Warren Murphy: Unnatural Selection

"Not for much longer," Remo commented, eyes dead. "I like the new arm, by the way." He noted the plastic container clutched in her regrown arm. As if protecting something even more valuable, her other hand was clenched tight, fingernails biting deep into the palm.

"Starfish DNA," she explained. "I'm from a species that likes to plan ahead. I just wanted to thank you for your contribution, Poppa. None of the other men I've ever met were worthy to become father of the new Earth. But between your genes and mine, look out, world."

Remo's voice was cold. "Not gonna happen," he vowed.

There was a faint smile at the corners of Judith White's perfect red lips as she held up the specimen container.

"Aw, darlin"' she purred. "Thanks to your buddy back there, it's already a done deal. Your boys and I will see you in a few years. Until then, I wouldn't get too comfortable around this planet. Toodles, brown eyes."

With that, she turned and jumped. The air swallowed her whole.

"Dammit," Remo snapped. He bounded to the edge of the cliff.

Judith White had already slipped beneath the black waves that pounded in between the craggy rock. Though he strained to see a body, she didn't resurface.

It was too great a drop. She shouldn't have survived. But he remembered all too well her spectacular fall from a burning building last time they had met.

One arm missing, bleeding from the shoulder, building collapsing.

She had survived that time. Not again.

Remo kicked off his loafers. Bare toes curled around the edge of the rock promontory. Without a thought of the dizzying height, Remo launched himself out into open air.

In Sinanju it was called the Flying Wall. His forward momentum carried him out over the churning ocean. He soared parallel to the water's surface for fifty feet before allowing gravity to take hold. He descended in a broad arc, his body capturing rogue air pockets to lighten his landing. When he finally brushed the choppy waves, he was facing back toward shore.

His body skimmed the surface for about twenty feet before he allowed the sea to wash in over him. He disappeared near the spot where Judith White had vanished, not a single foamy bubble in his wake.

Below the ocean surface, the cold water of late spring clenched Remo's body like a fist of ice. He willed heat to his extremities as he knifed through the murky waves.

Eyes oblivious to the sting of salt and cold, he scanned the area near the shore. Judith White's body wasn't visible amid the slimy slabs of underwater rock.

The surging sea should have thrown her back to shore, crushing her against stone. It would have done so to Remo, but his arms and legs mimicked the waving skirt of a jellyfish, holding him in place. As his limbs danced in deceptively gentle movements, impossible for even the ocean to overcome, Remo willed the very core of his body still.

He stretched out his senses. The churning water around him became a conductor, carrying sounds and sensations of movement to his finely tuned body.

Even though summer had not yet warmed the waves, the dark world in which he was an alien visitor teemed with life. He felt many living organisms in the sea around him. All were small.

Except one.

About one hundred yards out, the creature that was big enough to be Judith White swam away from shore.

Remo's gentle resistance to the water ceased. He knifed back into the waves, pulling himself away from shore with sharp, powerful strokes.

The cold grew worse the farther he went from land. The creature he was following was leading him deeper and deeper out to sea.

He couldn't allow her to escape. Not this time. Powerful kicks propelled him farther on. He shot through the water like a fired torpedo.

One hundred and fifty yards out, Remo got his first cloudy glimpse of her. She was knifing through the water, faster than humanly possible.

A few sharp kicks and he was on her.

There was no fighting, no finesse. A crushing blow collapsed the back of her skull.

The plastic container wasn't in her hand. She had to have dropped it when she jumped from the cliff. Her fingers were open. Remo noted that they seemed a bit too long. More genetic tampering, no doubt. Although the skin didn't look quite right. This arm was younger than the rest of the body. He had noticed back on the bluff that the skin texture didn't quite match up with the other arm. But here, underwater, both arms seemed to match perfectly.

He felt a sudden sinking in his stomach.

Kicking in the waves, he flipped the body over. Long hair flowed in front of the face. When he pulled it back he found that he was staring into the dead eyes of Elizabeth Tiflis.

He released the body as if it were electrically charged. The current dragged it slowly away.

Remo stopped dead. This time when he extended his senses, he felt nothing except schools of small fish. Judith White was gone.

A single bubble of frustration escaped his thin lips into the cold gray ocean.

Turning his back on the empty sea, Remo began the long swim back to shore.

Chapter 36

When Remo emerged from the woods beside the Lubec Springs bottling plant, the Master of Sinanju was waiting in the front seat of Mark Howard's stolen car. The assistant CURE director lay unconscious on the back seat.

On his way back through the forest from the ocean, Remo had raised his body temperature to dry his clothes. The last of the steam was whirling wisps as he slid in beside Chiun.

The old Korean had salvaged Smith's automatic from the Lubec Springs offices. The gun was on the floor at his sandaled feet. Remo glanced at the weapon as he slammed the car door shut. He said not a word.

Seeing the hard cast of his pupil's face, the Master of Sinanju's own expression darkened.

"The beast has escaped," he said.

"Nine lives," Remo said tightly. "You said it yourself. By my calculations she's got seven more left. Smith better have good news on that batch of stuff he's testing."

He started the car.

As they pulled away from the building, Remo glanced back to the building that housed the offices. He thought of the tiny flecks on the clapboard walls around the back.

Chiun saw his pupil glance down at the wound on his forearm. He noted the look of understanding that seemed to settle on Remo's face as they drove across the parking lot and out onto the wooded road.

Remo sensed his teacher watching him.

"I get it, Little Father," he said without turning. And it was clear by the cast of his face that this time he truly understood. The old man's lips thinned in quiet relief.

"Be grateful it is only a scratch," the Master of Sinanju said simply, returning his gaze to the road. "Some lessons come at a much higher cost."

Remo nodded. "I guess becoming Reigning Master does give you a bit of a swelled head."

"Perish the thought," Chiun said, aghast. "Your features are already swollen to comedic proportions as it is. With that nose and those ears if your head got any bigger you would have to push it around in a wagon."

In the back seat, Mark Howard purred. Remo shot the assistant CURE director a glance in the rearview mirror.

Although sound asleep, there was a curl of a smile on Howard's lips. As if he were dreaming of happier days.

It was the last peaceful moment Howard was likely to have for some time. The days to come as his own genetic code reemerged would be a nightmare.

A further gift from Judith White.

"You think the kid will pull through?" Remo asked.

Chiun nodded. "In that, as well, Howard is like Smith. Both are stubborn."

Remo thought of Mark Howard and Harold Smith. He had never been a big fan of either, but at the moment the younger man was winning Remo's personal popularity contest.

"Good," he muttered.