The orgone generator refused to come up to speed and for a few helpless, frustrated moments JSN wondered if DNS had been right. Nothing seemed to work any more. Then LNR found a way to patch around it and JSN became promptly and thoroughly distracted.

A little less than an hour later a shrill alarm interrupted them. "Shit," JSN said, yanking cables out of various orifices. "I knew I shouldn't have left him alone."

"Here." LNR unwrapped something from his left leg so he could hobble over to a monitor. "Is it DNS?"

"Yeah," JSN said. "He found the barn where I stashed the shuttle."

"And the weirdos too?"

"Yeah. That guy seems like a real jerk. What do you keep him around for?"

"Well, you don't want an advisor who's just going to agree with you all the time. He's definitely got his own ideas."

That seemed reasonable to JSN. "I'd better get out there. He's liable to bring the whole world down on us." He started putting on his shirt.

"I'll come too," LNR said. "After all, I brought him into this." She had her shoes on and was ready to go; her black outfit, JSN had discovered to his vast pleasure, was a mutant cell strain and a living part of her body.

JSN hurried into the rest of his clothes and led the way outside.

The night was clear and hot. Cyborg mowers had cut the fields that afternoon and the smell of battered grass filled the air. JSN stopped for moment and scanned the star patterns.

"There," he said, pointing to a bright spot in Capricorn, near the eastern horizon. "The mother ship."

"It must be huge," LNR said, and JSN nodded. "And to think it's just crawling with devos. It's enough to give you a head crash."

JSN slipped quietly through the oversized barn door, noticing that the lingering odor of livestock had been routed by the more potent essence of the devos. In the dim parking lights of the shuttle he saw Brother Simon and all six of the others standing in a circle around the sweating DNS.

"DNS!" he shouted, being careful to breathe through his mouth. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

DNS flinched in obvious guilt, then recovered. "I'm a doctor," he said indignantly. "These people need proper medical attention. What do you think they are, zoo specimens?"

JSN turned to LNR, who had come in after him. "Is he a doctor?"

"I don't know," she said. "I think maybe he put a chip in for it once."

"If that's all you're doing," JSN demanded, "why did you think you had to sneak in?"

"I assumed you had something else on your mind."

"Look," JSN said to the devo nearest him, a heavyset female with huge, drooping breasts behind the front panel of her overalls. "You don't have to put up with this guy if you don't want to."

"Yall are wastin yore time talkin to the helpmeat," Brother Simon said. The female smiled at JSN in vacant agreement. "But dont worry none. We ud be proud to talk to yore doctor fella. Mebbe we ud get a chance to share the Good News with him."

"You mean you're leaving?" LNR asked.

"Pardon?"

"Isn't that the good news?"

"I meant the Good News about our Lord and Savior, Johnny Carson."

JSN accessed his core, noticing, from her slightly uprolled eyes, that LNR was doing the same. "I don't have anything on it," he said. "You?"

"I can't tell. I think I've got some bad sectors in my religion directory."

"Sorry," JSN said to Brother Simon. "We don't have the foggiest notion what you're talking about."

"Yall aint heard the Word?"

"Is that the same as the good news?" LNR asked. "Because if it is, no, we haven't."

"If yall wanna step inside, I ud be proud to give my witness."

"Sure," LNR said. "Why not?"