dead opium voice.
'As you know, we have imported a quantity of poppy seed. We already have fields in these areas. Many other areas are suitable for cultivation. We are sending out opium advisers. Missionary work, we call it.'
'And what do you see as the long-range effects of this brotherly project?' asked Nordenholz.
'In commercial terms, we can undersell eastern opium and take over the opium trade for the Americas, Canada, and the West Indies. Of course, we can expect a percentage of addicts in the areas of cultivation....'
What advantages and disadvantages do addicts present from the military point of view?'
'We can insure loyalty by impounding the opium crop. Addicts are more tolerant than non-addicts of cold, fatigue, and discomfort. They have a strong resistance amounting to virtual immunity to rheums, coughs, consumption, and other respiratory complaints. On the other hand, they are incapacitated if the opium supply is cut off.'
'You also distribute hashish?'
'Certainly. A measure of seed with any purchase at our trading posts. Unlike opium it grows anywhere.' Jones made a sweeping gesture. 'The whole area is full of it.'
Doctor Benway got up.
'Sickness has killed more soldiers than all the wars of history. We can turn illness to account. If your enemy is sick and you are well, the victory is yours. Healthy vultures can kill a sick lion. For example, my learned colleague Opium Jones has pointed out the immunity of addicts to respiratory afflictions. And I may add that periodic users who need not become addicted are equally immune. Consider the advantages conferred in an epidemic of the deadly Spanish influenza.'
'Is there any way in which such an epidemic could be induced?'
'There are no problems. All respiratory complaints are transmitted by spitting, sneezing, and coughing. We need only collect these exudations and convey them into the enemy area. Consider other potential allies....' He pointed to areas on the map. 'Malaria and yellow fever ... both imported from the Old World and flourishing in the New. My researches have convinced me that these illnesses are conveyed by mosquitoes. Mosquito netting, pine incense, oil of citronella rubbed on exposed skin areas ... these simple precautions—not, of course, infallible—will give us an advantage of fifty enemy cases to one. Dysentery, jaundice, typhoid fever ... these even more reliable allies are conveyed by the ingestion of infected excrement, which can be collected and introduced into the enemy water supply. Boiling all drinking water and abstaining from uncooked foods or unpeeled fruits yields one-hundred-percent immunity. We must, of course, always be careful not to encourage an illness for which we do not have a remedy or means of avoidance.'
'Magical weapons?'
The Iguana girl spoke in her cool remote voice: 'All religions are magical systems competing with other systems. The Church has driven magic into covens where practitioners are bound to each other by a common fear. We can unite the Americas into a vast coven of those who live under the Articles, united against the Christian Church, Catholic and Protestant. It is our policy to encourage the practice of magic and to introduce alternative religious beliefs to break the Christian monopoly. We will set up an alternative calendar with non-Christian holidays. Christianity will then take its place as one of many religions protected from persecution by the Articles.'
'Economic weapons?'
Strobe glanced through some notes. 'We can, of course, undersell Eastern opium...and no doubt various other products such as tea, silk, and spices. But our most powerful monopoly is sugar and rum. Europe will pay our price for sugar.'
My appetite was sharpened by hashish and I was the better able to savor the excellent repast: clams and oysters baked on hot coals with a dry white wine, wild turkey, pigeons, venison with a vintage Bordeaux, yams, corn, squash, and beans, avocadoes, mangoes, oranges and coconuts.
After the company had eaten their fill, Skipper Nordenholz tapped a glass for silence. He stood up in front of the map, speaking in a self-effacing manner with
