"We're not going to the North Pole by any chance?" wondered Remo.
"No, we are not," Chiun said. "Good," said Remo.
"You are going to the place where only one Master of Sinanju has ventured before you."
"Where is that?"
"The moon."
"I am not going to the moon. Air Canada doesn't fly there."
Chiun waved the objection away. "It is too late for you to object, inasmuch as you are already on your way."
As the plane droned on, the Eskimo stewardesses kept up a running chatter about how they were now called Inuit but Remo could call them bandicoots if he gave them all a big hug. Preferably one at a time, but because they were landing soon, all at once would do just fine.
"Pass," said Remo, thinking furiously.
"Why do you spurn the advances of these fine, sturdy women?" asked Chiun in an undertone.
"How come you didn't ask me that in Spain or Egypt?"
"Those women spring from inferior stock."
Remo took a second look at the stewardesses who were beaming brilliant smiles in his direction like roundfaced searchlights.
"These women look suspiciously Korean," he said.
"They are not. They are Eskimo."
"Inuit," called a bell-like voice.
"You know, they say Asians came across the Bering Strait and populated America."
"These women could pass for Asian," Chiun admitted. "Chinese perhaps. Or Mongol. But not Korean. Although they have their charms."
"If you like pumpkin heads perched on squash bodies."
"They are fortuitously designed for childbearing. This is a good thing for a man of your advancing years."
"My years aren't advancing that I know of. I look younger than I did before I came to Sinanju."
"It would be a correct thing for you to impregnate the three you like best in the event you do not return from the moon in this century," Chiun told Remo.
"Three?"
"Knowing you, I do not trust you not to sire another female. If not two. But if you make three with child, surely at least one boy will result."
"Pass."
"Awww," said the stewardesses in unison.
"No offense," Remo assured them. "I already have a daughter."
"And a son," added Chiun. "The jury's still out on that one."
Remo lapsed into silence. They were flying in the general direction of the North Pole, which featured only ice and snow and cold and maybe the Fortress of Solitude. In other words, nothing useful or interesting.
Somewhere in the dim recesses of his memory, he recalled a legend of a Sinanju Master who went to the moon. Who was that?
"Shang!" Remo said, snapping his fingers. "Shang went to the moon."
Chiun clapped his hands together approvingly. "It gladdens my heart to hear that one of my lessons has stuck to the inside of your thick white skull."
"Cut it out. Besides, Shang didn't really go to the moon. He just thought he did."
"He went to the moon. So it was written in the Book of Sinanju."
"What's written in the Book of S'vnanju is that Shang fell for some Japanese tart, and she hectored him into fetching her a piece of the moon, figuring if he failed, she was rid of him. So he hiked north, made it to a land of cold and ice and snow bears and, because he was ignorant of the shape of the earth, Shang thought he had made it to the moon. Actually he'd hiked across the frozen Bering Sea into what is now northern Canada. Because it was winter, there was no moon in the sky, and Shang thought he had walked all the way to the moon."
"How did the story end?" an interested stewardess asked.
Remo shrugged. "Search me. I just remember the part of the moon. And only because it was wrong."
"Pah!" said Chiun, turning away. "You have learned nothing."
For the rest of the trip, the stewardesses tried to convince Remo that although they were Inuit or Eskimos-take your pick, kind sir-they were really just as modern and sophisticated as any woman you could find.
"Yes," said one. "We have satellite dishes in our homes. Alcoholism. Drugs and even AIDS."
"That's really sophisticated," Remo remarked dryly. "Congratulations."
The stewardesses giggled with delight, thinking they were cracking the thick antisocial ice surrounding the strange white man with the yummy, thick wrists.
So when he fell asleep, they were very disappointed. When they deplaned at Pangnirtung on Baffin Island, the entire crew of stewardesses offered Remo a ride to any point he cared to visit, including lodgings in their very own homes, which they assured him were not igloos. Unless, of course, igloos appealed to him. In which case they would build the warmest, most snuggly igloo imaginable.
Feeling his face shrink before a polar wind, Remo muttered, "All of a sudden, I'd like to visit Africa."
"We can kayak down!" one squeaked.
In the end Remo was forced to drag them across the icy tarmac to a waiting rental agent because they had latched on to the cuffs of his pants and refused to let go.
"We wish to rent a vehicle hardy enough to travel many miles through ice and snow," Chiun announced.
"And horny Eskimo women," added Remo.
The rental agent gave them a nice deal on a snowball-colored Ford Bronco with heavy-duty studded snow tires that had chains on them for extra traction. "Pay this man, Remo," said Chiun.
"Remo! His name is Remo!"
The rental agent peered over his counter top.
"Sir," he said in a hushed tone usually reserved for informing someone that his fly was open or toilet paper had stuck to his shoe, "you have stewardesses clinging to your pant legs."
"They think they're in love with me," Remo complained.
"They look awfully convinced of that to me," the rental agent agreed.
"Can I leave them with you?" Remo wondered.
"No! No!"
"Just until I get back?" added Remo.
"Yes! Yes! We'll wait for you! We'll wait forever."
"I was hoping you'd all say that," said Remo. "Should be back in-" He looked to the Master of Sinanju.
"Very soon or never."
"Very soon," said Remo.
"Yaaay! "
When the keys were offered to Remo, the Master of Sinanju snatched them away. "I will drive," he said coldly.
"Why do you have to drive?"
"Because you appear very tired, and I do not wish you to drive us into a glacier or off a precipice to our death."
Remo decided that made good sense, so he hopped in back while the Master of Sinanju spent ten minutes finding a position behind the steering wheel that was comfortable and didn't wrinkle his kimono.
They rattled out onto a road and into lightly blowing snow. For miles in every direction lay the snow-dusted expanse of the Arctic. They were well above the tree line, with not a spruce in sight.
On the way they passed a solitary Eskimo man hiking through the white desolation, who called encouragement after them. "Go, Juice, go!"
"You know, if we get lost in this thing, no one would ever find us. Our paint job's the same color as the terrain."
"Do not worry, Remo. I will not get lost."
"Good."
And Chiun did something strange. He yawned. After a minute Remo yawned, too. Chiun yawned again. And again.
Remo fell asleep in the vehicle not long after.
IN SLEEP, he was back in the Void. A sad-faced man appeared to him, wearing the baggy pastel silks of the Yi Dynasty.
"Which one are you?" asked Remo wearily.
"I am you."
"I don't remember Chiun mentioning a Master Yu."
"My name is not Yu. It is Lu."
"Lu? Oh, yeah, Chiun thinks I used to be Lu in a past life."
"That is why I said I am you."
"Funny. You don't look like me."
"We wear different flesh, but our essence is one."
"That so? If you're me and I'm you, how can we be having this conversation?"