She tried to run but felt a strong reassuring hand on her arm.
It was Remo.
"There's nowhere to run," he said.
"Let me go."
"You can't run. Those are bombs going off. The whole temple's a bomb. Look." And he pointed and she followed his finger and then saw the packages strapped to the pillars where .they joined the graceful dome of the roof.
She felt Remo pull her toward the ground. His finger touched an inlaid tile.
"This is a bomb too," he said. "There are nothing but bombs here. We're in the middle of a bomb."
"Oh, no," moaned Terri. She began to shake.
"It's all right, kid," Remo said. "They're not going to kill you."
"How do you know?"
"You'd have been dead by now," Remo said.
"The bombs were obvious from the beginning," Chiun said.
"Then why did we walk in here?"
"I didn't know who they were for," Chiun said. "It was obvious they were not part of the temple. Look at the strapping. Look at the packages. See how clean the lines are."
"Good taste," said Remo.
"Probably Japanese," Chiun said.
"Definitely not Indian," Remo said.
"It's in good taste," Chiun agreed.
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"Definitely not Indian," Remo said.
"They're going to kill us and you're talking about design," Terri screamed.
"If we're going to die, it's not going to hurt us to talk about design."
"Do something," shouted Terri and Remo obligingly did a little tap dance and sang two bars from "Once Upon a Blue River, Darling."
Not to be outdone, Chiun recited a stanza of Ung poetry.
"That's not what I want you to do," Terri yelled.
"Name it," said Remo.
"Get us out of here," Terri said.
"We could get out but you can't," said Remo. "Look at the windows and doors. Do you see those beautiful square lattices that look like borders?"
Terri nodded.
"Bombs," said Remo. "We could get out fast enough but not you."
"You've got to protect me."
"And we are."
"Then do something," she said.
"We are," Remo said.
"You're doing nothing. You're just standing there."
"We're waiting," Remo said.
"For what?"
"For what is going to come, my dear," said Chiun and suddenly there were voices in the temple. It was one voice but because of the echoes it sounded like many. It said:
"I can kill you any time. Watch."
Suddenly Terri's ears ached from two concussions.
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"That is an example," the voice said. "You are in a bomb I have constructed. Resistance is useless."
"See. I told you we were in a bomb," Remo said. "Whole place is a bomb."
"Oh, no," sobbed Terri.
"Send the woman out to me or you will all die," said the voice.
"What should I do?" whined Terri.
"You could die honorably with us," said Remo, "or you could run for your life."
"I don't want to leave you," said Terri. "But I don't want to die either."
"Then go."
"I'll stay," she said.
"No, go. Don't worry about us."
"Will you be all right?" she asked.
"Sure. Go," said Remo.
"I hate to leave you, Chiun," she said.
"Ahhh, to see beauty as one's last sight is but a pleasant way to pay the debt of death that is owed from one's birth."
"You're so beautiful," said Terri. "And you, Remo, if only you weren't so hostile."
"So long, kid," Remo said. "See you around."
Terri stumbled from the temple, holding her head, shielding her weeping eyes from the bright sun. She walked past the pools, following the sound of a voice that told her to keep moving.
The voice kept repeating that when Terri came just over the little hillock facing the temple, the two inside the temple would be released unharmed.
Terri stumbled from the temple gardens and sobbed her way beyond a little hill, where a fat Oriental with a square face, wearing a blue suit,..
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sat in front of a little computer built into an attache case.
"Dr. Pomfret?" he said.
"Yes."
"I have receivers in the temple that capture and magnify my voice. They are smaller than a pencil dot."
Hamamota picked up a tiny microphone, no larger than a thumbnail, and into it he spoke.
"Now you die, Melican dogs."
The temple of the goddess Gint went up in a mountain of pink plaster and spraying jewels. The earth shook. Terri felt her ears grow numb. The pink plaster of the temple was still coming down over the outskirts of Bombay when Terri finally got herself to look over the little hillock. Where Remo and Chiun had been was now only a large, smoldering hole. They were dead.
Then she thought she heard them arguing from the Beyond. The voices came through the buzzing in her ears.
"He called me an American," said Chiun.
"No. He called you a Melican," said Remo.
"That's how they pronounce American," Chiun said.
"So?"
"Would you like to be called a boy when you are a man?" said Chiun's voice from the Beyond.
"There's no comparison," said Remo's voice in Heaven.
"It is bad enough being called a Chinaman. But to be called an American. That means I have those funny eyes, that sickly skin, that awful odor about the body. It means that I am of European stock,
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and therefore, somehow related to the French. That is beyond degradation."
"I'm white," Terri heard Remo's voice say.
"And don't think that has been easy on me," said Chiun.
"And I am very proud to be an American," Remo said.
"Compared to being French, why not?" said Chiun.
Terri turned around. They were alive. Unscathed. And standing behind Hamamota whose eyes were open wide with amazement. He looked first at the two and then at his little computer. He punched in several commands.
The computer immediately flashed a message back. In green luminescent letters, the computer told Hamamota: "Good for you. Once again you have succeeded. The two are dead."
Froth formed on Hamamaota's lips. His face turned red. His eyes bulged. He punched new information into the computer.
The information said: "Not dead. Standing behind me."
The computer was instantaneous in its response. "Reject inaccurate information. Please check source material."
Hamamota looked behind him again.
"Alive," he punched into the machine.
The computer answered: "All input accurate until last message. Must reject."
"How did you escape alive?" asked Terri.
But Remo and Chium were not listening to her. Chiun had seen screens like that. What he wanted to know was where was the little yellow
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face that ate the squares and the dots. He asked Hamamota.
"Not that kind of computer," the Japanese said.
"No Pac-man?" said Remo.
"Not that kind of computer. It killed you. Why are you not dead?"
"Does it do horoscopes?" asked Remo.
"I am a Leo," said Chiun. "That's the best sign. Remo is a Virgo. He doesn't know that but I do. He couldn't help that anymore than he could help being white."
"You dead," yelled Hamamota angrily. "Why you not dead? Why you standing here?"
"Maybe it has Missile Command?" said Remo. "Where's the joystick for shooting missiles?"
"No Missile Command. This assassin computer. Best in world. Number one."
"How the world demeans glory. They have made a game of assassination. The profession of assassin is now reduced to an arcade game," Chiun said.
"You dead," yelled Hamamota.
"Does it have blackjack?" asked Remo.
"You bombed," said Hamamota. "I bombed you."
"It did work the bombs, Little Father," Remo said to Chiun.
"Still a game," Chiun said.
"Heeeeeyahhhh," yelled Hamamota and leaped into a martial arts position, hissing like an animal.