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would be worth my talking to some people who take it really seriously.”
    “You don’t?” Nick said in surprise, and Dan saw the light of the dedicated proselytizer come into his eyes. “And yet you shelled out for a Binton? Man, either you’re rolling in money or you’re the kind of guy who never does anything by halves!”
    Dan smiled. “Well, not the former, that’s for sure. But I like to think I might be the latter. So since I’d promised Lilith she could try my instrument again, I thought I might as well take the chance of talking to the people here. If it’s not an imposition.”
    “Imposition hell,” Nick said. “I
love
talking about stardroppers.” He glanced at Lilith, who was practically trembling with her eagerness to make herself scarce with Dan’s instrument. “You’re about to bust a gut, aren’t you?” he commented. “Suppose you make it on up to your room,and I’ll entertain Mr. Cross for a bit. Barbie, can you find us a drop of wine, or beer?”
    “Tea or coffee,” Barbie said firmly.
    “Either will be fine,” Dan said, realizing an answer was expected of him.
    “Bless you, Nick!” Lilith exclaimed, and headed for the stairs at a dead run. Checking on the first landing, she blew Dan a kiss, and vanished. A door slammed high overhead.
    “Well, come into the kitchen, then,” Nick invited, and led the way. “We have to entertain visitors here, I’m afraid, because we let out all the rooms—or rather, we don’t exactly
let
them. But I don’t suppose I have to explain that this is a genuine commune, and we all put into it what we have to spare.”
    Closing the door as he waved Dan to a chair at the end of a plain wooden dining table, Barbie gave an audible snort.
    “Barbara isn’t quite as dedicated as I am,” Nick said apologetically. “I do happen to be quite well off, actually—inherited it—and I can’t think of anything better to do with what I’ve got than run this place. But when there isn’t quite enough to go around, it’s poor Barbie who has to figure out how to make ends meet. Still, she’s a miracle-worker, aren’t you, doll?”
    Giving her an affectionate pat on the bottom as he passed, he dropped into a chair facing Dan. Meantime, she began to fill a kettle.
    “So you wanted to talk to the people here,” Nick resumed. “I imagine I’ll probably have to do—I’m notoriously not only the most articulate but also the most loudmouthed of the members of this little group. Also I turn off reporters very efficiently.
You’re
not a reporter, are you?”
    Dan shook his head, and repeated his standard cover story about how he’d been hooked by a friend recently, just before coming to London for a vacation.
    “What really intrigued me,” he concluded, “was being told by Lilith that only one kind of stardropper suited her. I find this hard to believe. Didn’t you say you have—was it twenty-nine in this house alone?”
    “Right. And all different,” Nick confirmed.
    “Well, if everyone here is getting
something
out of—”
    “Oh, we haven’t got twenty-nine people,” Nick interrupted. “If that’s what you’re thinking. We have eleven. And they all have at least one instrument apiece, and I have six. The total is due to hit thirty in a day or two; we have someone working on a big kit-built wall-outlet unit. Show it to you later if you like—I think the guy went out for a meal.”
    Dan nodded. “But are all these ’droppers of different makes?” he inquired.
    “Nope. Some of the manufacturers are simply in it for the money. There’s a firm called Glory Joy, for instance, out in Hong Kong. If anyone offers you one of their products, drop it and run. You can’t even say the repertoire of a Glory Joy stinks because it doesn’t
have
a, repertoire. So what we have is a selection of what we’ve found to be the best and most versatile instruments, and we have—oh—five or six duplicates, at least.”
    “But not including a Gale and