"You are not funny," Chiun said. "You mock an old man's simple joys and you, yourself, go through life diminishing your skills by worrying about such things as home and duty and patriotism and country."
Remo recognized the hurt in Chiun's voice and said, "I'm sorry, Little Father."
"But who is the fool? Is it me with my moments of pleasure, my fantasies which I do not try to live? Or is it you, trying always to catch dreams you do not understand, and always failing?"
"Chiun, I'm sorry," Remo repeated, but Chiun had turned and left the cabin and all Remo's happiness of a few moments before had vanished in the wake of the hurt he knew he had caused the old man.
Later Remo went up on the deck and found Chiun leaning over the rail, staring across the wide Mississippi to the twinkling of lights from the other side of the river.
"Thinking of home, Little Father?"
"Yes," Chiun said. "It is like this on some nights. There are cool breezes and the water moves gently and as a boy I would stand on the shores and watch boats sail by and I would wonder where they were going and dreamed someday to go too."
"Now you've been to most places," Remo said.
"Yes. And none of them live up to the dreams I had in childhood. Dreams are like that."
Remo watched the lights of a passing boat twink on and off in signal to another boat.
"I'm going to call Smitty later tonight," Remo said. "I'm going to tell him to forget that house."
Chiun nodded. "That is wise, my son. You already have a home. I gave it to you as my ancestors gave it to me. Sinanju is your home."
Remo nodded.
"Not the village," Chiun said. "The village is just a dot on the map. But Sinanju itself. The art, the history, the science of all I have taught you, that is your home. Because that is what you are, and every man must live inside himself. That is every man's home."
Remo was silent.
Later, as he and Chiun started to leave the boat, Remo paused and went back aboard. Down in the lounge, he looked at the bodies of Grassione and Massello, men who had tried to live their dreams but had found that in death all men were the same, no matter-what their dreams.
He walked toward the Dreamocizer thinking of all the people who had died in two days because one man had tried to harness dreams. He thought about Chiun. He thought about the house he would always want, but never again ask for, because men were kept alive by unfulfilled dreams. Dreams were to dream, not to realize.
Remo brought his arm up over the plastic box of the Dreamocizer.
"That's show biz, sweetheart," he said aloud.
He brought his arm down.