Warren Murphy: Encounter Group

"I know this. Have I not lived in your uncivilized country since before our first meeting?"

"Then you understand what I am trying to tell you, Little Father," Remo said hopefully.

"No. I understand only that I am talking to an idiot. Remo, I am offering you something no one of Sinanju has ever been offered so young. Something no white could ever comprehend, and what obviously no white will ever appreciate. Especially you, who could not even stop a fat white fire-insect from destroying an important and beautiful building." At that point, Chiun lapsed into abusive Korean in which the phrase "pale piece of pig's ear" was the least offensive remark made.

Remo knew there would be no talking to Chiun now, and there wasn't.

"I apologize, Little Father. Perhaps when I am older. Perhaps if we survive and that day comes when I take over as reigning Master— maybe then I will be able to do this thing."

"Why not now?" Chiun demanded in English.

"Because the work that I do for Smith calls for secrecy. That is why I am dead."

"You are dead because you are the dead night tiger," Chiun snapped back, forgetting that by acknowledging Remo as the dead night tiger of Sinanju— the white man legend had foretold would be trained as the greatest Master of them all and the avatar of Shiva, the Destroyer— Chiun was acknowledging Remo's worthiness in the eyes of his ancestors.

"Maybe. But I was made to appear dead because I have been given the sword of my country to carry into battle, and it is a sword that must be carried in secret."

"A paper sword," Chiun scoffed.

"The Constitution, yes. My job is to operate outside the Constitution so that it will survive and my country will not fall."

"And so you dishonor your sword each time you wield it." Chiun spat on the floor. "How white. How American."

"Nevertheless, it is my sword. And if the hand that carries that sword becomes conspicuous, then the man will become known and his sword will be taken from him, along with his life. Where will that leave America? Or Sinanju?"

"I would train another. One with fingernails."

"But you have trained me. And you have made a contract with America so that I can carry out America's work— in secret."

"Do not remind me of my shame. Do not remind me that I have been forced to train a white meat-eater in the greatest of all professions, that of assassin, and that the greatest house of assassins has been reduced to this. I have trained you, Remo, because that is my obligation, because you learned well— up to a point— and because I had mistakenly thought you possessed the soul of a Korean. But I now know this is untrue. The Korean soul is hard like bamboo, and the fingernail grows from that hard soul. You obviously have a white soul, soft and like mist. When you die, your body will decay, and the wind will dissipate your pale, wispy soul, as happens to all whites when they die. But Korean souls are hardy. They live on. Yours will not."

"Bulldooky," said Remo, who wasn't sure how much of this to believe, nor how much of it Chiun himself believed.

?Chapter Three

Crouching in the grass before the barbed-wire-topped fence, Amanda Bull felt a surge of exhilaration flow through her willowlike body. The feeling, which had been coming on since dusk, had grown more intense as she drove the official FOES van containing members of the Little Rock, Arkansas, chapter of the group, dressed in Army surplus fatigues with firearms purchased at Sears, Roebuck, and their grim faces blackened with the rubbings from burned Gallo wine corks. It was both a swelling of her heart and a burning in the pit of her stomach, this feeling Amanda felt. Sometimes she thought the feeling was fear; other times it felt like the purest kind of excitement imaginable, like what Amanda imagined an orgasm felt like. Amanda had never had an orgasm, although she thought she'd come close once, while listening to Betty Friedan speak at a convention.

But now, flat on the grass, a .22 Swift rifle cradled in her arms and the clear Arkansas moonlight reflecting off the RESTRICTED AREA sign on the fence before her too-bright eyes, Amanda Bull realized exactly what the feeling was.

It was power, pure unadulterated power. And she loved it.

Power had come to Amanda Bull only a week before, in the forests of Arkansas amid the smell of apple blossoms, when the strange voice from the UFO had beckoned her, irresistibly, to enter. There had been no time to run away, or even to think. There was just that reedy voice, which had seemed to speak to her very soul, as if the owner of that voice knew her innermost thoughts and voiced them, but in a new way. A way that was not confused or fearful, but strong and intelligent and wise.

So Amanda had entered the spaceship. She found it full of golden light and shiny metallic surfaces, and when Amanda had oriented herself, she realized she stood in an outer chamber of the ship, but that its other occupant remained within the inner chamber. She could see a pebbled-glass rectangle, like a window in a drive-in bank, which had light coming from the other side— the inner chamber of the ship. Amanda peered in, but the pebbled glass defeated her vision.

Then a shadowy figure stepped up to the glass from the other side.

"Oh. There you are," Amanda had said. She tried to make out details of the creature, but the thick glass broke and distorted the outline, which was backlit so that even its color was impossible to figure out. But Amanda thought she saw feelers or antennae protrude from the bulbous head, and she shivered.

The voice spoke again.

"I have come across a great distance, Amanda Bull. I am an emissary from a distant world, one that circles the star known to your people as Betelgeuse."

"Beetle juice?" Amanda said wonderingly.

"Yes. That is how it is pronounced."

"Who are you?"

"I told you. I am the World Master. I have been dispatched to this planet to teach. I am a teacher. And you are my first pupil, whom I have chosen for a historic task."

"Task?"

"Through you, a new age will dawn on this troubled planet. An age without fear, without weapons, without hate. For I have been sent to purge this planet of a great evil. Once this evil has been eradicated, peace will return to this tiny world. Gone will be war, gone crime, gone poverty; gone will be—"

"Sexism?" Amanda said hopefully.

"Yes, sexism. That terrible injustice has long ago been banished from my world. My world is a paradise, as are other worlds I have touched, as will be the Earth when our work is completed, yours and mine, Amanda Bull. But I must have your help."

"Why me?" asked Amanda, who was still getting used to believing in flying saucers.

"Because, Amanda Bull, you have been watched and are known to me as a worthy instrument. You can breathe the atmosphere of this world. You can walk its streets freely. I cannot. I must remain in the control core of my ship, where I can breathe the air of my world until the moment of destiny has arrived. Until then, I must remain hidden. My existence must be known to only a few, for there are those who, not understanding, may attempt to capture or kill me before my teachings have borne fruit."

"I understand," Amanda said, wondering if the alien had noticed the ugly hair on the bridge of her nose.

"You know there are grave things wrong with the world you live in. These things can be changed. By you. With my help. Are you ready, Amanda Bull?"

"I— I think I am. Yes... I know I am. What's first? What do we change first? We can dump those bastards in Washington and replace them with friends of mine. Or—"

"None of those things," the World Master said. "There is only one task to be undertaken. All the rest will follow naturally."

"Yes?" Amanda said expectantly.

"You must," the reedy voice told her, "destroy all of the nuclear weapons on this planet."