"What's that?" said Dorothea Dunkelberg.
"A nudist camp."
"Oh. I thought they weren't allowed in this state?"
"They aren't, but it's become so popular the law's not enforced any more. On the other hand, it can't be repealed because the legislators are afraid the religious groups would raise a fuss."
They started towards the pool when another outbreak of barking halted them. Claire wailed:
"Oh, goodness, they got out again! Dmitri has learned to work the latch with his paw!"
The borzois boiled around the corner of the mansion as if pursuing the biggest wolf in Siberia. One made a playful fifteen-foot spring with its forepaws against Gilbert Falck, sending the telagog controller rolling on the greensward. Towels and bathing suits flew about, to be snatched up by the dogs and borne off fluttering. Claire screamed:
"Yelena! Igor! Behave yourselves!"
No attention did they pay. A couple raced off having a running tug-of-war with Dorothea Dunkelberg's suit, while another amused itself by throwing one of the bath towels into the air and catching it again.
"Playful little fellows," said Falck, getting up and brushing the grass off his pants.
"Very," said Claire, and started to apologize until Falck stopped her.
"Not your fault, lassie. Don't give it a thought." Falck wiped a drop of sweat from his nose. "I'm going to miss those suits, rather. If you find them in the woods, not too badly tattered, you might send 'em back to us."
"Sticky, isn't it?" said Claire. "Anyway we still have the lunch."
"What's to keep these Hounds of the Baskervilles from raiding our food?" asked Ross's body.
"I don't know, until I can get them shut up again and tie the gate closed."
Dorothea said in her faint squeak: "Maybe we could sit in a row on the springboard. They'd be scared to come out over the water, wouldn't they?"
And so it was done. The smell of food attracted the dogs, who lined up on the edge of the pool and whined until Claire, with the men's help, collared them two at a time and led them back to their kennels.
Gilbert Falck wiped his hands on his paper napkin and said: "Excuse me, people. I just remembered a 'phone call. May I use the Peshkov 'phone, Claire?"
He followed Claire into the Peshkovs' palatial living room, where a life-sized portrait of Stalin hung on the wall. As she was pointing out the telephone, Falck casually captured her hand and said:
"I say, Claire, that sofa looks rather comfortable. Why don't we sit down and get better acquainted?"
Claire slipped her hand out of his and said: "You make your call, Gil; I have my other guests to entertain."
Falck sighed and called the Telagog Company. He got Jerome Bundy on the line and said:
"Jerry, your control is laying an egg again. He does all right while you control him, but the minute you let go he just sits staring at the dame with an expression like a hungry wolf."
"Well?"
"I rather thought the next time you take over you'd better give him a more aggressive and uninhibited pattern. The poor jerk will never get anywhere under his own steam."
"I don't know," said Bundy dubiously. "I thought I was giving him an aggressive pattern. I don't want to queer his pitch by —"
"Don't worry about that. His girl just confided to me she wishes he weren't such a stick. Give him the works."
"Okay," said Bundy.
Falck walked out with a knowing grin. When he came in sight of the other three he called:
"Did somebody say something about tennis?"
Ovid Ross immediately switched his control back to Bundy. He had no illusions about his game: a powerful serve and a bullet-like forehand drive, but no control to speak of.
They made it mixed doubles, Ross and Claire against the other two. To his amazement, Ross found his smashes going, not into the net or the wire as usual, but into the corners of the other court where nobody could touch them. Claire was pretty good, Dorothea rather poor, but Gilbert Falck excellent, with a catlike agility that more than made up for his lack of Ross's power. The first set got up to 5-5, then 6-5, then 6-6, then 7-6 ...
Dorothea Dunkelberg wailed: "I can't any more, Gil. I'll pass out in this heat."
"Okay," said Falck smoothly. "No law says we have to. Boy, I rather wish we had those bathing suits. Claire, the Commies wouldn't have some spares, would they?"
"I don't think so; they never keep old clothes. They say in Russia nothing was too good for them and they expect to have it that way here."
They trailed down the little hill from the tennis court and stood looking longingly at the clear, pale-green water in the pool. Ross was aware that Bundy was wiping his forehead for him. Thoughtful of him ... But then Ross was horrified to hear his controller say in that masterful way:
"Who wants bathing suits? Come on, boys and girls, take your clothes off and jump in!"
"What?" squealed Dorothea.
"You heard me. Off with 'em!"
"Well, I have a suit —"began Claire, but Bundy-Ross roared:
"No you don't! Not if the rest of us —"
The next few minutes were, for Ovid Ross's impotent psyche, a time of stark horror. How he got through them without dying of an excess of emotion he never knew. He frantically tried to regain control of his right arm to reach his switch, but Bundy would not let him. Instead Bundy took off Ross's sport-shirt and shorts, wadded them into a ball, and threw them under the springboard, meanwhile exhorting the others to do likewise and threatening to throw them in clad if they refused ...
They were sitting in a row on the edge of the pool, breathing hard with drops streaming off them and splashing the water with their feet. Ross caught a glimpse of Falck looking at him with a curious expression, between displeasure and curiosity, as if something he had carefully planned had gone awry. The controller was showing a tendency to play up to Claire more than Ross liked, so that poor Dorothea was rather ignored. Ross heard Bundy say with his vocal organs:
"We want to be careful not to get that white strip around our middles burned."
"How about finishing that set now?" said Falck.
They got up and walked up the slope to the court. Bundy-Ross, whose serve it was, was just getting his large knobby toes lined up on the backline for a smash when a fresh outburst of barking made all turn. Claire cried:
"Damn! I'll bet they've gotten loose again."
"Isn't that a car?" said Dorothea.
"Oh, gosh!" said Claire as the sun flashed on a windshield down the driveway. "Its the Peshkovs! They weren't supposed to be here till this evening! What'll we do?"
"Make a dash for our clothes," said Falck.
"Too late," said Claire as the purr of the car, hidden behind the mansion, grew louder and then stopped. "Run for the woods!"
She ran into the woods, the others trailing. There were ouches and grunts as bushes scratched their shins and their unhardened soles trod on twigs. Dorothea said:
"Isn't that poison ivy?"
Falck looked. "I rather think it's Virginia creeper, but we'd better not take chances."
"Oh, dear! I hope we don't find a hornets' nest."
Bundy-Ross said: "It would be more to the point to hope a nest of hornets doesn't find us."
They came to a wire fence. Ross heard Bundy say: "That's easy to climb over. Hook your toes over the wire, like this."
"Ouch," said Dorothea. "What's on the other side?"
"The Heliac Health Club," said Claire.
"Rather a bit of luck," said Falck, climbing. "The one place in Westchester County where we're dressed for calling."
Ross thought desperately of the switch that would return control of his body to him. The switch was in the right side pocket of his shorts, and his shorts, along with his other clothes and those of his companions, lay in a heap under the springboard at the edge of the pool.