Warren Murphy: Time Trial

"That's not flora," Remo said. "It's the bones of some poor sucker caught out here after seven A.M. That's fauna. Dead fauna."

"Complaints, complaints." The old Oriental adjusted his crimson satin robe and tossed Remo another rock.

"How long do I have to keep doing this?"

"You do not have to keep doing anything. Just do it once. Then we may progress."

"Progress where?"

"To the jungle, I think. You could use more jungle experience."

"Oh, great. Just great. I suppose you'll want me to squeeze rocks in the jungle, too."

"Don't be foolish. Anyone can get water from a rock in a jungle."

"Yeah, I know. It takes imagination to get water from a rock in the desert."

"It is not a matter of imagination," Chiun snapped. "It is a matter of timing. Hold the rock downward, so that the moisture cannot evaporate before you see it." He demonstrated.

Remo held out his hand, imitating the old man, weighing the rock between his fingers. "Like this?"

"Yes," Chiun said crisply. "Of course, it is no good now that I've had to tell you."

"Hey, it's working." Remo felt the faint accumulation of moisture on his skin. He opened his hand, and the dry dust blew away in the wind. He rubbed his fingers together.

"This isn't water," he said.

"Oh? And what is it, o knowledgeable one? Camel dung?"

He sniffed his fingers. "It's oil."

"Oil? Desert oil?" His eyes glinted. "Worth many millions in gold?"

"Motor oil," Remo said.

"Oh," Chiun said, his interest evaporated.

"Say, I know where we are. It's California, right?"

"All barbarian places look the same to me."

"It's got to be California. We've been heading west, we haven't crossed any oceans, and I saw a sign for Nevada two days ago."

"We could be in U-Haul," Chiun said loftily.

"That's Utah, and we're not there."

"How do you know?"

Just then a sound like an atomic blast roared behind them and spread to crack the air all around them.

"Because of that," Remo said. He searched the sky. After a moment, he pointed upward, squinting. "Look there." High overhead, standing out against the blue sky, was a small black object. It rose in a wake of deafening noise until it disappeared. "We're near Edwards Air Force Base," Remo said. "They test experimental aircraft here. See? That must be one of them."

"One of many unsuccessful experiments, I imagine," Chiun sniffed. He had ridden in experimental government aircraft. As far as he was concerned, no vehicle that did not offer feature-length movies was worth its tailwind.

"You don't mean unsuccessful, Little Father. You mean unenjoyable."

"I do not mean unsuccessful?"

"No," Remo said.

"Then why is that machine falling?"

The black speck appeared to be growing larger. There was no sound.

"Maybe they turned the engines off," Remo offered. As the object tumbled downward, it began to take on a shape— angular, with projectiles, and two flat, triangular wings spinning in a corkscrew as the craft raced toward earth.

Another object, much smaller, popped out of the plummeting aircraft and continued its own descent parallel to the plane's.

"The pilot," Remo said. "He's bailing out." A thin stream of what looked like fluid snaked out of the pilot's back and streamed above him for long seconds as the man fell.

"Open it," Remo shouted. "Open the parachute!"

"He may have thought of that himself," Chiun said dryly.

"He's got a streamer," Remo whispered. Then, in a flash of light and sound, the plane exploded in midair, the shock waves sending the falling pilot hurtling through the sky, his suit in flames.

Remo ran instinctively with the man, following his crazy trajectory. The pilot was close enough to hear now. He had removed his helmet and was screaming. He was falling end over end, the flames lapping at his legs, his hands shielding his face from the fire he was unable to control.

"Find your center," Chiun said quietly, stepping aside. His criticism of Remo was for practice, for the endless exercises Remo was expected to perform. If he did them perfectly, Chiun still found something to criticize because perfection did not grow from praise. And perfection one time was not enough. Through the years of Remo's arduous training, the old man had made him repeat the exercises again and again, until they were perfect, after they were perfect, and after they had been perfect every time, because he knew that when it became necessary for Remo to use his skills, perfection was required. The first time.

Remo was balanced on the balls of his feet, shifting his weight as his eyes followed the falling body. Then, when the burning pilot was a hundred feet above ground, Remo closed his eyes.

Chiun had taught him that the way of Sinanju was to make one's body one with its surroundings, to feel the space around objects rather than see those objects. It was how the Masters of Sinanju had been able to move, silently, through the ages of man's civilization, without disturbing even the dry leaves beneath their feet, and how they controlled their senses and involuntary functions. They were their environment.

And now Remo, behind his eyes, became the air parting for the panicked figure that fell through it, became the fire on the man's clothes, became the man himself, with his jerking muscles and the terror that tore through him, making his balance erratic. Remo was all of these things, and so when he began his slow, crouching spin upward, preparing for the spring that would propel him off the ground and bring him back again, his eyes were closed, his muscles relaxed, his mind unthinking, fully concentrating, open yet filled. He sprang out of the coil in perfect balance, seeming to lift off the ground. Then, just before the pilot would have smashed to earth, Remo encircled him with both arms and carried him in the spin downward with him, breaking the momentum of the fall. He settled softly on the sandy ground, leaving only two circles where his feet had touched.

Chiun was with him at the moment when he set the pilot down, tearing off the man's burning clothes with one swift incision from the fingernail of his index finger. In less than a second the fire was out and the man lay on the ground. His skin was reddened but not charred, and no bones were broken.

"I— I can't believe it," the pilot said.

"Don't. You never saw us, okay? Let's get out of here," Remo said to Chiun.

"But you saved my life."

"Okay. So now you can save mine. Just keep quiet about this."

The pilot looked over the two strange men. One was an Oriental in full regalia. He was less than five feet tall and looked a hundred years old. The other was a good-looking young white man in a T-shirt. Nothing exceptional about him except for his wrists, which were unusually thick. "You two on the run from the law or something?"

Remo winked and made a show of picking his teeth.

The pilot smiled. "Well, I don't know what your secret is, but it's safe with me. Thanks a million. My wife's in the hospital having a kid today. I don't know what she would do if I bought the old farm now. She promised me a boy."

In the distance, they heard the approaching sirens of a rescue squad. "Good for you, champ," Remo said, patting the pilot gently on the shoulder. "Have a good life."

"Hey, wait..." The pilot pressed himself onto his elbows to see behind him. The old man and the guy with the thick wrists were already nearly out of sight.

* * *

"I suppose you know where you're going?" Chiun asked.

Remo nodded. "Following my nose."

"My nose senses nothing but the repugnant odor of chickens boiled in oil," Chiun said distastefully.

"Bingo. A fried chicken joint. That means a town. Motels are in towns. That's where we're going."

"We were progressing toward the jungle," Chiun said.