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.

Suddenly Cam was struck by a wild surmise.

"Number Four—he's the Panchen Lama, isn't he?" Cam knew that the current Red puppet high priest was about twelve.

"You win the cigar," said Ev.

Cam made up his mind quickly. "Ev, listen to me and do exactly as I say. This is crucial."

"What?"

"Turn up the gain on the mongoose."

"What for? It's all I can stand right now!"

"Never mind. Turn it up."

"You're the account exec."

Now Sowles began telling in hushed whispers how it would be under the Reds. The huge mural became a panorama of rapine. Commie soldiers sacked Euramerican cities and hamlets. Girls were dragged off for the pleasure of drunken battalions. Barbarian guffaws rang out as homes and stores were pillaged and put to the torch.

"Ourch!" gritted Ev. "All this hate...."

"Have another snort and turn up the gain."

The crowd began to low like a cow in labor. Sowles swung into the climax: A series of questions shouted to the audience....

"Would you work night and day to crush this menace to your homes, your family, your country, your God?"

"YES!" The hills rang with the full-throated bellow.

"Would you fight, and if need be, die, to save our civilization and slay the Commie monsters in their lairs?"

"YES!"

Cam thought he could even hear answering shouts from outside the Bowl. "Turn up the gain again."

"Will you place in the hands of your servants, the Christian Soldiers, all powers necessary to crush the barbarian tide?" This last was fairly screamed. Sowles was draped across the podium, arms outstretched to the audience.

"YES! YES! YES!" thundered the reverberating response.

Fife, drum, and cornet struck up "Onward" very softly.

"Will you follow me to the ends of the earth—to the very gates of Red Hell itself—destroying every obstacle in our path—until the Anti-Christ has been annihilated root and branch, and we have come into our Kingdom? Will you follow ME??!"

Pandemonium. The crowd surged into the aisles, falling in with the Choral Guard, singing, shouting, weeping.

"He hit high C," said Ev.

"Full gain," said Cam.

Ev gulped more skull-buster and stroked the "amplifier" in the region of the pancreas.

Sowles' arms were uplifted, and one of Cam's clever little effects haloed his flying locks.

"KILL THE REDS!" he shrilled.

"Kill ... REDS ... KILL ... REDS ..." chanted the crowd, in time to the drum.

The bright feral light of the super-mongoose's eyes seemed to lance at Sowles, like an infra-red flash. Then there was a puff where the would-be messiah had stood—a crackle, and a smell of scorched air; but no more Sowles.

"He's gone!" said Curt.

"You're damn right, and thank God for it," said Cam, ministering to Ev who had slumped unconscious from his chair.

The mob broke up uncertainly, with the disappearance of the focus for its concerted bloodlust. The police asked many questions but none of the right ones. Finally, Cam, Ev, and Curt escaped to the waiting limo and started the long slow crawl downhill.

"Now—give," said Ev.

"Feedback. That's why I had you unleash Mighty Mouse. All that hate in hundreds of millions of people had to boomerang back through your Gestalt in some psi-fashion ... although I did not anticipate the pyrotechnics—or should I say pyrokinetics?"

"But what for, Cam?" asked Curt. "I've never seen such an effective job of mass influence."

"He could have been elected President tomorrow," said Ev.

"That's just it—we did too good a job. And I think that's the way your Tibetan quarterback wanted it." Cam tilted Ev's flask. "Sowles was a cinch to go all the way, which would have meant all-out war. Maybe your junior Fu Manchu figured he could pick up the pieces afterwards."

"How could he know you'd have a character like Sowles all set to go?" Ev said. "Oh, I get it—precognition. It's fortunate that his crystal ball didn't read as far as the outcome tonight."

"In any case, we'd better get your Pathan over here, and start rebuilding your Gestalt," said Cam. "You won't hear from the Panchen—he's undoubtedly constructing a new, all-Red unit right now. After this bit, psi faculties, including telempathy, have to be considered another weapons family in the Cold War ... a new set of pieces of the big chessboard. So you're going to have to find a substitute for the Himalayan Quiz Kid, and git crackin'."

"I'll consider your application," said Ev, giving his flask the coup de grace; and the lights of L.A. rushed up around them like a huge breaker—gaudy, garish, and beautifully comprehensible.

THE END