Michael_Crichton_-_The_Androme

minutes until they came to the Fourier electron-density scans. Here, the probability of finding electrons was mapped for the structure on a chart that resembled a topological map.

They noticed something odd. The structure was present but the Fourier mapping was inconstant.

"It almost looks," Stone said, "as if part of the structure is switched off in some way."

"It's not uniform after all," Leavitt said.

Stone sighed, looking at the map. "I wish to hell," he said, "that we'd brought a physical chemist along on the team."

Unspoken was the added comment, "instead of Hall." *** Tired, Hall rubbed his eyes and sipped the coffee, wishing he could have sugar. He was alone in the cafeteria, which was silent except for the muted ticking of the teleprinter in the corner.

After a time he got up and went over to the teleprinter, examining the rolls of paper that had come from it. Most of the information was meaningless to him.

But then he saw one item which had come from the DEATHMATCH Program. DEATHMATCH was a news-scanning computer program that recorded all significant deaths according to whatever criterion the computer was fed. In this case, the computer was alerted to pick up all deaths in the Arizona-Nevada-California area, and to print them back.

The item he read might have gone unnoticed, were it not for Hall's conversation with Jackson. At the time, it had seemed like a pointless conversation to Hall, productive of little and consuming a great deal of time.

But now, he wondered.