"Feel better?" he inquired cheerfully.

He helped me up and I staggered to the window. The room was perched, as usual, on a hilltop, but the vegetation around was not tropical jungle. I turned to the others, noting as I did that the room was cleaned up.

"Where—" I started, with a gesture outside. Baker stopped me and led me to an improvised canvas hammock.

"You really got a nasty one," he said. "You've been out two days."

"Two days!" I tried to rise, but the effort so increased the headache that I gave up and collapsed into the hammock.

"Just lie quiet and I'll bring you up to date." Baker drew up an empty film box for a seat. "I was knocked about a bit myself, you know, and by the time I came around, our friend had trotted the whole length of the Malay Peninsula and was halfway across Burma."

"But the people at Singapore," I began, "Don't those fools know yet—"

"Things have changed," said Baker. "The biggest change has been in Buddha's mind. He took our advice and almost got killed for his pains. Now he's on his own."

I tried to look through the open door. Baker shook his head.

"He's not here. No—" this in answer to my startled look, "just off for a stroll, towards China this time, I think. Yesterday he visited Lhasa. Said it's quite a place. Talked to the Lamas in Tibetan, and they understood him. He calls it playing Buddha."

Baker got up and searched among the maps, finally finding one of southeast Asia. He spread it out before me, and placed a finger rather vaguely on the great Yunnan Plateau between Burma and China.

"We're here, somewhere. Buddha doesn't know exactly, himself. He made it to Lhasa by following the Himalayas, and watching for the Potala. I hope he'll find his way back this time—be a bit awkward for us if he doesn't."

He stepped outside and brought in some cold cooked rice and meat.

"Kazu brought us a handful of cows yesterday. They were practically mashed into hamburger. I guess you'd call this pounded steak."

I ate some of the meat and settled back to rest again. Presently I dozed off.

When I awakened it was dark and Kazu was back. Martin had started a big campfire outside, evidently with Kazu's aid, for it was stoked with several logs fully eight feet in diameter and was sending flames fifty feet into the sky. Kazu himself was squatting directly over it, staring down at us. When I came to the door, he spoke.

"Ah, little brother Bill. I am so sorry that you were hurt. I am afraid I forgot to be gentle, and that is not forgiveable in Buddha."

I made an appropriate reply, and then waited. Evidently he had as yet told nothing of his day's expedition. Finally he plucked a roasted bullock from the fire and popped it into his mouth like a nut.

"Today," he said, "I visit Chungking, Nanking, Peking. I think I see hundred million Chinese. I know more than that see me. Also I talk to them. They understand, for miles. They expected me. As you say, brother Llewelyn, Rau has excellent propaganda machine. Everywhere they hail me as Buddha, come to save them from war and disease and western imperialism. I speak to them as Buddha; today, I am Buddha."

Baker glanced at us meaningfully and murmured, "I was afraid of this." But Kazu continued.

"Today all of China believes I am Buddha. Only you and I know this is not so, but we can fight best if they believe."

"Have you eaten?" inquired Martin. Kazu nodded.

"At every temple they collect rice for Buddha. Many small meals make full belly. But," his face wrinkled with concern, "many thousands could live on what I eat today. China is so poor. So many people, so little food. I must find ways to help them." He paused, and then resumed in a firmer tone.

"But not in communist way. Rau was right about western imperialists, but he named wrong country. Russian imperialists have enslaved China. First we must drive communists from China. Then I can help."

"Amen," said Baker softly. Then, to Kazu....

"We've been trying to do just that for years. But how can you fight seven hundred million people?"

"Don't fight—lead them."

It sounded so simple, the way he said it. Well, maybe he could. But now Baker had more practical questions.

"What does the rest of the world think about all this? Have you talked to any Europeans, or heard a radio?"

Kazu shook his head. "But I caught communist General. He tell me Russia sending army to capture me. He say only hope is for me to surrender, or Russian drop atom bomb on me. Then I eat him."

We must have showed our startled reaction, for Kazu laughed.

"Not much nourishment in communist. I eat him for propaganda—many people see me do it. Effect very good." He paused. "Not tasty, but symbolic meal. China is like Buddha, giant who can eat up enemies."

"What are you going to do next?" asked Baker.

"That is question. I need more information. Where is leadership in China I can trust? What will Russians do? How long for British and Americans to wake up?"

"You're not the only one asking these questions," said Baker. "But maybe you can get some answers."

The eleven crew men from the B125 came out with their hands in the air, but their expressions were more incredulous than frightened. Baker added to the unreality of the situation by his greeting, done in the best "Dr. Livingstone-I-presume" manner.

"Welcome to Camp Yunnan. Sorry we had to be so abrupt. I'm Baker, these are Chamberlin, Martin, Cady."

"I'm Faulkner," replied the leader of the Americans automatically, and then he abruptly sat down and was violently sick. We waited patiently until he could speak again.

"My God, I didn't believe it when we heard." He was talking to no-one in particular. "One minute we're flying at 450 miles per hour, the next we're picked out of the air like a—like a—"

He gave up. Kazu came into the firelight and squatted down, quite slowly. Baker introduced him.

"Colonel, I'd like you to meet Kazu Takahashi." The American arose and extended his hand, and then dropped it abruptly to his side. Kazu emitted a thunderous chuckle.

"Handshake is, I fear, formality I must always pass up, even at risk of impoliteness."

I think that the language, and particularly the phrasing, jolted the airmen even more than the actual capture. Colonel Faulkner kept shaking his head and murmuring "My God!" for several moments, and then pulled himself together. "So the story's really true after all," he finally said. "We got it on the radio day before yesterday at Manila. It was so garbled at first that nobody could make any sense. Ships reported thousand foot men wading in the ocean. New Macassar radio reported that Buddha was reincarnated, and then denied the story. Announcements of a pitched battle at Singapore, and frantic reports from every town on the peninsula. Then a statement by some Lama on Macassar that the British had kidnaped Buddha, had him hypnotized or doped, and were using him to exterminate China."

He paused and looked up at Kazu, who had bent down until his face was only a hundred feet above us.

"Part of it is true," said Baker. "There was a giant wading in the ocean. As to the rest, I fear we have caught the red radio without a script. I'll tell you the story presently, but just now there are more urgent things to do. Is your radio working?"

Faulkner nodded and led us towards the plane. Baker continued.

"Briefly, Kazu is a mutation produced by the Hiroshima bomb. He's been groomed for twenty years to take over as the world's largest puppet, but it turns out he has a mind of his own. We just happened along, and are going on for the ride. Want to join the party?"

The Colonel grinned for the first time as we all squeezed into the radio compartment of the plane.

"I like travel," he said. "It's so broadening."

The radio was not only operative, but proved most informative as well. Every transmitter on earth, it seemed, was talking about the giant. In the course of an hour we listened to a dozen major stations and got as many versions of the story. The communist propaganda factory had obviously been caught flat footed, for their broadcasts were a hopeless mixture of releases evidently prepared for the planned introduction of Buddha to the world, and hastily assembled diatribes against the capitalist imperialists who had so foully captured him. Some of the Russians apparently were not in on the secret of Buddha's dimensions, for they described in detail how a raiding party of eighty American commando-gangsters had landed by parachute on Yat, seized Buddha, and taken him away in a seaplane.

Before we went to sleep that night, Kazu extinguished the fire so that no one else would be attracted as the Colonel had been.

"If you will enter your airplane and start jets," he said, "Buddha will serve as launching mechanism."

Before the takeoff, the Colonel transferred his spare radio gear to our box, along with an auxiliary generator, and we agreed on a schedule to keep in touch. Then Kazu gently picked up the bomber, raised it high above his head and sent it gliding off to the north. The engines coughed a couple of times and then caught with a roar. Colonel Faulkner wagged his wings and vanished into the haze.

Our plan was to follow the plane east to the Wu River, and then north to its meeting with the Yangtze, which occurs some seventy five miles below Chungking. While the B125 cruised around us in a great circle, we loaded our belongings into the box, and Kazu picked us up and signalled the plane that we were ready. Colonel Faulkner's intention had been to circle us rather than leave us behind with his superior speed, but in a moment it became clear that this would not be necessary. Kazu set off down the canyon at a pace better than three hundred miles per hour, and the Colonel had to gun his motors to keep up.

We passed only a few small towns on the Wu. Kazu had been here before, and had evidently stopped to talk and make friends, for we observed none of the fright which had formerly greeted his advent. Instead, crowds ran out to meet us, waving the forbidden Nationalist flag and shooting off firecrackers. Kazu spoke briefly in Cantonese to each group, and then hurried on. Baker explained that he was giving them formal blessings, in the name of Buddha.

An hour's time brought us to Fowchow, on the mighty Yangtze Kiang. Here Kazu turned left, wading in the stream, and negotiated the seventy odd miles to Chungking in fifteen minutes.

The distance from Chungking to Hankow is somewhat more than five hundred miles. For much of this distance the Yangtze is bounded by mountains and rocky gorges, but in the final 150 miles, the hills drop away and the river winds slowly through China's lake country. Kazu made good time in the gorge, but his feet sank a hundred feet into the soft alluvial soil of the lowlands and he had constantly to watch out for villages and farms.

Buddha had not visited Hankow before, but he was expected. Even before the city came into view, the roads were lined with people and the canals and lakes jammed with sampans. Just outside of the city we noticed a small group of men in military uniform under a white flag. We guessed that they represented the communist city government, and so did Kazu, for he set our box beside the group and ordered the spokesman to come in for a parlay. The unfortunate officer who was picked obviously did not relish the idea, particularly after Martin cracked in English, "He doesn't look fat enough." Giving Martin a glare, he drew himself up stiffly and said, "General Soo prepared to die, if necessary for people of China."

The communist General showed somewhat less bravado after the stomach turning ascent to the six hundred foot level, but he managed to get off a speech in answer to Kazu's question. As before, Baker gave us a running translation.

"He says welcome to Hankow. The people's government, ever responsive to the will of the citizens, joins with all faithful Buddhists in welcoming Buddha, and in expressing heartfelt thanksgiving that rumors claiming Buddha to be a puppet of western imperialists are all false. Now he's saying that there is to be a big party—a banquet—for Buddha, in the central square. Rice has been collected and cooked, and a thousand sheep slaughtered to feed hungry Buddha."

Kazu replied formally that while he appreciated the hospitality of the people of Hankow, he could not accept food from the enemies of China. These words, which were clearly audible to the entire city, were greeted with cheers by the throng below. The General took this in, thought about it a moment, and then made a neat about face.

"General Soo," said he stoutly, "was communist when he believed communism only hope for China. You have changed everything. General Soo now faithful Buddhist!"

"May I," said Baker with a grin, "be the first to congratulate General Soo on his perspicacity."

For the most part the civil government of Hankow joined with General Soo in a loudly declared conversion to Buddhism without communist trappings. In spite of Baker's skepticism, I believed that most of them were quite sincere. At least, they sincerely wanted to be on the side with the most power, and for the time being at least, Kazu seemed an easy winner. General Soo, in particular, insisted on making a long speech in which he declared the Russians to be the true "western imperialists", now unmasked, who since the days of the first Stalin had sought to enslave China with lies and trickery. Baker shook his head over this, and privately opined that Soo was a very poor fence straddler: such remarks went beyond the needs of expediency, and would probably completely alienate him from the Kremlin. However, the crowd thought it was all fine.

Kazu replied with a short, and generally well planned statement of his policy.

"Those who follow me," he concluded, "have no easy path. They must be strong, to throw off the yoke of those who would enslave them, but they must be merciful to their enemies in defeat, even to those who but a moment before were at their throats. For though we win the war, if we at the same time forget what we have fought for, then we have indeed lost all. I proclaim to all China, and to her enemies both within and without our borders, that the faith of Buddha has returned, and that interference in China's affairs by any other nation will not be tolerated."

Colonel Faulkner had landed at the Hankow airport and now, with his crew, shared our private banquet on the terrace of the city's largest hotel, only a few hundred feet from where Kazu squatted. Under cover of the cheering and speechmaking, he relayed to us some news which he had heard on the radio, which was not quite so rosy.

It seemed, first, that the Chinese III Army, under General Wu, had declared itself for Buddha, and was engaged in a pitched battle with the Manchurian First Army north of Tientsin. The communist garrison at Shanghai, where there was a large population of Russian "colonists", had holed in, awaiting attack by a Buddhist Peoples Army assembled from revolting elements of the II and VII Corps at Nanking. A revolt at Canton, far to the south, had been put down by the communists with the aid of air support coming directly from Russia. The most ominous note, however, was a veiled threat by old Mao himself that if mutinous elements did not submit, he might call upon his great ally to the east to use the atomic bomb. Mao spoke apparently from near Peking, where he was assembling the I and V Armies.

We digested this news while Kazu finished the last of his 1000 sheep. We all cast anxious glances into the sky. Soviet planes at Canton meant that they could be here also, and Buddha, squatting in a glare of light in the midst of Hankow, was a sitting duck for a bombing attack.

As soon as the main part of the formalities were over, Baker managed to get Kazu's attention, and informed him of the situation. Kazu's reaction was immediate and to the point.

"We do not await attack. We go north to free our brothers, and to instruct our errant General Mao in Buddha's truth."

By the time we were packed and in our travelling box, the time was eight-thirty. Reference to our map showed the airline distance from Hankow to Peking to be about 630 miles, and Buddha, greatly refreshed by the food and rest, promised to reach the capital by eleven.

To make walking easier, Baker plotted a route which avoided the lowlands, particularly the valley of the Yellow River, in favor of a slightly longer course through the mountains to the east. We started northwest, splashing through the swamps and lakes around Hankow at first, and presently reached firmer ground in the Hawiyang Shan. We followed the ridge of these mountains for a time, and then dropped to the hilly country of Honan Province. At first the night was very dark, but presently the light of a waning moon made an occasional fix possible, although navigation was confusing and uncertain at best.

We splashed across the Yellow River at ten o'clock, somewhere east of Kaifeng, and for a time were greatly slowed by what appeared to be thick gumbo.

Our speed improved once we got up into the rugged Taihang Mountains. Here also we felt safer from air observation or attack, although Kazu was soon panting from the exertion of crossing an endless succession of fifteen to thirty foot ridges. This was indeed rough country, terrain which had protected the lush plains of China for centuries against the Mongols. Here the great wall had been built, and presently, in the moonlight, we saw its trace, winding serpentlike over the mountains.

We followed the Wall for almost two hundred miles—all the way, in fact, to the latitude of Peking—before we swung east again for the final lap to Mao's capital.

We were scarcely halfway from the edge of the city to the moated summer palace when a small hell of gunfire broke out around Kazu's feet. He jumped, with a roar of pain, and then lashed out with one foot, sweeping away a whole city block and demolishing the ambush. Limping slightly, he made the remaining distance by a less direct route and at last stood at the moat before the palace. The ancient building, and, indeed, everything about, was quite dark. Kazu peered about uncertainly, and then raised our box to ask for advice. Baker was pessimistic.

"I don't think you'll find General Mao here. But at this stage of things, I don't believe it would matter if you did. The decision will be made tomorrow by the armies."

Kazu stepped carefully over the moat and wall, and sat down wearily in the gardens of the summer palace. We peered with interest at the foliage, marble bridges and the graceful buildings, illuminated only by ghostly moonlight. With Kazu squatting among them, they looked like models, a toy village out of ancient China. I wished that a picture might be taken, for surely never before had Buddha been in so appropriate a setting.

While Kazu rested, we examined his feet. A number of machine gun bullets had entered his foot thick hide, and there was one wound a yard long from which oozed a sticky gelatinous blood. There did not appear to be any serious damage, although the chances of infection worried us. In any event, there was nothing we could do except douse it with buckets of water from the moat. Kazu thanked us formally, as befitted a deity, and added, as though talking to himself,

"Now is the most difficult time. How can I bring peace without the use of violence? I can appear before these armies and command them to stop. But what if they do not obey? Should I use force? Oh, that I were really the Great Lord Buddha—then I would have the wisdom, the knowledge that is a thousand times more potent than giant size. Oh Buddha, grant me wisdom, if only for a moment, that I may act rightly."

Presently the giant stretched out full length in the garden and, while we kept guard, slept for a time.

The first pale glow of dawn appeared soon after five, and we were preparing to awaken Kazu when Martin held up a warning hand. We listened. At first we heard nothing, and then there came a deep drone of jets. Not a single plane, not even a squadron. Nothing less than a great fleet of heavy aircraft was approaching Peking from the west. Baker fired his automatic repeatedly near Kazu's ear, and presently his rumbly breathing changed and he opened his eyes.

"Planes," said Baker briefly. "It's not safe here. Better get moving."

Kazu sat up, yawning, and we climbed into the box. The giant took a long draught from the nearest fishpond and tied our cage to his neck and shoulder so that both of his hands would be free.

By this time the noise of the planes had increased to a roar, which echoed through the silent city. Kazu arose to his full height and waited. A pinkish line of light had now appeared along the eastern horizon which, I realized with consternation, must silhouette the mighty tower of Kazu's body to whomever was coming out of the western shadows.

"What's the matter with the fool," yelled Martin. But now Baker seemed to get Kazu's idea.

"It has barometric fusing—it's set to detonate at a certain altitude. If that's below a thousand feet, and Kazu can catch it, it won't go off!"

Martin started something about detonation at two thousand feet, when Kazu gave a slight jump and his hand closed about the deadly thing, as though he had caught a fly. We cowered, expecting the flash that would mean the end, but nothing happened. In Kazu's crushing grip the firing mechanism was reduced to wreckage before it could act. When Buddha opened his palm, it contained only a wad of crumpled metal inside of which was a now harmless sphere of plutonium.

In quick succession Kazu repeated this performance with the other two bombs, wadded the whole together and flung it to the ground. Then he turned to the north.

By the time we had cleared the city, it was quite light, and we could see a dark pall of smoke in the northeast. The armies which had been poised last night had finally met, and a great battle was underway. Kazu hurried towards it, and presently we could hear the crackle of small arms fire and the heavier explosions of mortars and rockets. It took a moment or so for Kazu to get his bearings. Evidently we were approaching Mao's legions from the rear. Still keeping from the roads to avoid killing anyone, Kazu advanced to near the battle line, and there stopped.

"My brothers," his voice thundered above the heaviest cannon, "my poor brothers on both sides, listen to me. Stop this killing. Stop this useless slaughter. No one can win, and all will—"

Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, a thousand times brighter than the newly appeared sun. It came from behind us, and in the terrible instant that it remained we could see Buddha's enormous shadow stretching out across the battlefield. Kazu stopped speaking and braced his shoulders for the blast. Subconsciously I was counting seconds. Four, five, six, seven—A sudden, insane hope gripped me. If we were far enough from the burst—and then the blast hit us, and with it, the sound. Kazu pitched forward a hundred yards, and stumbled on as far again. Then he recovered. One hand reached behind him, to the back that had taken the full brunt of heat and gamma radiation, and a half animal cry escaped from his lips. Over his shoulder we got a glimpse of the fireball, of the fountain of color which would presently form the terrible mushroom cloud. The thunder of the explosion reverberated, and was replaced by silence. The crackle of rifles, the thud of field pieces had ceased. From our perch we looked down at a scene straight from Dante's Inferno. About Kazu's feet was a shallow ravine in which a thousand or so communist troops had taken cover. These were now scrambling and clawing at the sides like ants trying to get away. Vehicles were abandoned, rifles thrown away. A few had been burned, but it seemed that for the most part the soldiers had been sheltered from direct radiation by the wall of their canyon, and by Kazu's great shadow.

For an eternity, it seemed, Kazu stood there, swaying slightly, one hand still pressed against his back, while the little men writhed about his ankles. Then, quite slowly, he raised one foot. I thought that he was going to walk away, but instead, the foot moved deliberately until it was directly over the ravine, and then, like a tremendous pile driver, it descended. A faint and hideous screaming came up to us, which abruptly ended. The foot came up, and again descended, turning back and forth in the yielding earth. Slowly Kazu brought his hand up, and lifted our box so that he could look at us. As he did so, I saw that half of his hand was the color of charcoal, and I smelled a horrible odor of tons of burnt flesh. Now at last he spoke, in a voice that we could scarcely understand.

"Guide me," he said, "Guide me, Baker. Guide me to Moscow!"