Dream Thing

“Time of crisis.” The man shrugged and ate another French fry. He had two more orders of “Bigger Fries” on the counter in front of him.

“Profiteering, you mean,” Remo said.

“Look, asshole, you wanna rent your boat somewhere else?”

Chiun said nothing as Remo paid full price, leaving the money on the counter in the tiny shack. The wharf rat was left sitting on his stool, eyes bugging open. He whimpered.

“This one looks good,” Chiun suggested.

“Fine.” Remo lifted the shack door off its hinges and dropped it into the water. A gaggle of seagulls was already converging on the shack, lured by the aroma of French fries, which were now dumped inside the wharf rat’s greasy shirt. The wharf rat was going to be paralyzed for an hour or two. The seagulls began pecking.

The somber Masters of Sinanju stepped into the boat and Remo hoisted the sails. He wasn’t a great sailor, but he had done it enough to know how to make things work, and he had an instinct for the balance of the craft and the ocean and the wind that surpassed the skills of any old salt who spent a lifetime on the sea.

They had left the islands of Hawaii behind them.

Chiun guided them out and around the guarded tract of the Pacific Ocean that was now known as the watch zone. They headed for the area known as the Corridor.

The military vessels wouldn’t get near the Corridor. It was too dangerous. It was an extension of the vortex that had sprung up thirty-six hours previously, penetrating the watch zone to the open water of the Pacific. The Corridor didn’t have the strong current of the vortex, but it did create the same local level of communication blackout.

Three vessels had entered the Corridor and become so disoriented they had sailed the wrong way. Without GPS, radio, compass or even stars to guide them, who could blame them? The irony was that the satellites could see what was happening. They watched the ships go in circles, then chug into the vortex. Several other ships managed to blunder into and out of the Corridor before it was declared off-limits.

The entrance to the Corridor seemed to shift, and guard vessels had been unable to catch up to it for long. Those who did find the entrance were the worshipers. Mostly third-world spiritualists and their flock, who paddled or sailed into the Corridor in search of their god. After just thirty-six hours, the Corridor had swallowed a hundred victims.

Remo and Chiun were in the open ocean when they saw the paddle canoes coming toward them.

“We shall not follow them into this dark place,” Chiun reminded Remo.

“I promise. We just stop them from going in. Come on.”

Chiun slipped into the water without causing a noticeable ripple, gliding with Remo under the surface until the canoes were overhead. Chiun swam to the surface and began removing paddles.

Remo was being touched by Sa Mangsang, and this worried Chiun greatly. How much power was there in the old god of Mu? What influence would he have on Remo from so close a distance?

Chiun knew this was the best thing that they could do—put a cork in the pipeline that brought Sa Mangsang his nourishment. If Sa Mangsang became weak enough he might descend into slumber again. Chiun, however, doubted this.

As he snatched the paddles from the canoes above he bent them in his ancient hands until they cracked apart. Soon the canoes drifted idly on a surface carpeted with wood splinters. Chiun surfaced alongside Remo, some distance from the befuddled islanders.

On the largest of the canoes was a small tent. Brightly colored fabrics hung from it and created a shady place inside. From this honored shelter stepped an islander with a worn wooden staff that had been carved generations ago. The man raised the staff and addressed his followers.

“He tells them to ignore this trickery of the jealous gods—they will soon bask in the powerful presence of the most powerful god, who is Hunundra.”

“Not without paddles they won’t,” Remo replied. “They won’t catch the Sa Mangsang current for another twenty miles.”

“They have sails,” Chiun said.

The sails started to go up and Chiun began working again on disabling them. He approached one of the canoes from below and ejected himself from the water. Quickly his bare feet would touch down on the deck of the craft, he would slash the sail into slivers of reed and fabric and he would slip into the ocean again. Chiun did more than his fair share of this work, while Remo paused to abuse the cult leader with some of his white wisdom. Whatever Remo had to say was so unbearable to the cult leader that, when Chiun next stopped to look, he saw the man had lobotomized himself with some sharp instrument.

“Everybody, rope together,” Remo called. “I’m saving your sorry butts.”

Chiun, who now stood midstern on one of the rear canoes, relayed the message in the paddlers’ own dialect, and yet they were still disinclined to cooperate.