This function placed Putnam somewhere in that hazy world between diplomacy and espionage. Here he stood balanced between the CIA and the U.S. State Department, beholden to neither, exerting some authority on both, acknowledged by neither, depended on by both. His position was that of a top-secret cipher never visibly weighed in government policy, but frequently the determining factor in the formation of such policy. He was financed generously, and always under “Miscellaneous.” He’s the man who wasn’t there, and I’m frequently his reluctant pawn.
I was resigned to it by now, and I’d given up making even a token protest. I knew I’d do whatever he wanted because it was for the good of the U.S., and with all the misgivings I sometimes feel about my country’s actions in places like Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, I still love the U.S. and stand ready to serve it. So I sat back now and listened while he put me in the picture.
It was S.M.U.T. all over again, as he'd indicated in his note. S.M.U.T.—Society for Moral Uplift Today—is an organization with the avowed purpose of being agin’ sin. More than that, they’re opposed to sex in any way, shape, manner, or form. All over the world they fight everything sexual from cheesecake pictures to unexpurgated Shakespeare, from birth control devices to bordellos, from adultery and free love to low necklines and high hemlines. Theirs is a high moral crusade attracting the righteous. But what the righteous don’t know, what only a select few high-ups in various governments do know, is that S.M.U.T. is a fraud, a front for an organization with a far more sinister purpose.
That purpose is no less than the conquest of the entire world. And the means by which they intend to accomplish it is overpopulation. By removing all forms of sexual sublimation from the environment, S.M.U.T.’s ambition is to breed a race of human slaves dependent on them for a survival which they are even now seeing to it that only S.M.U.T. can provide. With a population explosion of their own devising, S.M.U.T. plans to transform people into sheep.
I’d thrown a monkey-wrench into these plans the last time Putnam had recruited my help against S.M.U.T. But I hadn’t put them out of business. I hadn’t been able to find out who the top man was. And from what Putnam was telling me now, I hadn’t really put more than an annoying dent in their operation; my interference had simply made them take off in a different direction, that was all.
I listened to Putnam telling me what he knew about this direction. “It started quite a few years back with the British,” he told me. “After the war, gratitude made them take a more than usual interest in the islands of Malta, then one of their possessions. They found that the greatest problem in Malta aside from war damage was its phenomenal population growth. Before the war the population numbered about 268,000. Since then it’s been growing at the rate of 3,000 a year. Today there’s a population density on the islands of 2,277 per square mile. Considering that it’s an agricultural country, and that Britain, which is an industrial country, has an average population density of 468 per square mile, you get some idea of why the British became worried over the scope of the problem. However, they never thought of its being related to the activities of S.M.U.T. until recently.”
“Why recently?” I asked. “What happened?”
“Two things. First of all an outbreak of Malta Fever in corners of the world where it’s never been known to exist before.”
“What’s Malta Fever?”
“Malta Fever,” Putnam made noises like an encyclopedia, “is a disease characterized by anaemia, swelling of the joints, and neuritis. It’s extremely painful, and can last anywhere from four months to two or three years. Up until recently, it was only found on Malta and Gibraltar. And its cause was directly traceable to the Micrococcus Melitensis, a microorganism only found present in the milk of Maltese goats.”
“But what has this got to do with S.M.U.T.?”
“Just this. This same goats’ milk may have certain aphrodisiac characteristics. It isn’t proven yet, but research is under way which tends to point to a relationship between Maltese population growth and the fertility fostered by a diet of milk from Maltese goats. Now, in places where Malta Fever has inexplicably broken out, there has also been an upsurge in the birth rate. This combination of facts points to the Maltese goats. But the Maltese export neither their goats nor the milk they provide. Still, the places where these two factors have been noted are also places where S.M.U.T. is firmly entrenched.”
“Interesting. What’s the second factor you mentioned?”
“A shipment of black-market contraceptives.”
“Huh?”
“Exactly our reaction, Mr. Victor. Ours and the British. Why should it be necessary today to peddle contraceptives on the black market? That’s what we asked ourselves. We didn’t find the answer, but we came up with a raft of interrelated—and even more puzzling-data.”
“Such as?”
“The shipment was in the process of being smuggled ashore on a Maltese beach when one of our coastal patrols interfered. None of the people involved were apprehended. It was impossible to determine the point of origin of the shipment. The crates were broken open and the contraceptive contents -- all male contraceptives, by the way—revealed. And upon examination it was found that every single contraceptive was pierced with a miniature pinhole, an invisible pinhole, which rendered it useless.”
“But what does it mean?”
“We’re not sure. But it certainly looks like someone was doing his best to see to it that the Maltese birth rate keeps soaring. Our guess is that that someone is S.M.U.T.”
“And where do I figure in all this?” I wanted to know.
“We require your services as the man from O.R.G.Y. once again, Mr. Victor. We have just had a report from a British agent that seems to point to a connection between certain cases of Malta Fever and a specific brothel on the island of Malta. We wish you to go to Malta and contact this agent. I believe you know him. His name is Lagula. He is an African Pigmy.”
“Yes. I know him.”
“Good. We want you to investigage this brothel. We want you to try to trace any connection between it and the goats’ milk which causes Malta Fever. Specifically, we want you to try to trace the involvement of S.M.U.T. in all this. Hopefully, we want to try to trace S.M.U.T. to its source. We want to nail down the man in charge and stop his activities once and for all. Toward this end, you are free to follow whatever trail you may unearth.”
“Thanks a whole bunch,” I told Putnam. I thought about it a moment. “Is there any connection between the contraband contraceptives and this brothel you mentioned?” I asked finally.
“None that we can pin down. We suspect it’s all part of some larger master plan having to do with S.M.U.T., but we can only guess at the connection.”
“Then you don’t know who was slated to get the shipment?”
“No.”
“And there may actually be no connection.”
“That’s true. Still, if S.M.U.T. is behind it—”
“That’s pretty iffy.”
“We live in an iffy world, Mr. Victor. It may well be that you are off on a wild-goose chase.”
Just how wild a goose, Charles Putnam couldn’t have known. True, it was only one feather from the goose’s tail, but it was still as wild a chaser for an aborted sex act as ever came my way. And it kept coming now, pulling my mind back from the interview with Putnam in London to the sadistically hilarious present probing ticklishly between my thighs. Nor did the bare-busted Domino show any signs of letting up on her feather-dusting.