As you know, the damage was quite widespread. So I went round to the other side of the mush, where they were less distracted. What I needed was a test-piece. Something which was already the focus of serious scientific interest. Something being carefully observed already. The nuclear power plant in the nearest city mush-blocks seemed a reasonable choice. And good eating it made, too. Pure unadulterated flavor, strong and pulsing with vitality. I've never had a better meal. But when I came out of the reactor and let it continue its food ... its energy production, all the humans had vanished. They hadn't seen a thing. I found them miles away under the surface of the mush-level expecting to be blown up. They assumed that when the pile ceased its output it was building up internally, so they broadcast an emergency and took to their bunkers. And then they were busy for weeks correcting the false alarm and dealing with complaints from freezer companies and householders and utility commissions. So I left the area to sort itself out. Very well, I thought. This time, I'll choose a nuclear device that _is_ expected to explode and eat it before it does, while everyone is watching. It wasn't difficult to find. There was a long smear of food in the air all round the world, as if a lot of clumsy e eaters had dribbled. The main source was easy to locate. * * * * * I found a long stalk thing of mush and a mush shed on top and sat there waiting. Eventually, a team of mushes hoisted up a device with delicate little tidbit cores, and hurried away. So this was a fusion bomb, was it? I waited until it was triggered off, took a strong hold and ate the lot at the moment of burst. For the record, swallowing a nuclear explosion is not very comfortable. I had indigestion for weeks. But I made it. It was a waste of time. As usual, I had overlooked something. The conversion was as massive as the energy I ate, and I found out what the silver beads Doctor McPherson had put in the jar were. Energy eaten by e beings converts into sound and ozone. And the conversion of the nuclear explosion sent great balls of sound rolling over the country, deafening the people, flattening structures by vibration, and releasing flows of raw ozone, which promptly started fires; and that in turn disturbed the cloud masses and produced unprecedented floods. I was munching quietly on a power line, overlooking the great stretch of level mush of water up to and over the horizon, when Doctor McPherson found me. A repair man drove him up, let him off the mush vehicle and drove off fast. "You nutty old coot, you wanted to see the next breakdown and here it is," the repair man's thoughts shot away. "I may be nuts," Doctor McPherson said to himself, standing underneath me, "but I have an odd idea there's intelligent mischief behind all this." He sat on a rock-shaped mound of mush nearby.