."
"Hey," Remo said angrily. He stormed up to Chiun and spun him around. "That was uncalled-for."
But then he saw the tears rilling down Chiun's lined cheeks and he swallowed.
"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly.
"History had repeated itself," Chiun said slowly. "Greed destroyed Old Moo, and greed has claimed what had survived almost five thousand years."
"Greed, nothing. It was those killers and their explosives."
"No, my son. Mere explosives would not have done all this. Old Moo sank because the High Moos of those days also forced their people to mine every foot of land in search of coin metal. Eventually they undermined the very earth, and the seas claimed Old Moo. Now the greedy sea has drunk the last of Moo, and the last poor Moovian. "
As they watched, the final patch of dry ground grew dark with moisture and soon it was indistinguishable from the ugly brown of the sea.
Steam rose in mighty tendrils from the place where Moo had been.
"Behold, Remo. Do you see those mighty arms reaching up to the very sky?"
"Yeah. Steam from the hot jungle growth. So what?"
"They only appear to be steam. For those are the very tentacles of Ru-Taki-Nuhu itself, holding up the sky."
"Bull," said Remo. But he stared into the swirling steam uncertainly. Did he see suckers?
Chapter 39
It was four days later. The mouth-watering smell of hot egg-lemon soup woke Remo Williams. He jumped out of his bunk and made his way to the junk's galley, where he found the Master of Sinanju hovering over the galley stove.
"Do I smell my favorite soup?" he asked brightly.
"You do," replied Chiun in a happy voice. He turned, a steaming wooden bowl in his hands.
At the sight of Remo's face, Chiun let out a screech. "Aiiee!" he cried.
"Yeah, I know," Remo said, holding up his hands. His nails were long and curved. "Aren't they gross?"'
"Your nails are perfect. It is your hair. And beard."
"Huh?"
"They are a sickly yellow." Chiun looked into the bowl. His eyes narrowed. His lips thinned. "Lemon yellow." He marched to an open porthole and emptied the bowl's contents overboard.
"My breakfast!" Remo cried.
"No more egg-lemon soup for you," Chiun muttered angrily as he dumped the remaining potful after the bowl. "It has had an unforeseen effect upon your ridiculous white consitution."
"Unforeseen?" Remo folded his arms. He tapped a foot impatiently. "Chiun, I think you have some explaining to do." He was looking at his fingernails.
Chapter 40
Dr. Harold W. Smith noticed the shiny blue Buick in the next-door driveway when he pulled into his own. His lips thinned. They were home, his mysterious neighbors. That changed everything.
As he put his house key in the front door, the portable phone in his briefcase buzzed. Perhaps it was Remo calling, Smith thought, his heart racing. He fumbled the door open.
Smith plunged into his living room. Mrs. Smith was sitting in an overstuffed chair, facing an identical highbacked chair.
"Oh, Harold, I'm so glad you're home," Mrs. Smith gushed excitedly. "I'd like you to meet-"
"One moment, please," Smith said curtly. "I have some phone calls to make." And he hurried into the den, leaving his wife to mutter apologies to her guest.
"He's not like that, really. It's just that he's been so overworked."
"I recognized him as a man of responsibility," the other voice said gravely. "And have I told you that you brew excellent tea?"
Smith opened the briefcase at his desk. He lifted the receiver.
"Yes?" he said crisply.
"Smitty? Remo here."
"Remo!" Smith bit out. "Where have you been? Never mind. That's not important now. We have a crisis."
"I'll be right over."
"No, I'm not at Folcroft. I'm home."
"I know. I saw you drive up."
"You did? You're in the neighborhood? Wonderful. Listen carefully: unknown agents have bought the house next door to mine. There's something very wrong there. I don't have time to explain the details, but I want you to look into this. Find out who they are and what they're up to. I believe that at the very least, they're storing munitions over there. The apparent leader is a man who calls himself James Churchward."