that you are taking any part of this seriously?" I asked with some heat. "The whole thing is a horrible, pointless prank!"

She turned and faced me squarely. "Not to me. I say the Moraddy will win out. I want it to—and I think you'd be wise to get on the bandwagon while there's still time."

I realized she was serious. Dead serious. I tried a cautious query:

"Just what does the dufellation of the Wistick by the Moraddy mean?"

And it made her angry. It actually made her angry! She switched off the front burner and walked past me into the living room. I didn't think she was going to answer, but she did—sort of.

"There is no excuse for an egghead in your position not knowing what it means." Her voice was strained and tense. "If you had any perception whatever, you would understand what the Moraddy has to give the American people. It's our only hope. And you've got to take sides. You're either for the Moraddy or the Wistick—you can't take the middle way."

I felt completely isolated. "Wait! I don't know what it means—"

"Forget it," she broke in. "I should have known. You were born, you have lived, and you will die an egghead in an ivory tower. Just remember—the Moraddy dufels the Wistick!" And she swept on upstairs to pack. And out of my life.

And that's the way it was. Whatever malignant poison had seeped into the collective brain of the nation, it was certainly a devastating leveler of all sorts of institutions and values. Wives left husbands and husbands left wives. Joint bank accounts vanished. Families disintegrated. Wall street crumpled.

Developments were swift and ominous. The Army split up into various groups. Most of the enlisted men favored the Moraddy, but the officers and older non-coms pledged the Wistickian faith. Their power was sufficient to hold many in line, but a considerable number in the lower ranks deserted and joined forces with the Moraddians, who held the eastern half of the country.

The Wisticks ruled the western half with an iron hand, and all signs pointed toward civil war. Labor and military authorities conscripted the entire population regardless of age, sex or religious convictions.

For my own part, I slipped away from the campus and fled north into the Oregon mountains. It was not that I was afraid to 

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