Dream Thing

Remo didn’t mean for this to happen. He just affected women this way and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t seem to turn it off the way Chiun did—not indefinitely. It made for some awkward situations—especially when it came to Sarah Slate. She was affected by his Sinanju male charms, and he was affected by her, too.

She was also gratingly smart and Mark Howard’s significant other. Much as Junior annoyed him, Remo actually, almost, liked Mark. He wasn’t about to stab the guy in the back just to get a stab at his girlfriend.

It was amazing how easily a crude and off-putting comment came to mind.

“You know I can see all your goodies through that thing?”

She became angry—with herself, as well as Remo—and shot back, “I can, too. At least you’ve got a nice view.”

“Well spoken,” Chiun announced, emerging from his room. “Back to your cave, lecherous animal.”

“Wait. You may want to hear this, Remo. Master Chiun, the bird spoke in its sleep. I think it has a message for us.”

Chiun looked doubtful. “Tell me the message,” he commanded.

She repeated the words of the bird, including the odd phrase, ‘“The more it eats the more it grows. The more minds it consumes, the more powerful becomes its mind.”

Chiun became thoughtful.

“This mean anything to you, Little Father?” Remo asked.

“It’s not the first time he’s said this,” Sarah added. “Once, days ago when you were away, he spoke similar words. But I thought it was the bird talking. Not—whoever. I thought it was just a phrase he had picked up from his former owner. This time he was more precise.”

Remo repeated thoughtfully, “Delay the coming of—”

“Hush!” Chiun snapped.

“Is it one of the names of you-know-who?” Remo asked.

“I know the word. It is on the tongues of a thousand peoples of the Amazon River. It is one of their pantheon of gods.”

“Sounds like you-know-who,” Remo said.

“For what it’s worth, hyacinth macaws come from Brazil,” Sarah said.

Remo was weighing the facts. “Seems odd that the bird would mention an unrelated god.”

“I cannot know all,” Chiun stated flatly. “But it is an assumption we must make. The name spoken is two words. Mboi is ‘snake’ and aku is ‘big’.”

“But you-know-who isn’t a snake, Chiun. He’s a squid. Or an octopus. A squirmy thing with lots of tentacles. Not a snake.”

“Neither is the Kraken in all stories, nor the Hydra, nor the legends of the South Seas islanders. The deity of which the bird spoke is capable of changing shape at will. Maybe it is him. Regardless, the message itself means little.”

“It can’t mean nothing,” Sarah insisted. “What can we do to follow these directives?”

“Stop feeding it?” Remo asked. “I don’t see how.”

“Stop feeding who?” Mark Howard appeared in the open doorway. He took one look at Sarah in her see-through Snoopy shirt and Remo in his sleeping shorts and snapped, “What’s going on?”

“Look, he who we can’t name eats seafood,” Remo said. “I’ll bet he eats squid mostly. There were a lot of squid around when I paid my social call.”

“Yes,” Chiun agreed. “The waters are channeling through him and carrying the bodies into his maw, to be consumed.”

Mark grew pale and Remo saw his skin become cold. “You okay, Junior?”

“I dreamt of that. The first dreams I had were of being in the ocean and being boneless, being swept along helplessly. I was about to be consumed. I knew it. I was one of those squid.”

“I’m guessing there’s an inexhaustible supply of squid in the oceans,” Remo suggested. “We can’t stop them from getting carried in by the current.”

“No,” Chiun agreed. “Perhaps that is not the meaning of the message.”

“Then what is?” Remo asked.

Chapter 33

Smith had a wife, who for years saw little of her husband as he dedicated his life to, as far as she knew, running the Rye, New York, sanitarium. As Mark Howard proved himself capable of handling the daily operations of the hospital—and CURE—Smith began spending more time at home.

But not now. Not when the world was in a crisis. He remained at his post and monitored the growing danger of the amassing ice cones on the Antarctic continent. Watch, and wait, was all he could do.

Unexpectedly, the old office was the scene of an impromptu 5:00 a.m. meeting of CURE’S entire staff.

Plus one.

“She must stay, Emperor, for she is the fount of this knowledge,” Chiun said with an ingratiating smile. “The bird spoke only to her. My efforts to speak to it just now were fruitless.”

“She’s the one with the intel,” Remo explained. “Just accept it, will you?”

Smith nodded sourly. “You wish to be here, Ms. Slate?”

“Yes, Dr. Smith, I do.”

Dr. Smith stood, leaned over the desk and extended one hand. “I suppose this makes it official.”

“Yes.” She smiled seriously and they shook on it.

“Welcome aboard.” He offered her the nicest chair in the office.

“What just happened?” Remo asked.

Smith’s sour face became a grim smile. “Ms. Slate is now an employee of our organization.”

“Really?” Mark Howard asked.

“You didn’t even bicker over the salary,” Remo said.