gibberish.

I gave up. We parted with mutual benedictions, and John Maxwell and I
walked away, toward the one-track road leading to the old mansion.

"What do _you_ do in a situation like this?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Try somebody else."

We walked up the front steps of the mansion, and I punched the doorbell.

It was no go there, either. The cultist who opened the door, whom I
remembered as a shoe salesman from Boise, informed us firmly and none
too politely that no one could enter without the explicit and written
permission of President Matl Blekeke. He showed no sign of recognizing
me. He slammed the door.

I gave emphatic utterance to an unprintable word and said, "Let's go
back to town."

* * * * *

Johnson showed up in the room promptly at six-thirty, as he had
promised, again slipping in without knocking. He threw his briefcase and
his hat on the bed and pulled up a chair to the cardtable where Maxwell
and I were playing chess.

"How about the defense mechs?" Maxwell asked.

"Hospital in New York is working on 'em," Johnson said. "Promised they'd
have 'em ready tomorrow morning. I'm going up tonight, after I get
through here, so I can pick 'em up right away."

"Quick work," I said.

"Any new developments on this end? I've been too busy today getting
things organized to keep an eye on you."

"Every twelve hours Langston's defense mech starts clicking," Maxwell
said. "Four o'clock this morning and four o'clock this afternoon."

"So he's not giving up on you, anyway," Johnson said. "We know he's
still around. What else? Anything new come up?"

I shrugged. "Spent the whole day on a wild goose chase--from my point of
view. Trying to dig up information for my feature about Suns-Rays
Incorporated."

Johnson nodded. "No luck, huh?"

I told him about the so-called interview with Blekeke that morning, and
how in the afternoon I had tried to contact those SRI members who I knew
had been living in town. That had been futile, too; all of them had
moved to the house on the beach. Then Maxwell and I had spent a couple
of hours in the library, checking reference books for some mention of
SRI or any of its members. With no results.

Johnson recognized the frustration in my voice. "Don't let it get you
down," he said.

I asked him if the C.I.D. had ever investigated the cult.

"Not yet," he said. "Not that I know of. But everyone that you've had
any contact with since