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The sound of the bus driver's voice jolted him awake. "...and gentlemen, I'm afraid we're having some trouble with the engine. Rather than take a chance on it quitting straight out before we get to Champaign, we're going to ask you to transfer to a bus that's being sent up from Decatur. It ought to be here in just a few minutes."

Blinking in the relative brightness of the overhead lights, Garwood joined the line of grumbling passengers moving down the aisle, a familiar knot wrenching at his stomach. Had it been him? He'd been far enough away from the engine—surely he had. Unless the effective distance was increasing with time... Forcing his jaw to unclench, he stepped carefully down the bus's steps, hoping desperately it was just a coincidence.

Outside, the only light came from a small building the bus had pulled alongside and from one or two dim streetlights. Half blind as his eyes again adjusted, Garwood took two tentative steps forward—

And came to an abrupt halt as strong hands slipped smoothly around each arm.

"Dr. James Garwood?" a shadowy figure before him asked quietly.

Garwood opened his mouth to deny it... but even as he did so he knew it would be useless. "Yes," he signed. "And you?"

"Major Alan Davidson; Combined Services Intelligence. They miss you back at your lab, Doctor."

Garwood glanced past the husky man holding his right arm, saw the line of passengers goggling at him. "So it was all a set-up?" he asked. "The bus is okay?"

Davidson nodded. "A suspicious clerk in Springfield thought you might be a fugitive. From your description and something about a broken ashtray my superiors thought it might be you. Come with me, please."

Garwood didn't have much choice. Propelled gently along by the hands still holding his arms, he followed Davidson toward the lighted building and a long car parked in the shadows there. "Where are you taking me?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

Davidson reached the car and opened the back door; and it wasn't until he and Garwood were in the back seat and the other two soldiers in front that the major answered the question. "Chanute AFB, about fifteen miles north of Champaign," he told Garwood as the car pulled back onto the interstate and headed east. "We'll be transferring you to a special plane there for the trip back to the Project."

Garwood licked his lips. A plane. How many people, he wondered, wished that mankind had never learned to fly? There was only one way to know for sure... and that way might wind up killing him. "You put me on that plane and it could be the last anyone ever sees of me," he told Davidson.

"Really?" the major asked politely.

"Did they tell you why I ran out on the Project? That the place was falling down around my ears?"

"They mentioned something about that, yes," Davidson nodded. "I really don't think you have anything to worry about, though. The people in charge of security on this one are all top notch."

Garwood snorted. "You're missing the point, Major. The lab wasn't under any kind of attack from outside agents. It was falling apart because I was in it."

Davidson nodded. "And as I said, we're going to have you under complete protection—"

"No!" Garwood snapped. "I'm not talking about someone out there gu

Davidson's dimly visible expression didn't change. "How do you figure that?"

Garwood hesitated, glancing at the front seat and the two silhouettes there listening into the conversation. Major Davidson might possibly be cleared for something this sensitive; the others almost certainly weren't. "I can't tell you the details," he said, turning back to Davidson. "I—look, you said your superiors nailed me because of a broken ashtray in Springfield, right? Did they tell you anything more?"

Davidson hesitated, then shook his head. "No."

"It broke because I came too close to it," Garwood told him. "There's a—oh, an aura, I guess you could call it, of destruction surrounding me. Certain types of items are especially susceptible, including internal combustion engines. That's why I don't want to be put on any plane."

"Uh-huh," Davidson nodded. "West, you having any trouble with the car?"

"No, sir," the driver said promptly. "Ru

Garwood took a deep breath. "It doesn't always happen right away," he said through clenched teeth. "I rode the bus for over an hour without anything happening, remember? But if it does happen with a plane, we can't just pull off the road and stop."

Davidson sighed. "Look, Dr. Garwood, just relax, okay? Trust me, the plane will run just fine."

Garwood glared through the gloom at him. "You want some proof?—is that what it'll take? Fine. Do you have any cigarettes?"

For a moment Davidson regarded him in silence. Then, flicking on a dim overhead dome light, he dug a crumpled pack from his pocket.

"Put a couple in my hand," Garwood instructed him, extending a palm, "and leave the light on."



Davidson complied with the cautious air of a man at a magic show. "Now what?"

"Just keep an eye on them. Tell me, do you like smoking?"

The other snorted. "Hell, no. Tried to give the damn things up at least twenty times. I'm hooked pretty good, I guess."

"You like being hooked?"

"That's a stupid question."

Garwood nodded. "Sorry. So, now... how many other people, do you suppose, hate being hooked by tobacco?"

Davidson gave him a look that was half frown, half glare. "What's your point, Doctor?"

Garwood hesitated. "Consider it as a sort of subconscious democracy. You don't like smoking, and a whole lot of other people in this country don't like smoking. A lot of them wish there weren't any cigarettes—wish these cigarettes didn't exist."

"And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride," Davidson quoted. He reached over, to close his fingers on the cigarettes in Garwood's palm—

And jerked his hand back as they crumpled into shreds at his touch.

"What the hell?" he snapped, practically in Garwood's ear. "What did you do?"

"I was near them," Garwood said simply. "I was near them, and a lot of people don't like smoking. That's all there is to it."

Davidson was still staring at the mess in Garwood's palm. "It's a trick. You switched cigarettes on me."

"While you watched?" Garwood snorted. "All right, fine, let's do it again. You can write your initials on them this time."

Slowly, Davidson raised his eyes to Garwood's face. "Why you?"

Garwood brushed the bits of paper and tobacco off his hand with a shudder. Even after all these months it still scared him spitless to watch something disintegrate like that. "I know... something. I can't tell you just what."

"Okay, you know something. And?"

"No ands about it. It's the knowledge alone that does it."

Davidson's eyes were steady on his face. "Knowledge. Knowledge that shreds cigarettes all by itself."

"That, combined with the way a lot of people feel about smoking. Look, I know it's hard to believe—"

"Skip that point for now," Davidson cut him off. "Assume you're right, that it's pure knowledge that somehow does all this. Is it something co

"Yes."

"They know about it? And know what it does?"

"Yes, to both."

"And they still want you back?"

Garwood thought about Saunders. The long discussions he'd had with the other. The even longer arguments. "Dr. Saunders doesn't really understand."

For a moment Davidson was silent. "What else does this aura affect besides cigarettes?" he asked at last. "You mentioned car engines?"

"Engines, plastics, televisions—modern conveniences of all kinds, mainly, though there are other things in danger as well. Literally anything that someone doesn't like can be a target." He thought about the bus and Tom Benedict Arnold. "It might work on people, too," he added, shivering. "That one I haven't had to find out about for sure."