Chiun had slipped into the room, too, to take a position beside his pupil. "Yes. Your perfidy is known."
"Perfidy? I have committed no perfidy," Wurmlinger said.
"The bee told us everything," Remo bluffed.
"Bee. What bee? How could a bee tell you anything?"
"It talked." Remo folded his arms before him as if to signal that he would listen to no BS to the contrary.
Helwig X. Wurmlinger looked back at Remo as if Remo were mad. "You are mad," he said.
"P.O.'ed is closer to the truth," said Remo, who shot across the room and dragged Wurmlinger into the living room by the collar of his white smock.
"Unhand me!" he complained.
Remo frisked him by patting his pockets. He frisked pretty hard. Wurmlinger went, "Ouch... yeow," and made other noises of pain.
When Remo was finished, he marched Wurmlinger into the spiderweb-motif bedroom.
"The bee that talked said he worked for the Bee-Master," Remo was saying. "Name ring a bell with you?"
"Yes."
Remo shoved Wurmlinger's face to the wall where a yellowed poster hung over the bed, featuring a grim face enveloped in an electronic helmet. It looked like the head of a chromium bee with crimson compound eyes.
"Explain this."
"That is my poster of Bee-Master," Helwig Wurmlinger said.
"It's a poster of yourself. I don't know how or why you did it, but you've bred a bee you can control with an electronic helmet."
"Are you insane? The Bee-Master is only a comic-book character. He doesn't exist."
"Then why do you have his poster over your bed?"
"Er I-"
"Your hesitation betrays you," Chiun intoned, bringing his long, deadly nails up before Wurmlinger's long, nervous face.
"Go ahead," said Remo.
"This is very embarrassing."
"Not as embarrassing as having your head squeezed off your neck..."
Just then, the air filled with the growing metallic sound of a million angry insects.
"There is that sound again," Wurmlinger gasped.
"What sound?"
"The sound that killed all those men."
"Uh-oh," said Remo, looking to the window.
Chapter 36
"Here. Hold this guy," Remo said as the high, angry sound grew louder, and Chiun accepted Helwig Wurmlinger's neck from Remo's grasp.
Moving to the detached front door, Remo lifted it and rushed it back to the doorway. The hinges were ripped loose, so he couldn't rehang it. Instead, he set it tightly in the door frame and leaned against it with his shoulder.
"I think we're okay," he called out.
The sound grew in volume and insistence.
Chiun went to a side window, taking Wurmlinger with him. The entomologist had to walk stooped over because of the difference in height between him and the Master of Sinanju.
From the bedroom window, Chiun asked, "What do you see, Remo?"
"Nothing," said Remo. "It's just a sound."
Chiun's facial wrinkles gathered up tightly. "I, too, see nothing."
Helwig Wurmlinger said, "I saw nothing when those men were killed. But it was dark."
"The not-bee informed us that the wrath of the Bee-Master was about to descend upon our heads. What is the wrath of the Bee-Master?" demanded Chiun.
"I have no idea," Wurmlinger said uncomfortably. "But it does sound rather beelike."
From the other room, Remo called out, "Chiun, I think I have a little problem here."
The Master of Sinanju flashed into the other room. He took one look at his pupil holding the door in place and squeaked, "What is wrong?"
"I don't know. The door is vibrating. But I can't see anything."
Then the door started falling apart.
"Remo! Retreat! Retreat from what you do not understand!" Chiun cried.
"I gotta hold the door shut, or that sound will get in."
Then Remo's choices all fled. The door simply came apart. It disintegrated into showering sawdust.
Backing off, Remo cleared the entire room and crowded Chiun into the bedroom. He slammed the door after him.
His back supporting the door, Remo said, "I didn't see a thing. But the door acted like termites were eating it."
"Termites chew. They do not eat," Helwig WurmIinger said.
"Well, whatever they were, they made short work of that door. Chiun, how do we fight those things?"
"I do not know. But this one should."
Helwig Wurmlinger looked guilty as sin. He was sweating. He trembled.
Then the door at Remo's back began to buzz.
"Here they come!" Remo said. "Look, I can hold the door. Get out the back way."
"No, I will not leave you!"
"Listen to him," Wurmlinger said. "Whatever that sound represents, it will eat your brains in your head. There is no defense."
"Listen to him, Little Father," urged Remo, his voice buzzing in sympathy with the agitated door.
His face a tight web of spidery wrinkles, the Master of Sinanju narrowed his eyes in thought. Then, flinging Wurmlinger onto the bed, he bounded to Remo's side. His hands flashed out and caught Remo by the front of his T-shirt. He pivoted. Remo went flying.
Retreating to the bed, Chiun took Helwig Wurmlinger by the throat and made his voice loud enough to be heard over the weird sound that was infiltrating the room.
"Halt in your flight, creatures unknown!" he called.
The sound filled the room. There was nothing visible, just a weird humming as if the air had been electrified.
In a corner, Remo crouched, his eyes going everywhere. His senses were telling him he was surrounded. But he could see no threat, only hear it. Cold sweat broke out all over his body.
Then a sharp sting made a red bump on one thick wrist. Remo slapped at it.
"Chiun..."
"Cover your ears," Wurmlinger screamed. "They get in through the ears."
Remo slapped his hands over his ears. He felt something tickle his left nostril. Expelling air from his lungs, he blew the unseen irritant out. Then, drawing in a deep breath with mouth closed, he sealed his nostrils shut against invasion and waited.
Through his pressing hands, he heard the Master of Sinanju.
"If my son is harmed, I will break this one's neck! Do you hear, Master of Bees? If you do not retreat, this man who you claim to protect will die at the hands of the Master of Sinanju."
The sound continued permeating the room.
Chiun's tight face was resolute. Helwig Wurmlinger was oozing perspiration from his face and neck. His hands covered his own ears, and his eyes were pinched shut against the eye-consuming phenomenon.
"I warn you," Chiun said.
The sound seemed to pause. For a moment, it changed pitch as it gathered itself into a tight ball in the center of the room.
Chiun's eyes went to the compressed source of that sound. Still, he saw nothing, but every sense screamed the threat had contracted to a space that was no greater than that of an egg.
For almost two minutes, there was a standoff. Chiun squeezed Wurmlinger's bony throat with sufficient skill that the scientist could just only breathe, although his face was turning redder by the moment.
In a corner, Remo crouched in a defensive posture entirely unbecoming a Master of Sinanju. But he was facing a threat no Master had ever before encountered and against which he had no defense.
While Chiun held the balance of power in his bony hands.
At the end of two minutes, the humming, much subdued, even dejected, retreated from the room. Their eyes followed it even though it was really their ears that tracked its evacuation.
The unseen creatures poured from the mud nest of Helwig Wurmlinger and disappeared into the early-morning light.
When it seemed safe to do so, Chiun released Wurmlinger's throat. Remo came out of his crouch, his hands dropping to his side.
For a moment, he stood there rotating his thick wrists absently. His T-sh
irt was drenched in his own perspiration.
"What happened?" asked Remo.
"I saved you," said Chiun.
"I know that. But what-?"
Chiun eyed Wurmlinger. "The brain devourers valued the life of this man. It is time he explained why."
Helwig Wurmlinger looked back at the accusing gazes and flapped his hands helplessly. "I-I cannot," he managed to say.
And as they eyed the man, his head next to the fading poster of the Bizarre Bee-Master, Remo thought that there was a pretty strong resemblance between them. Especially around the chin.
Chapter 37
Remo fixed Dr. Helwig X. Wurmlinger with his deepset eyes and said, "You have a lot of explaining to do.
A giant cockroach walked into the room, twitching its feelers, and stopped and hissed at them loudly.
"Do not be alarmed," Wurmlinger told them. "That is a Madagascar cockroach. Perfectly harmless."
"What's it doing out of its box?" asked Remo.
"It is a pet. I keep it as a pet."
"Nobody keeps cockroaches as pets," said Remo.
Chiun floated over to the roach, which was as horny as an armadillo, and told it, "Do not hiss at me, vermin."
The cockroach hissed anyway.
And the Master of Sinanju brought a black sandal down on its back with a satisfying crunch.
Wurmlinger groaned and wrung his bony hands. "You had no right to hurt Agnes," he moaned.
"Worry about yourself," said Remo. "First, explain this poster here."
"That is the Bizarre Bee-Master."
"We know that."
"He was my hero as a child. My idol. I worshiped him."
"You're not a kid anymore. What are you doing with a comic-book hero on your bedroom wall?"
"I-I still retain a fondness for him. He was the lord and friend of the insect world. In many ways, I have patterned my life after his creed."
Remo frowned. "I don't remember any creed ...."
Behind his Coke-bottle gaze, Wurmlinger's teacolored eyes brightened. "You, too, were a Bee-Master fan?" he chirped.
"I wouldn't say fan. But I read a few issues here and there," Remo admitted.
"What was your favorite issue? Do you remember?"
"Get off it. Are you trying to tell us you've had that poster on your wall ever since you were a kid?"
"Yes. Since November, 1965. I never threw it away. I saved all my comic books, too."
"Why would you do that?"
"They are worth a lot of money. It is better than investing in gold. If you do not believe me, look under my bed."
Remo did. There were three long white cardboard boxes there. Remo pulled one out by the cutout handle, shooing away a scuttling spider.
"Mind you don't hurt my friends," Wurmlinger admonished.
"All I see are spiders."
"Wolf spiders. They eat paper-eating mites."
The box was filled with old comic books, each one bagged in clear Mylar and backed by a cardboard stiffener.
The first one was titled Tales to Amaze You and showed the Bee-Master wrestling with a glowing green dung beetle against the backdrop of the Egyptian pyramids.
"Hey, I remember this one!" Remo said.
"Which one?"
Remo turned the comic book around so the cover showed. Wurmlinger's eyes lit up with undisguised joy.
"Beware the Dung Beetle of Doom! Yes, that was one of my favorites, too. Bee-Master discovered a mummified dung beetle in a museum and accidentally reanimated it. They fought seventeen cataclysmic battles until finally BeeMaster found a way to restore it to an Egyptian tomb in Karnak. They actually parted friends. It was very touching. You see, the dung beetle meant no harm. Bee-Master hadn't perfected his cybernetic helmet yet, so he couldn't communicate with the beetle family. When he finally did, he understood that all the carnage and death the dung beetle had inflicted on mankind was because he was misunderstood. Did you know that one day beetles will take over the world from Man?"
"I thought that was cockroaches," said Remo.
Wurmlinger winced at the thought of dead Agnes. "Before cockroaches inherit the earth, beetles will reign supreme. They are a very hardy race."
Remo dropped the comic book back into its box. "Look, your story doesn't wash."
"I don't have a story," Wurmlinger said in an offended voice.
Remo began ticking off items on his finger. "Number one, the mastermind killing people calls himself the Bee-Master."
"With or without the hyphen?"
"We don't know. So far, we're only hearing this stuff from-" Remo hesitated.
"Unimpeachable sources," inserted Chiun.
Wurmlinger cocked a skeptical eyebrow, but held his tongue.
"Number two," Remo went on, while surreptitiously stepping on a scuttling silverfish that had scooted out from under the bed, "whoever did this has attacked only people or things involved with pesticides or anti-bug inventions like worm-proof corn, or to cover up his killings. That means he's a bug lover. You are a bug lover."
"I am no insectophobe," Wurmlinger admitted. "But being an insectophile is not indicative of guilt."
"Hah!" squeaked Chiun. "He even speaks like Bee-Master."
Wurmlinger flinched.
"He's big on bees, too," Remo added.
"Everyone should be concerned about Apis," Wurmlinger exploded. "Bees are our friends. They pollinate crops as diverse as citrus and cranberry. Without bees, we would starve within a matter of a year or two. And the United States is currently in the throes of a severe bee crisis."
"Yes," Chiun said in a low, menacing tone of voice. "One that you have authored, bee lover."
"No. Not that bee crisis. But a much more serious crisis than a few insectoid casualties."
"Explain," said Remo.
"We are in the fifth year of what I predict will go down in history as the Great American Bee Crash. We are losing our wild bees. Some are the victims of man's thoughtless savaging of their habitats. But the recent droughts have reduced plant forage, and severe winter snow has aggravated bee fragility to elevated levels. All over this continent, Apis is succumbing to bee mites, which make them more vulnerable to bee diseases."
"Bees have mites and diseases?" Remo asked doubtfully.
Wurmlinger cupped one thin ear in the direction of the bedroom window. "Listen."
Remo and Chiun focused their hearing on the glass.
Outside, the doleful buzz of honeybees went up and down the sad end of the musical scale.
"Those are ordinary bees. They were healthy when I left for Los Angeles. I have returned to discover them infected with tracheal and Varroa jacobsoni mites. Some are already so weakened that they have succumbed to foul-brood, a disease that reduces the poor bee to a jellylike state. If my bees have come to harm, no bees are safe. Not feral bees. Nor domestic bees."
Remo looked at Chiun. The Master of Sinanju maintained his stiff, unsympathetic countenance.
"Okay, let's say that's all true."
"It is true," Wurmlinger insisted.
"There is an FBI profile of the Bee-Master out there, and it fits you to a T."
"And a B," added Chiun tightly.
"The Bee-Master has to be an insect geneticist. And everyone's seen your Frankenstein bugs on TV."
"My genetic creatures are mere experiments."
"A dragonfly with eyes all over its body?" Remo demanded. "Where is that thing, anyway?" he asked, looking around the room.
"In my lab. I have many unusual specimens in my lab. As for the dragonfly, it is merely an adaptation of a gene-transplanting technique previously accomplished using fruit flies. You see, the gene that creates eyes has been discovered. Simply by transplanting this gene to other spots on the insect's body, eyes sprout. They are unseeing, because they do not connect to the visual receptors of the brain, but they are perfect in all other ways."
Remo frowned. "What about the other stuff?"
"I have experimented with titanium prosthetics, yes
. I admit this freely."
"Prosthetic limbs for bugs?" Remo said sharply.
"There is a need. And my discoveries may have human applications."
"Yeah. Like breeding killer bumblebees."
"Such a thing seems impossible," Wurmlinger said.
"If you can transplant an eye gene, why not a stinger gene?" Remo said pointedly.
"It is feasible," Wurmlinger said thoughtfully, "but it would be harmless unless a neurotoxin gland were also created. Bumbles are equipped with ordinary venom sacs." He shook his long, twitchy head. "No, I cannot envision this."
Remo took him by the arm. "Let's have a look at your lab."
The lab was in the rear of the mud hive. A semicircular room with brown curving walls and a window resembling a blister, it smelled like a festering boil when Remo pushed the door in.
The dragonfly zipped past them. Chiun decapitated it with a flick of his extralong index fingernail. The dragonfly fell in two dry parts to twitch on the floor only long enough for a speedy spider to dart out from beneath a test-tube stand and claim it for his lunch.
Wurmlinger closed his eyes in pain.
Around the room, there were ant farms, cricket terrariums and a goodly number of bugs roaming around loose amid the forest of test tubes and experimental equipment.
Remo found no bees. There was a praying mantis with a steely mechanical forearm and a jointed toothpick for a rear leg in a glass box, but that was as weird as it got.
Chiun frowned at all that he saw, but he said nothing.
"Okay, let's see your sick bees," said Remo.
"Allegedly sick bees," added Chiun.
They went out the back door to the bee boxes.
Wurmlinger lifted out of the hive boxes a sample honeycomb on a frame. The bees on it were absent of motion and humming.
None resembled the death's-head killer bee. Wurmlinger exposed a dozen honeycombs, including ones clogged with tiny winged blobs that had once been living bees.
"This is what foul-brood does," Wurmlinger said morosely.
"Tough."
"Insectophobe!" Wurmlinger hissed, dropping the frame back into its box.
A few bees clung to his body, and the Master of Sinanju asked, "Why do they cleave to you, if you are not the BeeMaster?"
"I wear an after-shave whose chief ingredient is bee pheromone. These bees think I am their queen."
Remo rolled his eyes. They went back into the house. Chiun drifted into the bedroom and studied the Bee-Master poster once more.
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