by Various
"The Dawn Play Air Coupe," recalled Curt, with a shudder. "The Pterrible Pterodactyl.... The Crimson Inca...."
"Spare us, Curt. The point is that as a result of this grisly experience, we invented the Name-O-Scope. The name 'Ocelot' was ultimately selected, and worked out superbly--through sheer good fortune alone. For your campaign, Father, the Name-O-Scope came up with 3,248 possible slogan-names."
"I saw only three," Sowles said, dourly. His aide scribbled something in the notebook.
"I wouldn't inflict the whole wild roster on you, sir--or even on your adjutant there. But we did expose them to selected samples in thirty major markets; and the cumulative finding put these three in a class by themselves, at the top. Furthermore, these random tests agreed 100% with Everett in the selection of 'SOWLES' CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS' as the ideal motif, out of those pre-eminent three.... So we are doubly, even triply checked out before take-off; since these findings confirm the humble opinion of our own staff."
The eagle-eyed leader bent his probing gaze on Cam. "So you say, wizard of words. But while you're rejoicing in these strange devices and stranger accomplices, the enemy draws nigh. The primary is but weeks away, and already the invective of the political jackal beats on the ears of the electorate like a stormy sea."
Everett lifted his shaggy head. "You mix a hirsute metaphor, Charlemagne, but my li'l friends tell me that that's the sort of chatter that the idiot voters will lap up like a friendly Frostee."
"You see, Father--this is the break we needed," pitched Cam. "With this weird talent of Everett et al., we can pre-test every element of the great campaign. The pieces of the jigsaw will drop into place overnight, and we can kick off the Big Push next week.... Like with a monster rally by torchlight and Kleig in Hollywood Bowl.... Singing our hymn under the stars while millions view.... How 'bout that, Ev?"
The impresario of the impalpable nodded. "Should be great. Monstrous, in fact."
* * * * *
In the day that followed, Cam and all his cohorts in MAB let themselves go in a good old-fashioned creative orgy. With one large difference. In the past, copy, layouts, and other campaign ingredients were threshed out in endless conferences, and decisions were made on the basis of an informed group guess. Now, each new idea was exposed at infancy like a Spartan baby to the elemental reaction of Ev & Co., and instantly given the yea or nay.
The rotund oracle was kept under lock and latch in the "Think-Box." This room had been scientifically designed for sequestering agency people who had to give birth to slogans and such under deadline pressure. The walls were sound-proofed, the couch pulled out into a properly uncomfortable bed, and a refrigerator was stocked with snack makings. It was also served by dumbwaiter. Phones were banished, of course; as was 3-D and all other distraction--even windows. Visual motion was, however, provided by a giant clock. The only concessions to Ev were a special little hutch for the super-mongoose; and a bar, carefully regulated to make certain he never completely blotted out the hypothetical brainwave "network."
Cam did his best to pump Ev for the identity of his "Associates", but the old sack of iniquity was wise to his game. He'd rear back and squint at Cam like a Lebanese fruit vendor and thoughtfully pick his nose. "Like to know me confederates, is it?" he'd ask. Then, with a great show of candor: "Well, one of them is a sea creature, but I'll say no more than that. I know you'd never be able to live with the thought of being in business with a squid."
Then Ev would laugh wildly. "Ah, wouldn't he like to know!"
"It's only for your own protection," Cam expostulated. "I know there are more people in this lash-up. We've got to make certain that they're safe from accident--can't have the Gestalt disrupted."
"Bosh," was Ev's invariable verdict.
Meanwhile, Cam's little elves paraded through with all the paraphernalia of the Big Push. Livid posters, featuring a Messianic Sowles. Full-page ads, exhorting everyone with an ounce of American decency in his body, to attend the Rally Under The Stars. Subliminal commands were sneaked into the visiphone and 3-D circuits. Couples in Drive-Ins found themselves determined to be among those who stood up to be counted at the Bowl. Christian Soldiers across the continent chartered all manner of craft, from Ocelots to electromag liners, to bear them to the great event. Goodies by the thousand were stamped out to hawk to the faithful: Badges, banners, bumper stickers, wallet cards, purse-sized pix of Sowles, star-and-cross medallions and lapel pins.... The potential proceeds of the Rally alone began to assume war-chest proportions.
And above all they worked on the Speech. This had to be the greatest sockdolager since Goebbels explained Stalingrad. Cam's feverish brain had figured out a host of effects to catalyze the audience reaction. But in the last analysis, triumph or disaster would hinge on the oral effort of the Grim Reaper, as some of the minions at MAB had come to term Sowles.
So, Huckster Heaven became a memory, like a place in a previous existence. Other clients were neglected; and it was even left to Curt Andrews to follow up Occidental Tobacco.
Books were carted in, thumbed through for inspiration, and cast back into the outer corridor in disgust.
"Ev, catch this:
"'The flaming light of the Lord shall go forward into the farthest reaches of this planet, to every village and commune where the Anti-Christ has ruled; and indeed it shall go beyond, with mankind's vaulting spirit, to the moon, the planets, and the stars!'"
"Not bad," quoth the half-sodden seer, inspecting another treasure from his nasal passages. "My buddies say the marks will go for it like Gang-Busters."
"Kindly refrain from the pseudo-sophisticated jazz," said Cam, in pain. "One of these days your name's going to get written down in that little book. And besides, this is an intrinsically worthwhile movement."
"Kindly refrain yourself from the adman jargon and attempts to snow the troops. This Sowles is the worst mountebank since Charlie Ponzi, and you know it. You're in this for the fast megabuck same as me, so let's not kid ourselves."
"Euramerica needs just such a unifying figure now," said Cam. "And just such a cause, one that will inspire positive action against the Commie Complex. Otherwise, the U. S. of E. will keep on floundering around in a morass of debate while They single-mindedly weave our doom."
"On a single-minded loom," sang Ev into a snifter. "Who would have thought that my great gift to the world would be put to such a perverse use right off the bat?"
"Speaking of bat, let's get back on the ball." And the hands of the clock rolled round and round....
* * * * *
Two days before the Rally, an exhausted Cam tottered to the visiphone down the hall, and dialled Sowles' Temple.
The monkish aide answered. "Sowles' Christian Soldiers; Brother Kane here."
"What became of Abel?" asked Cam before his cortex could intervene. The aide's eyes glowed with a promise of vengeance, as he put Cam through to Sowles.
"How do the preparations progress?" asked the ex-cleric.
"Well, sir. Which is why I called. The first draft of the Speech is ready."
"I'll be there within the hour," said Sowles, and the screen blanked.
When Sowles arrived at MAB, an Execusec conducted him to the door of the "Think-Box." He stared disapprovingly after her. "When the Soldiers hold sway, modesty will be rigidly enforced."
Cam dictated a memo to his pocket recorder forbidding MAB girls to observe the current abbreviated fashions.
"Well, well; Friar Tuck," burbled Ev from his customary prone position on the couch. "Have a toddy, and get that tired, cold blood circulating."
"Revolting," said Sowles.
"Politics make strange bed-fellows, eh, Sowles? Like you 'n' me! And let's not forget the Little Brown Jug! Ho, ho, ho!"
Sowles turned to (or rather, on) Cam. "The Speech?"
"Right. The Speech. Right here, sir." Cam tendered the manuscript.
The Grimmest of Reapers found the most uncomfortable chair in the room, sat, and began reading. The first page was pe
eled off and dropped to the floor; the second; the third; and finally, the entire effort was strewn beside Sowles, who rose in what he undoubtedly considered righteous wrath.
"You've missed the whole Message!" he hissed.
"Sir?"
"All this Pollyanna frou-frou is all right as frosting--but you've left out the cake!"
Cam was momentarily spooked--and not "on account of the account," either. Sowles looked fully capable of loosing a full-fledged Inquisition, complete with rack and thumbscrew, at Cam's well-barbered head.
Sowles continued to fulminate. "You haven't got one word in there about our enemies!"
"But Father, I refer several times to the Slave World and its evil rulers...."
"Not just Them! What about the traitors in our midst--the sinister cabal of pinko liberals and moderate conservatives that have undermined our defenses...."
"I thought the Smirch Society had staked out that claim," said Cam.
"Bah! The Smirchers are too mealy-mouthed for the needs of the hour. I think they're a little soft on Communism. And what about the race mongrelizers?" spluttered Sowles. "Trying to subvert America with an Afro-Asian Trojan Horse!"
"I suppose you can trace your ancestry all the way back to Caligula," muttered Everett.
"That's right, you human sewer! If I hadn't been assured you might be of use to the Cause--" He left the sentence unfinished.
"I get the picture, Father." Cam ushered Sowles to the door. "We'll get the new draft out right away."
"And don't forget the economic heretics," Sowles shouted as the door closed on him. "The fiends that concocted the income tax, and Social Security, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and...."
"Wow," breathed Cam, when the torrent was finally cut off.
"How do you like Galahad now?" asked Ev from the bar.
"Build me one too," answered Cam.
* * * * *
Nevertheless, the revision had to be done, and done it was.
"That'll have 'em seein' Red, all right," pronounced Everett.
"It's got everything in it except a declaration of war on Switzerland," said Cam ruefully.
"Quiet--or he'll hear about that, and want it too," said Ev.
* * * * *
The Day of the Rally dawned bright and smoggy, but the weather boys promised a clear, cool evening. Naturally, the major 3-D nets were all set to 'cast the "birth in the Bowl" of a potentially historic campaign. Satellites would bounce the signal over oceans and continents, throughout Euramerica, as well carrying the presentation as to allies and unaligned nations from Tokyo to Karachi. The crusading aspect of Sowles' candidacy had been tom-tommed so well that pundits were already predicting that Sowles might easily go on to the Governorship of North America two years hence--if, indeed, his Soldiers did not sweep to control of the U. S. of E. Parliament then. That, of course, would install the Grim Reaper in the Presidential Palace.... Cam shuddered and thrust the thought from his mind. But wild dreams aside, there was no doubt that two hemispheres' attention was riveted on the big-time debut of the West Coast's Angel of Vengeance.
En route to the Bowl, the "Soldier" theme was already manifest. Every few feet, a "Brother-Private" in a new, usually ill-fitting uniform was directing traffic or hawking MAB-confected wares. "Father-General" Sowles appeared to have lifted more than one leaf from the Salvation Army's book.
Cam himself had been verbally commissioned Brother Lieutenant-Colonel when the revised oration had been submitted to Sowles. The Reaper ate it up this trip. "You'd have thought it came down from Sinai on tablets," said Ev after Sowles left to begin practicing the Speech.
"He'll make it sound that way," Cam had remarked. "Above all, Our Leader is a great orator."
"Translation: bloody demagogue," Ev had replied.
Now their chauffeured air-suspension limo was tooling them up through the thickening crowds to the hill-cradled amphitheater.
Curt had come along to help. "What's going to happen to the overflow?" he asked anxiously, peering at the turgid sea of faces outside.
"Special buses will take them to closed circuit 3-D houses," said Cam.
"Fantastic," said Ev.
Inside, there were just about the same number of last-minute panics and snafus as at most 3-D spectaculars. Power for the innumerable huge coaxial snakes was several times inadequate, which problem no one, of course, had foreseen. But eventually all the crises had had their moment and were coped with--and suddenly it was almost air time.
Cam, Curt, and Ev repaired to the control booth and found an area where they wouldn't be under the technicians' feet. (Cam had decreed a triple platoon system on this one: a fresh director and crew were alternated in every fifteen minutes.) Ev produced a flask, which Cam and Curt declined; but the super-mongoose took a few greedy licks at the cap.
"A lush Gestalt yet," muttered Curt.
"Don't insult the folks that put you in silk, sonny," advised Ev.
"Tell me about the others now," said Cam. "Everything's out of our hands anyhow."
* * * * *
Ev breathed deeply. "Okay, I'll tell you a wee bit. One of us is a Pathan valet in Bombay--which would cut up the Reaper worse than the fictitious entente with the squid. And the Pathan must have a few drops of Irish blood and, ergo, second sight--he contributes enormously to the acuity of our insight into potential human reaction."
"Mmmm. And?"
"My small friend here, the super-mongoose, is the amplifier. Some goofy new gland, I suppose--or as you guessed, a mutational development. In that tiny corpus, however it came about, is an organ that enables us to communicate on an elemental level among ourselves without regard to mileage; and to probe psyches anywhere in the world--as many as we want. Actually, we have to keep his output at a fraction of capacity, or else get swamped in a tidal wave of emotion."
"That accounts for three. But you indicated there were four," said Cam.
"No, I never! But you're right. There is a fourth. Twelve years old; IQ about 180. Never even leaves his room. But his mind--and his psi faculties--have seven-league boots. He runs our team."
"Where does he live?"
"High on a windy hill. He, he, he!" Ev hit the flask as a trout the fly, and an engineer glared. The gradually rising stage lights signalled the Zero Second in a symphony of changing color.
First, the cross-and-star symbol grew from a tiny point on the stage until it became a living pillar of luminosity that seemed to dwarf the night.
Then came the distant music of fife and drum, augmented by cornet: "Yankee Doodle;" and in the traditional Revolutionary regalia, the musical minute-men led a parade down the aisles of the Choral Guard. They segued to "Onward Christian Soldiers" as they marched past the mesmerized audience, up to and onto the stage; and topped off the medley with "The Battle Hymn of The Republic." It was only great.
"The folks are already on the ropes," said Ev.
"Where does he live?" asked Cam.
A Brother-Major came forward and led the Choral Guard and audience in a responsive psalm that emphasized the smiting of enemies. With the "Amen," the cameras panned with the audience's eyes up to the pregnant night sky. You could hear an option drop.
Then the Guard did some fancy quick-step singing on stage: "God Bless America"; "Over there"; and "The Soldiers Are Coming", to the tune of "The Campbells Are Coming", complete with bagpipe brigade.
Next, a rather hard-featured Sister Captain told how the growing army of the Lord needed support. The Offertory was handled by Brother N.C.O.'s while super-imposed 3-D slides told the brethren at home exactly how to get their bux to Sowles. Meanwhile a battery of organs swept through the "Marseillaise", "Land Of Hope And Glory", and other U. S. of E. songs. Finally, a Guard contralto came forward and got the whole crowd on its feet to join her in singing "The Star Spangled Banner."
"They're limp as old wet-wash," said Ev.
* * * * *
Now the Bowl went dark except for the pale light of the moon and stars
. Minutes passed. Eventually, a spotlight picked out Sowles standing alone, quietly, meditatively, at Stage Right. He looked as though wondering if it was all right to come out. The audience went wild. Cam reflected that it probably would have, even without the claques he had planted. As it was, had the Bowl had a roof, it would have been blasted off.
"We're picking up reactions like mad," said Ev.
"The U. S. of E. audience alone will hit at least 200 million," said Cam.
"All thinking--I should say feeling--like one great docile beast."
"Where does he live?" Cam asked again.
"Tibet," blurted Ev unthinkingly; then he turned and glared at Cam as he might at a tarantula in his daiquiri.
But Sowles had begun to speak. A huge rear-projection screen behind him visualized each thought uttered. He started with the theme of the West: how logical that a great new crusade should be born here where men of the cloth had first blazed Western civilization's trails; Berkeley was quoted about the Westward Star of Empire; this was the shore sought by the most valiant of the westering tide of pioneers; etc., etc. Meanwhile the 3-D living mural milked Western scenery to a fare-thee-well. Gaunt fishermen stared out over Puget Sound, and Big Sur underlined the concept of rugged strength. Mount McKinley and Mazatlan passed in review.
Then Sowles got down to business. This vital young giant--the West--was not going to let the effete pestholes of the East (by this he meant all the way East, including Stockholm, Athens, and Kashmir) forfeit the Caucasian heritage with their decadent goings-on. The Commie Complex was not going to be handed the rest of the planet on a silver platter because of Euramerican "marshmallow moral fiber."
He proceeded to the list of Hates: Welfare Statism; tyranny by tax ("Remember the Boston Tea Party!"); loose divorce laws; fraternal lodges; "promiscuous enfranchisement"; water fluoridation; and so on. These were but a few of the cancers, he screamed, that must be ruthlessly excised from the body politic so that a lean, clean Euramerica might face the Arch-Enemy on reasonably even terms.
"They're frothing at the mouth," said Ev.
Now Sowles really tore the rag off the bush. He described the Godless Atheists that held half the world in thrall. He rehearsed again the butchery of the kulaks and the kangaroo courts of Cuba. He showed the Mongol tanks rumbling into Budapest and the pinched-face terror of the East German refugees; the "human sea" charges in Korea and the flight of the Dalai Lama.