In each room I saw piles of my Introduction which pleased me even though I had come already to dislike it.
The last room contained Paul, seated behind a desk with a dictaphone in one hand, three telephones on his desk (none fortunately ringing at this moment) and four male and female attendants with notebooks and pencils eagerly poised. Paul sprang from his chair when he saw me. The attendants fell back. "Here he is!" He grabbed my hand and clung to it vise-like: I could almost feel the energy pulsing in his fingertips, vibrating through his body… his heartbeat was obviously two to my every one.
"Team, this is Eugene Luther."
The team was properly impressed and one of the girls, slovenly but intelligent-looking, said: "It was you who brought me here. First you I mean… and then of course Cave."
I murmured vaguely and the others told me how clear I had made all philosophy in the light of Cavesword. (I believe it was that day, certainly that week, Cavesword was coined by Paul to denote the entire message of John Cave to the world). Paul then shooed the team out with instructions he was not to be bothered. The door, however, was left open.
"Well, what do you think of them?" He leaned back, beaming at me from his chair.
"They seem very… earnest," I said, wondering not only what I was supposed to think but, more to the point, what I did think of the whole business.
"I'll say they are! I tell you, Gene, I've never seen anything like it. The thing's bigger even than that damned crooner I handled… you may remember the one. Everyone has been calling up and, look!" He pointed to several bushel baskets containing telegrams and letters. "This is only a fraction of the response since the telecast. From all over the world. I tell you, Gene, we're in."
"What about Cave? Where is he?"
"He's out on Long Island. The press is on my tail trying to interview him but I say no, no go, fellows, not yet; and does that excite them! We've had to hire guards at the place on Long Island just to keep them away."
"How is Cave taking it all?"
"In his stride, absolute model of coolness which is more than I am. He agrees that it's better to keep him under wraps while the telecasts are going on. It means that curiosity about him will increase like nobody's business. Look at this." He showed me a proof sheet of a tabloid story: "Mystery Prophet Wows TV Audience," with a photograph of Cave taken from the telecast and another one showing Cave ducking into a taxi, his face turned away from the camera. The story seemed most provocative and, for that complacent tabloid, a little bewildered.
"Coming out Sunday," said Paul with satisfaction. "There's also going to be coverage from the big circulation media. They're going to cover the next broadcast even though we said nobody'd be allowed on the set while Cave was speaking."
He handed me a bundle of manuscript pages bearing the title "Who Is Cave?"
"That's the story I planted in one of the slick magazines. Hired a name-writer, as you can see, to do it." The name-writer's name was not known to me but, presumably, it would be familiar to the mass audience.
"And, biggest of all, we got a sponsor. We had eleven offers already and we've taken Dumaine Chemicals. They're paying us enough money to underwrite this whole setup here, and pay for Cave and me as well. It's terrific but dignified. Just a simple 'through the courtesy of' at the beginning and another at the end of each telecast. What do you think of that?"
"Unprecedented!" I had chosen my word some minutes before… one which would have a cooling effect.
"I'll say. By the way, we're getting a lot of stuff on that book of yours." He reached in a drawer and pulled out a manila folder which he pushed toward me. "Take them home if you like. Go over them carefully… might give you some ideas for the next one; you know: ground which needs covering."
"Is there to be a next one?"
"Man, a flock of next ones! We've got a lot to do, to explain. People want to know all kinds of things. I'm having the kids out in the front office do a breakdown on all the letters we've got: to get the general reaction… what it is people most want to hear; and, believe me, we've been getting more damned questions, and not just the main thing but family problems too, things like that: 'Please, Mr Cave, I'm married to two men and feel maybe it's a mistake since I have to work nights anyway.' Lord, some of them are crazier than that."
"Are you answering all of them?"
"Oh, yes, but in my name. All except a few of the most interesting which go to Cave for personal attention. I've been toying with the idea of setting up a counselor-service for people with problems."
"But what can you tell them?" I was more and more appalled.
"Everything in the light of Cavesword. You have no idea how many questions that does answer. Think about it and you'll see what I mean. But of course we follow standard psychiatric procedure only it's speeded up so that after a couple of visits there can be a practical and inspirational answer to their problems. Stokharin said he'd be happy to give it a try, but we haven't yet worked out all the details."
I didn't want to hear anything more about this; I changed the subject. "What did you have in mind for me to do?"
"Cavesword applied to everyday life." He spoke without hesitation; he had thought of everything. "We'll know more what people want to hear after a few more telecasts, after more letters and so on. Then supply Cavesword where you can and, where you can't, just use common sense and standard psychiatric procedure."
"Even when they don't always coincide?"
Paul roared with laughter. "Always the big knocker, Gene. That's what I like about you… the disapproving air… it's wonderful and I'm quite serious. People like myself… visionaries, you might say, continually get their feet off the ground and it's people like you who pull us back… make us think. Anyway, I hope you'll be able to get to it soon. We'll have our end taken care of by the time the telecasts are over."
"Will you show Cave to the world then? I mean in person?"
"I don't know. By the way, we're having a directors' meeting Friday morning. You'll get a notice in the mail. One of the things we're going to take up is just that problem, so you be thinking about it in the meantime. I have a hunch it may be smart to keep him away from interviewers for good."
"That's impossible."
"I'm not so sure. He's pretty retiring except when he speaks. I don't think he'd mind the isolation one bit. You see how dull he gets in company when he's not performing."
"Would he consent, do you think?"
"I think so. We could persuade him, I'm sure. Anyway, for now he's a mystery man. Millions see him once a week but no one knows him except ourselves. A perfect state of affairs, if you ask me."
"You mean there's always a chance he might make a fool of himself if a tough interviewer got hold of him?"
"Exactly, and believe me there's going to be a lot of them after his scalp."
"Have they begun already?"
"Not yet. We have you to thank for that, too, making it so clear that though what we said certainly conflicts with all the churches we're really not competing with them, that people listening to Cavesword can go right on being Baptists and so on."
"I don't see how, if they accept Cave."
"Neither do I, but for the time being that's our line."
"Then there's to be a fight with the churches?"
Paul nodded grimly. "And it's going to be a honey. People don't take all the supernatural junk seriously these days but they do go for the social idea of the church, the uplift kind of thing: that's where we'll have to meet them, where we'll have to lick them at their own game."
I looked at him for one long moment: I had of course anticipated something like this from the moment that Cave had become an organization and not merely one man talking. I had realized that expansion was inevitable: the rule of life is more life and of organization more organization, increased dominion. Yet I had not suspected Paul of having grasped this so clearly, using it so promptly to his, to our advantage. The thought that not only was he cleverer than I had suspected but that he might, indeed, despite his unfortunate approach, be even cleverer than myself, disagreeably occurred to me. I had until then regarded myself as the unique intellectual of the Cavites, the one sane man among maniacs and opportunists: it seemed now that there were two of us with open eyes and, of the two, he alone possessed ambition and energy, qualities neither of which I possessed to any useful degree.