"Never once do I mention the Constitution and how we all work outside the Constitution so that everybody else can live inside it. How we break it so we can fix it." He gave Smith a sly grin. "Although I must confess that once I thought I might use that in my novel, but I realized no one would believe it. It is just too ridiculous to be believable."
"It still sounds a great deal like us," Smith said. "At least on a superficial level."
"You need not worry yourself about that, Emperor. The publisher has recommended certain changes which will dispel your fears. That is what I occupy myself with while Remo is away."
"What kind of changes?" Smith asked.
"Just a few. Everybody loves my manuscript. I just have to make a few changes for Bipsey Boopenberg in Binding and Dudley Sturdley in Accounting."
"What kind of changes?" Smith persisted.
"They assure me if I make these changes that I will become a big star and my book a best-seller. The Needle's Eye by Chiun. I have to change the Oriental assassin into a Nazi spy. The white trainee has to go. In place of the secret organization in America, I have to have Nazi spies in England. And set it in World War II. And I have to have a woman who will save the world from destruction at the hands of that lunatic with the funny mustache. This is all they wanted changed. And then I will be rich."
"You are already rich, Master, in the things that count."
"And you are always kind, Emperor. But there is an old saying in Sinanju. Kindness can warm a soul but it cannot fill an empty belly."
Smith decided to drop the subject of Chiun's novel because he felt a con job coming on to raise Chiun's fees for training Remo. And besides, Chiun was always writing and never publishing, and there was no reason to think this book's fate would be any different.
And maybe none of it would matter anyway. Why worry about it today when it was possible that tomorrow, or just a few tomorrows away, none of them might be alive to worry about anything.
"I understand," Smith said simply. "Master, I come to speak to you about a matter of great importance."
"As important as my novel?" Chiun asked.
"Yes."
"Name your request, sire. It will be done," Chiun said.
"I'm glad you feel that way, Chiun. May I sit down?"
Chiun waved a hand airily toward the sofa. "Please. Be comfortable." He liked the gesture with his hand and repeated it. It would be the gesture he used when he was being interviewed by Time magazine for a cover story. Chiun, Great New Author. He would wave the reporter to a seat with just that gesture, elegant and imperious, but also inviting. He would serve tea to reporters. And read them Ung poetry to show them that his was the soul of a true artist. And he would keep Remo away from them because Remo was impossible, incapable of even the simplest civility, and he would certainly alienate the press. Or, at the very least, he would wind up insinuating himself into the story. Chiun had had enough of people thinking that Remo was important when anyone with any sense should know that Chiun was the important one.
Quietly, to himself, he wondered what Smith was upset about now. His face was so long, his chin seemed to be searching for his shoes. What was it about white men, Americans particularly, that they always thought everything was the end of the world? When the world had gone on and would go on for ages beyond counting? He told himself to humor Smith, as usual, and get rid of him as soon as he could so he could get back to his rewriting.
"What weighs so heavily on your spirit?" Chiun asked.
"You remember when you first came to provide services to us?" Smith asked.
"Indeed I do," Chiun said. "You have never missed a payment, small though they may be."
"Your primary mission was to train Remo as our enforcement arm."
"Assassin. I was to make him your assassin," Chiun corrected.
"Yes," Smith said.
"You should not give a wonderful thing an awful name. Enforcement arm is a terrible name," Chiun said. He realized he was being very helpful to Smith, much more so than the man deserved. When he tried to advertise in the future for someone to replace Remo, what kind of people would he be likely to get if he advertised for "an enforcement arm"? But advertising for an assassin would bring the best minds, the highest and most noble thinkers of the world to Smith's court. So Chiun felt good about offering Smith this advice without any charge. Occasionally, it was good policy to do a favor for your emperor, just to remind him how much he truly relied on your wisdom and judgment.
"You have lived up to your end of the contract nobly," Smith said. "Your training of Remo has exceeded even what we hoped for from you."
"He is white. I have done the best I could, to overcome that handicap," Chiun said graciously.
"There was another part to the contract," Smith said in a low flat voice.
"Yes?"
"It was your promise that should the day ever come when Remo could not be used anymore by us, that you would-- you would remove him for us."
Chiun sat silently. Smith saw consternation on the old man's face.
Finally, Chiun said, "Go on."
"The time has come. Remo must be removed."
"What is your reason for this, Emperor?" Chiun asked slowly.
"It is complicated," Smith said. "But if Remo is allowed to live, the world may face a nuclear war."
"Oh, that," said Chiun, dismissing it with the raising of his eyebrows.
"Hundreds of millions will die," Smith intoned solemnly.
"Don't worry, Emperor. Remo and I will let nothing happen to you."
"Chiun, it's not me. It's the whole world. The whole world may explode. Remo must die."
"And I? I am supposed to kill him?" Chiun asked.
"Yes. It is your obligation under your contract."
"And this is so that we can save the lives of some millions of people?" Chiun said.
"Yes."
"Do you know anything about these millions of people?" Chiun asked.
"I--"
"No, you do not," Chiun said. "Well, I will tell you about them. Many of them are old and ready to die anyway. Most of them are ugly. Especially if they are white. Even more of them are stupid. Why sacrifice Remo for all these people we do not know? He is not much, but he is something. All those others, they are nothing."
"Chiun, I know how you feel, but--"
"You know nothing of how I feel," Chiun said. "I took Remo from nothing and now I have made of him something. In only ten more years of training, we could both be very proud of him. And now you are saying, Chiun, all the time you have spent on him is wasted and to be thrown away because somebody is going to blow up a lot of fat people. I understand the ways of emperors but this is rudeness beyond measure."
"We are talking about the end of the world," Smith huffed.