"Yes. You already have a large part of the puzzle if you know that much."

"Ma'am," Danny said, "I think I'll have that drink. Bourbon, if you have it."

2422, he thought while Mama Sutra spoke to the receptionist, that's even crazier than the rest of this. 2 plus 4 plus 2 plus 2. Adds up to 10. The base of the decimal system. What the h.e.l.l does that mean? Or 24 plus 22 adds up to 46. That's two times 23, the number missing in between 24 and 22. Another enigma. And 2 times 4 times 2 times 2 is, let's see, 32. Law of falling bodies. High school physics cla.s.s. 32 feet per second per second. And 32 is 23 backwards. Nuts.

Miss Mao entered with a tray. "Your drink, sir," she said softly. Danny took the gla.s.s and watched her gracefully walk back toward the door. Mao Mao is Chinese for cat, he remembered from his years in Army Intelligence, and she certainly moved like a cat. is Chinese for cat, he remembered from his years in Army Intelligence, and she certainly moved like a cat. Mao: Mao: onomatopoeia they call that. Like kids calling a dog "woof-woof." Come to think of it, that's how we got the word "wolf." Funny, I never thought of that before. Oh, the pentagram outside, and the pentagram in those old Lon Chaney Wolf Man movies. Malik's mystery mutts. Enough of that. onomatopoeia they call that. Like kids calling a dog "woof-woof." Come to think of it, that's how we got the word "wolf." Funny, I never thought of that before. Oh, the pentagram outside, and the pentagram in those old Lon Chaney Wolf Man movies. Malik's mystery mutts. Enough of that.

He took a stiff wallop of the bourbon and said, "Go ahead. Start. I'll take some more of the medicine when my mind starts crumbling."

"I'll give it to you raw," Mama Sutra said quietly. "The earth has already been invaded from outer s.p.a.ce. It is not some threat in the future, for writers to play with. It happened, a long time ago. Fifty million years ago, to be exact."

Danny took another belt of his drink. "The lloigor," he said.

"That was their generic name for themselves. There were several races of them. Shoggoths and Tcho-Tchos and Dholes and Tikis and Wendigos, for instance. They were not entirely composed of matter as we understand it, and they do not occupy s.p.a.ce and time in the concrete way that furniture does. They are not sound waves or radio waves or anything like that either, but think of them that way for a while. It's better than not having any mental picture of them at all. Did you take any physics in high school?"

"Nothing like relativity," Danny said, realizing that he was believing all this.

"Sound and light?" she asked.

"A little."

"Then you probably know two elementary experiments. Project a white light through a prism and a spectrum appears on the screen behind the prism. You've seen that?"

"Yes."

"And the experiment with a gla.s.s tube that has a thin layer of colored powder on the bottom, when you send a sound wave through it?"

"Yeah. And the wave leaves little marks at each of its valleys and you can see them in the powder." The track of the invisible wave in a visible medium.

"Very well. Now you can picture, perhaps, how the lloigor, although not made of matter as we understand it, can manifest themselves in matter, leaving traces that show, let us say, a cross section of what they really are."

Danny nodded, totally absorbed.

"From our point of view," Mama Sutra went on, "they are intolerably hideous in these manifestations. There is a reason for that. They were the source of the worst terrors experienced by the first humans. Our DNA code still carries an aversion and terror toward them, and this activates a part of our minds which the psychologist Jung called the Collective Unconscious. That is where all myth and art come from. Everything frightening, loathsome and terrible-in the folklore, in the paintings and statues, in the legends and epics of every people on earth-contains a partial image of a manifestation of the lloigor. 'As a foulness shall ye know Them,' a great Arab poet wrote."

"And they've been at war with us through all history?" Danny asked unhappily.

"Not at all. Are the stockyards at war with the cattle? It's nothing like war at all," Mama Sutra said simply.

"It's just that they own own us." us."

"I see," Danny said. "Yes, of course. I see." He looked into his empty gla.s.s dismally. "Could I have another?" he murmured.

After Miss Mao had brought him another bourbon, he took a huge swallow and slouched forward in his chair. "There's nothing we can do about it?" he asked.

"There is one group that has been trying to liberate humanity," Mama Sutra said. "But lloigor have great powers to warp and distort minds. This group is the most maligned, slandered and hated people on earth. All the evil they seek to prevent has been attributed to them. They operate in secret because otherwise they would be destroyed. Even now, the John Birch Society and various other fanatics-including an evil genius named Hagbard Celine-struggle ceaselessly to combat the group of whom I speak. They have many names, the Great White Brotherhood, the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, the Golden Dawn...usually, though they are known as the Illuminati."

"Yes!" Danny cried excitedly. "There was a whole bunch of memos about them at the scene of the crime that started this case."

"And the memos, I would wager, portrayed them in an unfavorable light?"

"Sure did," Danny agreed. "Made them seem the worst b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in history. Pardon me, ma'am." I'm getting drunk, he thought.

"That is how they are usually portrayed," Mama Sutra said sadly. "Their enemies are many, and they are few ..."

"Who are their enemies?" Danny leaned forward eagerly.

"The Cult of the Yellow Sign," Mama Sutra replied. "This is a group serving one particular lloigor called Hastur. They live in such terror of this being that they usually call him He Who Is Not To Be Named. Hastur resides in a mysterious place called Hali, which was formerly a lake but is now just desert. Hali was by a great city in the lost civilization of Carcosa. You look as if those names mean something to you?"

"Yes. They were in the notes of the professor who disappeared. The other case that I was convinced was connected with this one,"

"They have been mentioned-unwisely, I think-by certain writers, such as Bierce and Chambers and Lovecraft and Bloch and Derleth. Carcosa was located where the Gobi Desert is at present. The major cities were Hali, Mnar and Sarnath. The Cult of the Yellow Sign has managed to conceal all this rather thoroughly, although a few archeologists have published some interesting speculations about the Gobi area. Most of the evidence of a great civilization before Sumer and Egypt has been either hidden or doctored so that it seems to point to Atlantis. Actually, Atlantis never existed, but the Cult of the Yellow Sign carefully keeps the myth alive so n.o.body will discover what went on, and still goes on, in the Gobian wastelands. You see, the Cult of the Yellow Sign still goes there, on certain occasions, to worship and make certain transactions with Hastur, and with Shub Niggurath, a lloigor who is known in mystical literature as the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, and with Nyarlathotep, who appears either as a solid black man, not a Negro but black as an abyss, or else as a gigantic faceless flute player. But I repeat: you cannot understand the lloigor by these manifestations or cross sections into our s.p.a.ce-time continuum. Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Yes," Danny answered, startled by the sudden personal question.

"Take a little more of your drink. I must tell you now that your G.o.d is another manifestation of some lloigor. That is how religion began, and how the lloigor and their servants in the Cult of the Yellow Sign continue it. Have you ever had what is called a religious or mystical experience?"

"No," Danny said, embarra.s.sed.

"Good. Then your religion is just a matter of believing what you have been told and not of a personal emotional experience. All such experiences come from the lloigor, to enslave us. Revelations, visions, trances, miracles, all of it is a trap. Ordinary, normal people instinctively avoid such aberrations. Unfortunately, due to their gullibility and a concerted effort to brainwash them, they are willing to follow the witches and wizards and shamans who traffic in these matters. You see, and I urge you to take another drink right now, every religious leader in human history has been a member of the Cult of the Yellow Sign and all their efforts are devoted to hoaxing, deluding and enslaving the rest of us" every religious leader in human history has been a member of the Cult of the Yellow Sign and all their efforts are devoted to hoaxing, deluding and enslaving the rest of us"

Danny finished his gla.s.s and asked meekly, "May I have more?"

Mama Sutra buzzed for Miss Mao and said, "You're taking this part very well. People who have have had religious visions take it very poorly; they don't want to know what foul source those experiences actually came from. The lloigor, of course, can be considered G.o.ds- or demons-but it is more profitable, at this point in history, to just consider them another life form cast up by the universe, unfortunately superior to us and even more unfortunately inimical to us. You see, religion is always a matter of sacrifice, and whenever there is a sacrifice there is a victim-and also a person or ent.i.ty profiting from the sacrifice. There is no religion in the world-not one-that is not a front for the Cult of the Yellow Sign. The Cult itself, like the lloigor, is of prehuman origin. It began among the snake people of Valusia, the peninsula that is now Europe, and then spread eastward to be adopted by the first humans in Carcosa. Always the purpose of the Cult has been to serve the lloigor, at the expense of other human beings. Since the rise of the Illuminati, the Cult has also acted to combat their work and discredit them." had religious visions take it very poorly; they don't want to know what foul source those experiences actually came from. The lloigor, of course, can be considered G.o.ds- or demons-but it is more profitable, at this point in history, to just consider them another life form cast up by the universe, unfortunately superior to us and even more unfortunately inimical to us. You see, religion is always a matter of sacrifice, and whenever there is a sacrifice there is a victim-and also a person or ent.i.ty profiting from the sacrifice. There is no religion in the world-not one-that is not a front for the Cult of the Yellow Sign. The Cult itself, like the lloigor, is of prehuman origin. It began among the snake people of Valusia, the peninsula that is now Europe, and then spread eastward to be adopted by the first humans in Carcosa. Always the purpose of the Cult has been to serve the lloigor, at the expense of other human beings. Since the rise of the Illuminati, the Cult has also acted to combat their work and discredit them."

Danny was glad that Miss Mao arrived then with his third stiff bourbon. "And who are the Illuminati and what is their goal?" he asked, belting away a strong swallow.

"Their founder," Mama Sutra said, "was the first man to think rationally about the lloigor. He realized that they were not supernatural, but just another aspect of nature; not all-powerful, but just more powerful than us; and that when they came 'out of the heavens' they came from other worlds like this one. His name has come down to us in certain secret teachings and doc.u.ments. It was Ma-lik."

"Jesus," Danny said, "that's the name of the guy whose disappearance started all this."

"The name meant 'one who knows' in the Carcosan tongue. Among the Persians and some Arabs today it still exists but means 'one who leads.' His followers, the Illuminati, are those who have seen the light of reason-which is quite distinct from the stupefying and mind-destroying light in which the lloigor sometimes appear to overwhelm and mystify their servants in the Cult of the Yellow Sign. What Ma-lik sought, what the Illuminati still seek, is scientific knowledge that will surpa.s.s the powers of the lloigor, end mankind's enslavement and allow us to become self-owners instead of property."

"How large is the Illuminati?"

"Very small. I don't know the exact number." Mama Sutra sighed. "I have never been accepted for membership. Their standards are quite high. One must virtually be a walking encyclopedia to qualify for an initial interview. You must remember that this is the most dedicated, most persecuted, most secret group in the world. Everything they do, if not wiped off the records by the Cult of the Yellow Sign, is always misrepresented and pictured as malign, devious and totally evil. Indeed, any effort to be rational, to think scientifically, to discover or publish a new truth, even by those outside the Illuminati, is always pictured in those colors by the Cult and all the religions which serve as its fronts. All churches, Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist or whatever, have always opposed and persecuted science. The Cult of the Yellow Sign even fills the ma.s.s media with this propaganda. Their favorite stories are the one about the scientist who isn't fully human until he has a religious insight and recognizes 'the higher powers'-the lloigor, that is-and the other one about the scientist who seeks truth without fear and causes a disaster. 'He meddled with things man should leave alone' is always the punch line on that one. The same hatred of knowledge and glorification of superst.i.tion and ignorance permeates all human societies. How much more of this can you stand?" Mama Sutra asked abruptly.

"I don't honestly know," Danny said wearily. "It seems if I do get to the bottom of this business, it'll bring every power in this country down on my head. The least that'll happen is that I'll get kicked out of my job. More likely, I'll disappear like the man I'm looking for and the first two detectives on this case. But for my own satisfaction, I'd like to know the rest of the truth, before I bid you good day and look for a hole to hide in. You might also tell me how you can survive, knowing as much as you do."

"I have studied much. I have a Shield. I cannot explain the Shield anymore than I can explain my ESP. I only know that it works. As to answering your other questions, first tell me about your investigation. Then I will be able to relate it to the Illuminati and the Cult of the Yellow Sign."

Danny took another drink, closed his eyes for a minute and launched into his story. He began with the Marsh disappearance in Arkham four years earlier, his perusal of the missing professor's notes, his reading in the books mentioned in those notes and his conclusion that a drug cult was involved. Then he told of the Confrontation Confrontation bombing, his skimming of the Illuminati memos, the disappearance of Malik, Miss Walsh, Goodman and Muldoon, and the frantic curiosity of the FBI. "That's it," he concluded. "That's about all I know." bombing, his skimming of the Illuminati memos, the disappearance of Malik, Miss Walsh, Goodman and Muldoon, and the frantic curiosity of the FBI. "That's it," he concluded. "That's about all I know."

Mama Sutra nodded thoughtfully, "It is as I feared," she said finally. "I think I can shed light on the matter, but you will be well advised to leave the police force and seek the protection of the Illuminati after you have heard. You are already, at this very moment, in great peril." She lapsed into silence again, and then said, "You will not see the picture of what is happening now, until I give you more of the background."

For the next hour, Danny Pricefixer sat transfixed as Mama Sutra told him of the longest war in history, the battle for the freedom of the human mind waged by the Illuminati against the forces of slavery, superst.i.tion and sorcery.

It began, she repeated, in ancient Carcosa when the first humans were contacted by the serpent people of Valusia. The latter brought with them certain fruits with strange powers. These fruits would be called hallucinogens or psychedelics today, Mama Sutra said, but what they did to the brain of the eater was not in any sense a hallucination. It opened him to invasion by the lloigor. The chief fruit used in these rites was a botanical cousin of the modern apple, yellowish or golden in color, and the snake people promised, "Eat of this and you shall become all-powerful." In fact, the eaters became enslaved by the lloigor, and especially by Hastur, who took up residence in the Lake of Hali; distorted versions of what happened have come down to us in various African legends about people who had commerce with snakes and lost their souls, in the Homeric tale of the lotus eaters, in Genesis, and in the Arabic lore utilized in the fiction of Robert W. Chambers, Ambrose Bierce and others. Soon, the Cult of the Yellow Sign was formed among the eaters of the golden apples, and its first high priest, Gruad, bargained with Hastur for certain powers in return for which the lloigor were fed on human sacrifices. The people were told that the sacrifices were good for the crops-and this, in fact, was partially true, for the lloigor ate only the energy of the victim, and the body, buried in the fields, gave back its nitrogen to the soil. This was the beginning of religion-and of government. Gruad controlled the Temple, and the Temple soon controlled Hali, and, then, all of Carcosa.

So things went for many thousands of years, until the priests were rich, fat and decadent, while the citizens lived in terror and slavery. The number of sacrifices increased ever, for Hastur grew with each victim whose energy he absorbed and his appet.i.te grew with him. Finally, among the people, there arose one who had been refused admission to the priesthood, Ma-lik, and he taught that humanity could become all-powerful, not through eating the golden apples and sacrificing to the lloigor, but through a process he called rational thought. He was, of course, fed to Hastur as soon as the priests heard of this teaching, but he had followers, and they quickly learned to keep their thoughts private and plan their activities in secret. This was the age of midnight arrests, purge trials and accelerating sacrifices in Carcosa, Mama Sutra said, and eventually the followers of Ma-lik-the few who had escaped extermination-fled to the Thuranian subcontinent, which is now Europe.

There they met little people who had come down from the north after the snake folk had exterminated each other in some form of slow, insidious and stealthy civil war. (Apparently, the snakes never met in a single battle during all this time: the poison in the wine cup, the knife in the back and similar subtle activities had slowly escalated to the deadly level of actual warfare. The serpent people had an aversion to facing facing an enemy as they killed him.) The little people had had their own experiences with the lloigor, long ago, but all they remembered were confused legends about Ores (whom Mama Sutra identified with the Tcho-Tchos) and a great kero named Phroto who battled a monster called Zaurn (evidently a shoggoth, Mama Sutra said.) an enemy as they killed him.) The little people had had their own experiences with the lloigor, long ago, but all they remembered were confused legends about Ores (whom Mama Sutra identified with the Tcho-Tchos) and a great kero named Phroto who battled a monster called Zaurn (evidently a shoggoth, Mama Sutra said.) Many millenniums pa.s.sed, and the little people and the followers of Ma-lik intermarried, producing basically the human race of today. A great law-giver named Kull tried to establish a rational society on Malik's principles, and fought a battle with some of the serpent people who had surprisingly survived in hidden places; most of this got lost in exaggeration and legend. After more thousands of years, a barbarian named Konan or Conan arose, somehow, to the throne of Aquilonia, mightiest kingdom on the Thuranian subcontinent; Konan brooded much about the continuing horrors in Carcosa, which he sensed as a threat to the rest of the world. Finally, he disappeared, abdicating in favor of his son, Conn, and reputedly sailing to the west to the west.

Konan, Mama Sutra said, was the same person who appeared in the Yucatan peninsula at that time and became known as Kukulan. He was evidently seeking, among the Mayan scientists, some knowledge or technology to use against the lloigor. Whatever happened, he left them, and only the legend of Kukulan, "the feathered serpent," remained. When the Aztecs came down from the north, Kukulan became Quetzalcoatl, and human sacrifice was inst.i.tuted in his name. The lloigor, in some fashion, had turned the work of Konan around and made it serve their own ends.

Carcosa meanwhile perished. What happened is unknown, but some students of ancient lore suspect that Konan actually circ.u.mnavigated the globe, collecting knowledge as he went, and descended upon Carcosa with weapons that destroyed both the Cult of the Yellow Sign and all traces of the civilization that served it.

Throughout the rest of history, Mama Sutra went on, the Cult of the Yellow Sign never regained its former powers, but it has come very close in certain times and certain places. The lloigor continued to exist, of course, but could no longer manifest in our kind of s.p.a.ce-time continuum unless the Cult performed very complicated technical operations, which were sometimes disguised as religious rituals and sometimes as wars, famines or other calamities.

Over the intervening ages, the Cult waged steady warfare against the one power that threatened them: rationality. When they couldn't manifest a lloigor to blast a mind, they learned to fake it; if real magic wasn't available, stage magic served in its place. "By 'real magic,' of course," Mama Sutra explained, "I mean the technology of the lloigor. As science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke has commented, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The lloigor have that kind of technology. That's how they got to earth from their star."

"You mean their planet, don't you?" Danny asked.

"No, they lived originally on a star. I told you they were not made of matter as we understand it. Incidentally, their origin on a star explains why the pentagram or star shape always attracts their attention and is one of the best ways of summoning them. They invented that design. A star doesn't look five-pointed to a human being, but that's what it looks like to them." them."

Finally, in the 18th century, the Age of Reason appeared to be at hand. Tentatively, as an experiment, one branch of the Illuminati surfaced in Bavaria. They were led by an ex-Jesuit named Adam Weishaupt who had inside knowledge of how the Cult of the Yellow Sign operated and performed its hoaxes and "miracles." The real brain behind this movement, however, was Weishaupt's wife, Eve; but they knew that, even in the Age of Reason, humanity was not ready yet for a liberation movement led by a woman, so Adam fronted for her.

The experiment was unsuccessful. The Cult of the Yellow Sign planted fake doc.u.ments in the home of an Illuminatus named Zwack, whispered some hints to Bavarian government and then watched with glee as the movement was disbanded and hounded out of Germany.

A simultaneous experiment began in America, started by two Illuminati named Jefferson and Franklin. Both preached reason, like Weishaupt, but carefully did not make his mistake of stating explicitly how this contradicted religion and superst.i.tion. (This latter matter they discussed only in their private letters.) Since Jefferson and Franklin were national heroes, and since the rationalistic government they helped to create seemed well established, the Cult of the Yellow Sign dared not denounce them openly. One trial balloon was attempted: the Reverend Jebediah Morse, a high Yellow Sign adept, openly accused Jefferson of being an Illuminatus and charged him and his party with most of the crimes that had discredited Weishaupt in Bavaria. The American public was not deceived-but all subsequent Yellow Sign propaganda in America has rested on the original anti-Illuminati claims of Reverend Morse.

Due to Jefferson, one Illuminati symbol was adopted by the new government: the Eye on the Pyramid, representing knowledge of geometry and, hence, of the order of nature. This was to be used in later generations, if necessary, to indicate the truth about the founding of the U.S. government, since it was well understood that the Cult of the Yellow Sign would try to distort the facts as soon as possible. Another Illuminati work, of more immediate importance, was the Bill of Rights (the part of the Const.i.tution still under most vigorous attack by the Yellow Sign fanatics) and certain key expressions in early doc.u.ments, such as the reference to "Nature and Nature's G.o.d" in the Declaration of Independence-as far as Jefferson dared to go in leavening traditional superst.i.tion with a natural-science admixture. And, of course, the first half-dozen Presidents were all high-ranking Masons and Rosicrucians who understood at least the fundamentals of Illuminati philosophy.

Mama Sutra sighed briefly, and went on. All this, she said, is only the tip of the iceberg. Government actually plays a minor role in controlling people; far more important are the words and images that make up the semantic environment. The Cult of the Yellow Sign not only suppresses words and images that threaten their power, but infiltrates every branch of communications with their own ideology. Science and reason are forever mocked or portrayed as menacing. Wishful thinking, fantasy, religion, mysticism, occultism and magic are forever preached as the real solutions to all problems. Best-selling books teach people to pray pray, not work work, for success. Movies win awards by showing a child's ignorant faith justified over the skepticism of adults. There is an astrology column in virtually every newspaper. More and more, the ideology of the Cult of the Yellow Sign is set forth openly, as the ideas of the Illuminati and the Founding Fathers are forgotten or distorted. One only has to think of any antidemocratic, antirational or antihumane idea out of the Dark Ages, Mama Sutra said, and one can immediately think of some popular religious columnist or some movie star who is blatantly expounding it and calling it "Americanism."

The Cult of the Yellow Sign, the old woman continued, is determined to destroy the United States, because it came closer than any other nation to the Illuminati ideals of free minds and free people and because it still retains a few tattered relics of Illuminism in its laws and customs.

This is where Mr. Hagbard Celine enters the picture, Mama Sutra said grimly.

Celine, she went on, was a brilliant but twisted personality, the son of an Italian pimp and a Norwegian prost.i.tute. Raised in the underworld, he early developed a contempt and hatred for ordinary, decent society. The Mafia, recognizing his talents and predilections, took him in and financed his way through Harvard Law School. After graduation, he became an important mouthpiece for Syndicate hoodlums in trouble with the law. On the side, however, he also took some cases for American Indians, since this was a way of frustrating the government. In one particularly bitter battle, he attempted to stop the construction of a much-needed dam in upstate New York; his unbalanced behavior in the courtroom (which helped lose the case) indicated his deep attraction for the occult, since he had obviously been taken in by the superst.i.tions of the Indians he served. Mafia dons conferred with leaders of the Cult of the Yellow Sign, and soon, Hagbard, who had been wandering around Europe aimlessly, was recruited to start a new front for the Cult, to fight the United States both politically and religiously. This front, Mama Sutra said, was called the Legion of Dynamic Discord, and, while it pretended to be against all governments, it was actually devoted only to harming the U.S. He was given a submarine (which he later claimed to have designed himself) and became an important cog in the Mafia heroin-smuggling business. More important, his crew-renegades and misfits from all nations-were indoctrinated in a deliberately nonsensical variety of mysticism.

An important center of Celine's heroin network, Mama Sutra added, was a fake church in Santa Isobel on the island of Fernando Poo.

Obviously, Mama Sutra concluded, Joseph Malik, the editor of Confrontation Confrontation, was investigating the Illuminati, deceived by the lies spread against them by Celine and the Yellow Sign adepts. As for Professor Marsh, his explorations in Fernando Poo may have revealed something about Celine's heroin ring.

"Then you think they're both dead," Danny said somberly. "And, probably, Goodman and Muldoon and Pat Walsh, the researcher, also."

"Not necessarily. Celine, as I have told you, is both brilliant and quite insane. He has perfected his own form of brainwashing and it amuses him to recruit rather than destroy any possible opponent. It is quite possible that all of these people are working for him right now, against the Illuminati and the United States, which they will believe to be the major enemies of humanity." Mama Sutra paused thoughtfully. "However, that is far from sure. Events in the last few days have changed Celine for the worse. He is more insane, and more dangerous, than ever. The a.s.sa.s.sinations of April 25 all across the nation appear to be his work, engineered through the Mafia. He is striking out blindly against anyone he imagines may be an Illuminatus. Needless to say, most of the victims were not actually in the Illuminati, which is, as I have mentioned, a very small organization. Since he is in this violent and paranoid frame of mind, I fear for the lives of anyone a.s.sociated with him."

Danny was slumped forward in his chair, drunk, dejected and depressed. "Now that I know," he asked rhetorically, "what can I do about it? My G.o.d, what can I do about it?"

I finally got around to reading Telemachus Sneezed Telemachus Sneezed on the flight to Munich, a touch of appropriate synchronicity, since Atlanta Hope (like the Ilsluminati's pet paperhanger) had an umbilical connection backward toward Clark Kent's old enemy Lothar and his festive burgher's unsure G.o.d. In fact, Atlanta wrote as if she had her own Diet of Worms for breakfast every morning. What made it even more fan-f.u.c.kin'-tastic was that she was on the same flight with me, sitting, in fact, a few seats ahead of me and to port, or starboard, or whatever is the correct word for right when you're in the air. on the flight to Munich, a touch of appropriate synchronicity, since Atlanta Hope (like the Ilsluminati's pet paperhanger) had an umbilical connection backward toward Clark Kent's old enemy Lothar and his festive burgher's unsure G.o.d. In fact, Atlanta wrote as if she had her own Diet of Worms for breakfast every morning. What made it even more fan-f.u.c.kin'-tastic was that she was on the same flight with me, sitting, in fact, a few seats ahead of me and to port, or starboard, or whatever is the correct word for right when you're in the air.

Mary Lou was with me; she was a hard woman to get out of your system once you'd made it with her. John had advanced me only enough money for my own pa.s.sage, so I'd hustled some Alamout Black on Wells Street to raise the extra fare for her, and then I had to explain that it wasn't just a pleasure trip.

"What's all the mystery?" she had asked. "Are you CIA or a Commie or something for Christ's sake?"

"If I told you," I said, "you wouldn't believe it. Just enjoy the music and the acid and whatever else is coming down, and when it happens you'll see it. You'd never believe it before you see it."

"Simon Motherf.u.c.king Moon," she told me gravely, "after the yoga and s.e.x you've taught me these last three days, I'm ready to believe anything."

"Ghosts? The grand zombi?" grand zombi?"

"Oh, there you go again, putting me on," she protested.

"See?"

So it was more or less left at that and we smoked two joints and hopped a cab out to O'Hare, pa.s.sing all the signs where they were tearing down lower-middle-cla.s.s neighborhoods to turn them into upper-middle-cla.s.s high-rise neighborhoods and each sign said, THIS IS ANOTHER IMPROVEMENT FOR CHICAGO-RICHARD J. DALEY, MAYOR THIS IS ANOTHER IMPROVEMENT FOR CHICAGO-RICHARD J. DALEY, MAYOR. Of course, in the lower-cla.s.s neighborhoods, they weren't tearing anything down, just waiting for the people to go on another rampage and burn it down. The signs there were all done with spray cans and had more variety: OFF THE PIG, BLACK P. STONE RUNS IT, POWER TO THE PEOPLE, FRED LIVES, ALMIGHTY LATIN KINGS RUN IT, and one that would have pleased Hagbard, OFF THE LANDLORDS. Then we got into the traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway (Miss Doris Day standing before Ike's picture in my old schoolroom flashed through memory like the ghost of an old hard-on, the flesh of her mammary) and we put on our gas masks and sat while the cab crawled along fast enough to possibly catch a senile snail with arthritis.

Mary Lou bought Edison Yerby's seventieth or eightieth novel in the airport, which suited me fine since I like to read on airplanes myself. Looking around, I spotted Telemachus Sneezed Telemachus Sneezed and decided, what the h.e.l.l, let's see how the other half thinks. So there we were at fifty thousand feet a few yards from the author herself and I was plunged deeply into the and decided, what the h.e.l.l, let's see how the other half thinks. So there we were at fifty thousand feet a few yards from the author herself and I was plunged deeply into the donner-und-blitzen donner-und-blitzen metaphysics of G.o.d's Lightning. Unlike the lamentable Austrian monorchoid, Atlanta wrote like she had b.a.l.l.s, and she expressed her philosophy in a frame of fiction rather than autobiography. Pretty soon, I was in her prose up to my a.s.s and sinking rapidly. Fiction always does that to me: I buy it completely and my critical faculties come into action only after I'm finished. metaphysics of G.o.d's Lightning. Unlike the lamentable Austrian monorchoid, Atlanta wrote like she had b.a.l.l.s, and she expressed her philosophy in a frame of fiction rather than autobiography. Pretty soon, I was in her prose up to my a.s.s and sinking rapidly. Fiction always does that to me: I buy it completely and my critical faculties come into action only after I'm finished.

Briefly, then, Telemachus Sneezed Telemachus Sneezed deals with a time in the near future when we dirty, filthy, freaky, lazy, dope-smoking, frantic-f.u.c.king anarchists have brought Law and Order to a nervous collapse in America. The heroine, Taffy Rhinestone, is, like Atlanta was once herself, a member of Women's Liberation and a believer in socialism, anarchism, free abortions and the charisma of Che. Then comes the rude awakening: food riots, industrial stagnation, a reign of lawless looting and plunder, everything George Wallace ever warned us against-but the Supreme Court, who are all anarchists with names ending in deals with a time in the near future when we dirty, filthy, freaky, lazy, dope-smoking, frantic-f.u.c.king anarchists have brought Law and Order to a nervous collapse in America. The heroine, Taffy Rhinestone, is, like Atlanta was once herself, a member of Women's Liberation and a believer in socialism, anarchism, free abortions and the charisma of Che. Then comes the rude awakening: food riots, industrial stagnation, a reign of lawless looting and plunder, everything George Wallace ever warned us against-but the Supreme Court, who are all anarchists with names ending in -stein -stein or or -farb -farb or or -berger -berger (there is no (there is no overt overt anti-Semitism in the book), keeps repealing laws and taking away the rights of policemen. Finally, in the fifth chapter-the climax of Book One-the heroine, poor toughy Taffy, gets raped anti-Semitism in the book), keeps repealing laws and taking away the rights of policemen. Finally, in the fifth chapter-the climax of Book One-the heroine, poor toughy Taffy, gets raped fifteen fifteen times by an overs.e.xed black brute right out of times by an overs.e.xed black brute right out of The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation, while a group of cops stand by cursing, wringing their hands and frothing at the mouth because the Supreme Court rulings won't allow them to take any action.

In Book Two, which takes place a few years later, things have degenerated even further and factory pollution has been replaced by a thick layer of marijuana smoke hanging over the country. The Supreme Court is gone, butchered by LSD crazed Mau-Maus who mistook them for a meeting of the Washington chapter of the Policemen's Benevolent a.s.sociation. The President and a shadowy government-in-exile are skulking about Montreal, living a gloomy emigre existence; the Blind Tigers, a rather thinly disguised caricature of the Black Panthers, are terrorizing white women everywhere from Bangor to Walla Walla; the crazy anarchists are forcing abortions on women whether they want them or not; and television shows nothing but Maoist propaganda and Danish stag films. Women, of course, are the worst sufferers in this blightmare, and, despite all her karate lessons, Taffy has been raped so many times, not only by standard vage-pen but orally and a.n.a.lly as well, that she's practically a walking sperm bank. Then comes the big surprise, the monstro-rape to end all rapes, committed by a pure Aryan with hollow cheeks, a long lean body, and a face that never changes expression. "Everything is fire," he tells her, as he pulls his p.r.i.c.k out afterwards, "and don't you ever forget it." Then he disappears.

Well, it turns out that Taffy has gone all icky-sticky-gooey over this character, and she determines to find him again and make an honest man of him. Meanwhile, however, a subplot is brewing, involving Taffy's evil brother, Diamond Jim Rhinestone, an unscrupulous dope pusher who is mixing heroin in his gra.s.s to make everybody an addict and enslave them to him. Diamond Jim is allied with the sinister Blind Tigers and a secret society, the Enlightened Ones, who cannot achieve world government as long as a patriotic and paranoid streak of nationalism remains in America.

But the forces of evil are being stymied. A secret underground group has been formed, using the cross as their symbol, and their slogan is appearing scrawled on walls everywhere: SAVE YOUR FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES, BOYS, THE STATE WILL RISE AGAIN!.

Unless this group is found and destroyed, Diamond Jim will not be able to addict everyone to horse, the Blind Tigers won't be able to rape the few remaining white women they haven't gotten to yet, and the Enlightened Ones will not succeed in creating one world government and one monotonous soybean diet for the whole planet. But a clue is discovered: the leader of the Underground is a pure Aryan with hollow cheeks, a long lean body, and a face that never changes expression. Furthermore, he is in the habit of discussing Heracleitus for like seven hours on end (this is a neat trick, because only about a hundred sentences of the Dark Philosopher survive-but our hero, it turns out, gives lengthy comments on them).

At this point there is a major digression, while a herd of minor characters get on a Braniff jet for Ingolstadt. It soon develops that the pilot is tripping on acid, the copilot is bombed on Tangier hash and the stewardesses are all speed freaks and d.y.k.es, only interested in balling each other. Atlanta then takes you through the lives of each of the pa.s.sengers and shows that the catastrophe that is about to befall them is richly deserved: all, in one way or another, had helped to create the Dope Grope or f.u.c.ks Fix culture by denying the "self-evident truth" of some hermetic saying by Heracleitus. When the plane does a Steve Brodie into the North Atlantic, everybody on board, including the acid-tripping Captain Clark, are getting just what they merit for having denied that reality is really fire.

Meanwhile, Taffy has hired a private detective named Mickey "c.o.c.ktails" Molotov to search for her lost Aryan rapist with hollow cheeks. Before I could get into that, however, I was wondering about the synchronistic implications of the previous section, and called over one of the stewardesses.

"Could you tell me the pilot's name?" I asked.

"Namen?" she replied. she replied. "Ja, Gretchen." "Ja, Gretchen."

"No, not your name," I said, "the pilot's name. Namen wiser Namen wiser, um, Winginmacher?" Winginmacher?"

"Winginmacher?" she repeated, dubiously, she repeated, dubiously, "Ein Augenblick" "Ein Augenblick" She went away, while I looked up She went away, while I looked up Augenblick Augenblick in a pocket German-English dictionary, and another stewardess, with the identical uniform, the identical smile and the identical blue eyes, came over, asking, in a pocket German-English dictionary, and another stewardess, with the identical uniform, the identical smile and the identical blue eyes, came over, asking, "Was wollen sie haben?" "Was wollen sie haben?"

I gave up on Winginmacher Winginmacher, obviously a bad guess. "Gibt mir, bitte," "Gibt mir, bitte," I said, I said, "die Namen unser Fliegenmacher" "die Namen unser Fliegenmacher" I spread my arms, imitating the plane. I spread my arms, imitating the plane. "Luft Fliegenmacher," "Luft Fliegenmacher," I repeated, adding helpfully, "How about I repeated, adding helpfully, "How about Luft Piloten?" Luft Piloten?"

"It's Pilot Pilot, not Piloten," Piloten," she said with lots of teeth. "His name is Captain Clark. Heathcliffe Clark." she said with lots of teeth. "His name is Captain Clark. Heathcliffe Clark."

"Danke- Thanks," I said glumly, and returned to Telemachus Sneezed Telemachus Sneezed, imagining friend Heathcliffe up front there weathering heights of saure-soaring and plunging into the ocean because, as Mallory said, it's there. An Englishman piloting a kraut airline, no less, just to remind me that I'm surrounded by the paradoxical paranoidal paranormal parameters of synchronicity. Their wandering ministerial Eye. Lord, I buried myself again in Atlanta Hope's egregious epic.

c.o.c.ktails Molotov, the private d.i.c.k, starts looking for the Great American Rapist, with only one clue: an architectural blueprint that fell out of his pocket while he was tupping Taffy. c.o.c.ktails's method of investigation is cla.s.sically simple: he beats up everybody he meets until they confess or reveal something that gives him a lead. Along the way he meets an effete sn.o.b type who makes a kind of William O. Douglas speech putting down all this brutality. Molotov explains, for seventeen pages, one of the longest monologues I ever read in a novel, that life is a battle between Good and Evil and the whole modern world is corrupt because people see things in shades of red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet instead of in clear black and white.

Meanwhile, of course, everybody is still mostly involved in f.u.c.king, smoking gra.s.s and neglecting to invest their capital in growth industries, so America is slipping backward toward what Atlanta calls "c.r.a.pulous precapitalist chaos."

At this point, another character enters the book, Howard Cork, a one-legged madman who commands a submarine called the Life Eternal Life Eternal and is battling and is battling everybody everybody-the anarchists, the Communists, the Diamond Jim Rhinestone heroin cabal, the Blind Tigers, the Enlightened Ones, the U.S. government-in-exile, the still-nameless patriotic Underground and the Chicago Cubs-since he is convinced they are all all fronting for a white whale of superhuman intelligence who is trying to take over the world on behalf of the cetaceans. ("No normal whale could do this," he says after every TV newscast reveals further decay and chaos in America, "but a whale of superhuman intelligence...!") This megalomaniac tub of blubber-the whale, not Howard Cork-is responsible for the release of the famous late-1960s record fronting for a white whale of superhuman intelligence who is trying to take over the world on behalf of the cetaceans. ("No normal whale could do this," he says after every TV newscast reveals further decay and chaos in America, "but a whale of superhuman intelligence...!") This megalomaniac tub of blubber-the whale, not Howard Cork-is responsible for the release of the famous late-1960s record Songs of the Blue Whales Songs of the Blue Whales, which has hypnotic powers to lead people into wild frenzies, dope-taking, rape and loss of faith in Christianity. In fact, the whale is behind most of the cultural developments of recent decades, influencing minds through hypnotic telepathy. "First, he introduced W. C. Fields," Howard Cork rages to the dubious first mate, "Buck" Star, "then, when America's moral fiber was sufficiently weakened, Liz and d.i.c.k and Andy Warhol and rock music. Now, the Songs of the Blue Whales!" Star becomes convinced that Captain Cork went uncorked and wigged when he lost his leg during a simple ingrown toenail operation bungled by a hip young chiropodist stoned on mescaline. This suspicion is increased by the moody mariner's insistence on wearing an old cork leg instead of a modern prosthetic model, proclaiming, "I was born all Cork and I'm not going to die only three-fourths Cork!"

Then comes a turnabout scene, and it is revealed that Cork is actually not bananas at all but really a smooth apple. In a meeting with a pure Aryan with hollow cheeks, a long lean body, and a face that never changes expression, it develops that the Captain is an agent of the Underground which is called G.o.d's Lightning because of Heracleitus's idea that G.o.d first manifested himself as a lightning bolt which created the world. Instead of hunting the big white whale, as the crew thinks, the Life Eternal Life Eternal is actually running munitions for the government-in-exile and G.o.d's Lightning. When the hollow-cheeked leader leaves, he says to Cork, "Remember: the is actually running munitions for the government-in-exile and G.o.d's Lightning. When the hollow-cheeked leader leaves, he says to Cork, "Remember: the way up way up is the is the way down way down."

Meanwhile, the Gateless Gate swung creakingly open and I started picking up some of the "real" world. That is, I began to recognize myself, again, as the ringmaster. All of this information gets fed into me, entropy and negentropy all synergized up in a wodge of wonderland, and I compute it as well as my memory banks give it unto me to understand these doings.