Dr. Axeworthy almost laughed. But there was a coldness of purpose in Harold Smith's eye and a strange confidence in the advancing Oriental's strides.
Reflexively he jumped back a pace, snatching up the black orb. He was careful to cup it loosely in his half-closed fist. If it were an eye, it would be hollow and filled with fluid. He did not wish to injure the orb's organic integrity. The New England Journal of Medicine would demand proof or they would refuse to publish his findings.
With his other hand he placed the point of a scalpel to the unknown patient's throat, saying, "One more step and I will slit him from ear to ear!"
The old Oriental stopped in his tracks.
"Have a care," he said in a cold voice. "You know not what you threaten."
"Some cheap hood. What of it?"
Dr. Axeworthy had no sooner touched the scalpel point to the patient's throat than his hand suddenly felt cold. It was the hand that cupped the orb.
He brought it up. His fingers were uncurling like a pale sunflower opening. He was not making them uncurl. He was certain of that. They were uncurling on their own. He had nothing to do with it. And he could not stop it because his hand was suddenly numb, as if from a local anesthetic.
The orb was slowly revealed. Dr. Axeworthy found himself staring into the glowing purple-black orb.
Even though it was as featureless as a licorice drop, he experienced the eerie sensation that the eye was scrutinizing him.
Dr. Axeworthy brought the orb to his face. He didn't want to. He had no control now over his own arm. His other hand joined the first to lift the orb closer to his own widening eyes.
He screamed then.
Chiun, Reigning Master of Sinanju, beheld the look of terror on the face of the physician. It was washed in a violet radiance. He held his ground, sensing danger.
In his ear came Harold Smith's harsh voice.
"Master Chiun, what is happening?"
Before Chiun could venture an answer, the physician's upraised cupped hands began to glow from within. Through his purplish skin his finger bones shone white.
"Help . . . meee. . . ." The physcian's voice was tiny, almost squeezed down to inaudibility. "Help . . . meeeee!"
Without any warning, his hands began to melt into a lavender vapor. The vapor wafted and flowed into the physician's mouth and flaring nostrils like a viper seeking sustenence.
Chiun swept backward, pulling his emperor from the room.
"What is happening?" Smith repeated, his face stark as marble.
"It is the orb of Shiva," Chiun hissed. "It is doing the only thing it can do. Destroying."
The double doors gave before them. Chiun pushed Smith into the safety of the corridor. He turned and leaned his weight against the double doors, one hand on each.
After several seconds the Master of Sinanju put his surprised face to the round window of one door. His eyes narrowed at the sight that was transpring within the operating room.
Rooted like a lightning-lashed tree, Dr. Rance Axeworthy watched the stumps of his wrists as they melted away. He was screaming. At least his mouth was screaming and his chest heaved air in and out. But no sound was emerging from his straining lungs.
His forearms melted into gaseous exhalations, eating down to the elbows. Then the biceps went, until the last of his arms were a violet mist swirling around him.
The decay did not stop there, Chiun saw.
It continued until his head, a cloud of purple smoke, simply floated off his shoulders. The inexorable process worked its way down his chest to his waist, consuming Dr. Rance Axeworthy's torso until his legs stood apart and disarticulated.
They wobbled, tipping over. One went left. The other right. They swiftly lost all substance and then there was only a purple fog rolling along the white tile floor.
In that mist, the orb of Shiva rolled.
Smith, hearing nothing, put his patrician nose to the window of the other door.
"Where is Dr. Axeworthy?" he croaked.
"He is the mist," intoned Chiun, his eyes cold slits.
"Impossible!"
"You saw it begin with your very eyes," Chiun said. " I have seen it end. And I say that mist is the doctor."
Angrily Dr. Smith pushed his way back into the room.
Slowly he approached the operating table, where Remo lay oblivious.
His feet disturbed the mist, sending little clouds and twists and vortices eddying silently away. There was no scent, no odor at all.
In the center of the floor, the black orb glowed violet.
"What is it?" Smith asked.
Chiun approached. "The thing I have told you of. It is the third eye of Shiva. According to legend, it had the power to destroy all it beheld with its awful fury."
Smith swallowed. "Are we safe?"
Chiun's eyes narrowed to dark gleams of concern. "We are never safe from Shiva. But it did not harm the physician until he dared to threaten Remo. It should be left alone."
"We cannot just leave it there. It is too dangerous."
"I will not touch it. Nor will I allow you to do so," Chiun said firmly.
Smith pursed his lips silently. His haggard face was very pale now. His eyes had a haunted, sunken look about them.
Then, as they watched, the orb of Shiva began to collapse like a melting ice cube. It lost shape, fell in on itself, and was soon a moist black puddle resembling hot tar.
Then it just evaporated in place, becoming nothing, leaving no trace, and offering no explanation for its actions.
Harold Smith cleared his throat noisily.
" I cannot account for what I have just witnessed," he said softly.
"There is no need to," said Chiun, going to his pupil's side and examining his facial bandages for spots of blood or loose windings. "But in having Remo liberated from Shiva's third eye, we may have saved him from a premature incarnation."
Smith tore his stricken eyes from the spot on the floor where the orb of Shiva had vanished.
"Remo will be out of commission for some time," he said, forcing his voice to remain steady. " I must count on you to accomplish his mission."
Chiun bowed formally. "If it can be accomplished by Sinanju, O Emperor, I will accomplish it for you."
"Do I have your word on this?" Smith asked.
"No sacrifice is too great to fulfill your wishes."
"Then here is what you must do . . . ."
It was fortunate that Folcroft Sanitarium housed among its patients several insane persons, because the scream of pure anguish the Master of Sinanju emitted was passed off as an inmate awakening from a particularly horrific nightmare.
Chapter 13
Antony Tollini could not avoid it any longer.
All morning long, the phone messages had been piling up.
"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client said the last customer-service person had been unable to fix the problem."
"Call him back. Tell him we're sending another."
"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client says that the last person you sent not only refused to fix their system but also threw it into the trash."
"My God. Tell them I sincerely, sincerely apologize. He's a new employee. They sometimes make mistakes."
"Mr. Tollini, the Boston client says they want a Jap."
"A what?"
"A Jap. He actually said 'a fuggin' Jap,' but I think he means a Japanese technician."
"Are you sure?" Tony Tollini demanded. "Are you positive?"
"The client said something about their being good in what he called computertry."
"Do we have any Japanese applicants on file?"
"Applications are not filed by race or ethnicity. But the Boston client insists that he have a new customer service engineer today. He's very insistent."
"What were his exact words?" asked Tony Tollini from the safety of his office. He was communicating by intercom.
The secretary could be heard swallowing.
"He said, 'Don't make me look like a jerk or I'll have
your fuggin' nuts.' Unquote."
"My God," moaned Tony Tollini, clutching his head. "Listen, you go through those resumes. Pull out any Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese names you can find. Have them all on my desk within the hour."
"Yes, Mr. Tollini."
"And send in Miss Wilkerson."
"Yes, sir."
Tony Tollini sank behind his desk in his office at the very end of the corridor of the southern wing of IDC world headquarters burying his face in his upraised hands.
"I'm having a migraine," he moaned. "As if my life wasn't already falling apart. I'm having a colossal migraine."
There was a knock on the door. Tony jerked his head up, drawn face whitening.
"Who?"
"It's Wendy."
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"No one has a gun to your head, do they?"
"Stop it! Don't talk like that. You're scaring me half to death."
"Come in, then," Tony Tollini said resignedly. "I'm already dead."
The woman who walked in was in her early thirties and wore her hair piled high in a breathtaking reddish-gold upsweep. She wore Lady Brooks gray, with a touch of black and white. Her eyes were green and her arching eyebrows were almost regal.
She shut the door behind her, saying, "What's wrong? As if I can't guess."
"The last CE guy went berserk," Tony Tollini said miserably. "He broke the PC."
Wendy Wilkerson sank into a chair, saying, "Oh, God."
"They want a Jap. Today."
"Excuse me?"
"A Japanese service engineer. And they want him now."
"This can't go on, Tony. If the board finds out, do you know what will happen to you?"
Tony Tollini's head came up like a startled giraffe's. "Me? You mean us. This was your idea."
"It was a joke! How many times do I have to tell you? I never meant you to take it seriously."
"Well, the joke's on us. We have to do something fast. I can't hold them off much longer. I have to send out a real customer-service engineer."
"Are you crazy? If another one doesn't come back, we'll have the FBI, never mind the board, on our backs. I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to think there are worse fates than to be exiled to an office at the end of the south wing. "
"Name one."
"Discovered stuffed in the trunk of a Buick, for one."
"I'll take it," said Tony Tollini, trying to get the childproof cap off a bottle of aspirin. After grunting and groaning without success, he simply bit the thing off with a savage jerk of his head.
He swallowed four pills. Dry.
"I'm going down to customer service. You'd better come."
"Why me? I'm only director of product placement."
"I need the moral support. And we're in this together, like it or not."
They walked down the corridor and turned into a more brightly lit corner of IDC world headquarters.
"I sure miss having seventy-five-watt bulbs in my work area," Wendy Wilkerson said forlornly.
"I heard in Atlanta they have to make do with forty-watters. "
Wendy Wilkerson hugged herself tightly and shivered.
"It's a cold cruel world out there."
"In here too."
They went through the door marked "CUSTOMER SERVICE."
Amid a profusion of spaghetti wire and computer equipment in various states of disrepair, lab workers in white smocks and medical-style caps were conducting diagnostic tests.
"Attention, everybody," said Tony Tollini, lifting his hand to get their attention. "I have an important announcement."
Heads turned. Surgical gauze masks were pulled away from puzzled mouths.
"I need a volunteer," said Tony.
Everyone froze. Fingers in the act of removing surgical caps stopped as if paralyzed. A single gasp could be heard.
"Our Boston client needs us. Needs us desperately."
A man corkscrewed to the floor in a dead faint. A woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses ducked under a workbench and shivered like a toad under a sheltering rock during a hard rain.
"Please," Tony said. "This is important. I need help here."
"You go, then," a voice snarled.
"Who said that?" Tony Tollini demanded, head swiveling angrily. "Who spoke?"
No one volunteered. The surgical masks completely disguised lip movement.
"I tell you what," Tony said suddenly. "We'll draw straws."
"Are you in the pool?" a pinch-faced technician demanded.
"I'm VP of systems outreach," Tony Tollini said fiercely. "And I am ordering you all to draw straws."
No one had any straws, so Tony Tollini snipped a length of blue wiring into equal lengths and one slightly shorter one.
He turned to Wendy Wilkerson, saying, "Wendy, you do the honors."
Nervously Wendy Wilkerson gathered up the bits of bright blue wire and arranged them in her fist so that they stuck up to equal height. She held out a trembling fist. There were tears in her eyes.
Timidly the technicians in the room clustered around Tony Tollini and Wendy Wilkerson. No one made a move for the bright blue bits of wire which gleamed copper at their tips.
"Come, now," Tony Tollini urged. "Don't freeze up. IDC men do not shirk before a challenge. Remember, the odds are better for those who draw first."
A trembling hand reached out. It withdrew a bit of wire. No one was quite certain if it was long enough, so they held their breath.
"Let's go," Tony urged. "Slackers face shorter odds."
Another hand reached out. Another short bit of wiring came to light. The two bits were compared side by side. They matched.
Whoops of joy came from the two who had drawn the wires. They reverberated throughout the room. The remaining technicians looked sick. One began to retch. Another threw up. A third said, "My God! This is a clean room. He threw up in a clean room."
"Enough." Tony pointed to the man who had spoken. "You, you're next."
Before the next straw-drawer could move, the doors behind them flew apart and a loud, squeaky voice announced, "I seek the one known as Antony Tollini."
All eyes turned to the source of that loud voice.
It was an old man, impossibly ancient, his eyes cold as agates. He was an Asian in native costume.
Antony Tollini stepped forward and said, "I am Antony Tollini. "
The tiny man bowed deeply. "And I am Chiun."
"Chiun?"
He lifted an imperious finger. "Chiun the Great."
"Great what?"
"Great computer genius, of course."
Tony Tollini's jaw dropped. "You?"
"I am pleased that you have heard of my renown."
"Excuse me," Tony said stiffly, "but I'm familiar with the world's leading experts in the field, and I've never heard of you. "
"That is because I did not wish you to," said the old Oriental called Chiun flatly. "But this has changed. I now seek employment in your tribe."
"Tribe?"
"Yes. This is a corporation, is it not?"
"Yes. "
"I understand corporations are very tribal. I, myself, once owned my own corporation."
"Would I know the name?"
"It was called Nostrum, Ink."
Tony gasped. "Nostrum! The Wall Street venture capital company? I read about you in Forbes. But I didn't know you were in information services."
"My mighty hand is everywhere," said Chiun.
"Are you by any chance . . . Japanese?" asked Tony Tollini suddenly.
The face of Chiun wrinkled with distaste, like a prune shriveling in stop-motion.
"Some have called me so," he said in a grudging voice.
"What was that?"
"It is one rumor," Chiun said through tiny set teeth.
"Are you or are you not?" Tony Tollini pressed.
The answer was a single word, low, tight, and sibilant, like a cobra cursing.
"Yes."
Tony Tollini's tight features broke out in a pleased smile.
"You," he said brightly, "are hired."
The old Oriental bowed smartly. "Of course," he said. "I am Chiun. Believed by some to be Japanese," he added bitterly.
"Can you leave right now?"
"Once we have made arrangements for my salary," Chiun said quickly.
"We'll give you three thousand per week and a three-hundred-dollar-per-diem for expenses," Tony said instantly.
"I will require one-half of my niggardly fee in advance," Chiun said stiffly.
"Advance? IDC doesn't do advances. You'll see your first check in two weeks."
"I will see half my fee now or I will seek employment elsewhere," Chiun said sternly.
"Let's take up a collection!" a technician shouted.
"Yes, let's!" cried another.
Wallets were opened and coins extracted from pockets. Like votaries before an implacable idol, the IDC employees laid the money before the sandaled feet of the Great Chiun, the Japanese genius.
The Master of Sinanju cast a cold eye down at the heaping pile of bills coins, and old cards lying at his feet.
"This will not suffice,' he said.
Groans came from the huddled technicians. A solid gold money clip sailed into the pile pinching a lone dollar bill.
"Take it. It's my bus fare home."
Chiun shook his aged head. "That is better, but you lack twelve dollars to satisfying my modest demands."
Tony Tollini nudged Wendy Wilkerson in the ribs.
"Get it out of petty cash," he hissed. "Fast. And have a car brought around. I think our problems are solved."
"You can't send him," Wendy shot back.
"Why not?"
"Look at him. He's such a sweet old man."
"He's also a genius. And it's either him or one of the staff. Unless you'd like to volunteer?"
"I'll be right back," said Wendy Wilkerson, hurrying from the room. Her heels clicked away like nails being driven into a coffin.
Chapter 14
The Master of Sinanju rode to the airport in silence, the book called "LANSCII" on his lap. He deigned not to glance over it. Such things were for whites, who understood machines-one of the few things whites were good for.
At the airport Harold Smith was loitering in a waiting area, craning his neck to see past a baggage X-ray machine, pretending to be searching for an arriving passenger.
The Master of Sinanju paused and placed the blue notebook on a standing sand-filled ashtray. He moved away.
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