"I don't know whether they'd be able to get you through that mob," McGill replied. "Just listen to them. I only wish I could think of some way to satisfy the damn crystal or whatever it is. I have the feeling it wants something. It can't be merely fooling around for no reason. But there doesn't seem to be any motive beyond the fact that it's apparently on your side. How did it start? That's what I wish I knew." He absently turned the bench lamp on again. I shrugged unhappily and scratched my cheek. In so doing, I pulled the piece of pink adhesive tape loose and it began to bleed again. "Cut yourself shaving, darling?" Molly asked me. "No," I said. "As a matter of fact, it was a kind of freak accident." "Oh?" McGill lifted his head interestedly. "Anything involving you and a fluke I want to hear about. Tell Papa." I did and McGill began to get his dedicated look. "You say this piece of glass just blew up? What did it look like? How big was it?" "I only saw it for a second. It was dirty and I'd say about two feet across--more or less round and with flat places all over it." * * * * * McGill came toward me in a state of great excitement. "That piece that hit your cheek--did it merely nick you or is it embedded? If it _is_ embedded...." He picked up a bottle of alcohol and a piece of cotton and took a lens out of a drawer. "Molly, there's a pair of tweezers in my desk. Will you fetch them?" He tilted the light up onto my face and dabbed the cut with the alcohol. "Ouch!" "Keep still. It'll sting a little.... Yes, I think I can see it." He took the tweezers from Molly, who had returned, and neatly removed something from the cut. He held it under the light and looked at it through the lens. Then he rinsed it under the water faucet, dried it on a piece of filter-paper and looked at it again. "Well, it looks like glass. I don't know. Maybe it's the nucleus of the glass chunk and...." His voice trailed off and he frowned at nothing in particular, putting the fragment down on the filter-paper. I picked it up. It seemed like a bit of sand, only brighter. McGill's concern over this new object of interest had been so intent that for a few minutes our attention was diverted, but now Molly began to pace up and down. There didn't seem to be anything for us to do, and unlike most nurses, waiting makes her nervous. She was looking at the display of various chemicals and reagents on the shelves. "What's that stuff?" she asked, pointing to a large jar of black powder labeled Deflocculated Graphite. "I bet those cops have gone for a search warrant." "Finely divided carbon," McGill said. "Damn, I wish I could think of something! A chunk of glass ... blowing up...." "Graphite is carbon?" Molly said. "You don't think they'd actually _do_ anything to Alec, do you?" "It's another form of carbon. A diamond is still another: the rare crystalline form," he said. "I wouldn't put it past that mob to do anything."