They are grinning at each other like fools. Their auras, for the record, are green. No shit. Not since winter of ’42, in convoy in a North Atlantic gale, with accidental tons of loose 5-inch ammo rolling all over the ship, the German wolf pack invisibly knocking off sister ships right and left, at Battle Stations inside mount 51 listening to Pappy Hod tell disaster jokes, really funny ones, the whole gun crew clutching their stomachs hysterically, gasping for air—not since then has Seaman Bodine felt so high in the good chances of death.

“Some layout, huh?” he calls. “Pretty good food!” Conversation has fallen nearly silent. Politely curious faces are turning. Flames leap in the pit. They are not “sensitive flames,” but if they were they might be able now to detect the presence of Brigadier Pudding. He is now a member of the Counterforce, courtesy of Carroll Eventyr. Courtesy is right. Séances with Pudding are at least as trying as the old Weekly Briefings back at “The White Visitation.” Pudding has even more of a mouth on him than he did alive. The sitters have begun to whine: “Aren’t we ever to be rid of him?” But it is through Pudding’s devotion to culinary pranksterism that the repulsive stratagem that follows was devised.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Roger elaborately casual, “I can’t seem to find any snot soup on the menu….”

“Yeah, I could’ve done with some of that pus pudding, myself. Think there’ll be any of that?”

“No, but there might be a scum soufflé!” cries Roger, “with a side of—menstrual marmalade!”

“Well I’ve got eyes for some of that rich, meaty smegma stew!” suggests Bodine. “Or howbout a clot casserole?”

“I say,” murmurs a voice, indeterminate as to sex, down the table.

“We could plan a better meal than this,” Roger waving the menu. “Start off with afterbirth appetizers, perhaps some clever little scab sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off of course… o-or booger biscuits! Mmm, yes, spread with mucus mayonnaise? and topped with a succulent bit of slime sausage….”

“Oh I see,” sez Commando Connie, “it has to be alliterative. How about… um… discharge dumplings?”

“We’re doing the soup course, babe,” sez cool Seaman Bodine, “so let me just suggest a canker consommé, or perhaps a barf bouillon.”

“Vomit vichysoisse,” sez Connie.

“You got it.”

“Cyst salad,” Roger continues, “with little cheery-red squares of abortion aspic, tossed in a subtle dandruff dressing.”

There is a sound of well-bred gagging, and a regional sales manager for ICI leaves hurriedly, spewing a long crescent of lumpy beige vomit that splatters across the parquetry. Napkins are being raised to faces all down the table. Silverware is being laid down, silver ringing the fields of white, a puzzling indecision here again, the same as at Clive Mossmoon’s office….

On we go, through fart fondue (skillfully placed bubbles of anal gas rising slowly through a rich cheese viscosity, yummm), boil blintzes, Vegetables Venereal in slobber sauce….