Warren Murphy Destroyer 063 The Sky Is Falling

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entered it. Neither had the colonel. But now, because of what had happened, he
would at last see what secrets that village had. He had been ordered not to
mention what had happened at Sinanju, but to take very careful notes of the
Master of Sinanju's every reaction. Nothing this man said was to go
unrecorded. Nothing this man did was to go unnoticed. But the colonel was to
do nothing but report.
So he listened in silence and with as much dignity as he could muster to the
many treasons now issuing forth from the Master of Sinanju.
The new uniforms would better serve as dressing for meat than for people, said
Chiun. He said he could sense that the soldiers of Himself, Kim Il Sung, had
replaced courage with viciousness, a sure sign that they had not gotten over
kissing Japanese backsides. He called the Third World poster on the airport
wall an admission that Korea was still backward because everyone outside of
Korea knew that "Third World" was just another term for inferior, backward,
less. And Korea was never less. It was better. The trouble was that Koreans
themselves failed to appreciate that.
"I am Korean," the Master of Sinanju told the colonel. "You are Korean. Look
at you. And look at me. I am glad my son born in America is not here to behold
you."
The colonel drew himself up against the implied insult. "I am a superior
officer. I am a colonel," he said proudly. "In the pot you keep by the bed for
the wastes of your body, what do you see float to the top, colonel?" asked the
Master of Sinanju.
The crowds in the airport suddenly hushed. No one ever talked to a colonel of
state security in such a way, a district colonel at that.
And thus did Chiun, reigning Master of Sinanju, return to the land of Korea by
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airplane. Thus was he met by a toady in uniform and taken many miles from
Pyongyang, west to the fishing village of Sinanju, as the toady made notes of
all he saw and all that was said by the Master of Sinanju.
The village was rich in pigs and grain. The colonel noticed that there were
several very large old-fashioned storehouses, indicating the village people
never suffered from want or famine. He noted, too, that when the elderly man
named Chiun approached the village from a hilltop, there were cries from below
and the people ran away in fear.
Chiun saw and heard them, and told the colonel to wait on the hilltop while he
went into his village, or swift death would be his reward for disobedience.
The colonel remained in his jeep and Chiun walked down into the village and
the silence therein.
The rich smells of fish and pig meat filled the desolate village, for the food
was still cooking. But no children laughed and played, and no elders appeared
to give thanks for the beneficence of the House of Sinanju that had kept them
fed through the centuries, even through times of famine, fed and healthy
before the West was strong, before even the dynasties of China with their
great armies marched where they willed. Only the waves crashed by way of
greeting, cold and froth white against the dark rock shores of Sinanju.
There was silence for the first time as a Master of Sinanju returned, instead
of proper songs of triumph, and joyous laudations. Chiun was grateful that
Remo did not see this-Remo, whom Chiun had enough trouble convincing of the
glory of this village and the place he was destined to take here, Remo, who
Chiun hoped would one day take a bride from this village to produce a male
child to carry on the way of Sinanju so that he would not have to stoop to
take a foreigner, as Chiun had. This then was the small blessing of this
tragic day.
Chiun accepted the insult. The villagers would return to their pig meat and
fish and rice and sweet cakes. Their stomachs would bring them back. They ate
almost as badly as Remo used to eat. But, for them, it did not matter. No
emperor would call upon them for service. No glory would ever be theirs, no
demand would ever be placed on their bodies that required them to eat so that
those bodies functioned at their utmost. Chiun remembered how, as a youngster,
he had asked his father if he could feast on the rich meats his friends
enjoyed, the meats his father's own services abroad paid for.
"It is hardest for the young to realize this," his father, who was then the
reigning Master of Sinanju, had said. "But you are getting a greater gift than
meat. You are becoming something they are not. You are earning tomorrow. You
will thank me and remember this when they bow to you and the world again sings
glorious praises to the Masters of Sinanju, as they did in centuries past."
"But I want the meat now," young Chiun had said.
"But you will not want it then."
"But it is now, not then, not tomorrow."
"I told you it was hard for a young man, for the young do not know tomorrow.
But you will know."
And he did, of course. Chiun thought back to the days of Remo's early training
and the difficulty of overcoming the bad habits of almost thirty years and the
handicap of being white. He had spoken the same words to Remo, and Remo
answered:
"Blow it out your ears."
Then Remo had eaten a hamburger after years of training and almost died. At
the time, Chiun had scolded Remo, neglecting to mention that he, too, had
snuck a piece of meat and his father had forced him to vomit it out. As far as
Remo knew, all Masters of Sinanju were obedient in the extreme, except for
Remo, who was disobedient in the extreme. Chiun wondered how troublesome Remo
would have been had he ever realized that one of the qualities that made great
Masters was their independence. He would probably be uncontrollable now, Chiun
decided.
And so the Master of Sinanju stood in the middle of his village waiting for
his people to return, thinking of Remo and wondering what Remo was doing now,
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glad Remo was not seeing this shame, but also sad that he was not here.
A night passed. And during the night, Chiun heard the villagers clumsily
sneaking back into their homes to fill their bellies with dead burned pig.
There was even a side of spitted beef steaming upwind. It smelled so much of
meat that Chiun thought he might be back in America. In the morning, however,
one came out to give the Master of Sinanju the traditional greeting:
"Hail, Master of Sinanju, who sustains the village and keeps the code
faithfully, leader of the House of Sinanju. Our hearts cry a thousand
greetings of love and adoration. Joyous are we upon the return of him who
graciously throttles the universe."
Another came, and then another, and still more while the Master of Sinanju
regarded them all with unmoving visage and steely eye. When the sun was full
over the village and they were all assembled, Chiun spoke:
"Shame. Shame on you. What do you have to fear from a Master of Sinanju that
you flee to the hills as though I were a Japanese warrior, or a Chinese. Have
not the Masters of Sinanju proved a greater protection than any wall? Have not
the Masters of Sinanju gone out from this village and kept it fed, lo, these
many centuries? Did not the Masters of Sinanju keep Sinanju the only fishing
village on the West Korea Bay that did not have to surrender its babies to the
cold ocean for want of food? You do not fish well. You do not farm well. And
yet you eat well. All because of the Master of Sinanju. And when I return, you
run. O shame. O shame that I should keep burning in my bosom in silence."
And the villagers fell to their faces, begging mercy. "We were afraid," they
cried. "The treasure has been stolen. Centuries of tribute given to Sinanju
are gone."
"Did you steal it?"
"No, great Master."
"Then why are you afraid?"
"Because we failed to guard the treasure." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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