The Secret Letters of Professor Anton Saurian,
Compiled & Edited by Steven Solomon ©

Currently In This Excerpt: One... Preface & Introduction, Two... Wherein We Meet the Good Professor, Three... Nasty Recriminations & Flight West, Four... Welcome to Paraguay, Five... Let's Get Metaphysical, Six... Who Killed Kennedy?, Seven... Say Again?, Eight... Dangerous Experiments

Table of Context, The Full Story

I: Those Bastards

II: God, Life, Death, Whatever

III: Politics & The Natural Order of Primate Organizations

IV: Future Evolution & What Passes for Intelligence

V: The Tragedy of Romance

VI: Years of Madness & Betrayal

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Preface & Introduction

The year was 1955. The place, the Philippines. I had been dispatched by Real True Crime Magazine to report on the imminent execution of one Professor Anton Saurian at the hand of local authorities. He had been recently apprehended on multiple charges of drug trafficking, murder, necrophilia and espionage.

Under the sweltering rays of a new rising tropical sun, in the town square of sleepy Laoag, I first laid eyes on him. I watched him walk, with armed escort but without assistance, to the top of the gallows. Handsome, tall and lean, he strode forward with a confident gait that gave not one hint that he considered these to be his last steps on Earth. They pulled the black hood over Saurian's head and the noose tight about his neck.

He refused Last Rites. He did not pray. He had no last words to offer and stood ramrod straight as the hangman's switch was pulled. The floor beneath Saurian's feet yawned open. His body dropped to the taunt end of the rope.

There he twisted, apparently dead, for some several minutes as the good folk of the Northern Province proceeded to pelt the corpse with spittle, stones and empty beer bottles. It was all the authorities could do to prevent them from setting the body afire. Women wailed and grown men cried. The priests called for calm as the police beat senseless those who would not desist and return quietly to their hovels.

There is no explanation, official or otherwise, to account for the subsequent disappearance of Saurian's corpse from the coroner's freezer. Nor can it be explained how someone using his identification booked passage on a banana boat leaving that region only hours later. I can tell you this, however: amazingly, I met Saurian once again. I was in Dallas, November 22, 1963, in a saloon not far from Dealey Plaza. More on that later.

Where Saurian is today, we do not know. He is believed to have last taken the identity of the fugitive Anton Baer, former Chief Financial Officer of the presently bankrupt Bundestbånk, German Federal Republic. At other times over the past half-century, he is thought to have variously assumed the guise of the Catholic Pope, John Paul I, pioneering French director and star, Antonin Artaud, and rock poet, Bob Dylan.

We know neither where nor when Saurian was born, but can deduce that it was in the first third of this century, somewhere in southeast Asia. His father is thought to have been French; his mother Vietnamese or Cambodian. He first came to the attention of the western intelligence community during the final days of the Second World War; his name appearing in American OSS files as a leading but highly controversial Soviet neurochemist.

Five years following the war, he briefly came over to the newly formed American CIA, only to defect yet again, this time into self-employment and freelance neurochemistry. While his great mind roamed the spectrum of human concerns, producing often startling insights into fields as far flung as literature and exo-biology, he was always most preoccupied with neurological inquiries.

It was this abiding concern, and the attendant ongoing need for anatomical specimens, that no doubt gave rise to persistent allegations of grave robbing, vampirism, and murder. Thus was destroyed an otherwise sterling reputation. In every generation, small minds ridicule and debase those they envy but do not understand.

What you are about to read are the most personal letters of Professor Anton Saurian, recovered from the dusty attics of lives lived in the shadow of true greatness. The words that follow are those written in utmost confidence, even conspiracy, to his most trusted and oft-times beloved confederates. It is to these individuals that I dedicate this effort. It is, however, to the man himself that I and you, dear reader, owe the greatest measure of gratitude. Read on and savor well this unfolding story of a life of the mind lived on the run.

© Steven Solomon 1992, with greatest appreciation to A.G.

The following letters are the earliest known correspondence from the Professor. They are addressed to Evgeny Nedo, Saurian's confidant and lab assistant during his years behind the Iron Curtain. Evgeny is believed to have died or been executed in the Soviet gulag during the Kruschev years; this apparently for his close association with Saurian, the traitor-genius. These documents have been made available thanks to the great strides made during the recent period of openness and restructuring within the former communist block. (Ed.)

September 12th, 1951

Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,

I am free! My jailers, those bastards, have at last released me from the dark night of incarceration, hunger and relentless beatings. I am free, free at last!!!

As the cell door opened, and sunlight graced my continence for the first time in one-hundred and fourteen days, I actually believed once again in the true and just nature of Soviet justice, the law of my adopted land. At that moment, in the dour face of Club-foot Ivan, my sadistic caretaker, I thought that I detected the glimmer of a smile. He wiped the drool from the corner of his crusty mouth and said "Mm-uph-shme". I don't know what it means, and it probably means nothing. He has no tongue.

In any case, as it turned out, my release had nothing to do with the proper resolution of those utterly groundless allegations regarding murder and sadistic bodily mutilation... bah! Of course, I had nothing to do with that old woman's demise nor her missing body-parts. They were briny and stringy and of no use to me.

The charges were all trumped up, you know; a mere and unfortunate happenstance that Helga Kirov should turn up dead and sans endocrine ducts, brain stem, pituitary gland and most of her liver. My misfortune, alas, to be experimenting with advanced neurological medicine just as the elderly victim became the latest in a series of grisly and difficult to solve murders in this, a socialist paradise where crime does not occur. The good folk of the village set upon me like hungry dogs.

As ever, it was all too easy for the petty, jealous and uneducated to blame a True Man of Scientific Inquiry for their incomprehensible misfortunes. The fuck with them all, I say; those bastards!

Well, that is all behind us, now. Praise the ghost of Lenin, word of my important research finally made its way to the Kremlin! Stalin's own doctors secured the order for my released. They need my help. There is nowhere else to turn... not a single scientist in the entire communist block has carried out extensive and practical investigations comparable to my own. If anyone can solve the problem of our National Savior's rotting brain, it is I, and I alone!

It seems that our Leader has recently, since, oh, the past decade, become rather distracted. He is given to nervous fits; something to do with alcoholic lesions on the brain. He exhibits increasingly paranoid behavior, even by his own standards. How paranoid, you ask: better to query his last neurologist, the venerable Dr. Mishlove, now presumed rolling at the news of my being on the case, in an unmarked, mass grave.

Whatever! The Politburo has grown concerned enough to bring me in as a specialist in the field of Chemical Brain Amplification and Reconstruction. They promise me the best and latest in laboratory facilities, all the help I need and an unlimited supply of anatomical and chemical samples with which to experiment.

As soon as I arrive in Moscow, we will be that much closer toward a cure for Stalin's case of disappearing intelligence. I'm sure that this is a job that I can handle. There is, no doubt, a medal of The Order of Lenin awaiting me in some few months. Why, I'll have our Beloved Socialist First Comrade back in fine fettle in no time at all.

Evgeny, I need you to return to Uralsk and secure whatever equipment remains in the ruins of our old lab. Also, find my notes. Little Riasa, the Commissar's daughter, has kept them safe for me. Be careful, however! Her father, Misha Alexaevich does not know that I was shtuping her. If he finds out that she and I were in any way involved, he might make trouble. I would have to kill them both. I would have to kill the entire family. I am, of course, now a man with a serious reputation and interests to defend. I would probably have to kill you, as well. Yes sir, that's how old Joe would handle it!

For both our sakes, let's just try to avoid it coming to that, eh.

Well, we have quite the excellent opportunity before us, don't we. I am so looking forward to the chance to be working closely with you, once again. Please stay well and have the best of success in your errands on my behalf. I will be seeing and your family in Moscow, very shortly!

Yours in Scientific Zeal & Real Enthusiasm,

Anton Saurian

We rejoin Professor Saurian only thirteen months after his return to Moscow. Over the course of those months, Saurian and his assistant Evgeny Sergeivich had engaged in a series of apparently doomed efforts to halt Stalin's mental decline. The exact nature of these experiments remains a closely held secret, even in this post-Soviet era. It is safe to say, however, that Saurian had become increasingly desperate and fearful of the inevitable consequence of failure. Both Stalin's allies and his enemies within the Kremlin made ready for the chaos that would follow the Secretary General's impending demise. Ed.

October 31st, 1952

Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,

By the time you read this, I shall have gone over. I have no other choice. Stalin is completely mad. There is no longer any doubt about it, and even I, Professor Anton Saurian, can do nothing to rescue the man's fevered, festering, and lesioned pia and dura maters.

As you know, over the past month, our Great Leader's been doing nothing but bumbling around the Kremlin attic in his pajamas, masturbating incessently and muttering darkly to the imagined ghost of Leon Trotsky. When not babbling, he dissolves into alternate paroxysms of manic laughter and sobbing tears. The facial ticks have become poetically grotesque, as though the shadow of a great, black bird of prey flutters across his brow. The entire left side of his body goes rigid with hysterical paralysis and he messes his pants.

Stalin is insane and he is doomed.

As his physician, Chief Neurologist to the Party Chairman, I will take some measure of the blame for this pitiable state of affairs. This I know. I must therefore also take all necessary and appropriate precautions against the likely actions of my colleagues in the NKVD¹; those bastards.

Oh, sure, there will be plenty of blame to spread around, and many a head will roll when Crazy Joe finally kicks the bucket. Mine might well have been among them. On the Night of Long Knives, however, I shall be long gone from these parts. I have made plans for such a contingency, and they are now in effect.

Still, I must wonder, what has gone wrong? My cerebral injections of human gland extract cannot be at fault. I've been using them myself, and surely I am not insane!

Indeed, I find the treatments to be most efficacious; wonderfully salubrious. My mental and physical reaction times have improved two-hundred percent from base-line. IQ is up a full thirty points and rising! The injections should have had the same effect on The Chairman as on myself and the experimental monkeys. Perhaps, Crazy Joe's habit of consuming bad vodka by the liter interferes with the uptake of essential neurochemicals.

Hmmmm- now, there is a subject for further research.

Ah, but more's the pity that I must so soon make haste away from the capitol and thence to the West. I would dearly love to have a look under the hood when they autopsy the Idiot Czar's brain-pan... what a pile of mush they will find in there. I would, of course, culture it and feed it to the monkeys... just to see whatever might develop or decay.

Yes, I do love the adventure of Science!

Right now, however, my concerns are more pressing. I fear the footfalls proceeding down the corridor. The jack-booted knocking on the door is surely to come. My contacts in the West have assured me of safe haven and the opportunity to continue my work under ideal conditions. In any case, you know as well as I, that I am born for greater things than to tend to a geriatric, whacko despot in his besotted declining days. I am a Scientist, not a sop nurse to the mentally incontinent!

Evgeny Sergeivich, I send you this transmission only in the greatest confidence that it will remain our secret. Were it within my power, I would take you with me. Alas, there is but room for one on the mini-sub.

Someday, hopefully, we shall meet again and on that day, spill neurotransmitters in great celebration. If, on the other hand, you reveal my secret, rest assured that my new friends will find you and do you and your family terrible, terrible harm. They are not nice people. They will kill you slowly and take weird pleasure in doing so.

Yes, they are true professionals, in their own right.

I truly wish you and yours the best in the coming hard days. Take care of yourself and your lovely Alexis. Give the children a kiss for me. Please, if you will, be sure to look after the monkeys. Whatever comes, forever, I will always be your Comrade and Fellow Explorer in the Quest of True Science. At present, however, I flee!

I Remain Yours in Fraternal Compassion and Self Salvation,

Anton Saurian

1: Soviet Secret Police, prior to KGB.

We next hear from the Professor as he undertakes, with great enthusiasm, his new life in the West. The pivotal transitions vis a vis loyalties East or West revealed in the following letters are stricking. They may be seen to cast the dye that would inform the pattern of his life for the following two decades. Ed.

December 23rd, 1952

Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,

I am in Las Vegas. Ho-ho, this is the Good Life! I will tell you Evgeny, these Capitalist Dog Americans know how to do a country... big sky, wide open spaces, fast cars, free liquor and cheap dope, legal gambling and drive-in whore houses every tenth of a mile up and down every highway in sight.

As say the American cowboys; "Yeea-hah!"

I was debriefed over the past month by eager, young CIA operatives. All in all, it was a delightful affair featuring massive doses of crude pyscho-active substances; phenylbarbitol, sodium pentathol, nitrous oxide, and Dr. Hoffman's Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Goodness, they really make a guest feel at home! I liked the LSD the best, but I wish they'd tried out one of those newly isolated phenethylamines on me. There's a young fellow named Shulgin on the, ahem, "Company" staff; I understand that he's doing very exciting work with these new substances. I'll have to meet him. Yes!

In any case, they asked me many questions and got me terribly stoned as I did my best, under the circumstances, to provide coherent answers. A rather strange method of interrogation, don't you think? It is hard, you know, to exactly recollect complex neurobiological information while flying on 1500 mics of acid and a serious load of downs. I'm sure, however, that if they actually try to make any of those preparations, they will first test them on the monkeys.

I'm equally sure that all those monkeys will die horribly.

In any case, they've since set me up quite nicely. I've got a new identity. I'm supposed to be a veterinarian, but I never actually see any patients, only my lab monkeys. They gave me a lovely ranch-house on the edge of the desert. There's a beautiful and fully equipped laboratory in the secret sub-basement.

My new assistant, a Phd in Neuropharmacology and ersatz wife, Bambi, is a relatively inexperienced but very capable lass. A recent alum from the less than renowned Santo Domingo School of Medicine, whatever she lacks in seasoned lab skills, she more than makes up for in eagerness to learn. I've made it my personal responsibility to teach her everything I know.

Meanwhile, the boys at the Company, are happy to fulfill my every request for equipment and specimens. Glands and brain parts usually arrive at the post office box in plain brown wrappers, no return address. Recently, I did receive an entire human head in fairly good condition; strangely, it came with an odd note attached to a knitting needle jammed through ear to ear. "Next time, we kill your mother." It was signed "A friend of Anthony 'Big Ears' Tuzzio". Probably some sort of mix-up at the lab, or something.

Well, I'm not one to look a gift head in the mouth. I got the thing down to the lab, cracked the skull, peeled off the neocortex and popped out the pineal gland with a speed and dexterity that prompted Bambi to swoon in clinical admiration. It was not an hour later that we together tasted the fruit of our first great experiment. The result was moderately encouraging. Quaffing the decantation of cerebro-glandular essences, we soon noted a marked psychological, even sexual, stimulation.

What ensued was several hours of enthusiastic fantasy-play; though Bambi, for professional reasons, declined the opportunity to let me actually shtup her. She did, however, genuinely relish the chance to play Lone Ranger to my faithful Trigger. Best of all, she came equiped with her own set of sterling spurs.

Unfortunately, I must note that since our experiment, Bambi has experienced some minor side-effects. She has developed a marked case of hirsuitism, which, while rather attractive (reminding me of the gals back home, you know), has brought a black cloud over her normally bouyant personality. I think she blames me. I'm now working full-time to develop a cure in the form of an orally administered and all natural, hormone-based depilatory.

That should set things right, aye.

It is now late and my duties in the lab call me away. There is important work to be done at the Frontier of Neuroscience! Of course, I cannot be sure that this missive will ever reach you. I have sent it by the most secure method available; one which I cannot describe other than to say it has been surgically implanted deep within the brain of an unknowing operative programmed to recite its contents to a Company controlled telegraphy operator, upon a previously agreed upon cue. If all goes well, you should be reading this transmission by the Month's end; if not, you will be in prison or worse. Good luck in this, Evgeny, and a very merry Christmas, happy New Year, to you and yours!

Yours in the Good Life of Science Fun,

Anton Saurian

January 5th, 1953

Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,

What a lousy New Year's! Bambi is now completely bald over her entire body... she hates me... the hell with her, I say! The Boys in the Company have been on my back, complaining about my lack of attention to "serious" research... bah! They wouldn't know serious research if it came up and bit them on the testicles, assuming that these western brats have any... the hell with them all, I say! To hell with those bastards!!!

Yours in the Foulest of Foul Moods,

Anton Saurian

February 14th, 1953

Dearest Evgeny Sergeivich,

I have fled; I could take no more! Those bastards with the CIA lied to me at every turn. Even Bambi had turned on me. Ah, poor Bambi; she perished during a hair restoration experiment gone horribly awry. I will miss her, but her glands, safe for now in a Thermos® jug, will live on in my continuing work. I'm going freelance!

Yes, my good friend, I am on the run and seeking self-employment as an undercover, freelance neuropharmacologist. In my brief time with the Company, I picked up quite a few tricks... how to create a new identity utilizing make-up and disguise, subterfuge, espionage, and best of all, the covert transaction of large amounts of cash and contraband... radio-isotopes, dope, human body parts, what have you. I plan to put these new skills to use on my own behalf. I've already spread my wings in that regard, effecting escape from the hands of those clods, those bastards.

They promised me all the specimens and any equipment that I required, and vowed no interference in my work. But, when it came down to it, they had some very specific ideas in mind. They began to telling me what to do with my time and boundless curiosity; meager, boorish inquiries into chemically assisted interrogations, neurochemicals to keep soldiers awake for days on end and allowing them to move their two eyes independently, pharmaceuticals to repress fear and potentiate extreme violence, a medicine to help a certain elderly and rum-soaked Paraguayan general maintain a hard-on. Kids stuff; Bah!!! To hell with them, I say!

No, there are greater things in store for me. I believe that I am close to achieving the True Grail; Super-enhanced Human Intelligence through Better Neurochemistry.

Just think of it! Behold the doors that will open; telepathy, kinesthesia, precognition at last within reach of the ordinary man. Why, if my theories are correct, within the next few years, we will see the creation of The Ultimate Human Brain, capable of mental and sensory feats previously unimaginable; seeing through walls, hearing the sound of a butterfly flapping her wings on the other side of the planet, factoring pi to the millionth decimal in the time it takes to play a hand of gin rummy... while playing a hand of gin rummy! Ho-ho... I am very excited!

Of course, as a True Man of Science engaged in the Adventure of Real Discovery, I shall continue to test my experimental chemicals on my own brain. As you can no doubt tell, they are already having some effect.

Well, in any case, it is good to be out from under the boot heel of my former task-master. I made my escape as they watched me go into the neighborhood liquor store, ostensibly to purchase a gallon of what passes for wine around here. I cannot presently provide too many details, but suffice it to say that the death of the store's proprietor was an unanticipated tragedy. So it goes. I was, however, grateful for the opportunity to pick up some much needed currency, ID, and a late-model Buick Roadmaster.

Someday, the world will remember poor Emmet Groster as a True Hero of the Neurological Revolution. Certainly, his survivors will be duly proud of his unique contribution, paid for, albeit inadvertently, with his lamentable and foreshortened life.

Today, I am one the run, and have yet another identity. I like this game. It is exhilarating. I've met some nice people on the road, and have stolen their cars and money. I am now in the company of a sweet young lady; she was hitchhiking as I happened by. Her name is Sara Jane Kowalski, she's seventeen, run away from home in Missouri, and quite drunk on that jug wine. I think I smell romance in the air!

I cannot tell you of my next stop, other than to say that Sara Jane and I will probably find a comfy motel and turn in for the evening. From there, I will venture toward my next connection and a situation where the extradition laws are favorable. Before then, I'll have to figure out how to lose Miss Kowalski, of course. She can't go with me, and I'm afraid to leave her behind. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

Alright, my friend. I must close now. I hope that this correspondence makes it to you. I have attempted to arrange secure transmission, but one never knows, aye.* I shall be writing again, as soon as circumstances permit.

Ever in Pursuit of Knowledge,

Anton Saurian

*Evegeny Sergeivich Nedo never received the preceding letter; it was intercepted by Soviet GRU, military intelligence. He was immediately arrested and imprisoned, and is most likely to have perished in a labor camp. The fate of his family is unknown, although a middle aged woman claiming to be his daughter has recently filed suit both against the former Soviet regime and Professor Saurian, seeking damages for wrongful imprisonment and death. As this volume goes to print, the case is in litigation and her claimed identity is still unproven. Ed.

Saurian now flees the United States for safe haven in Paraguay, utilizing entree gained from his brief tenure with the CIA. There, exchanging exclusive services to the up and coming General Stroessner, he secures the type of working environment that he had so long had coveted. Nonetheless, his goal of creating the Ultimate Human Brain remains on an ever receding horizon. Indeed, it is difficult to determine if his self-experiments of this period yielded any results, whatsoever.

Still, Saurian's restless mind continues to wander into ever wider fields of inquiry, and through his research, he comes in contact with a small cadre of confidants and co-conspirators around the globe. Notable among this group was one Herr Doktor D. He and Dear Doktor, as the Professor invariably referred to him, quickly form a deep friendship born of a common passion for rigorous intellectual challenge and high frontier neurochemical research.

As Doktor D. still survives and practices medicine in Dade County Florida, for reasons of confidentiality and legal liability, his true identity shall remain unknown.

Ed.

August 13th, 1954

Dear Doktor,

The weather is beastly hot. I don't know how these fucking people ever lived down here without air conditioning. Even at full blast, maximum chill, the temperature in the lab hovers well above ninety-degrees and eighty-percent humidity. I am forced to conclude that the hellish climate is at fault for the otherwise inexplicable failure of my latest cerebro-glandular preparation to take proper effect.

Today, I received a transmission from USSR; sad news about poor Evgeny. I once knew him well but now must disavow any knowledge of our relationship, except in the most confidential quarters. My correspondents inform me that he was arrested by GRU shortly after my flight to the Americans. His family have been made "non-persons" and his own fate must be, by now, far more grim.

They will kill him, or he shall die of "natural" causes, while in their custody. I know too well how They work. At this very moment, his bones may be roasting in the kiln of the Minsk Meat Rendering Plant, District #08, his hide transformed into a bar of cheap soap, lending chapped skin and the scent of lavender to the over-ample thighs of the mistress to the Regional Commissar, Comrade Popov. Alas, They have no concept of the True Scientific Value of human tissues. They are barbarians.

You know, I'd like to send his family a card, flowers, or something. This is difficult; they have a non-address, you understand.

In any case, these sort of things tend to make one think of one's own mortality. How fleeting is our passage through this veil of tears and mortal travail. How fragile is the membrane that separates the Living from the Dead, and there is nothing but a breath between this moment and Doom.

Oh, there I go, down into the pit of despair. Things are just not working out very well. I am very, very concerned about my recent lack of success. General Stroessner is not the most compassionate nor patient employer. He wants results and he has his own ways of dealing with failure. I've learned that they're not very pretty.

Last evening, I was invited for dinner at the palace; just me, the General, the American Ambassador, his wife, and half a dozen hookers. There were evidently some problems in the kitchen. Dinner was served late. The rolls were hard. The entree cold. The frozen desert melted. The coffee tasted like dish-water.

It is thus with an odd mixture of glee compounded by horror, that this morning I received a steel drum full of fresh specimens. They take their coffee quite seriously, down here in central South America.

I am, frankly, rather desperate. I cannot run. I am watched constantly. Stroessner will have me killed if I make so much as a move toward the airport. Mortality has become a very real specter haunting my every waking moment. It interferes with My Work and clouds my sleep with dreams of dissolution and decay.

Perhaps you might give me some insight, here, Dear Doktor. I am, you well know, not a religious man. Things are as they are, and there is so much to learn in the brief time given us to see the Greater Plan. It is a struggle and I must hurry in my inquiries. I, like long deceased Fr. Bacon, strive to be precise in my interrogation of Nature, brooking Her no quarter.

You, however, tend more toward the subtle consideration of the Divine. Please, send me your thoughts on these matters. They weigh heavy on my mind and heart.

Well, struggle on, I must. I know that I will solve this momentary conundrum. Of course, I've told the General that if he is to have any hope of having an erection again, I must be provided with an improved air-conditioning plant. He's told me that they will soon be bringing in a Soviet designed unit. It will be capable of chilling even this fetid miasma that passes for Paraguayan summer air. This, combined with my newly arrived and perfectly fresh specimens, offers some promise of renewed progress.

So, I continue to self-experiment. For my part, I have no problem achieving an erection and am grateful, if for nothing else, for the constant presence of my loyal lab-assistant, Rosa. She's quite an intellectual and real handy with a surgical clamp.

I must go now. The General's aid is summoning me to yet another state dinner. Tonight, it will be a small group of influential businessmen (expatriate Germans), the Vatican Ambassador, and half dozen hookers. So, as they say in Paraguay: take it easy, or take hostages.

Yours in Mortal Fear & Spiritual Confusion,

Anton Saurian

PS: please send any info on Philippine animist cults utilizing indigenous fungus or other psychotropic vegetables. Such literature is painfully scarce here, but I am told by reliable sources that it may contain essential leads toward my Major Objective. I eagerly await your next neurotransmission.

A.S.

To the best of our knowledge, a single transcription of the Doktor's rambling reply to the preceding plea currently exists. A bequest of the Katherine Anderson Foundation, named for the widow of legendary psychenaut and co-founder of the now infamous Adelphion Club, Karl Anderson, this document may be found at the renown Fitz Hugh Ludlow Library. Although independently substantiated, Doktor D. has consistently refused to confirm the transcript's authenticity. Similarly, he will not discuss in any way his current or past opinions regarding experimental neurochemistry, theology, nor Professor Anton Saurian. Nor does he acknowledge that the two had ever made even a passing acquaintance. Still, according to those close to both men during the mid-fifties, the Doktor is said to have relayed the following message to Saurian.

Ed.

August 23rd, 1954

My Dear Saurian,

As you probably know, events have conspired to hasten my removal to a more congenial, less high-profile venue. In so doing, I've found temporary emotional oasis, while paying some price in physical comfort. Well, so long as my picture stays out of the papers I won't have to worry about the New York State Medical Board for a while.

Heat and humidity? Here I am in Florida, a hot, moist and swamp-ridden place. It's teeming with organic anomalies that infect the air itself. That air, by the way, was best characterized by the great writer, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, as being "Oxygen 21%, Nitrogen 79%, Mosquitoes 65%". It's hard to believe that Paraguay could be any less conducive to our Great Work, compared to late August in southern-most Florida.

The Great Work? Alas, I've been temporarily forced to take up more directly remunerative endeavors. Astonishingly, the Florida real-estate market is currently booming. In this economic environment, my role has been "Transaction Specialist". Yes, in my proprietary blend of sub-tropical vegetation and grain alcohol, I've found a reliable tool enabling the keen negotiator to lower the client's decision-making threshold to a properly business-like level. The happy result has been my participation in a number of limited partnerships, each seeing my small equity stake rapidly accrue significant value.

With a few more months of applied pharmacology and shrewd investment, I'll be able to return to more pure and sublime ratiocinations contributing to our deeper understanding of the Human Mind.

Which brings me to those eschatological matters raised in your last missive. I'm humble and pleased that you seek my counsel! I'd first offer that our life upon this mudball is, as Hobbs said, "short and brutish". Still, upon reflection, I'd add that such is not the end of the matter. To wit, many of the Major Experiments in which we've shared the role of both experimenter and subject, have illumined realms of the human unconscious, heretofore largely unexplored.

The terrain revealed in our mutual yet solitary quest is a place of stark beauty and limitless boundary. In the antipodes of the mind, we find a coherence and majesty which seems to bear no correlation to the biological brain from which they derive- according, at least, to the mechanistic view of mind as epiphenomenon of a warm, wet glop sloshing between our ears.

I conjecture that the mortality of your corporeal being isn't the closing of accounts that you fear. I hesitate to speculate beyond the data, but you understand my metaphysical bent- now overarching as my purely empirical inquiries are curtailed for a nonce. So, I'll cautiously propose that our mutual groping toward Higher Knowledge feeds on itself and so extends the reach of our earth-bound speculations. It may also serve to build momentum (in the space-time field sense) enabling such mapping of the Ineffable well beyond the normal limits of the human interval upon this soggy, spinning ball of dirt.

Oh, I know that you're thinking the old Doktor's melon has gone soft. Just the same, perhaps you'll find some comfort in the optimism of my theory. I don't expect you to accept such speculation without experimental confirmation. At present, I can only begin in this regard.

Now, as to your inquiry re; the Philippines. You may know that I've yet to voyage to the great Pacific archipelago. It ranks, however, very, very high on my list of neuropharmacological destinations. In fact, Honey and I had hoped to vacation there, back in 49, after the war. That was before she encountered her unfortunate cerebral difficulties, of course, and even today she is precluded from traveling beyond the walls of the Ganzfeld Sanitorium.

Nonetheless, in preparing for our journey that was not to be, I had been led to understand that the remote Philippines harbored natives who, upon consuming particular roots and barks, allegedly transformed into animals, insects, birds and reptiles capable of feats quite impossible for humans. I learned that in the northern forests, there were Shaman capable of eating poisons with no ill effects, walking through fire and copulating for days on end. There are reports of one great Shaman able to sustain horrible and even terminal injuries such as hanging, burning and dismemberment, and yet still survive. I cannot presently verify these reports, nor provide you with any greater specifics.

No, I'll have to delay the delivery of concrete ethnopharmacological data until, among other things, I've constructed a satisfactorily rigorous transmission path for the pharmacopia of the Philippine animist cults. I will, however, venture that the psychoactive mushroom, Stropharia Cubensis, was first introduced to Mexico by colonial Spaniards bringing cattle from the Philippines. I hope to confirm that the New World and Pacific varieties are identical, and presently seek specimens for our scientific delectation and experimental consideration. Thus, True Science moves a step at a time along the Great Path of Knowledge.

Saurian, despite my innate optimism, I long for a day when our work might proceed without interference from small minds, large egos and a restrictive legal environment. The very nature of our investigation breeds those forces that impede our progress. Case in point; I believe that the denouement of our first collaboration was the result of unreasonable expectations on the part of our volunteer, Honey. Surely, an approximate restoration of her mental faculties would suffice to make amends. Alas, we may never have such a chance.

So it goes. I doubt that the world of opera suffers from the loss of but one Wagnerian voice, though I do regret the loss of those happy moments of connubial bliss. Oh baby, when that fat lady sang...

Enough- enough nostalgia! Forget the past- look to the future- Yes! Look confidently to a future where we may crown that edifice whose foundation we now lay. My friend, I wish you the best of luck in your queries.

Yours in the Bonds of a Shared Quest,

D.

When we most recently encountered the Doktor at his home in Florida in 1991, the elderly gentlemen bore a ragged scar across his throat and a teflon tube inserted therein, niether well-concealed by his paisley ascot. To speak, he placed a finger across the open wound. With a rasping whisper, his only words to our representatives were: "Go away, or you'll be talking to my fucking lawyers." He then slammed the door and could be heard shuffling back into the silent darkness of his anonymous retirement.

In the Autumn of 1954, however, both Saurian and Doktor D. remained blissfully ignorant of the falling out that would eventually cloud their historic relationship. Whatever the Professor's enhanced mental abilities might have been, precognition was not yet in his repertoire. His correspondence with the Doktor resumes as follows.

Ed.

Dear Doktor,

How profoundly amazing it is, the changes our lives and minds may undergo in so brief a span of time. I have found a new and crucial piece of the Great Puzzle. It is one that I had not even suspected to exist, but now understand to be central to my Quest to create the Ultimate Human Brain.

As I begin my newly re-energized research, two things are very clear. First, getting the General's shlong hard is hardly an important avenue of inquiry. Secondly, that very project (and it is a big project, gonna take lots of money, plenty of time, I'll need to travel lots and collect many specimens), will provide cover for my True Aims.

With this in mind, I approached Stroessner with a plan to survey the planet for useful botanical and animal specimens. Horney and dim-witted, he was amenable to my proposal.

Thus, following our mutual, psychenautical guide star, and pursuing those tantalizing reports regarding the Philippino shamans, I plan a great journey. Soon, I shall venture to the rain forest of the Philippines. There my Quest for Vegetable Intelligence will resume in earnest. As I write, I am awaiting confirmation of my itinerary. My bags are packed and I require only the properly forged papers and the bribe money required to gain my visa.

Ho-ho, today, I stand once again at the cross-road to a new direction for my life, and perhaps for all Humanity. I am very excited! Perhaps you might join me for a trip to the Pacific? I'm looking for a new assistant, you know.

Yours in Exaltation and Reverence before the Truth,

Anton Saurian

Having secured the necessary funds and papers required to venture abroad to the Philippines, Saurian set off by freighter on October 4, missing the Doktor's response by several days. The good Doktor did not, in any case, accept Saurian's generous offer. As of the time of the following letter, Doktor D. was deeply involved in a controversial effort to revive the ancient cult of the Eleusian Mystery Rites. These activities would eventually lead to the his arrest on charges of drug dealing and animal sacrifice, and the subsequent loss of his license to practice medicine. After a lengthy and highly public legal battle, and some three years of incarceration, this noble man's reputation and means of livelihood would never be fully restored to him.

What follows is among the most facinating, tantalizing and enigmatic of Saurian's letters to Doktor D. sent from the rain-forest.

Ed.

November 7th, 1954

Dear Doktor,

It will be well into the new year by the time these notes make their way to you. They cannot even be posted until I return to what passes for civilization around these parts. I write from the very heart of the northern Philippino jungle. After two weeks hard journey in the company of Hukbalahap communist rebels, I have arrived at last! Tonight, we will camp together for a last time.

Tomorrow, I am promised, I will be introduced to the locals, the nomadic jungle dwellers, the T'lai Mar, as they call themselves. I have been assured that, if I play my cards right, it should be no problem to arrange an audience with their renown Shaman, Kaumana. The Hukbalahaps tell me that the old fellow really likes Pez Candy and metal cookware, so I've brought along plenty of both.

Although few Philippinos, and fewer still westerners, have ever come in direct contact with the T'lai Mar, the reputation of Kaumana spreads far from their isolated homeland through the network of traders and contraband dealers who work the wilds of the Northern Province. Indeed, among the Spanish speaking people of the nearest villages, he is known as El Maestro de la Muerte, the Master of Death. This individual, I believe, is the very person of whom you have heard the legend spoke.

It is claimed that he has the power to heal the mortally ill, and is himself impervious to Death's cold hand. One story tells of Kaumana being slain in a confrontation with slave traders attempting to abduct T'lai Mar women. He is said to have taken several bullets through the heart, a machete across the neck, and to have been subsequently dismembered. The eyeballs were gouged from his severed head, itself skewered on a spit as his corpse, now in a dozen pieces, was set afire. Gleefully, his murderers made off with their human booty, and Kaumana's bloody scalp as a trophy.

Supposedly, he somehow reconstituted and resurrected himself! Out of his own ashes he rose, none the worse for wear and fit enough to make a twenty-mile trek in search of the slave trader's canoes. In so doing, he overtook his quarry and again confronted them at the riverside; this to their complete horror and surprise. Thus the T'lai Mar's tormentors fled back into the jungle and to their certain doom. They were dinner for the big cats.

How much of this story, and others like it, are fancy and how much fact, I do not yet know. As ever, I remain a wide-eyed skeptic in pursuit of Scientific Truth. It is also true, however, that this gentleman has the kind of reputation that any self-professed necromancer would envy. At the very minimum, he must possess powerful knowledge of applied neurochemistry. I very much look forward to making his acquaintance.

Well, the sun is setting, and I must turn in. Tomorrow will be a busy and challenging day; whatever it brings, that is for sure. I will continue this letter at my earliest opportunity. Until then, you remain in my thoughts. Farewell!

 

November 9th, 1954

Yesterday we met the T'lai Mar. As promised, I was given audience by the great Kaumana.

Quite a fellow, that Kaumana. We hit it off famously. He liked the Pez candy quite a bit and is now wearing a Number 10 aluminum stew-pot as a hat.

So, Doktor, now begins my latest and most bewildering adventure. There is much more that I wish to tell you, but I haven't the time, right now. The sun is rising and Kaumana has promised to take me into the jungle, this morning. He has promised to show me something of great import to our Quest. He tells me that I will soon learn the secret of what the T'lai Mar call the Lightning Drink. I will write again, very soon. Ho-ho!

Yours, Deep in the Jungle,

Anton Saurian

At this time, late 1954, for reasons that may ultimately remain a mystery, Professor Saurian's correspondance with Dr. D. comes temporarily to a halt. Indeed, Saurian seems to have dropped off the face of the planet. Biographers and close friends of the Professor surmise that during the his months incommunicado, he may well have been deeply involved in apprenticeship to the Shaman Kaumana.

Today, virtually nothing beyond this educated conjecture would be known of this episode of "missing time", were it not for a serendipitous, albeit tragic discovery made in the year 1978. World renown socio-anthropologist Jackson Emery Taylor had long since retired to his home on the island of Majorca. At the advanced age of ninety-four, frail and demented, calamity finally overtook the great adventurer's charmed and thrilling life. Confined to a wheel-chair, this courageous student of human culture, once as comfortable with the head-hunters of New Guinea as with the pre-soviet intelligentsia of Petrograd, finally met his doom. A fire of suspicious origin consumed his mansion estate and he, perfectly helpless, with it. Of the old man, nothing but ash remained. So great was the conflagration, that little more was left of his estate, his records or his personal belongings.

An official investigation of the fire unexpectedly revealed an incomplete but tantalizing clue to Professor Saurian's whereabouts during the period November 1954 through November 1955. Amidst the rubble and charred debris of the Taylor Mansion was a nearly incinerated strong-box. Upon police inspection, the contents were revealed to be personal papers; most oxidized and water-soaked beyond reconstruction. Still, within the center of the metal container, a diary dated to the time of Taylor's fabled Pacific explorations had been carefully secreted inside an asbestos pouch. The paper contained therein was largely consumed by fungus; only partially readable. Yet, what could be decyphered clearly tells of a surprise encounter between Taylor, then exploring an unnamed location in the Philippine archipelago, and a mysterious westerner. The presumption that this man was Saurian is grounded in the fact that the date of Taylor's notes coincides precisely with the time of Saurian's disappearance into the northern jungle of the Philippines.

Here, made public for the first time, is J.E.T.'s secret diary of his encounter with the man that we now presume to be Professor Anton Saurian. We have earnestly endeavored to faithfully reconstruct the late socio-anthropoligist's own words, but please bear in mind that, even in this brief passage found amidst the scraps, interpretation of the damaged original was not possible with absolute certainty.

Ed.

February 25th, 1955

This morning, I had the strangest encounter, here in the rain-forest. I met a man, and he was apparently a westerner! I found him as he was foraging for grubs under rocks, down by the gully northwest of the camp. He was alone and naked and filthy. At first, I thought he was an aborigine, but this was not so. Instead, it seems that I have stumbled upon that rare instance, so often fabled, of the lost explorer gone native.

I offered him some biscuits from my kit. He refused them, preferring instead to eat insect pupae from matted jungle floor, which he shoveled down by the handful. He paused only to gesture that I should sit down with him. At this point, I was not sure if he spoke English or, for that matter, was capable of any speech. But I knew that under the grime, matted hair, and horrid stench, he appeared to be a caucasian. He had green eyes.

After some time, each enjoying our repast, I offered the fellow a bit of rum from my kit. Seeing the bottle, he...

Unfortunately, further interpretation of the writing upon the fungus laden paper was not in any way possible with any assurance of accuracy. In any case, we hear again from Saurian near year's end, 1995. He sends the following tragic report to his then faithful and trusted confidant.

Ed.

November 29th, 1955

Dear Doktor,

I am again incarcerated. They say that I will hang at sunrise. How I come to this unhappy station is a rather long story. As I may have but few moments prior to my forceful eviction from this shabby, cold-water flat that we call Life, I will summarize.

It is now almost a month since parting ways with the people of the jungle. My departure from those facinating studies compelled as I ran into a bit of a situation with a local Chieftan, a contemptable and jealous man of small mind and large ego. Oh, there was that question as to how one of his wives gave birth to a child with green eyes, but that's another matter and one which I haven't the time to discuss.

In any case, I found myself once again at large and in pursuit of The Quest. I will tell you that there was a high degree of applicable neurobiologic technique gained in my association with the ancients of the rain-forest; methods of voluntary control of the parasympathetic nervous system, the induction of profound trance states amenable to superhuman feats of mental and physical function, and natural drugs that let a man shtup for days on end. Frankly, the timing of my exodus from the forest was not all that unhappy. I was actually becoming anxious to delve again into The Research, this time applying all that I had learned of both the ancient and the modern sciences.

Well, naturally, I was going to need specimens with which to work. For this, I arranged a false identity and an after-hours cleaning job at the morgue in the quaint priory of Laoag. The coroner's facilities were perhaps better suited to sausage-making than the best of today's forensic medicine, but what the heck. I pretty much had free run of the place from eleven at night to seven in the morning, and more fresh glands than you could shake a brain-stem at.

Laoag is your typical, bustling, third-world, back-water port. The corporeal proceeds of grisly industrial mishaps, lethal bar fights, maritime misadventures involving extreme drunkeness, and murdered prostitutes are provided aplenty. Yes, the whole situation seemed to be swell, everything going just fine. One evening, I was getting ready to boil up the heads of two Burmese sailors who had somehow got themselves locked in a refrigerated hold under several tons of Malay Yellowfin. While the corpses were blue, somewhat flattened and frozen stiff in a touching picture of amorous repose, their craniums seemed in fine shape.

There I was, I was sharpening my skull-saw, eager to get at the glandular goodies within those iced noggins, when the door flew open and the police just came barging in. Apparently the wife of one of my first specimens, the unlucky victim of a runaway rick-shaw, had noticed her hubby was not wearing the top of his head as he lay for viewing prior to inhumation (a barbaric custom!). So, one thing apparently led to another and pretty soon the cops had me fingered. I was surrounded by goons with guns, and they were asking questions like "what deed you do weeth the brain of Seenior Cruz?". Naturally, I denied everything.

They put me in front of the District Judge the very next morning, after taking great pleasure in beating me with gusto and aplomb throughout the intervening hours. For a while there, they tortured me with methods that they evidently considered quite creative. The part that I liked the best was the electrical shock to my groin. The technology is crude, but the tremendous stimulation provided is quite satisfying. To my disappointment, they withheld the water and electricity after I couldn't stop giggling.

Anyhow, the judge summarily found me guilty on a number of counts of which I am, naturally, perfectly innocent. I never actually killed anybody, you know. Nor am I a spy for the revolutionaries. As for the drugs, the government didn't even know they'd been invented until now, so how could they be illegal? Finally, I have never, never, shtoped a dead person- well, okay, so I thought about it. That's not illegal, is it?

It doesn't matter. They're gonna hang me. The sky is beginning to glow with the purple bruise of first sun. I hear my jailers down the hall. They've been drinking all night and are eager to see me twist at the end of that rope. Outside, the crowd is gathering as the church bells ring. The curtain will soon fall on this theater of dreams and I will exit the stage before the cheers and catcalls of the masses, the good citizen's of Laoag come to see the notorious cannibal take his last bow. It is my time to die.

Teetering on the precipice,

Anton Saurian

As noted in the preface to this volume, Saurian did, indeed, go to the gallows on the morning of November 30th, 1955. There he did hang for several minutes, neck clearly broken, face ashen with the pallor of death, eyeballs bulging, tongue swollen and black. His apparently lifeless body was eventually cut down before the taunts of an angry mob and swiftly transported to the local morgue; the same where he had so recently found employment. All this I saw with my own eyes. It is also known, however, that the corpse was somehow misplaced from the coroner's freeezer prior to a final dispensation of those remains in the laboratory crematorium. Precisely how this occurred is unclear.

Neither can we offer any rationally credible explanation as to how the Professor might have arranged, subsequent to his vertebra snapping descent to the end of the rope, passage aboard the freighter Felicity; she being bound for Groote Eylandt, off the coast of Australia's Northern Territory. Yet, we cannot dismiss the fact that an individual bearing both Saurian's identity and physiognomy was positively identified by several of the Felicity's crew as having embarked on a weeks-long voyage from the Philippines that began on December 1st, 1955. He was recalled as a man fond of strong drink, always ready with a tall tale and mighty handy with a sea chanty. The ship's cook was particularly impressed with the fellow's ability to eviscerate a large fish with a single, deft flick of the long straight-razor sheathed in his vest pocket.

The Australian authorities were warned by their Philippino peers of the likelyhood that a flesh-eating necromaniac had walked away from his own hanging and was bound for their shores. To the Aussie's consternation, this man escaped a waiting snare, presumably as the ship steamed into port under cover of night. To effect such an escape, he would, of course, had to have swum some several kilometers through treacherous waters infested with poisonous eels, stinging rays, Men'o'War, Hammer-head and Great White sharks. Not surprisingly, the local authorities found no trace of him during the several weeks following Felicity's arrival. Owing to the likelyhood that upon jumping ship he had drown, been eaten, or both, the official search was soon given up.

Today, we know that the intelligence communities of the United States and USSR, as well as several organizations with ties to Stroessner's Paraguay (including Israeli Mossad, West German CIA, East German Stassi, South African Ministry of Science, the Cosa Nostra, and others), harbored real doubt and attendant concerns regarding Saurian's evident departure from life's stage. All involved had already seen or heard too much of his gift for survival to be so blithe in presuming him a meal for the fishes. All alternatively wanted either his services or his scalp, a live Professor beneath it being optional.

Documents only recently declassified reveal the substantial bounty placed upon his head, with each of the above named organizations at one time or another supplying their own significant piece of the action. By 1963 this bounty would total eight-million dollars; this while the Professor is known to have lent his skills to one or more of those very parties endeavoring to hasten his demise. Even before the Kennedy assasination, for which there is only contradictory evidence of his involvement, it seems as though in every corner of the world was someone who wanted Saurian killed and was willing to pay dearly to see this deed done.

For his part, Saurian was keenly aware of the heat burning at his heels. He sought respite, sometimes with desperation, yet remained eager to eventually resume his Great Work. Alas, this would have to wait. Unable to find a secure base of operation for most of the next decade, Professor Saurian would forgo practical investigations of any substantive nature. While maintaining a modest level of self experimentation, the greatest portion of his bountiful curiosity and intellectual zeal was concentrated in more ephemeral inquiries; explorations of natural philosophy in that dark forest where the paths of politics and science ceaselessly weave never to fully merge nor emerge into the light of full understanding.

During this period, given the necessity of putting food on the table, Saurian punched the clock for a series of intelligence agencies and their kindred, outrightly criminal enterprises. Given the pressures upon him, it is not surprising that Saurian's great mind could not but ponder the miracle that is so-called civilized man; who is he, where did he come from, and where is he going?

We rejoin his correspondence with Doktor D. in the late summer of 1956. Ed.

August 23rd, 1956

Dear Doktor,

I am not dead! No indeed, I am quite alive, if not quite prospering. Alas, for the past nine months I have been unable to communicate with you, endeavoring as I was to stay a step or two ahead of the predatory bastards who hounded my trail. At this time, I am momentarily in safe hands with the Free Latvia Union and hiding out under the very nose of and with the acquiescence of certain American officials. More on that later. In any case, I apologize for what I am sure was some considerable worry caused by the dire tone of my last telecommunication.

Yes, the bastards tried to hang me; fairly well succeeded, in fact. Yet, my tormentors' triumph was fleeting, of much less permanence than the predictable outcome of an execution. Suffice it to say, certain of the Dark Ways gleaned from my stay with the People of the Jungle came in quite handy. I would bet you real money that the rum-sodden constabulary of Laoag is still reeling under the weight of recrimination and finger-pointing ensuing from the post-execution escape of so notorious a fiend as myself.

Well, enough of that. Of greater importance is the here and now, eh! Given the pressures that presently encumber my every waking moment, I am forced to adopt such an uncustomary philosophical attitude. At this time, you see, a number of international security and police organizations are actively involved in the effort to apprehend me. Both the Americans and the Soviets want me back, and not, I suspect, to continue The Research. Further, I am wanted by authorities in Australia and, of course, the Philippines. You may also add to that list a growing number of lesser official and semi-official agencies in various nations, all quite interested in plying my unique knowledge and experience to their own nefarious ends. This, I am informed, they would do with or without my willing acquiescence.

All of this has naturally made impossible serious application of my energies to that Important Work so close to my heart and of so much value to Humankind. Until quite recently, it was not uncommon for me to be compelled to seek change of venue as frequently as twice monthly. It was this peripatetic style of life that led, unwittingly, to the doorstep of my current, Balkan benefactors; a doomed and misguided band of well intentioned nitwits, if ever there was one!

Let me just take a moment to tell you about these folks, a confederacy of aging and demented monarchists determined to hasten the downfall of their homeland's Soviet rulers and the restoration of the Klaipeda Throne. Uh-huh- and please tell me when monkeys start flying out of my butt, okay? Were it not for their cynical FBI keepers, I seriously doubt that these pathetic crack-pots could maintain their little newsletter operation for more than a day or two after KGB bothered to notice that they existed.

Anyhow, unbeknownst to the local federal bureau chief, I happened into one of their investigators. I use the word investigator to denote an individual who's idea of intelligence gathering is reading old editions of Soviet Boy's Life for pictures of pink cheeked, short-trousered adolescents. Well, we got talking over a few drinks and, as I soon realized what work this fellow was allegedly at, I made him an offer. No, not that! Rather, I sought a small stipend and the assurance that the Free Latvia Union would closely hold any knowledge of my presence within their organization, disclosing it not even to their American sugar-daddies. In return, I would provide certain difficult to come by intelligence regarding KGB and her innermost nefarious workings. This they might dispense as they saw fit.

Several meetings were held and I was eventually introduced to the Union's highest leadership, a doddering cabal of octogenarians headed by one Karl Gustav Kronour, exiled Grand Duke of Kaunus, Pretender to the Throne. Well, in short order I had this bunch of boobs wrapped around my little finger and a hand-shake on the deal. The money's not great, and at present I have little opportunity to pursue the True Quest. Still, at least I have a place to lay low and some American currency in my pocket.

Frankly, I don't think I'll be working for these rubes for long; just long enough to feather the nest and thereafter fly the coop for brighter horizons. Already, I have learned that Yugoslavia's Marshall Tito is hoping to establish his very own state-of-the-art intelligence enhancement and neurochemical warfare academy. Yes, it never hurts to have a fresh resume handy, just in case an opening pops up within the borders of a progressive and preferably non-aligned nation.

For the time being, however, if you would like to reach me, please send all correspondence care of: Wladmir Zworkin, Communications Deputy, Free Latvia Union, 1066 Broadway, Suite 3C, NYC, NY. My new friends will be sure to pass it on, although there may be a delay of some few days in reaching me. They will surely want to read my mail before giving it to me and it will, no doubt, take them some time to find out what the big words mean.

So, my friend, it seems that yet again, life begins anew! New opportunities, challenges and tricks to learn, eh? Please do write. I have missed your letters, these past months. And, by the way, let me know if you hear of any job openings that might fit a man of my intellectual dimension and scientific stature... but please be discrete. Remember, Zworkin will be looking over my shoulder.

Yours, under cover and in a sharp looking disguise,

Anton Saurian

September 12th, 1956

Dear Doktor,

Despair. Everything was terrible. I'd had not one response to the resumes that I'd sent. The many feelers I'd put out resulted in not so much as a single call. I was depressed. If the situation had persisted, the damage to my self-esteem might have compelled me to drastic action; kidnapping the Mayor or taking hostages at U.N. headquarters.

Sometimes, when I had time to kill, I'd ride the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building and stand on the observation deck. There I would quietly look over the edge, mentally calculating the terminal velocities for human bodies of different weights and surface areas. I pictured those standing near me, individually plummeting toward the oblivious passers-by, so far below. Sometimes, I would spit over the railing. Soon, I'd ride back down and get a lousy knish from a vendor on 34th Street. I do not believe those things actually contain any potato.

The Latvians are complete fucking idiots. They were driving me mad with their insipid and incessant interrogations. I was so bored. Over the past weeks, I'd given them just about everything I could recall of KGB operations and structure. They didn't seem to notice that everything I had pertained to the best kept secrets of a decade past. I waited for a moment when they were all sitting down to break the news that Stalin had died.

Oh, so very bored. A few days ago, I was left cooling my heels for over an hour in Kronour's office. He had wanted to see me, a follow-up on my last interrogation; some matter concerning a reference made to my previous research into geriatric libido enhancement. I was informed that the old man's limo was delayed in that hellish joke that is known as Manhattan traffic. In any case, I was ordered to stay put and left with nothing to do but browse the aged crank's antediluvian library.

There was precious little worth reading, of all the leather-bound volumes. Oh, let's see: here are the collected works of Fyodor Landsbergis, that peripheral and severely wrong-headed, nineteenth-century political philosopher. He was and still is widely ignored as an apologist for the divine right of kings; Landsbergis, dreary champion for the dismal necessity of Monarchism.

What else? Hmmm- Dmitri Urbanus, elucidating some of the worst fringe science from the early years of this century; interesting primarily for its utter lack of connection to empirical observation. The old fellow died insisting that he would eventually be vindicated, that the interior of the Earth to be found hollow and peopled by an advanced race of blonde, bosomy, big bottomed, winged women. They wore no clothes, of course, and kept men purely for purposes of craven sexual gratification. It was this very theory that caught Hitler's attention in the twenties and eventually led to some of the Reich's best theme parties.

Moving on, I find several over-ample biographies of long forgotten Baltic Kings and generals. A folk so well accustomed to having their rear-ends kicked and lands overrun from north, south, and east, the Baltic people take strange pride in memorializing those who had made them preeminent in defeat and submission.

Finally, I was heartened to find a few volumes on pure, if profoundly ill-conceived science, and her hard-working sibling, invention. Among this last category, is the charming story of Pydor Schtevik, legendary creator of the Schtevik Original Steam Powered Safety Long-wool Sheep Shearer, a sinister product of the 1880's enthusiasm for things pneumo-mechanical. No doubt many a good sheep met their doom in the bowels of Mr. Schtevik's early prototypes. God only knows how much flash-boiled, albeit hairless mutton was put on the table in the trial and error process that is True Invention.

Thus and so on, distracted and momentarily forgetful of my sour mood, I sifted through the stacks. Well, finally, I stumbled across something that actually siezed my sincere interest; Darwin's, Ascent of Man. You know, it had been since my childhood that I last read the old Deacon's fundamental works. Gingerly, I removed the tome from the shelf and began to thumb the dusty pages. As Kronour finally arrived, I was deep in thought.

You see, something had been jogged in my mind as I meditated at that cross-road between Darwin's early speculation and my own, deeper elucidation. Suddenly, I felt myself delving toward a crucial vein of intellectual query; one that had lain half exposed but largely unmined in my consciousness. Perhaps, I thought, there is something important to be known in contemplating that ages-long tradition, the long line of Kings and generals, themselves descended through the ages from every alpha male; baboon, wolf, human. Perhaps, there is something in our reverence and eternal search for authority and supremacy, other's and our own... something deep and as inescapable as our very genes...

Doktor, are we not but the flowering of that simplest weed, the genetic code; florid in its evolutionary development and embellished in complexity, mighty in self-regard, but never more subtle than a screeching monkey yammering for attention. There he is, Father to us all, demanding to lead or be led, beating us over the head and shoulders, biting at our necks, scratching, striking with furred but five-fingered fists at the ground and howling to be made President, King, Premier, General... the Biggest, Meanest Monkey of Them All?

This is, granted, an obvious and time-worn line of thought. Still, I have no doubt that the ramifications of this meditation extend both to our primate past and to either a shining or gloom benighted future. Our politics are in our genes, are they not? Trapped, as I am, momentarily in the world of things political, forced to view my True Love, Real Science, from afar and sans the tools of the trade, questions such as these preoccupy my thoughts.

I suppose that things could be worse. It's been more than a week since my last trip up and down that elevator. Plans to take over the U.N. building are presently on hold. For now, the Mayor remains safe in Gracie Mansion. Resumes continue to go out. Feelers are feeling, and I've got a feeling that things will start looking up any day now!

Yours in renewed optimism,

Anton Saurian

Sources close to both men during the mid-fifties claim that the Doktor had transmitted an encoded cable to Saurian sometime in late September, 1956. Allegedly, the purpose of this secret communication was to alert the Professor to an opportunity with the then up-and-coming Bulgarian Security Agency. Thanks to the recent opening of the formerly communist eastern nations, we do know that on September 28th, a top-level delegation of Bulgarian scientists and intelligence officers left Sofia for New York City via diplomatic air-transport. The mission is said to have included Angel Karpov, father of the Bulgarian biological-warfare program.

We can surmise that this delegation had been dispatched in an effort to both substantiate Saurian's credentials and, that provided, to induce him to work on behalf of their nascent neurological-espionage enterprise. In large measure, this theory is buttressed by the following cable sent to Doktor D, intercepted by the American National Security Administration, and now attributed to Saurian.

"HELLO-DOK-STOP-NO-TIME-TO-CHAT-STOP-OFF-TO-
BREAKFAST-WITH-SOPHY-STOP-THANX-FOR-
INTRO-STOP-WILL-CALL-SOON-STOP-A-S"

Strangely, Saurian did not soon call, nor was he again seen or heard from, until late in the year 1959. In fact, the only clue to Saurian's disappearance on or about September 29th, 1956, is to be found in a yellowed and incomplete N.Y.C. police report. According to the filing officer, a Sgt Sidensticker, a call was made to the South Bronx precinct house at 5:47 on the morning of the 29th. The proprietor of the Howling Street meat-rendering plant, a Mr. Chiam Potemkin, reported seeing what appeared to be a kidnapping taking place less than a block from his establishment.

According to Mr. Potemkin and several employees then arriving to work, a lone individual was observed standing in the shadows at the end of the block. This individual seemed suspicious, apparently waiting for something or someone even as the morning sun had only begun to illumine the city skyline to the west. Their description of this individual, confirmed by no less than five persons, matches that of Saurian. At 5:25AM, as witnessed through the west window of the Howling Street shop, a black, four-door sedan of foreign make careened into view at high speed.

Mr. Potemkin is quoted as follows: "The car runs at this guy, making him to high-tail it toward the wall at the river. They barely stop the car; almost smash into him. Four guys, big guys, guys in black coats, leather coats- they jump out from the car and grab the other guy. They grab him and push him inside and the guy driving mashes the pedal and they head along the river road and out of sight. That's it. That's what I seen. Ask them. They'll tell you. That's what I seen." Lacking any report of a missing person matching the description of the man apparently abducted at Howling Street, the case was soon dropped.

What to make of this? One can only conclude that Saurian had been inadvertently set-up for kidnapping by his dear friend, Doktor D. Shortly after the Professor's disappearance, the Bulgarians are known to have made unprecedented strides in neurological espionage, developing, among other devices, the Gas Operated Mycological Poison Umbrella Gun. Soon, advances in covertly delivering heretofore unimaginably devastating neurotoxins led the Bulgarians to a lucrative and long-lived career as the Soviet's covert contractor of choice. They were tops in such sensitive operations as assassinating defecting physicists, intelligence operatives, and expatriate novelists, cellists and ballerinas. Their alacrity with rare and little studied neurochemicals had Saurian's imprimatur all over it.

We do not precisely know how Saurian effected his release from behind the rusty curtain of Bulgaria's scientific gulag. Legend has it that he escaped during the explosion of a biological-warfare center, located on the outskirts of Varna, on the Black Sea. This catastrophe is thought to have rendered millions of hectares of land permanently uninhabitable. Of the several hundred workers said to be at the site, there were no known survivors except, we are led to believe, the Professor.

That he once worked toward nefarious ends against his will is all but certain. That he spent those days indentured to the Bulgarian spy-masters constantly plotting his escape is an equal surety. That those days gave birth to a festering grudge toward the good Doktor is, alas, likewise assured. As Saurian finally reemerges in the West, it is on the occasion of a meeting of the infamous Adelphion Club, the Doktor being among its members. We may reliably guess that Saurian's alleged impromptu tracheotomy of Doktor D was not strictly medically prescribed, but prompted in part by a rage that only blood would cure. From that day on, November 13th, 1959, neither man would ever again refer to the other nor acknowledge their prior spiritual and scientific kinship.

Following the Adelphion incident, Saurian again disappears from view for some four years. Where he goes and what he is doing, are utterly unknown. In fact, the first documented sighting of the Professor in the decade of the sixties occurs on November 22nd, 1963. At that time, he and I made our second personal encounter. The following memo tells the inexplicable but true story. Suppressed for three decades by timid publishers and fearful attorneys, it appears here for the first time.

Ed.

Memo

To: Chris Pierson, Managing Editor; Sensational Crime Publications

Fr: Steven Solomon, Freelance Assignments

Re: Truth Stranger than Fiction

Dt: November 24th, 1963

Okay, Chris, here's a chance to make good on that whole episode surrounding the Russian Mafia story. Not wishing to stir up unpleasantness, I might still mention the hundred and twenty-five dollars, plus expenses, that you folks owe me. I'm even willing to forget about the hospital bills, just to put it all behind us. Let's move on and focus on the present. I've got an amazing story for you! That is, if you have cash up front and the guts to see this tale to print.

What follows are the broad strokes. Details will be forthcoming upon receipt of a cashier's check in the amount of $956.

I was in Dallas, intending to collect background for a feature on the Texas/Cuba heroin pipeline. Dance a More, our associate at Real True Crime, had me working on spec, nothing up front but a reservation at the Charter Oak Motel (hourly rates available). Intending to be in town only overnight, I had less than thirty-dollars in my pocket; enough for meals and the train back to Chicago. When I arrived at the hotel, I found that RTC was in arrears and their business was no longer welcomed. It all had something to do with a damaged ceiling in room #378, a damaged floor in #478, some burned-up furniture, an exploded bed and a Mexican cleaning lady held hostage by RTC's new Assistant Editor, Thompson.

I was out on the street and there wasn't another room to be found. The President, as you know, was due in the very next morning. Of course, Kennedy would soon have his own unpropitious rendezvous with destiny, but more on that later. For my part, I was to sleep the night of the 21st on a sticky floor in the Dallas Metro station. I hoped to leave on the 7:AM to Chicago.

T'was not to be. Around six AM, I awoke to an insistent rap-rap-rapping upon my skull. In my first drowsy awareness of the situation, I feared that I was being rolled. Can one be rolled while already procumbent, face down upon the floor? Turning over, I apprehended, in no small horror and disgust, the hoary visage of a bedraggled vagrant. He was tapping on my head with his left shoe. And, a smelly and unwholesome shoe it was, by God!

I swiftly, instinctively, wrested the odoriferous footwear away from the odd stranger who crouched over me. Without begging pardon for his interference in my fitful dreams, I proceeded to beat him perforce about the head and shoulders. Strangely, even as I struck him and hollered for assistance, he made no effort to defend himself. He only giggled, ineffectually swatting at my incoming blows with one hand, digging in his vest pocket with the other. At length, and after no intervention by eye-averting passers-by, my tormentor produced a soiled business-card and offered it to me.

I continued to thrash him, even as I took the card and quickly scanned its inscription. Immediately, I was taken aback in confusion and the beating stopped. The card read: Anton Saurian, Ph.D. Freelance Neuropharmacology and Political Troubleshooting for Hire. Could it be? Could this be the same man that I had seen hanged lo those many years ago in Laoag... and what was he doing here... what had happened to him and why was he bothering me?

For several seconds, I stared into those eyes deep-set in grime and matted hair. In silence he stared back at me, smiling cryptically. Finally, he spoke: "Ya gonna buy me a drink? Bars open in twenty-minutes and I got a thirst, fellah.".

"Who the fuck are you?", I asked, already knowing the answer. This was, indeed, El Professoro... filthy, smelly, but unmistakably the great man, himself.

"You know who I am. Let's go. There's a bar on Munger Street. We still got six hours of drinkin' before they..."

"How did you find me? What do you want with me? And, how the hell are you still alive? I saw you hanged!"

Again, he giggled, gently taking his shoe from my hand and pulling it over an unspeakably fragrant left foot. "Welp, findin' ya was easy. A coupl'a calls to former employers, folks ya owed money to, owed you money, whatever. Now, why? That's gonna take some talkin' n' a few drinks. I'm momentarily between opportunities, so yer buyin', okay." He sprang to his feet on still wiry legs and headed toward the door. I could not but follow.

As we traversed the few blocks toward Munger Street and Bob's Saloon, Saurian remained several steps ahead of me. At a breathless jog, I called out for him to slow, but he would not. Meanwhile, questions raced through my mind, not least among them, what is with the hobo act ? The Saurian once known to me was erudite, well spoken. Was this a disguise ?

Although he somewhat resembled the man I had seen those years before, this fellow had the language and bearing of a real down n' outer, one of the army of chronic unemployed and incorrigible minor felons lately filling our nation's streets. These are the flotsam of two American generations at war around the world. They are often traumatized veterans, government trained killers, who now people the mental wards and rail-road yards, the motorcycle gangs and soup kitchens of our cities and by-ways and the hills north and south and east and west of anywhere that decent people deign to live. They are among us yet a world apart from safe, sane, and productive folk. Our sight moves instinctively away from people like this. I reflect, if this is a disguise, it is perfect! Who cares to remember the poor hobo, the nameless bum, the reeling drunk, the crazy on the street?

Laughing hideously as he dove through the entrance to Bob's, Saurian cried, "Set 'em up, Bub! I'm drinkin' on my friend, 'ere...". The place stank of stale beer, cigarettes, old perfume and vomit. By the look and aroma of the place, I reckoned I was about to drink in the seventh level of Hell. Saurian wheeled on well-worn heels to plop his derriere onto one of the spinning stools at the bar. He spun and circled a hand in the air with the flourish of either a matador or a very, very serious drunk: "Give us the usual, Tearbender!".

The Tearbender complied, snapping two shot glasses and a bottle of Four Feathers onto the bar. He then wiped out a pair of eight-ounce pilsners with a filthy rag. Into each, with military precision, he deposited the contents of one egg, four ounces of tomato juice, a healthy spoonful of horse-radish, two jiggers of cheap vodka, two fingers of old coffee grounds and a short blast of pink, liquid antacid. Saurian downed this mess without bothering to stir, and offered same to me. I declined, preferring the beguiling warmth of straight whiskey at breakfast.

Thus began one of the most intriguing and confusing conversations I am sure that I will ever have. Whiskey now in hand, Saurian leaned forward into my face. With the obnoxious breath of one who has been drinking for days unceasing, he informed me; "I'm undercover, you know. In this way, dissembling as one of the common riffraff, I have come to be well known and well liked in these parts. They trust me here." His tone had the character of that man that I had once met and perhaps knew so slightly but well enough. He spoke in a conspiratorial hush. "I am so glad that I found you. I need to tell the truth about what is to happen today. I need to clear my name. The authorities will surely try to blame me. That I will be arrested and tortured is all but certain."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The Kennedy assassination."

"Huh?"

We resume our story as your earnest reporter is confronted with Saurian's horrifying, some would say unbelievable revelations concerning the impending assassinaion of then President John F. Kennedy. The scene is Bob's Saloon on Munger Street in Dallas. It is the early morning and we are already drinking heavily. The following text is transcribed verbatim from my memo of November 24, 1963 to Chris Pierson, Managing Editor, Sensational Crime Publications.

 

Saurian implored me, "You must write down what I am about to tell you. You must tell the world. The people of Earth must know the truth." I was utterly befuddled. I could not tell if my head was already reeling from the liquor or the stink of Saurian's breath. Regardless, his words made no sense to me.

He grabbed the pen from my shirt pocket and stuffed it in my left hand. He smeared a half-soaked cocktail napkin upon the bar and gestured that I should begin writing. "I have been doing important research these past few years... extraordinary research... it has led me into contact with certain, uh, forces... yes, certain forces, intelligences, intelligences hidden from view, beyond the ken of the average person or even highest placed officials... are you getting this?"

I was not. I was staring blankly at him. "Did you say something about killing the President? You said something about killing the President."

"Yes, I'm about to get to that."

"Um- shouldn't we tell somebody? Why are telling this to me? What about the police?"

"Hah! You think I haven't thought of that!?! I would not be believed. They've already been warned and have taken no precautions. By now, I'm sure the fix is in. They are ready to invoke the cover-up, even as final preparations for the shooting fall into place. Therefore, I have sought you out, for you can serve to authenticate of my story. Please note the time."

It was 7:18 AM, the morning of November 22nd, 1963. I so duly recorded upon our improvised legal instrument and, at Saurian's direction, affixed my initials. He took the pen and signed his own, saying; "I will forward this document for authentication by the appropriate government experts. They will be reviewing everything, once it's all gone down. There will be an investigation, of course. I want to be sure that my testimony is heard. It is important to history, to humankind."*

Saurian distractedly swirled an index finger through the dregs of his awful cocktail as he continued. His tone was less of urgency than resignation. "At 12:30PM, today, the President will be shot. It will occur as his motorcade drives through Dealey Plaza. I want you to know, I want the world to know, that I am not involved. I am innocent. Further, the true perpetrators of this heinous crime might never be known if not for the deposition that I am about to give and that you must make public. They will try to stop you. They will laugh at you. They will attempt to destroy your credibility and my own. In fact, they may well try to have me killed, for I know the truth."

He leaned a bit closer, significantly violating my personally space and, with a sudden gravity of dire proportions, implored; "Promise me, for the sake of humanity, do whatever is required to publish the truth, no matter what it takes or how long it takes. The world must know!"

I poured another shot, stealing myself both from his sulfurous exhalations and for the revelation to come. I asked him, "So, tell me, where did this plot to kill Kennedy begin? Cuba? The Kremlin?"

"Oh, no. It's the aliens, of course. The Alien Force!"

Feigning comprehension, I nodded at the bizarre reply. In truth, I now reckoned that old Professor Saurian had gone dotty, demented, his brain no doubt riddled with puss and rum-filled lesions. I threw back another blast of liquor, considered my own reply and inquired, "You're having a grand ol' time at my expense, aren't you? Did you hunt me down just for a few shits and giggles and free drinks? You know, I'm a little too tired and way too busy for this."

"Oh, come now! I know all about you. My contacts have kept me abreast of your activities. I like to monitor my press, you know. No, you've got nowhere else to go in a big hurry, and you surely can use the money that a major story would bring. Hell, this might get you out of the minor league and into the majors, you know."

"I'm leaving." I turned to go, but he grabbed my arm.

"Wait... alright! Look, I'll buy." Saurian reached down, into his right sock, and pulled out a wad of bills. He peeled off three hundred-dollar notes from the top and stuffed the rest back in the sock. He took one of the bills and placed it on the bar, stuffing the others into my shirt pocket. "This should more than compensate you for your time, eh."

Two hundred bucks was more money than I'd seen for a job since the "Case of the Chrome Nun", three years ago. What the fuck, I'll write whatever he wants. "Okay, spill your guts." I took pen in hand, slurped up a fresh pile of napkins and motioned Saurian to hold forth.

"Very good. Here's the straight scoop, the real poop. First, the background, as you folks call it. For the past few years, I have been conducting highly secret research into advanced mental abilities. The work has been financed by my -oh call it a day job- political problem solving for various governments and would-be governments. In any case, this research has afforded me a glimpse into realms of human experience well beyond the scope of the ordinary: teleperception, distance viewing, that sort of thing. It was in this line of experimentation that I happened onto the secret of Alien Force."

"Alien Force- that's capitalized?"

"Quite. Now, you see, it had come to my telepathic attention, that since the dawn of the Atomic Age, we had become the object of some concern to a certain higher intelligence, one that is abroad in the galaxy..."

"How's that?"

"By telepathing. We, the higher intelligence and I, communicate across the void of space through mental energy. It's really not that difficult; you just need the right kind of drugs, and plenty of them."

"I see." The old man was nuts, that's what I saw. The preeminent criminal mind of our era had decayed into just another dipsy-doodle hop-head, a drug-addled mental case. He did have cash, though. As far as I was concerned, I was just working a job. Pouring yet another drink, I let him continue.

"This force, since, oh, 1943, has been taking an ever more active role in our planet's development. They are chiefly concerned with the continued evolution of the presently dominant terrestrial species, the cockroach..."

"The cockroach?"

"Quite."

"Alright, I just want to make sure I'm getting this all down. Please, go ahead."

"Oh, I know that you think they're crazy, mistaking the cockroach for the prime species on the planet, but really, try to see it from the alien point of view. These lowly insects eat our food, eat us, for that matter. They live in our homes. They live anywhere they damn well please, actually. We can't stomp them out. They breed like, well, cockroaches! Gracious me, they'll be here long after we and all our misbegotten works have departed up the ash plume of nuclear Armageddon.

Now, it is this last matter that most gravely concerns Alien Force, and first brought humanity to their attention. Sturdy as those bugs are, the near-term likelyhood of a planetary atomic conflagration, while not posing a death-knoll to Cockroachdom, would certainly present a stumbling block on the path to higher insect consciousness and the great promise that it portends. Thus, Alien Force has determined to intervene in human politics."

Saurian paused as Bob came by to check on our progress with that bottle of whiskey. Progress was, indeed, mind-numbingly substantial. I rejoined, "So, uh, that's why they want to kill Kennedy- to save the cockroaches."

"Dear me, no! Kennedy is one of them."

"One of the cockroaches?"

"No! One of the Alien Force, my boy."

"Of course. How dull of me. Go on." It was now just past eight in the morning. I asked Bob for a cup of coffee. When it arrived, I poured in two fingers of Four Feathers.

"Here is the crux of the matter. Our beloved President is a genetically altered being, an alien imposter in the guise of John F. Kennedy."

"So, where's the real JFK?"

"Hah! The old man made a deal. Through Alien Force infiltration of international trade, it was arranged to get Honey Fitz the exclusive licensing of all scotch whiskey imported to North America. To sweeten the pot, the aliens threw in a sizable sum of cash, gold and diamonds. In return, he handed over his kid, then a Senator and potential presidential candidate. Poor Jack, I suppose there's nothing left of him today, but a stuffed exhibit in an alien museum. Tut-tut."

"But, uh, how'd they know he'd win the election? I mean, he's Catholic, and all."

"Really, do you think they're stupid? Nixon's one of them, too. Rather botched the job on that one; an early attempt at synthesizing a human being. Something of a brute, but they say he'll live just about forever if he's not put down."

"Put down?"

"Yes, a stake through the heart, a silver bullet, that sort of thing. Good God, the cold-gutted bastard scares even his makers. But, I digress. You see, the problem is, from the point of view of Alien Force, their Kennedy has gone native! He's turned, forgotten whom he's working for. A dreadful turn of events."

"More napkins, please."

"Certainly. Now, Kennedy, rather than obsequiously doing his job, reporting back to Alien Force, trying not to make too bad a muddle of things, is instead having a merry old time impersonating the leader of the Free World; movie-star babes in the Lincoln Bedroom, a glamorous and obedient wife downstairs, a gaggle of Brillcreamed, over-educated syncophants at his beckon call and mobsters available to kill anybody he desires made gone- and he's got his own army, navy and air force! Good gravy, he's twice brought the planet to the brink of nuclear disaster."

"Twice?"

"Oh, yes! The second time was never made public. Made the Cuban troubles look like a polite squabble between playground chums. As the aliens see it, Kennedy has to be brought back to the fold."

"Uh-huh..." I pour yet more whiskey and signal Bob for another coffee. I suddenly recall that I haven't eaten since yesterday, noon, and those pickled eggs on the shelf start to look real good. I plunk over a small ransom for something that would have last been termed food prior to the Korean conflict. "...so, they're going to kill him?"

"Well, that wasn't the initial plan. It's now quite complicated, really. You see, originally it went like this: Central controlled operatives, at the top of the CIA, put into action a program to 'take out' the President; not to kill him, but to reclaim him and get him home for some serious reprogramming. The assassination attempt was merely an expedient ploy, a red herring, to cover the reappropriation of the psuedo-Kennedy.

Of course, the damned NSA, acting in league with the Vatican, certain banking interests and anti-flouridation radicals within the American Dentistry Association, put the kibosh on that! Not that they had the slightest idea what they were really doing."

I bit into that first slimy egg. It was tepid-warm; the jar had been sitting under the illuminated sign that read: "Just Ask for the Handsome Waiter." It tasted like old sea weed an