The Telenizer, Don Thompson [first color ebook reader txt] 📗

for both of us."

Maxwell grinned as he buttoned his shirt. "D'I kick you out of bed? Sorry. Should have warned you."

"Do you eat breakfast?" I asked him.

"Hell, yes. Like a wolf."

"Well, let's go down and get you some breakfast while I figure out my agenda for today."

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do—start working on that SRI feature, I supposed, so I could get it out of the way and either relax or concentrate on this telenosis business, which I was supposed to be forgetting about. I had most of the dope I needed for the story—atmosphere, first hand experience....

Everything, it occurred to me, but the essential facts.

For instance, I would need to know more about Zan Blekeke himself—simple biographical data that shouldn't take too long to gather. A harder job would be finding out about "Dear Late Doctor." So far I didn't even know what his name was. And if none of the SRI members would talk about him....

As Maxwell and I sat at a breakfast room table, I made a mental checklist of the points I would have to work on. I was staring out the window at the flowers staging a color-riot in the garden, when suddenly Maxwell said:

"Say, Earl, about how long does it take to find out a guy's brain wave band?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" I looked at him. He was shoveling pancakes into his mouth like a fireman stoking a furnace.

He shrugged and swallowed. "You said there was no danger from telenosis until they found my wave band. Well, last night I had the damnedest nightmares, and I was just wondering—"

"Relax," I said. "Ever been telenized?"

"Not that I know of."

"Got nothin' to worry about, then. If you had been telenized, it's just possible they could have gotten your band number from the Telenosis Bureau. Which, by God, come to think of it, is where they probably got mine. But without that, or an electroencaphalograph, it'd take weeks, at least."

"But can't it influence a lot of people at once? I mean, like mass hypnosis?"

"Sure be hell if it could," I said. "But I don't think it can. I don't know why not, but I definitely remember old Doc Reighardt saying it'd never been done."

He seemed to feel better. He finished his breakfast in relative silence. I was able to map out a general procedure for gathering all of the necessary SRI information.

First step was to get hold of Zan Blekeke again and have him tell me his life history. I shuddered at the prospect, but it had to be done.

"We're going to East Emerson beach," I told John Maxwell.

On the way, aboard a third-level bus, I asked him, "SRI ever been investigated by you people?"

"Damn if I know. Why?"

"Never mind. Save me a lot of trouble, maybe, if it had. Just a thought."

We found the SRI cultists at their usual place on the beach. It was a stretch on the far south end, a rough, gravelly portion quite a bit beyond the army of regular bathers.

As we approached, threading our way through the maze of umbrellas, tablecloths and people, people, people in practically all stages of nudity, I noticed that a makeshift rope fence enclosed the little group of SRIs where they were sprawled out doing their relaxing exercises. That was something new—the fence, I mean.

I started to crawl through the ropes, and one of the nearby recliners jumped to his feet, stood in front of me and made pushing motions with his hands.

"I'm sorry, sirs, but this is a meeting of The Suns-Rays Incorporated religious group. You are requested not to enter."

Now, he knew better than to say a silly thing like that to me. His name was Monte Bingham, and he knew damn well who I was, and I told him so. "I'm practically an ex-officio member in good standing myself," I said. "Wake up, you goof."

Monte Bingham turned slowly around and looked toward the big Martian, Zan Blekeke, who was sitting up with his spindly legs outstretched near the center of the enclosure.

Blekeke got to his feet and waddled toward us, waving Bingham aside. He was not smiling. He stood glaring at us.

"Whose?" he said with a swift, half-gesture toward Maxwell.

"Whose?" I repeated. "He's mine. I mean, he's my brother-in-law, John Maxwell, come to visit me from Sacramento. He's okay. What's going on? I just wanted to make an appointment to talk with you."

Blekeke heaved his big round bare chest. "Trying still disciple in," he replied.

"How's that? Discipline, you mean?"

"Yups. Laters out. Strangers out. No excepting. Can't."

"Yeah, but you know me, and John here—"

"Brother law oaks, but both laters. See hall hour halfish. Talk then. Treatment, yups?"

I said, "Well, I guess that'll be okay. Hour and a half, at the hall, huh?"

Blekeke said, "Yups," and turned away.

He took two steps and stopped. I saw his spine stiffen. His head turned slowly toward the water's edge where two dogs were running circles around each other, not far from the enclosure. As the dogs moved, Blekeke's head moved with them, back and forth and back again....

Suddenly one of the dogs, the smaller one—a black and white spaniel with flapping ears—turned and raced through the SRI compound, bounding gracelessly over the sprawled bodies of SRI members. The larger German shepherd gave two woofs and leaped playfully in pursuit. They passed within about ten feet of Blekeke.

When the German shepherd barked, I heard a thin, drawn-out squeak, like a mouse with his tail caught in a trap, come from Blekeke. He turned around with incredible speed and took a half-step in our direction. His face was distorted as though in pain, and for an instant I thought he had stepped on a jagged piece of glass or something.

But then I recognized the expression on his face. It was not pain.

It was terror.

I noticed now that he was trembling violently. He twirled again and started in the opposite direction, stopped and turned swiftly around once more. He acted as though he were surrounded on all sides by invisible Martian-eaters.

The dogs paused at the edge of the enclosure for a moment to stand on their hind legs and exchange playful blows; then they raced off together toward the more densely populated beach area.

Blekeke's face suddenly relaxed, and with a final shudder he controlled the trembling.

He was muttering: "Doggie, doggie, doggie" when he lowered his eyes to us, and he gave a little start as if he hadn't known we were standing there.

"Hall. Hour halfish," he said after a moment's pause. Then he turned and walked rapidly back into the midst of the prostrate SRI members and lay down.

Maxwell and I exchanged glances and walked away. I felt, all of a sudden, rather sad and depressed. When we had gone a respectable distance, I said, "Poor devil! Fear of dogs. It must be awful."

"Fear of dogs? Cynophobia? You think that's what it was?"

"Well, sure," I replied. "Only thing it could be."

Maxwell said, "First case I've ever seen of it."

"Me, too."

It was still not quite ten o'clock. We killed the next hour and a half basking in the Sun and taking occasional dips in the water. We had to go one at a time, because one of us had to stay and guard the defense mech.

At 11:30 we kept our appointment with Blekeke. He was alone in the SRI hall, a long, low, metal building located a half-mile down the beach from the general bathing area.

The hall had once been a storage warehouse of some kind—I have no idea what kind. But that had been a long time ago; and it was now used exclusively for SRI meetings.

There was another building near it, the ramshackle, rambling mansion of a long-dead millionaire, which had been appropriated by the SRI as housing quarters for the members who did not care to stay in rooms or hotels in town. And most of them didn't.

Maxwell was interested in the house, but I couldn't tell him anything about it. I had never been in it, whereas I had been in the hall several times. Of course, there was nothing much to explain about the hall—it was practically bare.

The Sun Ray stood like an altar at one end. About thirty-five folding chairs were lined up in rows facing the Ray. That was all.

Blekeke was doing something to the lamp part of the Ray when we came in—tightening the bulb, apparently. It was a very simple contraption. Nothing but a padded, white-sheeted reclining table suspended over the full length of which was the lamp. The thing was operated by a bank of controls wired up a few feet away from the table.

"Infra-red heat lamp," Maxwell whispered.

"Sure," I said. "But don't say so."

Blekeke saw us and jumped down from the platform and greeted us with open arms, apologizing for his rude behavior on the beach.

I told him to forget about it; that I just wanted to ask him a few questions so I could write up my story about SRI—give him a little free publicity.

Blekeke beamed. Said he'd be glad to help all he could.

But before I had a chance to ask any questions, he was blabbering: "Give treatment. New, improve. Much healthier. Give try." And he was pushing us toward the machine.

I was not the least bit interested in taking a treatment, and 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