Chiun was silent and still as an ancient edifice, then he said, “Too much does this world rely on its science. Science is destructive. The collection of knowledge is destructive. What if, some day, man learns too much?”
“Knowledge is beneficial. Man cannot learn too much,” Mark Howard commented.
“Wrongo,” Remo said. “You hear about the mechanical buggies we found in the Land of Golf and Haggis?”
“Developing new weapons is harmful—specifically, advancing the foundation of human knowledge?” Mark asked. “That’s what you’re talking about, right, Master Chiun?”
“Yes. Too much association of science.”
“That is progress,” Smith insisted. “But it’s not our purpose now. We’re here to discuss Sa Mangsang.”
“It may make humanity mad, to find out its place in the universe,” Chiun declared. “Nevertheless, I shall tell you of Sa Mangsang.”
Smith nodded and sat back in his chair, and he was about to ask how Sa Mangsang and the place of humanity in the universe were linked. But he thought better of it.
Chiun said, “Sa Mangsang is Korean for ‘Dream Thing,’ for he exerts his will in dreams. He reaches out to the minds that are amenable to his influence. These are the mad and the perceptive and the devout. Also, and especially, the Seers.”
Chiun nodded to Mark Howard.
“He is Tako-Ika, the Octopus Squid, to the Japanese, and Khadhulu, Forsaker of Life, to the Arabs. To the Norsemen he was Kraken, but the Vikings never knew Sa Mangsang—only his minions.”
“The people of the ancient civilization of Mu knew Sa Mangsang best and feared him as Ru-Taki-Nuhu for what he was destined to do to this world. They tell of an elder god coming from the stars and seeking the comforts of the ocean. He stirs from time to time, rousing from his slumber long enough to test his strength and to stretch his thoughts out to the world for news of its development. Still, he has never truly awakened, until now.”
“By Jack Fast?” Remo asked. “Is that what we’re assuming?”
“It is no assumption. It is the truth. We deposited the juvenile madman into one of the places of the ancient speaking tubes,” Chiun said. “In millennia past, there were cults devoted to the creature. Some worshiped him. Some feared him. They located passages that carried their voices around the world to the sunken city where Sa Mangsang sleeps. Those who worshiped him sought to awaken him. Those who feared him sang songs designed to soothe him into deeper slumber.”
“Lullabies for a sea monster?” Mark Howard asked.
“I knew the nature of the place where we had deposited the miscreant, the son of Fastbinder. I knew fear of the place and yet, to my shame, I never considered that one boy, however deviant, was capable of reaching Sa Mangsang with his voice, when once it required the tumult of thousands to reach him.”
“Too late. Too late.” It was the bird, hanging its head and cawing unhappily.
“You foresaw this, bird?” Chiun asked, without surprise.
“We saw cataclysm for the People. We saw. We saw.”
“You sought to pass the message along, that I must be watchful and take care? This is the message you came to convey to me.”
The domed purple head seemed to shrink lower as it rocked miserably from side to side. “We tried. We tried.”
“Why did you fail?” Chiun demanded.
“Too weak. Too weak.”
“To do what?” Remo asked.
“To exert our will.”
“On the bird?” Chiun squeaked. “What manner of spirit are you?”
“From far away and long ago came we, sleeping for ages have we.”
Chiun frowned.
“Trail mix!” the parrot demanded, leaping up on Chiun’s shoulder.
“You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that to earn trail mix, Polly,” Remo growled.
“He speaks as a collective,” Chiun mused. “Some old group of magicians who have been alerted to a new danger. They sought me in hopes of warning me, before the commitment of the act that resulted in this disaster. They took the form of this creature, with the will of an animal, malleable to their influence, but with the voice a human may understand. They hoped it would be an expedient to communicating with me.”
“Why not just take over somebody we know, somebody closer to us?” Remo asked. “Smitty. He’d have been perfect.”
Smith became visibly alarmed.
“They are weak, Remo. Possessing a human mind was out of the question, and even this bird’s will exceeds their capabilities. They must have been desperate to even attempt it.”
“But who are they?”
“Someone from long ago and far away,” Chiun responded, waving the question away.
“He talks like Yoda.”
“You speak nonsense.”
“Trail mix trail mix trail mix.”
Remo took the macaw out and placed him on the back of the chair in the waiting area. “Mind if Gertrude waits here for a few minutes, Mrs. M?”
“Course not, Romeo,” said the elderly Mrs. Mikulka. “He’s a beautiful creature.”
“He likes poetry, too,” Remo said with a smile as he slipped back into the office.
“A man from Atlanta named Nick,” the macaw began, “was fond of exposing his—”
Remo shut the door fast. “Okay,” he said, retaking his seat. “What have we figured out? Anything that we can make use of?”
“There is nothing for us to make use of,” Chiun said. “It is too late.”
“Can’t be, Little Father.”
“Accept it.”
“I won’t accept it.”
“Master Chiun, was there any more to the Moovian legend?” Mark asked. “Did the people of Mu know of a way to put Sa Mangsang back to sleep once he was fully awake?”
“The people of Mu never would have considered it to be possible,” Chiun sniffed.
“What of those sects you spoke of, who chanted to Sa Mangsang in hopes of calming him into a deeper slumber?” Smith asked, squirming slightly at his discomfort with the concept.
“There were Arab peoples who did this, who burdened themselves with the responsibility of protecting the world from their Khadhulu. The arrival of Islam diluted their faith in Khadhulu until he became only a demon and a lackey of Shatain in their worship. Many in the islands of the Pacific never lost their fear of him until the whites came and polluted their faith with ridiculous fairy tales of carpenter gods. There were others, here and there.”
“Their legends are lost now?”
Chiun shrugged.
“You aren’t sure?” Smith pressed.
“I know not. Have any people survived spaying by the Christ cult in the last three centuries? Little survived the taint of the Christian missionaries in the Pacific Islands, and that which did survive was warped so that its original beauty is beyond recovery.”
“Why do you care about this, Smitty?” Remo said.
Smith’s lips were pursed tightly. He wasn’t enjoying the taste of what he was about to spit out. “Forgive me, Master Chiun, if I translate your legends into terms more palatable to my mundane mind,” Smith began.
Chiun said nothing.
“Sa Mangsang fell from the stars—could that mean he is an alien being?” Smith suggested. “If he does have a tentacled body, he would, of course, be a god to any people who saw him. Could his sleeping under the ocean be, in fact, a recuperative state? He was damaged in the landing on Earth and must heal before attempting to leave again.”
“He’d have to have extreme capabilities by our understanding,” Mark Howard said. “You’re saying he’s a space traveler who uses no spacecraft. I suppose an invertebrate body would be best suited to withstand the pressure variations that would be experienced in space. The life span must be tremendous.”