"You're talking about naturally venomous insects," said Parsons. "This is different. This is a disease the thunderbug may have picked up somewhere and is simply a carrier of, much the way deer ticks carry Lyme disease, which is caused by a spirochete, not a virus, by the way."
"But this bug has no teeth," Chiun pointed out.
"Well, HELP is getting into these PAPA idiots' systems somehow. And this has the potential to be worse than AIDS."
"Yeah?" said Remo.
"Absolutely. With AIDS, you get HIV-Human Immunodeficiency Virus-and then maybe a few years later, it blossoms into full-blown Advanced Immune Deficiency Syndrome, putting the sufferer at risk for contracting fatal cancers or flus. Nobody really dies of AIDS, you know. They die of illnesses they contract because AIDS makes them more susceptible. Here, people get HELP and they're dead in forty-eight hours with no sign of any primary illness or secondary infection."
"But that means they're contagious for only a little while, right?"
"If they're contagious. And if they're getting HELP from the bug, and they don't stop eating bugs, it doesn't much matter. More are going to die. And bugeating is a fad now. Kids are doing it all over the country as a dare."
Remo frowned. "Then we're back to the bugs again."
Parsons shrugged. "A lot of them eat bugs. Only a few have died. As soon as I've got my centrifuge and electron microscope set up, I'm going to talk to the local coroner who performed the first HELP autopsies. I'm a pathologist, but I'm not licensed to autopsy people in this state."
The honking of horns suddenly blared all around them.
"Now what?" muttered Remo, going to the tent flap.
Reporters, both print and electronic, were running hither and yon.
Remo reached out and arrested a running sound man. He lifted him off his feet and his feet kept running. Remo recognized him as the human bone he had thrown to Jane Goodwoman.
"I see you survived," Remo said dryly.
"Is it usually that messy?" the boy asked.
"After Jane Goodwoman, all women are downhill."
"That's a relief."
"Now that I've started you along the road to wisdom, who's coming up the road?"
"Senator Ned J. Clancy."
Remo blinked. "Why? Did someone declare this an open bar zone?"
"I don't know."
Remo dropped the man and his feet got in gear again.
"This place is about to become a zoo," Remo told Chiun.
"It is already a zoo."
"It is about to become the zoo of all time. Let's mosey." Remo stuck his head back in the tent. "We'll catch up with you later."
Dale Parsons didn't look up from his work. "I'll be here."
The rush of press was heading south so Remo and Chiun struck off to the west toward the main PAPA encampment.
Over the sound of feet and the honking of horns they could hear Jane Goodwoman calling frantically, "Where is Senator Clancy? Where is Senator Clancy?"
Remo raised his voice. "Go east about a hundred yards. You can't miss him."
Chiun said, "The one they are rushing to meet is to the south."
Remo grinned. "I know. But the latrine is about a hundred yards to the east. Maybe she'll fall in."
"You are in a mean mood."
"You would be too if she tried to jump your bones."
"My bones would jump back and her bones would be broken," Chiun sniffed.
"I'll count on you to throw yourself between us next time she goes into heat," Remo said wryly.
In the main encampment, they came upon a group of hippie types sitting in the weeds and picking tiny bugs off themselves. They sat under staked umbrellas and buckskin hides stretched over wood frames, presumably to protect them from cancerous ultraviolet rays, Remo decided.
Their approach was noticed, and a bony woman raised a thin hand and waved them to come closer.
"Peace! Come to join the wave of the future?"
"Why not?" said Remo.
"Never," said Chiun.
Remo hissed, "We're supposed to get to the bottom of this. So we're joining these dips."
"We are joining, but I am not eating bugs."
"Fine. Just follow along."
"Are you Snappers or are you Harvesters?" someone asked.
"What are you people?" Remo countered.
"Snappers. Look." And the bony woman plucked one of the tiny bugs off a weed and snapped its head off with the flick of a dirty thumbnail. She put the rest in her mouth and began chewing. She chewed soundlessly for over a minute and finally a smile came over her face. It had been preceded by a tiny crunch. "Got the little bugger."
"They still move after they're decapitated so you have to find them with your teeth," someone said helpfully.
"That's the fun part," added a thin man wearing a Coptic cross and shorts that fought to hold on to his skinny hips.
"How do they taste?" wondered Remo.
"Like lobster."
"No, like Cajun popcorn," a man insisted.
"Like fried rice," said someone else.
"Are you all eating the same bug?" Remo asked.
"We don't call it a bug. It's Miracle Food. You can eat them all day long and never get full, or get tired of them."
"They come in different flavors too."
"Are you not concerned that you will sicken and die?" Chiun demanded.
"Only Harvesters catch HELP."
"Yeah, that's because they're too white and don't cover themselves when they go out into the sun."
Everyone agreed that the Harvester sect of the People Against Protein Assassins caught Human Environmental Liability Paradox. In fact, the Snapper group looked reasonably healthy. A number of them were pretty skinny, but it was diet-skinny, not wasting-away-to-skin-and-bones skinny.
"Then we'd better check out the Harvesters," Remo told Chiun.
A man shucked a handful of thunderbugs off a weed and offered them to Remo.
"Here, man. Take a bunch. It's a long walk."
"Yeah," a young girl said, "and over on the other side of the Schism Line, they cook all the flavor out of the little fellows."
"No thanks," said Remo. "Bug sushi doesn't appeal to me."
"Harvester," the young girl hissed. "If you catch HELP, it'll be your own fault."
They left the Snappers to their snapping and snacking.
The Schism Line proved to be exactly that. Someone had dragged a stick across the vale and there was a wooden sign stuck into it. On the approach side it said SNAPPER TURF. When they passed it, the other side of the sign said HAPPY HARVESTER HUNTING GROUND.
The tepees and wigwams were all clustered on the other side of the Schism Line.
They were arrayed around a campfire that was ringed with stones. There was a pot simmering. As they approached, Remo and Chiun saw people come to ladle in thunderbugs, wait a few moments, and ladle them out again.
There seemed to be a continual procession of PAPA adherents coming to contribute to the communal pot and then return to partake. Nobody looked sick. Nobody looked particularly well fed either. They wore Indian costumes that might have once fit them, but the buckskin and beads now fit loosely, if at all.
Remo walked up to the pot and asked, "How can you tell if they're cooked if you're cooking them all together like that?"
A man looked up. "They cook fast. They're always good. That's why Gitchee Manitou created them."
Remo frowned. "I've heard of the shores of Gitchee Goomie. But who's Gitchee Manitou?"
"The Great Spirit who created the thunderbug and sowed them in the fields with their plump bodies that are good to eat and their tiny legs which cannot run fast so they don't get away. Look, see how they can't wait to be eaten."
Remo and Chiun looked. The lethargic thunderbugs, once they were held over the steaming pot, came to life. They leapt from the ladles and into the simmering water, where they immediately curled up in tiny chickpealike balls.
"I never heard of bugs committing
mass suicide," said Remo.
"It is not suicide. They only want to share themselves with us. When it is our turn to die, we will go to a place where man is tiny and thunderbugs are great and we will return the favor by allowing them to consume our tasty flesh."
"Who fed you this bulldookie?" Remo said.
"Theodore Soars-With-Eagles."
"Where do we find him?"
"Sometimes he is in the wind and cannot be seen, only felt."
Remo reached down to find the man's neck. He squeezed. "Can the corn."
"We call it maize."
"I call it bullshit. Where is he now?"
"Sometimes he can be found napping in his tepee," the man said through teeth that seemed suddenly welded together.
"Point us."
The man had only a ladle to point with and he swept it back around, throwing hot broth and dead thunderbugs into the parched grass.
When Remo released him, he dived for the bugs and began popping them into his mouth.
"Welcome, brothers in nature," said Theodore Soars-With-Eagles when they pushed aside the flap of his tent. It was made of some slick material that Remo thought he recognized.
"Naugahyde?" he asked.
Theodore Soars-With-Eagles gathered his chinchilla cloak about his shoulders. "Gitchee Manitou invented what the white man came to call Naugahyde. In his great wisdom he has seen fit not to enforce the patent. It is called reciprocity."
"The tribal language around here is obviously bullshit," Remo growled. "You started this cult?"
"There is some disagreement over that. Some say Brother Karl Sagacious, may his noble Greek soul forever rest, founded PAPA. Some give me that honor. Some say we were brothers in creation before our unfortunate misunderstanding."
"Some say you had everything to gain from his death," said Remo.
"Such talk slanders the proud name of the People Against Protein Assassins. My ancestors refused to slaughter the proud beefalo for food. How could I harm my fellow man?"
"We just came from the Snappers," said Remo.
Theodore Soars-With-Eagles shook his feathered head sadly. Remo noticed that his bald spot was gone, and his hair moved a half second behind his headdress.
"Poor misguided ones. Gitchee Manitou weeps every time they bite off the head of one of his children."
"According to them, only your side is suffering from HELP."
"A lie. It is only them."
"When we got here, we saw you lead a funeral service."
"The committing of clay to clay. But when one of our number dies we put aside all disagreement and I preside over the ceremony of ashes."
"I didn't see any cremation going on," Remo said.
"We buried three Snappers today. They have been returned to the good earth, never to be seen again. They are ashes."
"They are on their way to your well," said Remo. "Look, we want some straight answers."
"It is only the white skins who speak with false tongues."
"That is a good start," said Chiun, nodding approvingly. "Speaking the obvious truth."
"Stay out of this, Little Father."
"When you are in my tepee," Theodore Soars-With-Eagles said indignantly, "you will treat my yellow brother as you would me."
"Listen, you-" Remo started to say.
Just then a girl in braided pigtails poked her head in and said, "Brother Theodore! Senator Clancy has come to Nirvana West!"
Brother Theodore Soars-With-Eagles came off his Navajo blanket, revealing a "Made in Japan" tag.
"Senator Clancy is here? I knew he would come. Whenever there is need, the great senator from Massachusetts arrives on the wings of the Thunderbird."
"I think he came in a limo," growled Remo.
"I must go to him. We will parley. There is much we have in common. We are both men of the people."
"Bring your own booze," said Remo, letting the man go.
They watched him lope off in his buckskin breeches.
"We are getting nowhere," Chiun said thinly.
"That's because we are nowhere," Remo complained. "We're going to have to grab Eagles when there aren't so many people around."
"Long have I dwelt in this land, Remo. There are times when its size and greatness have reminded me of the Rome of the Caesars. We worked for the Caesars and although they were white, they were good to work for."
"America hasn't exactly been shy with its gold," Remo pointed out.
"True, but in the days of Rome only the Caesars were crazy. Here, it is the subjects who are the maddest."
"There I can't disagree, Little Father. With all the beef we have in this country, we've got people who are eating bugs."
A disgusted look came over the Master of Sinanju's face.
"Who would eat the dead meat of cows?" he sniffed. "I mean, with such a wonderful range of good-tasting bugs, who would eat an insignificant thing like this lazy dunderbug?"
Remo stared.
"Of course," Chiun added in a lofty voice, "I do not eat bugs. But if lesser creatures wish to eat bugs, should they not eat the best bugs?"
Someone overheard him and said, "Bugs are the next rice."
"There is only one rice," said Chiun. "And it does not have legs."
Remo noticed that the sun was starting to go down.
"Well, we might as well make the best of it. Maybe we can claim a wigwam."
"I am not staying here."
"Look, we gotta infiltrate this lunatic's reservation. How are we going to do that?"
"I will not sleep among people who eat bugs," Chiun insisted. "People who eat bugs may try to eat my toes while I slumber. We will find a suitable hotel. One which boasts a presidential suite."
"Out here, we'll be lucky to find one without roaches," Remo growled.
"If you wish to stay here for the evening, that is your privilege," Chiun allowed. "I am certain that Jane Goodwoman will make space for you in her personal tent."
"You win," said Remo.
They stepped out of the tepee and gave the bugeaters a wide berth. They were too busy scooping thunderbugs out of the communal pot to pay Remo and Chiun any attention.
"The way they're going at it," Remo muttered, "it's a miracle they aren't all overweight."
"The way they eat what they eat," Chiun sniffed, "it is a miracle they are not all dead."
Chapter 7
Senator Ned J. Clancy loved a crowd. He loved people. All people. But especially the half of the human race that wore skirts.
That half of the human race he loved in restaurants, bathroom stalls, sandy beaches-but especially in the backs of limousines.
Most U.S. senators didn't travel by limousine. Most U.S. senators weren't the sole surviving son of a political dynasty that had put its stamp upon American political life for more than a half century now, owing to the fortune the senator's father, Francis X. Clancy, had amassed in the first half of the century, largely through stock manipulation and smut.
So when Senator Ned Clancy traveled, he traveled in style.
These days, Senator Ned J. Clancy no longer entertained teenyboppers in the back of his limousine. Much. He was married now. And as befits a newly married man who is also the senior senator from Massachusetts and who also just turned sixty, he conducted himself as the epitome of probity.
Which didn't mean he couldn't have a little innocent fun now and again.
The white stretch limousine was barreling along at a decorous seventy-five miles an hour along Highway 101 in Mendocino County. The driver was under strict orders never to go any slower and if necessary to force over to the side of the road any blocking vehicle that refused to yield. This was because during a lifetime of public service, irate voters had a distressing habit of shooting innocent Clancys. This had pretty much died down since Ned Clancy had publicly renounced any lingering White House ambitions. But not everybody could be trusted to have gotten the word.
The public renunciation had been a great disappointment to his family and espe
cially to his aged mother, Pearl. But secretly, Ned Clancy was relieved. He never wanted to be President in the first place. He just wanted to draw a government check without having to work too hard for it and enjoy a little nookie when both flesh and spirit were moved. Not unlike his cousins who had remained in the Emerald Isle. Over there, they called it the dole.
Ned Clancy had been married for over a year now and married life was beginning to chafe. He felt like cutting loose.
There was a school bus coming the other way, he noticed.
Talking an asthma atomizer from his pocket, Senator Clancy took two quick hits of vodka-he was officially on the wagon now-and pressed the button that lowered the side window.
"Honk the horn when I tell you," he told the driver.
And Ned Clancy dropped his drawers and jammed his loose cellulite-pocked backside into the open window frame. It was a very tight fit.
"Now!" he shouted.
The driver obeyed. The horn blared.
And the students seated on the left aisle of the bus all turned to look at the speeding pink blob that ejected a blatting sound in their direction. Unfortunately, Ned Clancy wasn't in much of a position to enjoy their expressions, but he imagined they had to be priceless.
Clancy tugged his pants back on and resumed his seat. He had the back all to himself. No wife this time. She was becoming a ball and chain already.
The backseat telephone buzzed and Clancy picked up the receiver.
"Yeah?"
"This is Nalini," said a musical voice. "Your mother is becoming very agitated, Senator."
Clancy looked back at the trailing limos. There were two, both black.
"She saw it?"
"I am afraid so."
"Did you?"
"Yes."
"What kind of a reaction did I get?"
"They appeared to be schoolgirls, Senator, and their expressions were indescribable."
"Great." He caught himself. "I mean, how unfortunate. I would never do anything to harm the young of our great nation. I thought I was mooning a college football team or something."
"You weren't."
"I feel terrible," said Ned Clancy, taking another vodka spritz. His face, like a snarled old pumpkin with a mossy coating of hair on top, dissolved into an inebriated smile. His tiny eyes seemed to shrink into their fatty sockets until they resembled baby eyes mistakenly set in an old man's face.
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