Chapter 4 Summary

All Oedipa's experiences are being subsumed into her search for The Tristero. She now considers her job as co-executor to be similar to Driblette's job as director, that is, to give life to what remains. She compares this work to the process of projecting stars onto the dome of a planetarium. Continuing her investigations at a Yoyodyne stockholders' meeting, she observes identical old men present in a routine business meeting. This is followed by a Yoyodyne songfest, and a tour of the plant. Oedipa gets lost, and ends up at the desk of Stanley Koteks, who is doodling the sign of the muted post horn. He complains of the company's practice of requiring engineers to sign away patent rights to future inventions. Koteks tells her about the Nefastis Machine, invented by John Nefastis. The invention contains a Maxwell's Demon, a sorter of hot...