This whole idea of mutated bacteria seemed farfetched and unlikely to the Wildfire people. It is ironic that this should be the case, particularly in view of what happened to the Andromeda Strain. But the Wildfire team staunchly ignored both the evidence of their own experience—that bacteria mutate rapidly and radically—and the evidence of the Biosatellite tests, in which a series of earth forms were sent into space and later recovered.

Biosatellite II contained, among other things, several species of bacteria. It was later reported that the bacteria had reproduced at a rate twenty to thirty times normal. The reasons were still unclear, but the results unequivocal: space could affect reproduction and growth.

And yet no one in Wildfire paid attention to this fact, until it was too late.

Stone reviewed the information quickly, then handed each of them a cardboard file. "These files," he said, "contain a transcript of autoclock records of the entire flight of Scoop VII. Our purpose in reviewing the transcript is to determine, if possible, what happened to the satellite while it was in orbit."

Hall said, "Something happened to it?"

Leavitt explained. "The satellite was scheduled for a six-day orbit, since the probability of collecting organisms is proportional to time in orbit. After launch, it was in stable orbit. Then, on the second day, it went out of orbit.

Hall nodded.

"Start," Stone said, "with the first page."

Hall opened his file.

AUTOCLOCK TRANSCRIPT

PROJECT: SCOOP VII

LAUNCHDATE:

ABRIDGED VERSION. FULL TRANSCRIPT

STORED VAULTS 179-99, VDBG COMPLEX

EPSILON

T MINUS TIME

STOP CLOCK STOP CLOCK.

REALTIME LOSS 12 MINUTES.

T PLUS TIME

"No point in dwelling on this," Stone said. "It is the record of a perfect launch. There is nothing here, in fact, nothing for the next ninety-six hours of flight, to indicate any difficulty on board the spacecraft. Now turn to page 10."

They all turned.

TRACK TRANSCRIPT CONT'D

SCOOP VII

LAUNCHDATE:—

ABRIDGED VERSION