"There's no bell on this teleprinter," Leavitt said. "Only on Level I, at sector five. But they're supposed to notify us whenever—"

"Get sector five on the intercom," Stone said.

Ten minutes later, the horrified Captain Mortis had connected Stone to Robertson, the head of the President's Science Advisory Committee, who was in Houston.

Stone spoke for several minutes with Robertson, pressed initial surprise that he hadn't heard from earlier. There then followed a heated discussion of the President's decision not to call a Directive 7-12.

"The President doesn't trust scientists," Robertson said. "He doesn't feel comfortable with them."

"It's your job to make him comfortable," Stone said, "and you haven't been doing it."

"Jeremy—"

"There are only two sources of contamination," Stone said. "Piedmont, and this installation. We're adequately protected here, but Piedmont—"

"Jeremy, I agree the bomb should have been dropped."

"Then work on him. Stay on his back. Get him 7-12 as soon as possible. It may already be too late."

Robertson said he would, and would call back. Before he hung up, he said, "By the way, any thoughts about the Phantom?"

"The what?"

"The Phantom that crashed in Utah."

There was a moment of confusion before the Wildfire group understood that they had missed still another important teleprinter message.

"Routine training mission. The jet strayed over the closed zone, though. That's the puzzle."

"Any other information?"

"The pilot said something about his air hose dissolving. Vibration, or something. His last communication was bizarre."

"Like he was crazy?" Stone asked.

"Like that," Robertson said.

"Is there a team at the wreck site now?"

"Yes, we're waiting for information from them. It could come at any time."

"Pass it along," Stone said. And then he stopped. "If a 7-11 was ordered, instead of a 7-12," he said, "then you have troops in the area around Piedmont."

"National Guard, yes."

"That's pretty damned stupid," Stone said.

"Look, Jeremy, I agree—"

"When the first one dies," Stone said, "I want to know when, and how. And most especially, where. The wind there is from the east predominantly. If you start losing men west of Piedmont—"

"I'll call, Jeremy," Robertson said.

The conversation ended, and the team shuffled out of the conference room. Hall remained behind a moment, going through some of the rolls in the box, noting the messages. The majority were unintelligible to him, a weird set of nonsense messages and codes. After a time he gave up; he did so before he came upon the reprinted news item concerning the peculiar death of Officer Martin Willis, of the Arizona highway patrol.

DAY 4

Spread

22. The Analysis

WITH THE NEW PRESSURES OF TIME, the results of spectrometry and amino-acid analysis, previously of peripheral interest, suddenly became matters of major concern. It was hoped that these analyses would tell, in a rough way, how foreign the Andromeda organism was to earth life forms.

It was thus with interest that Leavitt and Burton looked over the computer printout, a column of figures written on green paper: