"Roote is a soldier?" Walter asked. "Was he part of the intergalactic militia?"
Chiun did not hesitate an instant. "Yes," he replied. "I seek out this powerful and evil being in order that he might face trial beyond the stars." He waved an ominous hand skyward.
"What did he do?" asked a fascinated voice.
"He is a criminal."
There were shocked gasps. "Like Khan?" Walter asked, referring to the Star Trek character.
"Of course not," Chiun replied, thinking they were talking about Genghis Khan, a figure much beloved in Sinanju history. "I tell you this," he intoned, raising an instructive finger, "Khan was not only a great and much maligned ruler, but he always paid on time."
The Master of Sinanju would have gone on to further extol the virtues of the bloodthirsty Mongol leader, but he noticed all at once that the wonder-filled faces of a moment before had been replaced by expressions of cold mistrust.
"I told you," Beta barked to his followers. "He's no alien. He's with the government."
All of the weapons were up now. Twenty M-16s were aimed at Chiun's chest.
Remaining as deathly still as the mountain on which they all stood, the Master of Sinanju acknowledged not a single weapon. His hazel eyes were fixed on Beta RAM.
"What do we do with him?" Walter asked nervously.
Beta glanced back across the encampment, toward the lone hut where Arthur Ford's alien was hiding.
Beta turned back to the tiny figure standing before the flickering flames. He didn't hesitate in his response.
"Kill him," Beta said, his voice cold steel. And the night erupted in automatic-weapons fire.
"THEY'RE HERE!" Arthur Ford whispered hoarsely as he ducked inside the door of Roote's shack. The private was lounging against one wall. One index finger tapped idly against the top of a spent battery, sparking a single repetitive blue shock of electricity.
"Beta's friends?" he asked with a sick smile. Ford nodded desperately. Thinking better, he began shaking his head just as frantically.
"Not both of them. Just the old one."
At that moment, gunfire erupted across the camp.
Ford twisted, startled. He was so panicked, he almost dropped his rifle.
"They're coming!" he yelled.
"Calm down," Elizu Roote insisted.
Sighing, Roote glanced up at the corrugated roof of the shed. As the many guns rattled loudly outside, Roote seemed unconcerned. Staring at the ceiling, he continued to tap, bored, against the battery.
Roote's eyes strayed down the tin walls, skipping over to Arthur Ford's intent face. He smiled. "Well, if he's so eager to meet me, by all means, let's invite him into my parlor," Elizu Roote said with an evil grin.
TWENTY SECONDS before the Camp Earthers started shooting at Chiun, Remo was having his own problems.
He had circled around to a point just above Elizu Roote's shack. Arthur Ford had just ducked inside, and Remo was about to proceed down the hill when he felt the gun barrel in his ribs.
"Get up."
Two men. Perimeter guards.
He should have sensed them. At any other time since his earliest Sinanju training, he would have. But his body had yet to counter the residual effects of Roote's attack. In focusing his senses on the building below he had opened himself up to a nearer opponent.
Remo rose dutifully to his feet, arms raised. The shack was forgotten. He drew his senses back in tight, focusing on his immediate environment.
Just the two. No more loitering in the brush. They wore grubby flannel shirts and jeans. Scraggly beards sprouted from their grimy faces. "Is this the Devil's Tower landing strip?" Remo asked innocently. "I've got to catch a bus to Melmac."
It was at that moment that the gunfire erupted in the camp below.
The men twisted, startled. Looking down into the camp, they were just able to see a flash of silver near the fires. A tiny figure seemed to be dancing among their fellow Camp Earthers. Wherever it went, bodies seemed to fall.
As quickly as their interest in the distant battle was piqued, it evaporated.
Both men felt their guns being yanked from their grimy hands. They spun back to the man they had discovered lurking above the hut of their precious alien.
Remo was tossing the M-16s into the shadows. Soaring unseen, they flew over the side of the cliff, plummeting through the empty space to the Rio Grande far below.
"Hey, what'd you do with my gun?" one man complained.
"This," Remo replied.
Grabbing a handful of grubby shirt, Remo repeated the action he'd performed with the rifle. Screaming all the way, the Camp Earther arced out over the side of the mountain and plunged through the night air. The man's cry for help ended in a distant splash.
After witnessing the fate of his companion, the second man decided to take his chances on land. Without a word to Remo, he turned and flung himself over the edge of the hill, crashing down through rock and brush until he struck the plateau below. Once he hit, he did not move again.
"My life would be a heck of a lot easier if they all did that," Remo commented as he looked down at the body.
In the distant camp, guns still blazed. Chiun could take care of himself.
Senses straining alertness, Remo began picking his careful way down the hill to the shack.
CHIUN SWIRLED through the mob of Camp Earthers, an angry silver dervish.
Guns were wrenched from their owners, tearing arms from sockets in the process. Both rifles and appendages were flung aside.
"You dare!" Chiun raged.
Two Camp Earthers leaned against a pathetic tin shed, thinking that by bracing their backs they could get a steadier shot. But although they tried to track the movements of the tiny figure who flounced and spun within their midst, they failed to score a single hit.
Chiun suddenly whirled on the two men. Framed by campfire, he was like some demon cast up from the very bowels of hell itself.
Panicked, the pair unloaded everything in their magazines. It was not enough. As bullets sang out into the dark night, Chiun flew at the two men.
As he was airborne, nary a bullet kissed a single silk kimono thread.