"Little Father," said Remo, "in a furnace you would
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not sweat, and buried in a glacier you would not shiver. Tell the truth. You missed me."
"Once I had a sore inside my mouth," Chiun said. "I had it for many months. Then one day, it healed and was gone. I tried to touch it with my tongue, but it was not there. So, if I could be said to have missed that sore in my mouth, yes, I suppose I miss you."
"Come on inside," Remo said.
"You are not much, but you are all I have," Chiun said in Korean.
"The apple rots in the shade of its own tree," Remo responded in Korean.
"Aaaaaa-choooao!"
The sound came like an explosion from behind them. Remo turned to see Joey Webb standing in her bare feet, legs uncovered, in the doorway to the lodge. Remo could see the tiny white flecks already starting to form on her toes and the goosebumps rising on her inner thighs. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if it would be possible to find pleasure there, but the image of the girl's guardian—dour, sour-looking Harold W. Smith, standing over the girl—loomed in his mind like an impassable chastity belt, and the spell of her cold, smooth skin melted away.
"You'll catch cold if you keep standing there half-naked," Remo said. "Go back inside."
"I heard you talking to that man," Joey said.
"So?"
"You weren't speaking English."
"You're very perceptive," Remo said.
Chiun was on his feet and moving past the young woman into the lodge.
She said to Remo, "What language was that?"
"Chinese," Remo said.
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"Korean," Chiun said from inside the lodge. "Chinese is a barbaric tongue, fit only for politicians and pig traders. It has no beauty, no style. No poet has ever been able to write anything worthwhile in it. They write thirteen-syllable poems. This is because thirteen syllables is the absolute most anyone can stand without throwing up."
The three of them were now in the main room of the lodge. Remo closed the door. Joey seemed suddenly aware of the amount of flesh she was showing, because she sat down in a chair and pulled her shirt forward, like a tent, to cover her legs. She looked from Chiun to Remo, then back again.
"You speak Kopean?" she asked Remo.
Remedid not answer.
Chiun said, "No. I speak Korean. Remo grunts replies, usually wrong."
"Let's get some sleep," Remo said.
"Not until you tell me just who you are," Joey said. "You owe it to me."
"Sure. I owe it to you."
Remo turned toward Chiun, who was warming his hands in front of the fireplace.
Chiun began to unroll his fiber sleeping mat and spread it in front of the fireplace. Remo was walking toward his bedroom door. He heard the outside door swing open, then bang shut. Dear god, what now? He turned to confront six-foot-six of cold, wet, and angry-to-the-marrow lumberjack standing inside the main room.
"You," Pierre LaRue bellowed, pointing a thick, hairy index finger at Remo. "You."
"That's right," Remo said. "I'm me."
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Chiun continued unrolling his mat and smoothing it out. LaRue was in his way.
Chiun brushed him aside. "Excuse me, please," he said. "I need my sleep."
LaRue looked down at the tiny figure and said, "Sure. I understand. I help you with that?"
"No, thank you," Chiun said.
LaRue started to talk to Remo again, then changed his mind, and squatted down on the floor next to Chiun.
"Tell me something, old man. Who is this person?"
"My student," Chiun said. "The burden I bear in life."
"What is he doing here?"
"It was ordered by the emperor," Chiun said. He had finished smoothing out the bedroll.
"Emperor?" LaRue scratched his head. "What emperor?"
"Emperor- Smith," said Chiun.
"Who he?" LaRue asked. "What is he emperor of?"
"The United States, of course. What else would he be emperor of?" Chiun demanded.
LaRue stood up and shrugged in puzzlement.
"What's this all about, Pierre?" Joey asked.
"This man," he said, pointing to Remo, "he put me in a tree. And those two dead people, I think he do it."
Remo shook his head. "A tragic accident. They shot themselves, I told you."