The Himmer’s Swiss lawyer came in and I recorded him. Funny, I had to turn the tape over to record him on top of Thay, wiping Thay’s words as I went. I wonder if that sort of cannibalism is what Himmer meant by: “Rub out the word”?
9. IT
“IT!” poor Amos always cries when I bring him in this portfolio of headaches; Princess Mya’s affairs. “Please don’t tag me with all that again, Rolf!” he begs me. “I’m It, already,” he says. And, now, that’s quite literally true since he has been taken prisoner and tortured, we have word tonight, by the captains in Tam. An emergency, a most unfortunate emergency arose abruptly during those hours we were out of communication with the Himmers; most disturbing, the first time it’s happened, ever. As Amos saw it, there was nothing for him to do but risk a night flight to Tam to try and save his twin sister, Freeky Fard, who is one of our Players, of course. As I now understand it from the Princess herself, this unique break in the very communication on which all our success depends was entirely due to the events surrounding your, ah, contact by means of the Saharan Seal. While the Seal is suspended there are no available words; or so I am led to believe. Well. It is interesting, I suppose, to see the way in which Mr. Himmer’s unorthodox, ah, methods work out. However, Amos and I have prognosticated your arrival or the arrival of someone just, ah, like you at any rate, long before we became cognizant of Mr. Himmer’s, ah, game. Nevertheless, let us, for a moment, call it just that: a game.
Well, what has happened in game-terms: what have we here? Here we have the newly-made king in “Malamut,” beyond a doubt, but one of his Towers of, ah, Strength has been taken by Tam. That is Amos Africanus. This other, ah, Tower of Strength, here; i.e., myself, must move off to Basel immediately because Basel is Banking, you know. A great deal is involved. There is a plane waiting for me out on the field, ready to take off as soon as we have lights, so I must be very brief. To go on with the game: the consort, while making a king, has been overtaken; first, by a voluntary abstinence from words and, then, an acute shortage of breath. That is Thay. Thay Himmer needs immediate medical attention, we agree on that, but: is Francis-X. Fard a competent medical practitioner? That I cannot answer. Nonetheless, it has been decided that the next move will be to transport Thay to Tam tonight in the other Lear jet: that’s what the princess flies best. You will be seven aboard: the plane’s maximum load. There will be several Players on hand to help. Olav Pesonius, a Finnish friend, whom Mr. Himmer calls his Little White Reindeer, was brought into “Malamut” today by the Foulba, along with the younger Africanus sister, Ana Lyse, and a rather unfortunate American newspaperwoman called Mag Media, I am afraid. Here, by the way, is Olav’s journal of his trip down here overland; it might amuse you to run through it before you take your plane, tonight or early tomorrow morning before dawn. The Princess Mya has done really very little night flying: you might insist on a dawn flight, if you can. I say advisedly, if you can, because the king merely modifies moves: he cannot initiate any move until he has been crowned. The king is simply a Champion, you see, until he has been shown to his people — in this case, the Foulba, first. There will be no tiresome parades or risky public appearances. Don’t worry — none of that! We will project you on television when it is feasible — the Sahara has been widely transistorized, you realize — but we expect to do an inaugural flyover while the Foulba bards and court poets are acclaiming you on international shortwave bands. However, before this can take place, you must first reclaim and rescue your other Tower of Strength from, ah, Tam. That is Amos, naturally, on whom a great deal depends.
Now, how can this best be done? A frontal attack on Tam would be absurd. The only way for a restricted number of people to take an impregnable fortress is from inside. You will, therefore, gain admittance to the Steel Star by flying in and declaring yourselves a medical emergency. Voilá! International law obliges Tam to allow you to land. The hypocrite colonels do have an iron lung in there because they call it a hospital. Ergo! You do a judo on them and play Thay the Consort into the Trojan Lung. Princess Mya must follow with her Borbor in hand, which she will instill into the drinking water of, at least, Captain Mohamed. The captain, from all I hear, may well turn out to be some other color of horse in Thay Himmer’s psychic sweepstakes, but the princess herself is running this race, as you know. What she wants out of it, first and foremost, is freedom: she’ll tell you so herself. “I want all the freedom in the world!” She says so every day. Freedom, first of all, for Amos and the Fards because they are, if you like, full-fledged Players. Then, freedom for the entire cabinet of First Wave ex-ministers who are being held prisoner in Tam. Once their considerable, ah, human ability has been increased by GRAMMA and they have been properly, ah, secured by Mya’s Borbor, they will form an ideal super-government for Africa; for the world.
All that postulates Phase Five and Phase Five will link “Malamut” on the Atlantic to Tam in the center of the Sahara, its very umbilicus. This will be done through the atomic center — which very conveniently for us, lies abandoned by the French at Reggan, exactly midway between here and Tam. Since they pulled their rods out of the pile, the entire installation has been in the hands of the famous Belgian physicist Dr. Henri Feldzahler, who is an old friend of the Africanus family and a Player, too, in his way. Our contact with him has been through Amos’s sister, Freeky Fard: you see her importance, of course. We need Dr. Feldzahler and his atomic artifact to blow out a harbor right here below “Malamut.” The obstruction, here, is the famous offshore reef, the natural bar which has cut off this bump of Africa forever from outside contact and left this whole section of the Sahara so, ah, sensitive to our approach. We shall, ah, inherit this part of the earth. From Basel, I fly to New York to arrange with the UN our plebiscite, which we will hold here for the Foulba, who will be voting for the first time in their long cultural life. The necessary documents are in the hands of Dr. Fard, so you see why we must get to him right away. The Foulba will vote in a phalanx which we can airlift back and forth to wherever voting is to be set up. They are very mobile by, ah, nature — being nomads — and they have all been, ah, grammatized: “Hello Yes Hello.” They will vote as a man, of course, for you.
The Board has often discussed your, ah, image and I must say you fit it very, ah, adequately, indeed. I am completely, ah, cognizant of Mya’s judgment in men, having lived through all of her seven husbands, after all. You, on the other hand, are something quite else again. You were found by the Foundation for Fundamental Findings — you will recall our original interview in the Hotel Saint Georges of Algut. At the time, it was not possible to speak to you frankly in front of that man Knoblock, who represented the CIA. They were trying to infiltrate the Foundation. You can imagine how hopeless to offer us mere money but we needed them for the time being. We were casting for a man in a million; someone as unique as you yourself; someone, if you will excuse me, someone odd. Then, we had to garner, microfilm and destroy — utterly wipe out any documentary proof of that person’s previous existence. We needed the, ah, special services to get into the files in Albany, N.Y., for example. Beginning with your birth certificate, we have erased Ulys O. Hanson, III, “Hassan Merikani,” etc.; the infant, the child, the boy and the man.