"Lotsa enemies to be killed, huh?"
Chiun shrugged. "Enemies exist to be crushed. Aurangzeb knew this and so offered good gold to insure that the House of Sinanju stood by his throne. In time, his enemies waned. But a foe is often more dangerous when his power wanes, for when he recognizes his fate approaching, he often lashes out with no regard for his own life. It was so here, Remo.
"Now one of the more tenacious foes were the Rajputs, who were Hindus. They revolted often. They were in truth revolting inasmuch as they ate with their right hands only. They did this because-"
"Can it, and move on."
"As you wish," Chiun said thinly. "Now the Rajputs sent to the island of Ceylon for one to succor them. They knew they could not harm the Mogul emperor, for he was shielded by the awesome hand of Sinanju, through Sambari the Careless, formerly known as Sambari the Protector."
"How fast they fall from grace once the truth leaks out," Remo said wryly.
The Master of Sinanju frowned primly and spoke on.
"Now in Ceylon lived a people called the Tamils. Although they were not Indians, they were Hindus. And among them lived a clutch of females known as the Spider Divas, who lived without men, taking mates but once in their lives, and then only to reproduce, as is proper. After that, they ate them."
"They ate their husbands?" Remo exclaimed.
"The lucky ones, yes."
"What about the unlucky ones?"
"Slaves. For the Spider Divas were said to possess charms beyond those of mortal woman. No one knew what these were. They were temptresses and were said to converse with spiders, thus impelling them to do their deadly bidding. For the Spider Divas, having ill luck with their menfolk, made their way through the world by hiring themselves out as assassins. This is a terrible thing, Remo."
"Competition always is, to the one being competed against."
"I meant that women would take on honorable work rightly belonging to men. In Korea, women stand on pedestals of honor."
"So they don't catch on how unimportant they are. Let's get back to the Spider Divas."
"These base females stole the very food from the mouths of the babes of Sinanju, whom my ancestors fed."
"Let's just skip the part about the starving babies," Remo said impatiently. "What happened next?"
"Now in these days, the Spider Divas were in decline. They had suffered greatly whenever they challenged the hand of Sinanju. Their numbers were few. And they were having difficulty finding willing men."
"No kidding," Remo said dryly.
"People had begun to talk."
"Imagine."
Chiun leaned forward to whisper, "It is rumored, Remo, they had had been reduced to harlotry."
"No!"
Chiun nodded wisely. "At this time, it was known that only three Spider Divas still lived in seclusion. But when they made their appearance in the city of Ahmadnagar, where the Mogul Emperor held forth, persecuting his subjects prudently and with wisdom, all knew of their purpose. For they were known for their great dark eyes, and the bright harlot colors of their saris.
"Hearing this, Master Sambari sought out the Spider Divas. The first, he killed in her sleep. The second he surprised when the harlot was dallying with one of the dandy soldiers of the Mogul Emperor, for knowing their lord was protected by the House of Sinanju, they had grown soft in their ways. Sambari dispatched both with a single blow and jellied their loins as they copulated, unwitting."
"At least they died happy," said Remo.
Chiun made a face, then went on.
"But the third Spider Diva, whose name comes down to us as Padmini, proved elusive. Master Sambari hunted her high and low, finally learning that she had slipped out of the city, in rightful fear of her life."
The Master of Sinanju closed his eyes and began rocking to and fro, as if reliving the events of centuries gone by.
"Sambari followed her, and in a forest whose name is unimportant, otherwise he would have mentioned it in his scrolls, Sambari came upon Padmini, the last Spider Diva.
"She slept by the firelight, her perfect face peaceful as that of a child. The wind toyed with her apricot sari. And for a moment Sambari took delight in her aspects. "
"Nice tits, huh?"
"You are cavalier for one who has been seduced and abandoned," Chiun scolded, eyes remaining shut.
Remo scowled darkly. "Don't remind me."
"It is my job to remind you, lustful one."
And when his pupil had no reply to that, the Master of Sinanju went on. "Sambari looked upon this sleeping vision and grew intrigued by this creature. He wondered about stories he had heard as a boy of the Spider Divas. For strange tales were told by men who had seen them naked, Remo."
"Yeah?" said Remo, recalling Nalini's smooth brown body. "Like what?"
"That under their saris, they possessed the ugly bristled limbs of spiders."
"Nalini wasn't like that."
"In the dark, all women are alike," said Chiun in a careless tone. "As the Spider Diva Padmini slept, Master Sambari reached down to expose her nakedness so as to satisfy his curiosity. The silk came away and he saw that the Spider Diva did not sleep alone. Crouching in the moist warm spots of her body, under her arms and in back of her knees were dark shapes. They were decorated with eyes, Remo. Black unwinking eyes. They peered from everywhere, from even the less wholesome hollows of her alluring form.
"Frightened, Sambari restored the cloth and slew the hideous sleeping creature with a single blow to her forehead. Then he ran. Not in an unseemly fashion, of course, but in a prudent one."
"Of course."
Chiun's hazel eyes snapped open. His voice resumed its normal squeaky tones.
"No more was ever heard of the Spider Divas after that," he said.
"So it was a happy ending," said Remo.
"Not exactly. For upon returning to Ahmadnagar, Sambari discovered that the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb had died in his sleep."
"A spider got him?"
Chiun shrugged elaborately. "There was no mark, no sign, and as the Mogul Emperor had achieved the age of eighty-nine - old for him but young for Sinanju - death was credited to his advanced years. Except for one thing Sambari wrote in his scrolls but told no one else."
"What's that?" asked Remo.
"There was a scent clinging to the dead emperor and he died with a contented smile on his face. The scent was a scent Sambari had smelled when in the presence of the Spider Divas, Remo."
"So they got him despite Sambari?"
Chiun shrugged. "No one knew this, so Sambari was properly compensated for his work and no blame attached itself to him-until now."
Remo snapped his fingers suddenly. "The ants! Maybe they're not ants, after all."
"Perhaps they are spiders," agreed Chiun.
"It would explain why the spiders were never seen. These things look like ugly ants, but when they strike, their heads split open and these pincers pop out."
"Poison. That has been what has been killing the bug-eaters. Poison spiders, not dunderbugs. Just as I foretold."
"That doesn't explain HELP. People who catch it take forty-eight hours to die. Magarac died instantly."
"Details," sniffed Chiun.
Remo snapped his fingers in the air. "Hey! There was an army of these things moving in on the Harvesters when we left Nirvana West."
"No doubt they have all succumbed."
"Why do you say that?"
"The wicked ones are through with their tools and wish to be rid of them."
"Nalini, you mean?"
"And Clancy the clown."
"No way, Chiun. The guy's plastered most of the time. "
"Who else then?"
"Maybe Thrush Limburger. Maybe Jane Goodwoman. Hey, she was here before Nalini. Maybe she left the spiders, not Nalini."
"You are a fool who has been blinded by the irresistible scent of the Spider Divas, which still clings to your selfindulgent body."
"Yeah, well, I saw Jane Goodw
oman naked, and if there was ever a Spider Diva, she wins the blue ribbon. Her legs belonged on a tarantula."
"Then why did the Tamil harlot steal away in the night? What woman, when she encounters the power of Sinanju, can abandon the bed in which she was pleasured beyond her wildest imaginings?"
"You got a point there," said Remo, reaching for the phone. "We'd better call Smith."
"Emperor Smith will be pleased at our progress."
"He's going to strangle us when we tell him the guy behind HELP may be a U.S. Senator. You know how he is about domestic political messiness."
Chapter 19
In his office overlooking Long Island Sound, Harold W. Smith listened in silence, the color going out of his pinched patrician face. There was not much color in it to begin with. It was a gray face. Smith was a gray man. After he had listened to Remo's report, his face was the color of ashes, in which the gray color of his eyes resembled dark stones.
"These ants," he croaked. "How many legs do they possess?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Remo wondered.
Smith fingered the too-tight knot of his hunter green Dartmouth tie. "Please."
Remo went away and came back.
"Eight legs," he reported.
"It is not an ant. They are called hexapoda because they possess six legs. Spiders, which are arachnids, possess eight. What you have there is some exotic form of arachnid capable of mimicking an ant."
"Never heard of such a thing."
"One moment, Remo."
Smith went to his computer. He punched in some key words, and moments later he was scanning an on-line encyclopedia with wireframe illustrations. The illustration showed a many-segmented antlike insect whose bulbous nose could separate and reveal extremely vicious curved fangs.
Smith picked up the receiver again. "Remo, I have it."
"You do?"
"Yes. It is called Myrmarachne plataleoides. It is a species of jumping spider, indigenous to Sri Lanka. They do not dwell in webs, but in trees from which they leap upon their prey, trailing a thin strand of silk which enables them to ease themselves to the ground with their catch."
"That's gotta be it."
"Except that my information is that they are not poisonous," said Smith.
"It's a sure bet this one is," said Remo. "But what about the real problem, Clancy?"
"We have no proof Senator Clancy is behind this. The finger of guilt clearly points to his mother's nurse, Nalini, who must be this mysterious Eldress."
"But what would a nurse be doing orchestrating a fake viral plague?"
"What would Clancy get out of it?" countered Smith. "He is at the pinnacle of his political career right now. In fact, it is widely rumored that Clancy is contemplating retirement after his current term in office expires."
"Who knows?"
"Remo, proceed with your investigation, but tread carefully. Make no moves that might expose you or endanger Clancy."
"You got it."
Smith disconnected. He looked to the dialless red telephone that was the dedicated line to the White House. He would not apprise the President of these facts. The situation was still fluid. All might not be as it seemed. It might not even be necessary to order his agents to quietly terminate a United States senator.
But if it was, Harold Smith was capable of giving the order. It was his job.
Chapter 20
Senator Ned J. Clancy heard the sound of the ringing telephone through a fuzzy alcoholic haze.
"Answer the phone," he mumbled, rolling over in the big hotel bed. The spring groaned in complaint.
A muffled voice he mistook for his wife's mumbled something he couldn't quite make out.
"I said, answer the telephone," Clancy repeated.
The phone kept ringing. The muffled voice kept trying to say something, and between the two sounds, Ned Clancy surfaced from sleep like a submarine breaking the surface.
He blinked blearily at the motel room ceiling. He knew it was the ceiling because it was white. If it had been another color, it would have been the floor. Clancy had awakened with his burst-capillaried nose pressed into many a hotel room rug in his long lifetime of public service. Once, he had awakened in a standing position, his face against a wall. Naked.
The phone was still ringing and he flopped an arm to the night table, knocking the receiver loose. Over the muffled voice he mistook for his wife, he distinctly heard the dial tone hum.
And the phone rang again.
It was then Clancy realized it was not the motel room phone summoning him, and he found his motivation. He rolled over on the horribly lumpy mattress and the muffled voice suddenly broke into clearly audible gasps.
Clancy looked over his pimpled shoulder.
And there on the bed-the bed which his bloated body had completely dominated-lay a spread-eagled woman whose flattened breasts resembled giant pink sunnyside-up fried eggs. Her breathing came in spasmodic gulps.
"I thought I was going to suffocate," she wheezed.
"You're not my wife! Who are you?"
The woman bolted up. "You bastard! Don't you remember?"
"No," admitted Ned Clancy, reaching over to yank off the fuzzy blue ball she wore over her head.
"I still don't recognize you," he muttered.
"I'm Jane Goodwoman, you sexist swine!"
"Oink. Oink. Didn't I pork you once before this?"
"You don't remember!"
"All women look alike to me-above the neck."
Jane Goodwoman grabbed up her clothes and stumbled into the bathroom. She slammed the door after her and Ned Clancy rolled off the bed and onto his jacket, which he had hung up for the night by dropping on the carpet. He fumbled for the cellular phone clipped to the lining.
"Hello?" he undertoned, one eye on the closed bathroom door.
A thin female voice he knew well said, "This is the Eldress, Senator Clancy."
"Keep it low. I'm not alone."
"It is time."
"What is?"
"Clear your brain, fool. If you go to Nirvana West, you will find the Harvesters have departed this mortal vale. Go there. Make a speech. Blame their deaths on Human Environmental Liability Paradox and swear an oath to get to the bottom of it all."
"What about the growing hole in the ozone layer?"
"There is no hole."
Clancy drywashed his bloated face. "You mean the whale was right?"
"Never mind him," the thin voice snapped. "After your speech, fly home."
"Home Cape Cod or home Washington?"
"To Washington. You must ram the HELP bill through the Senate, and increase your prestige."
"Why?"
"That is not for you to know. But go quickly. There is no time to lose."
"You're not my wife, are you?"
"I am not your wife. You would know your wife's voice, would you not?
"Just checking. Sometimes I'm not even sure you're a woman."
"Why do you say that?"
"You got too much balls to be a woman."
"I will take that as a compliment," said the voice of the Eldress. "Your plane is waiting for you at San Francisco International Airport. Everything is in readiness."
"What about, you know who?"
"The whale?"
"Yeah. Him."
"The whale has been beached. His ultimate fate is for the Eldress to decide, not you. You are only a pawn in the great plan."
"Now you remind me of my father-pushing. Always pushing. He never let me have any fun."
"I am not your father, Senator Clancy. And if you do not do as I say, I will release to the media the tape recording of your drunken confession. The girl was only fifteen. Remember?"
"Not clearly," Ned Clancy said honestly.
"She never saw sixteen. She never saw the age of consent. Do you recall the day you confided the indescretion to your father? It broke his heart. After that, he would not eat. You were the last politically viable son he had. After that day, he
allowed himself to slowly starve to death."
Senator Ned J. Clancy shuddered uncontrollably.
"My mother will kill me if it all comes out," he croaked.
"Obey, then. Obey the Eldress. I am your truth."
The line went dead and Ned Clancy tried to pull his clothes on in a way that made it clear he didn't quite recognize them.
From one wall of the motel room, the hard sound of a cane rapping against plaster came insistently.
"Coming, Mother!" Ned Clancy called.
From the bathroom, Jane Goodwoman snapped, "I'm not your damn mother!"
"My mother had nicer tits," mumbled Ned Clancy, deciding not to wear underwear since he wouldn't be in town much longer. His second pair was pretty gamey already.
The sacrifices he made to keep the family name from being tarnished. No wonder Jimbo and Robbo died so young.
Chapter 21
CDC pathologist Dale Parsons awoke with the dawn. It had been a busy night. He had supervised the removal of the bodies from the Snapper wing of the People Against Protein Assassins.
With the local coroner dead, there was no one to do it on an official basis. It had to be done and Parsons had shouldered the burden because no one else wanted to touch it.
At the Harvester wing, the survivors were too distraught over the death of their leader, Theodore Soars-With-Eagles, to care. They refused to abandon their encampment.
"Only Snappers catch HELP," they repeated.
"What about Eagles? He's dead too."
"Brother Theodore Soars-With-Eagles will never die. When we breathe the good clean air, we inhale his protective spirit."
There was no reasoning with these dimwits, Dale Parsons had concluded. He had left them there. There was paperwork still to be done.
The only good thing was the press had gotten bored with Nirvana West and had gone to town for the night.
Now with the red sun peeping over the ponderosa pines, Dale Parsons set out to ask the Harvesters some questions.
He found instead only silence.
The Harvesters had passed the night in their tepees and wigwams and somewhere in the night, they had died there.
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