Remo reached out and arrested a running sound man. He lifted him off his feet and his feet kept running. Remo recognized him as the human bone he had thrown to Jane Goodwoman.
"I see you survived," Remo said dryly.
"Is it usually that messy?" the boy asked.
"After Jane Goodwoman, all women are downhill."
"That's a relief."
"Now that I've started you along the road to wisdom, who's coming up the road?"
"Senator Ned J. Clancy."
Remo blinked. "Why? Did someone declare this an open bar zone?"
"I don't know."
Remo dropped the man and his feet got in gear again.
"This place is about to become a zoo," Remo told Chiun.
"It is already a zoo."
"It is about to become the zoo of all time. Let's mosey." Remo stuck his head back in the tent. "We'll catch up with you later."
Dale Parsons didn't look up from his work. "I'll be here."
The rush of press was heading south so Remo and Chiun struck off to the west toward the main PAPA encampment.
Over the sound of feet and the honking of horns they could hear Jane Goodwoman calling frantically, "Where is Senator Clancy? Where is Senator Clancy?"
Remo raised his voice. "Go east about a hundred yards. You can't miss him."
Chiun said, "The one they are rushing to meet is to the south."
Remo grinned. "I know. But the latrine is about a hundred yards to the east. Maybe she'll fall in."
"You are in a mean mood."
"You would be too if she tried to jump your bones."
"My bones would jump back and her bones would be broken," Chiun sniffed.
"I'll count on you to throw yourself between us next time she goes into heat," Remo said wryly.
In the main encampment, they came upon a group of hippie types sitting in the weeds and picking tiny bugs off themselves. They sat under staked umbrellas and buckskin hides stretched over wood frames, presumably to protect them from cancerous ultraviolet rays, Remo decided.
Their approach was noticed, and a bony woman raised a thin hand and waved them to come closer.
"Peace! Come to join the wave of the future?"
"Why not?" said Remo.
"Never," said Chiun.
Remo hissed, "We're supposed to get to the bottom of this. So we're joining these dips."
"We are joining, but I am not eating bugs."
"Fine. Just follow along."
"Are you Snappers or are you Harvesters?" someone asked.
"What are you people?" Remo countered.
"Snappers. Look." And the bony woman plucked one of the tiny bugs off a weed and snapped its head off with the flick of a dirty thumbnail. She put the rest in her mouth and began chewing. She chewed soundlessly for over a minute and finally a smile came over her face. It had been preceded by a tiny crunch. "Got the little bugger."
"They still move after they're decapitated so you have to find them with your teeth," someone said helpfully.
"That's the fun part," added a thin man wearing a Coptic cross and shorts that fought to hold on to his skinny hips.
"How do they taste?" wondered Remo.
"Like lobster."
"No, like Cajun popcorn," a man insisted.
"Like fried rice," said someone else.
"Are you all eating the same bug?" Remo asked.
"We don't call it a bug. It's Miracle Food. You can eat them all day long and never get full, or get tired of them."
"They come in different flavors too."
"Are you not concerned that you will sicken and die?" Chiun demanded.
"Only Harvesters catch HELP."
"Yeah, that's because they're too white and don't cover themselves when they go out into the sun."
Everyone agreed that the Harvester sect of the People Against Protein Assassins caught Human Environmental Liability Paradox. In fact, the Snapper group looked reasonably healthy. A number of them were pretty skinny, but it was diet-skinny, not wasting-away-to-skin-and-bones skinny.
"Then we'd better check out the Harvesters," Remo told Chiun.
A man shucked a handful of thunderbugs off a weed and offered them to Remo.
"Here, man. Take a bunch. It's a long walk."
"Yeah," a young girl said, "and over on the other side of the Schism Line, they cook all the flavor out of the little fellows."
"No thanks," said Remo. "Bug sushi doesn't appeal to me."
"Harvester," the young girl hissed. "If you catch HELP, it'll be your own fault."
They left the Snappers to their snapping and snacking.
The Schism Line proved to be exactly that. Someone had dragged a stick across the vale and there was a wooden sign stuck into it. On the approach side it said SNAPPER TURF. When they passed it, the other side of the sign said HAPPY HARVESTER HUNTING GROUND.
The tepees and wigwams were all clustered on the other side of the Schism Line.
They were arrayed around a campfire that was ringed with stones. There was a pot simmering. As they approached, Remo and Chiun saw people come to ladle in thunderbugs, wait a few moments, and ladle them out again.
There seemed to be a continual procession of PAPA adherents coming to contribute to the communal pot and then return to partake. Nobody looked sick. Nobody looked particularly well fed either. They wore Indian costumes that might have once fit them, but the buckskin and beads now fit loosely, if at all.
Remo walked up to the pot and asked, "How can you tell if they're cooked if you're cooking them all together like that?"
A man looked up. "They cook fast. They're always good. That's why Gitchee Manitou created them."
Remo frowned. "I've heard of the shores of Gitchee Goomie. But who's Gitchee Manitou?"
"The Great Spirit who created the thunderbug and sowed them in the fields with their plump bodies that are good to eat and their tiny legs which cannot run fast so they don't get away. Look, see how they can't wait to be eaten."
Remo and Chiun looked. The lethargic thunderbugs, once they were held over the steaming pot, came to life. They leapt from the ladles and into the simmering water, where they immediately curled up in tiny chickpealike balls.
"I never heard of bugs committing mass suicide," said Remo.
"It is not suicide. They only want to share themselves with us. When it is our turn to die, we will go to a place where man is tiny and thunderbugs are great and we will return the favor by allowing them to consume our tasty flesh."
"Who fed you this bulldookie?" Remo said.
"Theodore Soars-With-Eagles."
"Where do we find him?"
"Sometimes he is in the wind and cannot be seen, only felt."
Remo reached down to find the man's neck. He squeezed. "Can the corn."
"We call it maize."
"I call it bullshit. Where is he now?"
"Sometimes he can be found napping in his tepee," the man said through teeth that seemed suddenly welded together.
"Point us."
The man had only a ladle to point with and he swept it back around, throwing hot broth and dead thunderbugs into the parched grass.
When Remo released him, he dived for the bugs and began popping them into his mouth.
"Welcome, brothers in nature," said Theodore Soars-With-Eagles when they pushed aside the flap of his tent. It was made of some slick material that Remo thought he recognized.
"Naugahyde?" he asked.
Theodore Soars-With-Eagles gathered his chinchilla cloak about his shoulders. "Gitchee Manitou invented what the white man came to call Naugahyde. In his great wisdom he has seen fit not to enforce the patent. It is called reciprocity."
"The tribal language around here is obviously bullshit," Remo growled. "You started this cult?"
"There is some disagreement over that. Some say Brother Karl Sagacious, may his noble Greek soul forever rest, founded PAPA. Some give me that honor. Some say we were brothers in creation before our unfortunate misunderstanding."