talk over your offer
to help us, and decide what it is that you can give us that we
can use."

"You spoke, a while ago, of what you could do for us, in return,"
Altamont said. He knew that now he would have to be the one to
stress their original mission: Loudons would probably be so
fascinated by this society that the sociologist might never
remember the primary reason for coming to Pittsburgh.

"There's one thing you can do, no further away than tomorrow, if
you're willing."

He had no time to wonder at the interchange of glances around the
table before the Toon Leader said, "And that is--?"

"In Pittsburgh, somewhere, there is an underground crypt, full of
books. Not printed and bound books, but spools of microfilm. Do
you know what that is?"

The men of the Toon shook their heads. Altamont continued:

"They are spools on which strips of films are wound and on which
pictures have been taken of books, page by page. We can make
other, larger pictures from them, big enough to be read--"

"Oh, photographs, which you can enlarge. I can understand that.
You mean, you can make many copies of them?"

"That's right. And you shall have copies, as soon as we can take
the originals back to Fort Ridgeway, where we have the equipment
for enlarging them. But while we have information which will help
us to find the crypt where the books are, we will need help in
getting it open."

"Of course! This is wonderful. Copies of The Books!" the Reader
exclaimed. "We thought that we had the only one left in the
world!"

"Not just The Books, Stamford, other books," the Toon Leader
told him. "The books mentioned in The Books. But of course we
will help you. You have a map to show where they are?"

"Not a map, just some information. But we can work out the
location of the crypt."

"A ritual," Stamford Rawson said happily. "Of course!"

V

They lunched together at the house of Toon Sarge Hughes with the
Toon Leader and the Reader and five or six of the leaders of the
community. The food was plentiful, but Altamont found himself
wishing that the first book they found in the Carnegie Library
crypt would be a cook-book.

In the afternoon, he and Loudons separated.

Loudons attached himself to the Tenant, the Reader and an old
woman, Irene Klein, who was almost a hundred years old and was
the repository and arbiter of most of the community's oral
legends.

Altamont, on the other hand, started with Alex Barrett, the