I tried to tell him so, as kindly as I could. But he was insistent.

Finally we agreed to take the treatment, hoping he would get it out of his system. I handed the defense mech to Maxwell and lay down. Couldn't tell a damn bit of difference. Ten minutes of warmth and dozy relaxation, and that's it. You don't feel a bit different after it's over than you did before.

Unless you're a good cultist, and convince yourself by auto-suggestion that all your bodily ills have been miraculously—if temporarily—baked out.

After Maxwell had been given the treatment, I tried again to get Blekeke pinned down to answering some of my questions, but it was no good.

He was obliging, cooperative and friendly as hell, but his heart just wasn't in it. He had to tell us about the improvements in the Ray, and when I threw specific questions at him, he always managed to answer with some reference to the Ray and start all over again—and it was all pure 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 you've been here is being checked thoroughly. And since that includes the SRI cult, it'll get a very complete going-over."

I said, "Well, shucks, then. All I have to do is sit back and let you fellows dig up the information I need."

"That, of course, depends on how the information is classified after it's processed," Johnson corrected. "Maybe you can use it and maybe you can't." He shrugged. "Well, I've got a whole new batch of questions here for you. That's my job right now. Let's get at 'em."

After Johnson was gone and I again felt mentally empty, I turned to Maxwell, who was pacing the floor restlessly: "Well, shall we go down and set up your defense barrier again?"

"Let's take a walk," he said. "I've got a headache. Fresh air might help."

"Suits me," I replied. "I know of a little bar seven or eight blocks from here...."

I stopped because he was already going out the door, and I had to get up from the chair, grab the defense mech and run after him.

He wasn't hurrying, just walking casually, but not waiting for anything.

In the elevator, on the way down, he said, "Those defense mechs. God damn. I wish those defense mechs...."

I nudged him. The elevator operator was looking at him closely, and there's no use taking any chances. He ought to know better.

He was out of the elevator as soon as the door opened at ground level. He walked toward the front entrance. I had to run again to catch up with him.

"Hey, what's the hurry?" I asked. "Can I come along too?"

He didn't answer, just kept walking. Looking straight ahead, still not hurrying, but moving rapidly nevertheless. When we got outside, he turned right and continued at the same steady pace.

I tugged at his arm. "Hey, the bar I mentioned is the other way."

He shook my hand loose and kept walking. "I want to go this way."

I shrugged and trotted to keep up with him. "Okay. If you know of a better place, we'll go there. But—"

"This damn headache," he said. "I've had it all day. All afternoon."

"My fault," I said. "I started you puzzling over a problem that concerns only me...."

He wasn't listening.

There were few pedestrians on this level of traffic; most people who walked places took the ambulators on the second level. Down here the sidewalks were narrow and the curbs high, the streets being used almost exclusively for heavy transfer and delivery trucks.

A high metal railing along the street-side of the walk prevented careless pedestrians from stepping in the path of the huge, swift, rumbling vehicles.

But there were no railings at the intersections.

And at the next intersection, Maxwell stepped off the curb, shifted his course just a fraction, and went on at a tangent that would have had him smack in the middle of a truck-traffic lane.

I grabbed his arm and pulled hard, to get him headed back in the right direction.

"What the hell are you trying to do—get yourself killed?"

Which was almost exactly what I'd started to say. But he was the one who said it.

So I just said, "Huh?"

He jerked his arm free and continued walking—straight toward an oncoming 100-ton semi.

I had a sudden idea of what was going on, and acted rapidly.

I set the defense mech down, because you can't handle a man Maxwell's size with only one hand. I grabbed his arm again, this time with both hands, and pulled as hard as I could. It jerked him off balance and out of danger. The semi roared past.

And Maxwell turned on me with sudden, violent anger.

"Listen," he snapped, "what in hell's the matter with you? What do you think you're doing?"

I didn't argue with him. I took careful aim and threw a haymaker, giving it everything I had. It caught the point of his chin squarely and jarred me to my ankle.

He swayed a little bit and his face went blank, but he didn't fall.

For which I shall be eternally grateful.

Another giant semi, still nearly a block away, was hurtling toward us. If Maxwell had fallen, I could not possibly have dragged him out of the way in time. And the semi couldn't have stopped in that distance.

As it was, I was able to snatch up the defense mech with one hand and propel Maxwell to the opposite curb, just seconds before the truck went by with a whiz and a rattle.

I got Maxwell onto an escalator leading to the second level before his legs buckled. Then he went to his knees. I managed to get his arm around my shoulder and hoist him back to his feet before we reached the