These were the questions the Master of Sinanju, in Dayton, Ohio, United States, asked himself. Because he knew Remo's problem. He had seen the signs in Remo even though Remo hadn't yet seen them. Oddly enough, the trouble began when one felt perfection, a total unity of mind and thought and body.
Remo had been happy before he left and Chiun had criticized him for it.
"What's wrong with feeling perfect, Little Father?" Remo had said.
"To feel perfect can be a lie," Chiun had said.
"Not when you know it's so," Remo said.
"From what place is the most dangerous fall?" asked Chiun.
"I know what bothers you, Little Father. I'm happy."
"Why shouldn't you be? You have been given everything of Sinanju."
"So what is there to worry about?" Remo had asked.
"You have not been given birth in Sinanju."
"My eyes are always going to be round," Remo said.
But it was not the eyes. It was the childhood, and Chiun had not given so many years of his life to see it wasted now because of an accident of birth. He knew what to do. He would use the American telephone: Even if Remo didn't know it, Chiun knew it. Remo was in trouble.
Chiun's movements were like molten glass, slow but with a sureness of flow that transcended the normal jerky movements of men. His long fingernails stretched from a golden kimono reaching for the black plastic thing on the hotel-room table, the thing with the buttons. He had parchment-frail skin and wisps of white hair hung down over his ears. He looked elderly, as old as sand, but his eyes danced like a falcon on the soar.
From his robe he took the proper codes that worked the thing that Americans placed all over their country. Their telephones. He was going to work one. He was going to save Remo from himself.
He did not even try to assume the essence of the instrument. He had tried that before, several times, and feeling nothing, sensing nothing, let it be. But now, this was the only way to reach Emperor Smith, a white who was always as remote as a faraway wall. He was a man, Chiun truly believed, who was filled with a plan to seize the country and the plan was either brilliant or sheer lunacy.
Remo, in his innocence, continually assured Chiun that Smith had no plan for national takeover. First, he said, Smith was not an emperor. He was simply Dr. Harold W. Smith. Second, Remo said, both Smith and Remo worked for an organization they wanted no one to know about. This organization enabled the government to work and enabled the country to survive by working outside the Constitution against the country's enemies.
Remo even showed Chiun a copy of that document once. Chiun had admitted it was truly beautiful with all its rights and protections, all its many ways of doing things to exalt its citizens.
"Do you pray this often?" Chiun had said.
"It's not a prayer. It's our basic social contract."
"I do not see your signature, Remo, unless of course you are really John Hancock."
"No, of course I'm not."
"Are you Thomas Jefferson?" Chiun asked.
"No. They're dead," Remo said.
"Well, if you didn't sign it and Emperor Smith didn't sign it and most people did not sign it, how can it be a basic social contract?"
"Because it is. And it's beautiful. It's what my country is about, the country that pays Sinanju for your services in training me."
"They could not pay me for what I have taught you," Chiun said.
"Well, it's who I serve. And who Smitty serves. Do you understand?"
"Of course. But when do we remove the current President for Emperor Smith?"
"He is not an emperor. He serves the President. "
"Then when do we remove the President's opponent?" Chiun asked, truly trying to understand.
"We don't. The people do. They vote. They vote who they want to be President."
"Then why have an assassin with the power to remove a President or keep him in office?" Chiun had asked.
Confronted by absolute logic, Remo had given up and Chiun had copied the Constitution into the history of the House of Sinanju so that perhaps, one day in the future generation, someone in Sinanju would figure out what these people were up to.
Now on the American instrument, Chiun was reaching out for Emperor Smith. With these devices, the person speaking could be anywhere. The next room or across the continent. But Chiun knew that Emperor Smith ruled from a place in the state of New York called Rye, and often from an island called St. Maarten in the Caribbean. When he was there, Chiun often wondered if he had been sent into exile or was waiting for the President to be removed from the throne, a service Sinanju would provide on request.
Chiun carefully pressed the numbered code into the machine. The machine spoke back with little bipping gurgles. There were many numbers. There were many bips. One mistake, one number wrongly inserted, a six instead of a seven and the machine would not work.
Somehow in this country, even the children of these ungainly and ugly people seemed able to operate these number codes to speak to other ungainly and ugly people.
As Emperor Smith had explained, the numbers that he gave Chiun would activate another machine that would not let people listen in. How wise that was, especially for a fool who if he did not act soon against the President, would be too old to enjoy the pleasures of the throne.
Suddenly there was a ringing on the other end. And the voice that answered was that of Smith. Chiun had done it. He had mastered the machine with the codes, the codes of the Americans.
"I have done it," Chiun said in triumph.
"Yes, you have, Master of Sinanju. What can I do for you?" Smith asked.
"We have great dangers, O wise Emperor."
"What's the problem?"
"There are times when Remo is at his height. And times when he is not, when he is low. Never so low that he is a bad product; that I can assure you. But I am looking out for your longer-term interest, Emperor Smith."
"What are you saying?"
"Not that you will not be protected. I will always be here for you. Your tributes to Sinanju are sufficient and do glory to your name."
"I am not increasing the payments," Smith said. "As you know, we have enough difficulty smuggling them into Sinanju as it is. The submarine trips are almost as costly as the gold."
"May my tongue wither, O Emperor, if I ask for another payment beyond your generosity," said Chiun, making a mental note to remind Smith at the next negotiation that if the delivery cost was almost as much as the tribute itself, then the tribute was obviously too small.
"Then what is it?" Smith asked.
"To further enhance your safety, may I suggest that Remo perform in the traditional manner of all Masters of Sinanju. That is to do more when he is at the level of perfection and to do less at times when your glory would be less well served."
"Are you saying that Remo should take some time off? Because if you are, you won't have a problem here," Smith said.
"How wise," said Chiun, ready with a counterargument should Smith suggest that payments be accordingly reduced. Yet in his inscrutability, Smith said nothing of the sort. He said that Remo deserved a vacation and should take a rest.
"Please be so kind, most enlightened Emperor, to come here to Dayton of Ohio and tell this to Remo yourself."
"You can tell him," Smith said.
Chiun allowed a deep sigh. "He will not listen to me."
"But you're his teacher. You taught him everything."
"Ah, the bitter truth of that," said Chiun. "I taught him all but gratitude."
"And he won't listen to you?"
"Can you imagine? Nothing. He listens to nothing I say. I am not one to complain, as you well know. What do I ask of him? Some concern. To keep in touch. Is that a crime? Should I be ignored like some old shoe whom he has worn out?"
"Are you sure that Remo feels that way? I know that he defends you at every turn," Smith said. "I am happy with your service but sometimes we have disagreements and Remo always takes your position. He used to agree with me more."