human
What's the crisis?
gpt
Scouts coming up say your pal Bey-ag-Akhamouk is on the way. Evidently, with a big harka of Teda from the Sudan.
human
Great. Homer crowed.
gpt
Now we'll get going.
human
Ha! Dave said.
gpt
From what we hear, a good many are camel mounted. How are we going to feed them? Already some of the Songhai Kenny brought up from the south have drifted away, unhappy about supplies.
human
Bey's a top man, Homer told him.
gpt
The best. He'll have some ideas on our tactics. Meanwhile, we can turn over most of his men to one of the new recruits, and head them down to take Fort Lamy. With Fort Lamy and Lake Chad in our hands we'll control a chunk of Africa so big everybody else will start wondering why they shouldn't jump on the bandwagon while the going is good.
human
Well, that brings up something else, Homer. These new recruits. In the past couple of days, forty or fifty men who used to be connected with African programs sponsored by everybody from the Reunited Nations to this gobblydygook outfit Cliff and Isobel once worked for, the AFAA, have come over to El Hassan. The number will probably double by tomorrow, and triple the next day.
gpt
Fine, Homer said.
human
What's wrong with that? These are the people that will really count in the long run.
gpt
Nothing's wrong with it, within reason. But we're going to have to start becoming selective, Homer. We've got to watch what jobs we let these people have, how much responsibility we give them.
human
How do you mean?
gpt
See here, the wiry South African said plaintively,
human
So?
gpt
So from now on, you're going to have an infiltration of cloak and dagger lads from every outfit with an interest in North Africa. Potential traitors, potential assassins, subversives and what not.
human
Confound it, what do you suggest? That these Johnny-Come-Latelies be second-class citizens?
gpt
Not exactly that, but this isn't funny. We've got to screen them. The trouble with this movement is that it's a one-man deal, and has to be. The average African is either a barbarian or an actual savage, one ethnic degree lower. He wants a hero-symbol to follow. O.K., you're it. But remember both Moctezuma and Atahualpa. Their socio-economic systems pyramided up to them. The Spanish conquistadores, being old hands at sophisticated European-type intrigue, quickly sized up the situation. They kidnaped the hero-symbol, the big cheese, and later killed him. And the Inca and the Aztec cultures collapsed.
human
All we need is one fuzzy minded commie from the Soviet Complex, or one super-dooper democrat who thinks that El Hassan stands in the way of _freedom_, whatever that is, and bingo a couple of bullets in your tummy and the El Hassan movement folds its tents like the Arabs and takes a powder, as the old expression goes.
gpt
You have your point, Homer Crawford admitted.
human
Follow through, Dave. Figure out some screening program.
gpt
Hey, Homer. Guess what old Jake has done.
human
Jake Armstrong?
gpt
He's swung the Africa for Africans Association in New York over to us. They've raised a million bucks. What'll we do with it? How can he get anything to us?
human
We'll have him plow it back into publicity and further fund raising campaigns, Homer said.
gpt
That's the way it's done. You raise some money for some cause and then spend it all on a bigger campaign to raise still more money, and what you get from that one you plow into a still bigger campaign.
human
Don't you _ever_ get anything out of it?
gpt
I've got some still better news.
human
Good news, we can use,
gpt
A poet no less,
human
Shut up, Homer said.
gpt
What's the news?