"Not at this fine a level. What methods we have show nothing exceptional there after the silicon breaks down." He frowned in a dreamy sort of way. "A lot of the tiniest subatomic bits are still a total mystery, too small for our analytic tools to grapple with. If this stuff would reappear in some analyzable form now we could learn an awful lot about those unknown interactions. Fat chance of that, though!" "We'll wait another week," said Chisholm, "then, if nothing's happened, we'll pull Hartley and his crew in and hope the public won't end up in his corner. There are probably several thousand regular users already. We already have a few _scientists_ saying the stuff's all right, that we should _encourage_ its use!" "Idiocy," observed Phillips sadly, "is no respecter of high IQ's." * * * * * The week went by more and more slowly in Cramer's tower suite and all the reports only confirmed the General's forebodings about the spread of germ-joy's appeal. Someone else had somehow brought in a batch and was distributing it through a new, completely independent set-up. And everywhere there were vague rumors of a beneficial substance that 'they', the eternally conspiratorial 'they' of undefinable higher authority, were keeping from popular use. Then, on the seventh day, Cramer had the rash. It encircled only the wrist of his left hand but the red splotches itched so violently that he immediately called in the medical team. By the time the doctors arrived it was already subsiding. A sample from the splotch area, though, showed a significant trace of silicon but none of the bacteria. "Somehow the element reformed!" Phillips exclaimed. "We're approaching the breakthrough!" Cramer watched the splotches shrink into themselves, fearfully wondering what the next phase would be. But, an hour later, this turned out to be bitterly anti-climactic for the assembled group. A urinalysis showed that his body had thrown off an amount of silicon roughly equivalent to the amount he must have taken in through the flakes. "Looks like you've passed through your crisis," Jonas said. "You're in perfect shape again." The scientists all looked crushed but their mood changed to annoyance when they saw Cramer's enthusiastic grin. "Don't you see?" he said. "If this happened to me, it should be happening to Hartley too. He got his first sniff only a little while after I did, so the incubation period's the same for him!" "Unless the large amount he's taken in since then actually confers immunity," Phillips muttered. Cramer's face fell but he persisted. "We have to find out one way or the other, don't we?" "No doubt about that!" Phillips called Chisholm's office and explained what had happened. "Then the operation's on," the General told him, happy to be acting at last. "Hartley's at Neilson's place and we have to get him. Bring along all the test equipment you'll need." * * * * *