Warren Murphy: Time Trial

"We can look after ourselves," Remo said.

"Suit yourselves," Birdsong said. "It's that way." He pointed in a direction vaguely northeast of the river. "Don't bother looking for it now, though."

"Why not?"

"Too dark. It's a half-day's walk, maybe more. And the Lost Tribes come out at night." He slid a finger across his throat, accompanied by appropriate facial gestures. "I've got to get out of here myself. Never can tell when those bastards'll get the urge to waste somebody."

Gingerly he gathered up a few more of the delicate white flowers. "You can come back to the mission with me if you want. Nothing there but burned ground and a few reeds, but it's home for me and the kid. Say, you haven't seen him anyplace, have you? Little skinny kid, about twelve years old, walks with a limp?"

"Sorry," Remo said. "We've got to get moving. Thanks for the directions."

"Big mistake," Birdsong said with a shrug. "Well, see you in the obituary pages." He laughed.

"Draft dodger," Remo muttered under his breath as they veered away from Birdsong into the darkness of the jungle.

"He smelled like a hippo. What is a draft dodger?" Chiun asked, eyeing the bent figure of the missionary over his shoulder.

"Someone who sneaks out of serving his country when it needs him."

Chiun's eyebrows arched. "For purposes of killing?"

"For purposes of being a soldier."

"In the army?"

"Right. The army," Remo said distractedly, clearing a path for them in the indigo-colored jungle. Overhead the night birds screeched.

They trod gently through the dense, blackening brush, dotted sparsely with white flowers. "Had this Birdsnest not dodged the drafty army, would he have become like the soldiers we have seen at military bases?"

"Sort of. The ones we've seen lately have been volunteers. The draft was a duty. That hoople picking the flowers wouldn't know duty from fly droppings," Remo said. "First Church of Krishna the Undraftable. Sheesh."

"He was right," Chiun said solemnly.

"Oh, come on. He was a jerk."

Chiun thought. "That, too. But he was right. No government should resort to hiring amateur assassins when professionals are available. How many casualties did your side inflict during this contest?"

"It wasn't a contest. It was a war. A long, bloody war."

"How many casualties?" Chiun insisted.

"Oh, I don't know," Remo said irritably. "A lot. Hundreds of thousands."

Chiun gasped. "Hundreds of thousands! Imagine how much revenue that would have brought to the glorious House of Sinanju. And the job would have been done right. No booms. Three or four days, tops. Of course, one would have to charge extra for overtime...."

"The war's over," Remo said.

"And all the potential profits gone," Chiun lamented. "One commission like that, and catastrophe in my village may have been averted. Alas, the people of Sinanju will have to live in fear forever, hoping that their Master can earn enough tribute to keep starvation from their doors. For without the gold I send them, the people of Sinanju would go hungry, and be forced—"

"I know, I know. Forced to send their babies back to the sea."

Chiun stopped, placing his hands on his hips. His face was set to the mode Remo recognized as "Righteous Indignation."

"There are many things a soft white man would find impossible to believe, many hardships and sufferings which are commonplace in the world."

"I believe you, Little Father," Remo said, tempering his weariness and frustration with as much gentleness as he could muster. "It's just that I've heard it before. How the village was so poor that people had to drown their infants to ward off starvation. How the first Master of Sinanju saved the village by renting out his services as an assassin to foreign governments. How Sinanju possessed nothing but the secrets of the sun source of the martial arts, known only to the Master. How each succeeding Master has carried on the tradition by offing the enemies of whatever emperor was paying him at the time."

"It is all true," Chiun said stubbornly.

"I know it's true. But it happened thousands of years ago. Sinanju at this moment is about as poverty stricken as Houston."

"Still, one must be on one's guard," Chiun grumbled.

"I'll keep an eye out."

"It is too late. The opportunity has already been missed. Hundreds of thousands."

"There'll be another war someday," Remo said consolingly.

Chiun's face brightened. "Really? Do you really think so?"

"There's always hope, Little Father," Remo said. "Little Father?" He backtracked to where Chiun was sitting, inexplicably, on the ground. "You feel all right?"

"I'm fine," Chiun said, yawning. "But the day has been long, and I am an old man. I grow weary."

"I've never seen you grow weary before." Remo changed his position to match the old Oriental's full lotus. Suddenly he realized that he, too, felt tired. No, not tired. Despite the heat and the dampness and the long day's walk, his muscles were still taut and performing well. If they hadn't been, the remedy would have been food, not rest. Both their bodies were long used to functioning on a fraction of the rest ordinary people needed.

No, it was something in his eyes, in his brain. Something cloudy and pleasant and reminiscent of childhood. "I think I'm sleepy," Remo said.

"HNNNNNNNK," Chiun responded.

Remo looked around. The ground was spotted heavily with the strange white flowers Birdsong had been gathering. He'd never seen any like them before, dainty, fragrant. His brain in a haze, he reached over and picked one. Its fluted petals were soft and fat, juicy with fragrance. He held it up to his nose, crushing it inadvertently with fingers grown suddenly clumsy as he brought the blossom closer.

The odor, thick and inviting, jolted him like the injection of a narcotic. The forest swirled above him, dark and sweet and protective. It would be hard for even the Lost Tribesmen to find him here, he thought with his last strands of consciousness. Well, just a little nap, maybe. Too dark to make good time walking, anyway. Not to mention the pain in the ass it would be to have to fight of a bunch of thrill-crazed natives at the Temple of Magic now, when all he wanted was a minute or two of shut-eye.

"Hey, Chiun," he slurred, flinging over an uncontrollable hand at the small sleeping figure. "Chiun, we can't sleep here too long. The Lost Tribes. Got to keep an eye out. Missed opportunities. Might be a war or something; Sinanju could strike it rich." His words came slower and softer. "Got to wake up, Chiun. We don't need the ultimate cosmic journey. Chiun...

"HNNNNNNNK."

"Okay," Remo agreed.

* * *

He awoke to a scream.

It was dawn. Chiun was already up, his limbs relaxed into fighting position. Instantly the foggy stupor of Remo's senses cleared, his reflexes overtaking the soporific effect of the white flowers now that they were needed for action.

Remo thrust his chin toward the river, where he thought the sound had originated. The gesture was a question. Chiun answered it with a silent nod.

The trail was easy to find. The dense underbrush of the jungle lay flattened where three pairs of feet had crushed it, less than a hundred yards from where he and Chiun had lain asleep during the night. Two sets were normal, each foot touching the ground with approximately the same weight as the other. The third set was lighted and uneven, as if one foot had dragged while the other stepped. A wounded man, perhaps. A small man.

He shivered. He had not heard a sound during the night, had never wakened once. His body was alert to danger, and there was no chance that his reflexes wouldn't have served him in a life-threatening situation. There were just some things you had to trust; Remo's was his body. But the fact that he'd been able to sleep through the noisy passage of three people easily within normal human earshot made him uneasy. He would take back some of the flowers to Smith for analysis. Whatever was in those fat, fragrant petals was strong stuff. If it could knock him and Chiun out, it could drug an army.