"I can see there isn't much use talking to you about this tonight," Stacy said. He looked elaborately at his watch. "I have something important to see to tonight, so if you'll excuse me..."

Stacy stood up and walked toward the door. As he passed Brack, he said, "I want you in my office at eight o'clock in the morning — sharp."

"What?"

"You heard me. Eight o'clock sharp." His voice had a razor's edge in it. "Do you understand?"

Brack swallowed, then nodded.

"Oh, and one other thing," Stacy said.

"What's that?" asked Brack, not even bothering to keep the contempt out of his voice.

"I think I should have you examined by a second doctor. I want to make sure that wound's as bad as it's supposed to be. The company is tough on malingerers."

He didn't wait for a reply. As soon as he finished speaking he pulled the door shut behind him.

Brack jumped to his feet and stared at the door. "Malingerer," he said. "That bastard... that..." He started for the door.

Joey called to him softly, "Oscar." He turned to her, but she said, "Forget it. Just forget it."

"I should have left him back there in the jungle to die," Brack said. "I should have had that pilot turn his plane around and fly right the hell out of there. I never should have landed and saved his worthless life. What did I get for it? Tell me. What did I get out of it?"

Joey laughed. "Me?" she suggested.

Brack thought for a moment, then nodded. "Rights, you. Joey, you make it worthwhile."

He sank back into the chair and Joey returned to sit on the bed.

"I've been thinking," she said, "about this Remo O'Sylvan."

"Yes?"

"When I came in here, I was all steamed up that the government had just sent someone to bother us and mess up the project. But I'm beginning to think that there's nobody as dumb as this O'Sylvan wants us to think he is."

"Yeah, he is. He's that dumb. You heard him. The son of a ward leader."

"Nephew," she corrected.

"Nephew, son, it doesn't matter," Brack said.

"I don't think so," Joey Webb said. "But think about it. We both know that the oil people and the nuke people own a lot of the government, and both of them are trying to stop this project. Right?"

"Maybe," Brack said. "Probably. I wouldn't be surprised."

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised either if Mr. Remo O'Sylvan is somebody from the government, but who's really working for the oil companies or the nukes."

"Good theory," Brack said. "But how do you prove it?"

Joey looked at him, arched one eyebrow, threw out her chest, and very quickly thrust her tongue into her cheek, then removed it. "I'll find out," she said. "Don't you worry. I'll find out."

The mountains played tricks with the sounds, leading them up one slope and dropping them over another, bending them back and forth around crests and whipping them down valleys, and then stirring the whole thing in eddies of frosty air and sending them out into the night.

It took Remo ten minutes before he found what he was looking for, and when he did, his thin-soled black Italian loafers were still dry, even though he had traveled more than two miles over snowdrifts that were higher than his head.

In the end, it wasn't so much the sound that led him where he wanted to be, but the smell. At first he thought he was back in Times Square again or maybe on the Santa Monica Freeway, so strong was the smell of burning gasoline.

He had come tramping up a steep incline, gliding smoothly across the face of the powdery snow, hooked around a natural stone wall, and there it was: a valley, maybe a hundred yards long and twice that deep. And in the valley there was no snow, and it was not winter. Instead, grass was growing luxuriantly and a hundred trees were in full foliage.

Warming the valley, creating its artificial summer, and filling the air with stench and noise were what looked like nine vastly oversized gasoline heaters, each a 15-foot-square box that burned fuel at a blue-white heat and, through connected fans and ducts, blew the warm air down into the valley.

Remo stopped to study what lay beside him, scratching his head and twisting it from side to side at the same time. Whatever it was, it looked impressive. Then he sensed something.

"You are slow," the voice beside him said. "I have been waiting here for you for hours. And your feet are wet again. I have told you about that before."

"I'm sorry I took so long, Little Father," Remo said, "and my feet are dry."

"We will not quibble over small things," Chiun said. "Did you come here to comfort me before I freeze to death while you are spending your time in comfort before a warm fire?"

"Sorry about that," said Remo. "It's your choice after all."

"Sorry. Sorry. That is all you say. Sorry you are late. Sorry your feet are wet..."

"They're dry," Remo said.

"Sorry. Yes. You are a very sorry person. And sorriest of all he would be who would not let the Master bring his few meager possessions so that I might not have to spend my time in these mountains like the wild deer or bear or camel."

"No camels up here," Remo said.

"What do you know of camels? Nothing. I will tell you. You know nothing of camels. As you know nothing of responsibility, and so I am forced to face the elements here alone."

"Chiun, thirteen steamer trunks just wouldn't hack it," said Remo.

"Why hot?"

"You're supposed to be a wise and gentle, old religious man..."

"It sounds exactly like me," Chiun said.

"...who's up here on a spiritual retreat. Remember? You told Smith that once every ten years or so you have to commune with nature?"

"Correct. Get to the point if you have one."

"Little Father, saintly men do not take thirteen lacquered chests of Cinzano ashtrays and stolen restaurant napkins with them when they go into the mountains to meditate."

He looked at Chiun, who stood leaning against a tree, arms folded impassively, and looking down at the full blooming winter trees in the artificially warmed valley.

"Remo, there is one thing I don't understand," Chiun said, staring down at the trees.

"Yes?"

"I have tried to insulate you from the world, as much for the world's protection as for yours. So where do you learn all this nonsense?"

"What? About thirteen steamer trunks?" Remo said. "They're not filled with stolen ashtrays and napkins and matchbooks?"

"They are filled with personal treasures that do not concern you. But nowhere does it say that one cannot meditate without being miserable and cold. Maybe Chinese believe that, maybe monkey-faced Japanese; they believe anything. But how did these stupid ideas come to infect you?"

"I guess I'm a disappointment to you."

"You certainly are."

"I'll try to make it up to you."

"It's too late now," Chiun said.

They stood in silence, both looking down at the valley.

"These are those copa-iba trees, I guess," Remo said.

"They do not look like any Korean tree I ever saw," Chiun said.

"One of us has to stay here and watch them," Remo said.

"Perhaps if I had just one of my trunks, I would be able to do that," Chiun said. "But I have nothing except the clothes on my back. And besides, somebody is already watching them."

"Who? Where?"

"There is some big clod wandering around out there," Chiun said softly. He waved his hand toward the lip of the valley to their left. "I have heard him splashing around."

And then the fires went out. The roaring died. For a moment the hills were filled with the echoes of the dying flames, and then there was only the sound of the giant fans now blowing cold air onto the giant copa-ibas. Then that sound, too, died away, and the only sound left was that of the mountain wind.