"Explain this."
"That is my poster of Bee-Master," Helwig Wurmlinger said.
"It's a poster of yourself. I don't know how or why you did it, but you've bred a bee you can control with an electronic helmet."
"Are you insane? The Bee-Master is only a comic-book character. He doesn't exist."
"Then why do you have his poster over your bed?"
"Er I-"
"Your hesitation betrays you," Chiun intoned, bringing his long, deadly nails up before Wurmlinger's long, nervous face.
"Go ahead," said Remo.
"This is very embarrassing."
"Not as embarrassing as having your head squeezed off your neck..."
Just then, the air filled with the growing metallic sound of a million angry insects.
"There is that sound again," Wurmlinger gasped.
"What sound?"
"The sound that killed all those men."
"Uh-oh," said Remo, looking to the window.
Chapter 36
"Here. Hold this guy," Remo said as the high, angry sound grew louder, and Chiun accepted Helwig Wurmlinger's neck from Remo's grasp.
Moving to the detached front door, Remo lifted it and rushed it back to the doorway. The hinges were ripped loose, so he couldn't rehang it. Instead, he set it tightly in the door frame and leaned against it with his shoulder.
"I think we're okay," he called out.
The sound grew in volume and insistence.
Chiun went to a side window, taking Wurmlinger with him. The entomologist had to walk stooped over because of the difference in height between him and the Master of Sinanju.
From the bedroom window, Chiun asked, "What do you see, Remo?"
"Nothing," said Remo. "It's just a sound."
Chiun's facial wrinkles gathered up tightly. "I, too, see nothing."
Helwig Wurmlinger said, "I saw nothing when those men were killed. But it was dark."
"The not-bee informed us that the wrath of the Bee-Master was about to descend upon our heads. What is the wrath of the Bee-Master?" demanded Chiun.
"I have no idea," Wurmlinger said uncomfortably. "But it does sound rather beelike."
From the other room, Remo called out, "Chiun, I think I have a little problem here."
The Master of Sinanju flashed into the other room. He took one look at his pupil holding the door in place and squeaked, "What is wrong?"
"I don't know. The door is vibrating. But I can't see anything."
Then the door started falling apart.
"Remo! Retreat! Retreat from what you do not understand!" Chiun cried.
"I gotta hold the door shut, or that sound will get in."
Then Remo's choices all fled. The door simply came apart. It disintegrated into showering sawdust.
Backing off, Remo cleared the entire room and crowded Chiun into the bedroom. He slammed the door after him.
His back supporting the door, Remo said, "I didn't see a thing. But the door acted like termites were eating it."
"Termites chew. They do not eat," Helwig WurmIinger said.
"Well, whatever they were, they made short work of that door. Chiun, how do we fight those things?"
"I do not know. But this one should."
Helwig Wurmlinger looked guilty as sin. He was sweating. He trembled.
Then the door at Remo's back began to buzz.
"Here they come!" Remo said. "Look, I can hold the door. Get out the back way."
"No, I will not leave you!"
"Listen to him," Wurmlinger said. "Whatever that sound represents, it will eat your brains in your head. There is no defense."
"Listen to him, Little Father," urged Remo, his voice buzzing in sympathy with the agitated door.
His face a tight web of spidery wrinkles, the Master of Sinanju narrowed his eyes in thought. Then, flinging Wurmlinger onto the bed, he bounded to Remo's side. His hands flashed out and caught Remo by the front of his T-shirt. He pivoted. Remo went flying.
Retreating to the bed, Chiun took Helwig Wurmlinger by the throat and made his voice loud enough to be heard over the weird sound that was infiltrating the room.
"Halt in your flight, creatures unknown!" he called.
The sound filled the room. There was nothing visible, just a weird humming as if the air had been electrified.
In a corner, Remo crouched, his eyes going everywhere. His senses were telling him he was surrounded. But he could see no threat, only hear it. Cold sweat broke out all over his body.
Then a sharp sting made a red bump on one thick wrist. Remo slapped at it.
"Chiun..."
"Cover your ears," Wurmlinger screamed. "They get in through the ears."
Remo slapped his hands over his ears. He felt something tickle his left nostril. Expelling air from his lungs, he blew the unseen irritant out. Then, drawing in a deep breath with mouth closed, he sealed his nostrils shut against invasion and waited.
Through his pressing hands, he heard the Master of Sinanju.
"If my son is harmed, I will break this one's neck! Do you hear, Master of Bees? If you do not retreat, this man who you claim to protect will die at the hands of the Master of Sinanju."
The sound continued permeating the room.
Chiun's tight face was resolute. Helwig Wurmlinger was oozing perspiration from his face and neck. His hands covered his own ears, and his eyes were pinched shut against the eye-consuming phenomenon.
"I warn you," Chiun said.
The sound seemed to pause. For a moment, it changed pitch as it gathered itself into a tight ball in the center of the room.
Chiun's eyes went to the compressed source of that sound. Still, he saw nothing, but every sense screamed the threat had contracted to a space that was no greater than that of an egg.
For almost two minutes, there was a standoff. Chiun squeezed Wurmlinger's bony throat with sufficient skill that the scientist could just only breathe, although his face was turning redder by the moment.
In a corner, Remo crouched in a defensive posture entirely unbecoming a Master of Sinanju. But he was facing a threat no Master had ever before encountered and against which he had no defense.
While Chiun held the balance of power in his bony hands.
At the end of two minutes, the humming, much subdued, even dejected, retreated from the room. Their eyes followed it even though it was really their ears that tracked its evacuation.
The unseen creatures poured from the mud nest of Helwig Wurmlinger and disappeared into the early-morning light.
When it seemed safe to do so, Chiun released Wurmlinger's throat. Remo came out of his crouch, his hands dropping to his side.
For a moment, he stood there rotating his thick wrists absently. His T-shirt was drenched in his own perspiration.
"What happened?" asked Remo.
"I saved you," said Chiun.
"I know that. But what-?"
Chiun eyed Wurmlinger. "The brain devourers valued the life of this man. It is time he explained why."
Helwig Wurmlinger looked back at the accusing gazes and flapped his hands helplessly. "I-I cannot," he managed to say.
And as they eyed the man, his head next to the fading poster of the Bizarre Bee-Master, Remo thought that there was a pretty strong resemblance between them. Especially around the chin.
Chapter 37
Remo fixed Dr. Helwig X. Wurmlinger with his deepset eyes and said, "You have a lot of explaining to do.
A giant cockroach walked into the room, twitching its feelers, and stopped and hissed at them loudly.
"Do not be alarmed," Wurmlinger told them. "That is a Madagascar cockroach. Perfectly harmless."
"What's it doing out of its box?" asked Remo.
"It is a pet. I keep it as a pet."
"Nobody keeps cockroaches as pets," said Remo.
Chiun floated over to the roach, which was as horny as an armadillo, and told it, "Do not hiss at me, vermin."
The cockroach hissed anyway.
And the Master of Sinanju brought a black sandal down on its back with a satisfying crunch.