"I don't date civilians. Sorry."
"That wasn't my question."
"Then what was your question?"
"Are you gay?"
"No!"
"Great!"
"Forget it. I don't date."
"I wasn't asking for a date."
"Good, because you weren't going to get one. Now, will you take a seat? Like I said, this is a search-and-rescue mission. If we happen upon your mystery sub en route, fine. If not, you're just so much supercargo. So kindly shoo."
Suppressing a smile, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju. "She doesn't want to date me. Isn't that great?"
Chiun nodded sagely. "It is the shark smell."
A flicker of interest crossed Remo's high-cheekboned face. "Little Father, are you telling me that eating shark acts like a female repellent?"
"It is obvious that it does, slow one."
Remo brightened. "No kidding?"
"Truly."
"All I gotta do is keep eating shark, and women will leave me alone?"
"If that is your wish..."
"It's my wish to pick my dates and not vice versa."
"Your desires are your own vice, Remo."
Chiun sat by a port and was examining the open water now. It was cold and choppy and about as inviting as open sewage.
"If you spot that sub, I got dibs on the captain," Remo remarked.
"I will allow you to dispatch him once I have flayed the meat from his bones and fed it to him," Chiun said coldly.
"You sure take your fish seriously these days."
"Have you been to the fishmonger of late?"
"You mean the supermarket. No, you've been doing food buying lately."
"They have been foisting inferior fish upon me. Mealy, unpalatable fishes the like of which I have never before heard, with names like monkfish, cusk and hagfish."
"I hear they're getting popular."
"In the newspaper they are called junk fish. I do not eat junk. I am Reigning Master of Sinanju. You may eat junk, but I will not."
"Good fish are getting scarce."
"Which is why I have prevailed upon Emperor Smith to comb the deepest seas for the sweetest fish so that I may eat as my ancestors have. Sumptuously."
"You eat better than your ancestors, and you know it, Little Father."
"I will not place junk fish into my belly. Did you know that one fishmonger attempted to convince me to eat spiny dogfish? I have never heard of dogfish. It looked suspiciously like shark."
"Dogfish is shark," Sandy called over.
"Eavesdropper," Chiun hissed. "Have you no shame?"
"You're shouting. I can't help but hear you. But what you say is true. The quality of food fish has gotten terrible since they closed Georges Bank."
"What's Georges Bank?" asked Remo.
"We just passed over it. It was the best fishery Of the East Coast. Maybe they'll reopen it in a few years, but right now it's a disaster for our fishermen. A lot were forced out of business. The government has been buying their boats and licenses. But as bad as it is here, it's worse for the Canadian fleets. They've been banned from taking cod from the Grand Banks."
"Where's that?"
"Where we're headed. It's only the richest cod fishery on the planet. It's where they had that turbot war two years ago."
"What turbot war?" asked Chiun.
"Before you answer, what's a turbot?" added Remo.
Lieutenant Sandy Heckman turned in her seat. "Turbot is another name for Greenlandic halibut. The Turbot War was between Canada and Spain."
"Never heard of it," said Remo.
"It wasn't so much a war as an international incident. Spanish fishing trawlers were taking juvenile turbot from the end of the Grand Banks called the Nose. That's where the fishery stuck out past Canada's two-hundred-mile limit into international waters. The Spanish were technically legal, but they were taking fish that swam in and out of the Canadian side of the fishery. Ottawa got pretty hot about it and sent cutters and subs to tear up the Spanish fishing nets. A serious high-seas brouhaha was brewing until the Spanish caved in and hauled up their nets. Since then it's been pretty quiet, although Canada makes a lot of noise about U.S. fishermen taking cod from the U.S. side of the Grand Banks while their own fleets are forbidden to touch them.
They seized a couple of scallopers a while back, but lost their nerve for a showdown. They're making noises about doing something about U.S. fleets taking salmon in the Pacific, but so far it's only cold Canadian air."
"No one owns the sea or the fish in them," sniffed Chiun.
"If the groundfish crisis continues, pretty soon there'll be no more fish to argue over."
Remo looked to the Master of Sinanju. "Do you know about any of this?"
"Of course. Why do you think I am hoarding fish?"