'And a condition in the head.'
(Ergot is a fungus disease grows on bad wheat. During the Middle Ages Europe was periodically decimated by outbreaks of Ergotism, which was called St. Anthony's fire. Gangrene frequently supervenes, the legs turn black and drop off. )
They unload a shipment of condemned parachutes on the Ecuadorian Air Force. Manoeuvres: Boys plummet streaming 'chutes like broken condoms splash young blood over pot-bellied generals... shattering wake of sound as Clem and Jody disappear over the Andes in jet getaway.... The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line. A. J. is agitating for the destruction of Israel: 'With all this feeling against the West a chap has a spot of bother scoring for the young Arab amenities.... The situation is little short of intolerable.... Israel constitutes a downright inconvenience.' Typical A. J. cover story. 80
Clem and Jody give out they are interested in the destruction of Near East oil fields to boost the value of their Venezuelan holdings.
Clem writes a number to the tune of 'Crawdad' (Big Bill Broonzy). What you gonna do when the oil goes dry?
Gonna sit right there and watch those Arabs die.
Salvador emits a thick screen of international finance to cloak, at least from the rank and file, his Liquefactionist activities.... But over a few stiff yages he lets his hair down among friends.
'Islam is jellied consomme already,' he says, dancing the Liquefactionist Jig.... And then, unable to contain himself, he bursts into a hideous falsetto:
It's trembling on the brink
One push and down it sink
Hey, Maw, get ready my veil.
'Well, these citizens have engaged the services of a Brooklyn Jew who passes himself off as the second coming of Mohammed.... In fact Doctor Benway delivered him by Caesarian section from a Holy Man in Mecca....
'If Ahmed won't come out... We'll go in and get him.'
This shameless plant is accepted without question by the gullible Arabs.
'Nice folk, these Arabs... Nice ignorant folk,' Clem says. So this phony gives out with daily Surahs on the radio: 'Now friends of the radio audience, this is Ahmed your friendly prophet.... Today I'd like to talk about the importance of being dainty and kissin' fresh at all times.... Friends, use Jody's chlorophyll tablets and be sure.' Now a word about the parties of Interzone....
It will be immediately clear that the Liquefaction Party is, except for one man, entirely composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final absorption who is whose dupe.... The Liquefactionists are much given to every form of perversion, especially sado-masochistic practices.... Liquefactionists in general know what the score is. The Senders, on the other hand, are notorious for their ignorance of the nature and terminal state of sending, for barbarous and selfrighteous manners, and for rabid fear of any fact --. It was only the intervention of the Factualists that prevented the Senders from putting Einstein in an institution and destroying his theory. It may be said that only a very few Senders know what they are doing and these top Senders are the most dangerous and evil men in the world.... Techniques of Sending were crude at first. Fadeout to the National Electronic Conference in Chicago.
The Conferents are putting on their overcoats.... The speaker talks in a fiat shopgirl voice:
'In closing I want to sound a word of warning.... The logical extension of encephalographic research is biocontrol; that is control of physical movement, mental processes, emotional reactions and apparent sensory impressions by means of bioelectric signals injected into the nervous system of the subject.'
'Louder and funnier!' The Conferents are trouping out in clouds of dust.
'Shortly after birth a surgeon could install connections in the brain. A miniature radio receiver could be plugged in and the subject controlled from State-controlled transmitters.' 81
Dust settles through the windless air of a vast empty hall --smell of hot iron and steam; a radiator sings in the distance.... The Speaker shuffles his notes and blows dust off them....
'The biocontrol apparatus is prototype of one-way telepathic control. The subject could be rendered susceptible to the transmitter by drugs or other processing without installing any apparatus. Ultimately the Senders will use telepathic transmitting exclusively.... Ever dig the Mayan codices? I figure it like this: the priests --about one per cent of population --made with one-way telepathic broadcasts instructing the workers what to feel and when.... A telepathic sender has to send all the time. He can never receive, because if he receives that means someone else has feelings of his own could louse up his continuity. The sender has to send all the time, but he can't ever recharge himself by contact. Sooner or later he's got no feelings to send. You can't have feelings alone. Not alone like the Sender is alone --and you dig there can only be one Sender at one place-time.... Finally the screen goes dead.... The Sender has turned into a huge centipede.... So the workers come in on the beam and burn the centipede and elect a
