There’s nothing back at “The White Visitation” he really needs. Nothing he can’t let go. Clothes on his back and the pool motorcycle, a pocket full of spare change and anger unlimited, what more does a 30-year-old innocent need to make his way in the city? “I’m fucking Dick Whittington!” it occurs to him zooming down Kings Road, “I’ve come to London! I’m your Lord Mayor… .”

Pirate is at home, and apparently expecting Roger. Pieces of his faithful Mendoza lie about the refectory table, shining with oil or bluing, wads, patches, rods, bottles occupy his hands, but his eyes are on Roger.

“No,” cutting into a denunciation of Pointsman when Milton Gloaming’s name comes up, “it’s a minor item, but stop right there. Pointsman didn’t send him. We sent him.”

“We.”

“You’re a novice paranoid, Roger,” first time Prentice has ever used his Christian name and it touches Roger enough to check his tirade. “Of course a well-developed They-system is necessary—but it’s only half the story. For every They there ought to be a We. In our case there is. Creative paranoia means developing at least as thorough a We-system as a They-system—”

“Wait, wait, first where’s the Haig and Haig, be a gracious host, second what is a ‘They-system,’ I don’t pull Chebychev’s Theorem on you, do I?”

“I mean what They and Their hired psychiatrists call ‘delusional systems.’ Needless to say, ‘delusions’ are always officially defined. We don’t have to worry about questions of real or unreal. They only talk out of expediency. It’s the system that matters. How the data arrange themselves inside it. Some are consistent, others fall apart. Your idea that Pointsman sent Gloaming takes a wrong fork. Without any contrary set of delusions—delusions about ourselves, which I’m calling a We-system—the Gloaming idea might have been all right—”

“Delusions about ourselves?”

“Not real ones.”

“But officially defined.”

“Out of expediency, yes.”

“Well, you’re playing Their game, then.”

“Don’t let it bother you. You’ll find you can operate quite well. Seeing as we haven’t won yet, it isn’t really much of a problem.”

Roger is totally confused. At this point, in wanders who but Milton Gloaming with a black man Roger recognizes now as one of the two herb-smokers in the furnace room under Clive Mossmoon’s office. His name is Jan Otyiyumbu, and he’s a Schwarzkommando liaison man. One of Blodgett Waxwing’s apache lieutenants shows up with his girl, who’s not walking so much as dancing, very fluid and slow, a dance in which Osbie Feel, popping out of the kitchen now with his shirt off (and a Porky Pig tattoo on his stomach? How long has Feel had that?) correctly identifies the influence of heroin.

It’s a little bewildering—if this is a “We-system,” why isn’t it at least thoughtful enough to interlock in a reasonable way, like They-systems do?

“That’s exactly it,” Osbie screams, belly-dancing Porky into a wide, alarming grin, “They’re the rational ones. We piss on Their rational arrangements. Don’t we… Mexico?”