Manchek frowned. He looked slowly at the crumbly black powder in the bag. "Plastic?"

"Yes. A polymer, depolymerized. It was broken down. Now that's no vibration effect. It's a biochemical effect, purely organic."

Slowly, Manchek began to understand. "You mean something tore the plastic apart?"

"Yes, you could say that," the biochemist replied. "It's a simplification, of course, but—"

"What tore it apart?"

The biochemist shrugged. "Chemical reaction of some sort. Acid could do it, or intense heat, or . . ."

"Or?"

"A microorganism, I suppose. If one existed that could eat plastic. If you know what I mean."

"I think," Manchek said, "that I know what you mean."

He left the room and went to the cable transmitter, located in another part of the building. He wrote out his message to the Wildfire group, and gave it to the technician to transmit. While he waited, he said, "Has there been any reply yet?"

"Reply, sir?" the technician asked.

"From Wildfire," Manchek said. It was incredible to him that no one had acted upon the news of the Phantom crash. It was so obviously linked . . .

"Wildfire, sir?" the technician asked.

Manchek rubbed his eyes. He was tired: he would have to remember to keep his big mouth shut.

"Forget it," he said.

After his conversation with Peter Jackson, Hall went to see Burton. Burton was in the autopsy room, going over his slides from the day before.

Hall said, "Find anything?"

Burton stepped away from the microscope and sighed. "No. Nothing."

"I keep wondering," Hall said, "about the insanity. Talking with Jackson reminded me of it. A large number of people in that town went insane—or at least became bizarre and suicidal—during the evening. Many of those people were old."

Burton frowned. "So?"

"Old people," Hall said, "are like Jackson. They have lots wrong with them. Their bodies are breaking down in a variety of ways. The lungs are bad. The hearts are bad. The livers are shot. The vessels are sclerotic."

"And this alters the disease process?"

"Perhaps. I keep wondering. What makes a person become rapidly insane?"

Burton shook his head.

"And there's something else," Hall said. "Jackson recalls hearing one victim say, just before he died, 'Oh, God, my head.' "

Burton stared away into space. "Just before death?"

"Just before."

"You're thinking of hemorrhage?"

Hall nodded. "It makes sense," he said. "At least to check."

If the Andromeda Strain produced hemorrhage inside the brain for any reason, then it might produce rapid, unusual mental aberrations.

"But we already know the organism acts by clotting."

"Yes," Hall said, "in most people. Not all. Some survive, and some go mad."

Burton nodded. He suddenly became excited. Suppose that the organism acted by causing damage to blood vessels. This damage would initiate clotting. Anytime the wall of a blood vessel was torn, or cut, or burned, then the clotting sequence would begin. First platelets would clump around the injury, protecting it, preventing blood loss. Then red cells would accumulate. Then a fibrin mesh would bind all the elements together. And finally, the clot would become hard and firm.