Warren Murphy: Time Trial

Remo nodded. "You?"

The old man held up two fingers, making the peace sign. "Sebastian Birdsong. First Church of Krishna the Undraftable, Los Angeles, California. Peace, man."

Birdsong looked as if he were forty going on seventy. His gray shoulder-length hair was matted with dreadlocks, the result of years of wear without benefit of comb or shampoo. One hoop earring glinted from his right ear. Over his stooped shoulders was draped a cotton caftan, which had once been orange, sporting a paisley design, but had degenerated through unwashed ages to a stiff, uniformly gray-brown color, its sleeves frayed to the elbow. On his feet were crumbling leather strips that had once been a pair of sandals.

"Birdsong?" Remo asked.

The man smiled, exposing two rows of rotten teeth resembling dried corn. "It used to be Humberbee, but I changed it," he said. "In the First Church of Krishna the Undraftable, they let you pick your own names. It's like freedom, man. Groovy. Really boss."

"Groovy?" It had been years since Remo had heard anything described as groovy.

"Yeah. Far out. Like wicked, man. A rush. A righteous groove. In the congregation, we got Daffodils, Butterflies, Seagulls— lots of Seagulls. Last time I looked, we had forty-two girls— I mean, women— named Seagull. The Church doesn't allow us to say 'girls.' It's a repressive buzzword of the male chauvinist elitist powermongers. Last time I was at church, they baptized twelve six-pound women. All named Seagull. 'Dove's' big, too," he pondered. "Like for the Dove of Peace, dig it? Like it's an anti-war statement, like."

"Anti which war?"

Birdsong looked at him in astonishment. "The war, you apolitical stooge of the military industrialist bourgeoisie. The Vietnam war. The toy of the capitalist powermongers. The genocidal elitist—"

"That war's over," Remo said.

Birdsong's eyes widened. "It's over? Over?" He clasped Remo's hand, smearing his palm with the sticky juice from the white flowers he carried. "Well, don't just stand there, man. Like rejoice! It's over!"

"It's been over for ten years," Remo said.

Birdsong didn't seem to hear him. "Over! It's over! I can go home now. Outasight." He danced in a wild fury, undulating his hips and pretending to play an imaginary electric guitar.

"How long have you been here, anyway?" Remo asked.

Birdsong counted backward on his fingers. "Let me see. This is August, so July, June... fifteen years."

"Fifteen years? You mean you've been here since the sixties?"

"Right on, man." He winked. "Fuckin' A I've been here. Alive and breathing. Not diced and wok-fried, you dig? Not shot, bayonetted, grenaded, mined, gassed, stabbed, or dead of Charlie's creepy crawlies. I'm free."

Remo, who was a veteran, suppressed an urge to crush the man's skull into oatmeal. "The church sent you here?" he asked.

"Missionary work," Birdsong said gleefully. "It was a great scam. You pay your bread to the main man, and the First Church of Krishna the Undraftable makes you a card-carrying missionary. Get to see the world and save your ass at the same time." His smile turned to an expression of bewilderment. " 'Course, I haven't heard from the church since 1969. They never did tell me how I was going to get out of here. Guess they didn't think of that part."

Remo noticed the subtle darkening of the trees. Night was falling, and he was wasting time talking to this aging hippie draft dodger. "Listen— do you know your way around here? My friend and I are lost."

"Friend? What friend?" Birdsong gave a little squeal as Chiun seemed to materialize out of nowhere. "Wow, you guys sure come up quick," he said. "Say, what direction did you come from?"

Chiun pointed behind him.

Birdsong held up the bunch of white flowers. "See any of these before you split?"

"A few," Chiun said. "Not many."

"Didn't think so," the man said with dismay. "They're rare nowadays. Pain in the ass to pick. I'm taking care of a kid, got a bad leg. Claims these make him feel better."

"About the directions," Remo said.

"I mean, I'm a missionary, right?" Birdsong went on, apparently unused to conversing with anyone other than himself. "One crippled kid. Some mission."

"Do you have a dwelling for your services?" Chiun asked politely.

"Hell, no," Birdsong said. "Seventeen thatched huts. That's what I had, and every single one of them burned down. The jerks around here don't go for missionaries. Hocus pocus, that's what they want. Geez, give me a hundred tabs of acid, and I'll have more followers than Ringo Starr. One gimp kid." He threw up his arms. "Well, that's over with now. I'm going to find my way out of this dump, and then it's hello Sunset Boulevard."

"About the directions," Remo repeated.

"Yeah? Where you cats going?"

Chiun's jaw tightened. "We cats are searching for what is known as the Temple of Magic. But my apprentice here was so foolish as to keep the map on the reverse side of valuable poetry, and so we are now without directions."

Remo sighed.

Birdsong looked up, his eyes round. "The Temple of Magic?" he asked softly. His open mouth formed into a tense smile. "Hey, man. You don't want to go there."

"Why not?" Remo asked.

"Well, like I don't want to put you on a scare trip, you know? But they got these people here, they don't like white folks."

"A very enlightened population," Chiun said, beaming. "I knew there was something about this place I liked."

"They don't like other folks much, either. Not even the other Indians."

"They're natives?"

"Nobody knows where they come from. They paint little black dots on their foreheads, and man, when you see those dots, you better split fast."

"And if I do not divide?" Chiun asked.

"Then you'll be looking death right in the eye," Birdsong said sagely. "Even the local Indians, and they've been living in the jungle here for thousands of years now, don't know who these guys are. They call them the Lost Tribes. There's some kind of legend that they were driven off their land by a kingdom run by white gods, and they've been wandering around the jungle ever since, punishing everybody and his brother for it."

"When did this happen?"

"Who knows?" Birdsong said. "The locals say the Lost Tribes got lost at the beginning of time. All I know is, those suckers are mean. Every last one of my seventeen missions burned to the ground."

"The Lost Tribes did that?"

Birdsong expelled a little puff of air. "I was lucky. At least they didn't kill me. Those freaking wild men slink around the jungle like jaguars. Whenever they come across a settlement, it's open season. Out come their peashooters and spears, zap, zap, adios homestead, you dig? Then it's off into the jungle again till the next time they feel like shrinking some heads."

"What's that got to do with the Temple of Magic?" Remo asked.

"That's one of their crash pads or something. God knows why. I've never seen it, but the natives say the place is a wreck. Hasn't been used in a zillion years. But go there, and the Lost Tribes'll be swarming over you like flies at a chocolate orgy. Like killing's their thing, man. Matter of fact, a bunch of white folks just got creamed over there."

"Yeah, we've heard."

"They were some kind of archaeologists or something. When I found out they were headed for the Temple of Magic, I took off after them, to warn them, like. But they got too close to the place, and I sure as hell didn't want to follow anybody into a massacre. Like that's why I never volunteered for Vietnam, man. Screw that murder shit, I said. 'Specially when it's me that's going to get murdered. I came back to the mission. It was the sixteenth mission, I think. Maybe the fifteenth. But I was dead right in coming back. Couple of days later, I got word that the Lost Tribes sent every last one of them on the ultimate cosmic trip. It was Croak City for all of them. You dig what I'm saying, man? Like the Temple of Magic is an A-one bummer."