"No, I would not. I'd stand on my own two feet, and then kiss her."
"Paughh! I do not wish to think of you touching that daughter of the Ganges."
"Nalini is very nice."
"She eats her rice with curry," Chiun spat. "As if rice is not perfect as it is. Heed my words, Remo. A woman who would soil good rice with curry would stoop to anything-including eating bugs."
"Nalini doesn't strike me as the bug-eater type."
"Bug-eating is a sickness. I have no doubt that curry is at the root of this plague. Curry and vile hygiene."
"I guess political correctness isn't limited to the West," muttered Remo.
And Chiun looked at him with the blank expression of a Buddhist monk who had stumbled upon a voodoo ceremony.
It was almost noon, so naturally, the lunch buffet had been laid out. Remo noticed a sign that read LOBSTER SALAD and said, "Whoever the caterer is, he has expensive tastes. Lobster isn't cheap."
He drove past the press enclave and found a spot to pull over. They worked their way in and found that the press had been pretty much congregated around the food.
Remo grinned. "Great. We get a break at last."
They slipped into the evergreens.
Immediately, the ants once again began dropping on Remo.
He flicked them off and watched the tree branches closely for others. He spotted one. It lifted its rusty hammer of a head and seemed to regard him with flat black eyespots.
"Watch out, Little Father, that bug is about to jump you."
"He would not dare," retorted Chiun.
Chiun passed under the branch. The ant stayed where it was.
But as Remo approached, it sprang toward him. Seeing it coming, Remo ducked. It shot over his head and landed on the ground. Remo stepped on it, and that was the end of the ant.
Remo caught up with the Master of Sinanju and asked, "Why the hell don't they jump on you?"
"I told you why. Ants respect the Master of Sinanju."
"That, I don't buy."
There was another ant on a tree trunk. They passed it on the right, which meant Chiun walked between it and Remo.
As they drew near, the ant sprang across their path to light on another tree. Then it jumped at Remo.
Remo caught it with the back of his hand and batted it away. It went ticking through the evergreen leaves.
"These guys definitely have it in for me," he muttered.
They came to the Snapper's pasture.
Chiun halted abruptly. He began tasting the air with his tiny nose, his mouth tightening into a concerned knot.
"What is it, Little Father?"
"I smell death."
Remo tasted the air. It was there. The gases of decomposition, the stale stink of sweat and stagnant blood.
They advanced, making absolutely no sound despite the dry underbrush. It was as if their feet knew exactly where to plant themselves.
And in the dry weeds, they found the first dead Snappers. They seemed to have died seated in the weeds, where they had been contentedly eating thunderbugs, and simply fell backward, their legs still folded. They wore pleasant smiles on their gaunt faces.
"Looks like they died happy," Remo muttered, kneeling to feel their flesh. Warm, but cooling. "And they didn't die all that long ago," he added.
Chiun nudged a body with a sandled toe. "They died of the dunderbug disease?"
"Sure looks that way to me," said Remo. "Come on."
They found more bodies further along. They too had died sitting in the weeds eating to their heart's content.
"I guess that cinches it," Remo decided. "You eat the bugs raw and you die. It just takes a little longer to get some people."
They crossed the Schism Line to the Happy Harvester Hunting Grounds. There, the Harvesters were gathering thunderbugs, of which there seemed an inexhaustible supply, and dropping them into the simmering communal pot.
"Anybody know where Theodore is?" Remo called.
"Sometimes he flies with the eagles, and can be seen wheeling in the sky above," a buckskin-clad blond girl called back.
Chiun looked up and said, "I see only crows."
"Theodore Soars-With-Eagles would not be caught dead flying with crows," the blonde said unconcernedly.
"That was my guess," said Remo.
"Therefore, he must be in his wigwam, thinking wise thoughts," she added.
"I'd bet on the former, but I have doubts about the latter."
They found Theodore Soars-With-Eagles in his tepee, his warbonnet and toupee askew. They seemed to be of one piece. He had collapsed in a seated position, and only the tepee wall kept his balding head from slipping to the grass floor.
His eyes were rolled up in his head, and the whites were blue.
"Remo!" squeaked Chiun. "Look at his eyes!"
"I see them. They're all blue."