"If you go, I'll go," Remo said.
"Well, nobody's going without me," Lizzie laughed as she tried to keep her balance on the shifting earth.
"Okay, everybody in," Remo commanded, when they reached the temple. "Might as well give this thing another try." He helped Lizzie into the pod. Imperiously, Chiun followed her in.
"You too, squirt," Remo said to the boy.
Po looked over his shoulder. Footsteps were approaching. Nata-Ah appeared, holding a length of cotton bandage in her hands. Her face fell at the sight of the new gods preparing to depart.
"I cannot go," the boy said awkwardly. "Someone must remain to rebuild the city—"
"For God's sake, that'll take years," Remo said.
"I have years," the boy said quietly. "I have my whole life."
"Now, I can't let you—"
"Please," Po said. "I belong here now, as I never belonged in my own time. I have come to the end of my journey. As my father predicted, I have walked with the gods, and spoken for them. Now it is time for the gods to go. Let them leave behind their voice."
He limped to the doorway of the time module and bowed to Chiun. Nata-Ah was behind him.
Chiun rose, walked over to the two children, and whispered something in Po's ear. The boy nodded. Then they both bowed to Chiun and to Remo and to Lizzie with the cool authority of born rulers.
"Please enter," the boy said to Remo in a voice that sounded more like a man's than a boy's.
Remo went in.
With another bow, Po closed the door and threw the switch. "Good-bye, my friends," he called.
?Chapter Sixteen
Lizzie came to in despair. "The log," she moaned. "I forgot the damned captain's log."
"Not so fast. We may still be there," Remo said. He opened the door.
The Temple of Magic was in ruins. Outside the door to the pod lay a freshly broken vase. "Look here," Remo said, picking up the pieces. "It must have rolled out of the pod. I think we made it."
Among the shards of pottery was a small scrap of parchment, grown as fragile as an insect's wings with the years. On it was a faint message: "I love you, Dick."
Remo handed the parchment to Lizzie. "Is this all you were going to tell him?"
She smiled. "In the end, that was all there was to say."
In the outer chamber, Remo found the ancient laser weapon he had saved to take to Smith. "Everything's just the way we left it."
"Is it?" Chiun said, beckoning them back to the wreckage of the plane. In the chamber reserved for the gods' flaming chariot was a blank space. The Cassandra and everything in her was gone.
"But— we just came from there," Remo said.
Chiun held up a precautionary finger. "You forget, we left five thousand years ago. And five thousand years ago was this machine destroyed."
"Who did it?" Lizzie demanded hotly. "Who would have done such a thing?"
"The only sensible one among you. The boy. It was my last request to him before we left."
Remo stared at him in astonishment. "Do you know what you did? What's been lost?"
"What has been lost? The opportunity for others to walk yet again in the footsteps of Kukulcan, bringing their modern ways to an ancient world? Oh, they would come with good intentions, these others, just as we did. And like ourselves, they would bring confusion and violence to their land. No, Remo. It is a mistake to inflict our time on another. We have left Po as our ambassador. Trust him."
They walked outside. The overgrown jungle was back to replace the village square of Yaxbenhaltun.
You will be as dust in the wind of the sea, Remo remembered. Quintanodan's prophecy had come true; the splendor of the Maya was no more. "Do you think the Olmec won, after all? Are they still around, calling themselves the Lost Tribes?"
"We'll never know," Lizzie said. She tramped through the high grass to the east of the temple. "There's no volcano," she said. "Bocatan's gone." Something on the ground fixed her attention. "Remo, look here."
A mound of blackened, moss-covered rock protruded from the earth beside her. "This wasn't here before."
"It's just a rock."
"No," she said excitedly, scratching at the moss with her fingernails. "That's stone. Cut stone. This was built." Her eyes flashed. "Another temple, maybe. Or, better yet, a tomb. Maybe the city was reorganized after the earthquake. Oh, God, I've got to get a team together."
"How about your friend Dick Diehl?" Remo suggested. "He might be interested."
"He might," Lizzie said. "Think I could go with you as far as the first town with a telephone?"
"If you must," Chiun said.
Lizzie looked up at the old man. He was smiling.
* * *
"What am I going to tell Smitty?" Remo lamented as he and Chiun walked through the double doors of Folcroft Sanitarium. Under Remo's arm was a box marked "Fragile," which had flown with them from Guatemala City.
"Tell him the truth."
"But there's no evidence anymore. The plane's gone, the time module's gone, even Cooligan's log is gone."
Chiun tapped the box. "You have the gun."
"Yeah. And the flowers. I brought some of the white flowers."
Smith opened the box and sifted through a pile of greenish metallic powder covering some rotting greens. "What is this supposed to be?"
Remo looked inside. The weapon had disintegrated during the flight. "It used to be a laser gun," Remo said, feeling foolish as he spoke. "We found them, just the way Dr. Diehl described..."
"This isn't funny, Remo," Smith said acidly. "Now, I realize that you may have cause to feel angry, but this sort of practical joke goes far beyond the limits of good taste. This could have been a matter of national security, and I'm sure that when you're calm you'll realize that not every assignment turns out to be terribly interesting. Nevertheless—"