"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.