Phantoms

ambulatory stage lasts four to six hours. Then what?”
    “Well,” Houk said, “the second stage is the terminal stage, too. It lasts anywhere from six to twelve hours. It begins with the deterioration of the efferent nerves and escalates to paralysis of the cardiac, vasomotor, and respiratory reflex centers in the brain.”
    “Good God,” Jenny said.
    Frank said, “Once more for us laymen.”
    Jenny said, “It means that during the second stage of the illness, over a period of six to twelve hours, T-139 gradually reduces the brain’s ability to regulate the automatic functions of the body—such as breathing, heartbeat, blood vessel dilation, organ function… The victim starts experiencing an irregular heartbeat, extreme difficulty in breathing, and the gradual collapse of every gland and organ. Twelve hours might not seem gradual to you, but it would seem like an eternity to the victim. There would be vomiting, diarrhea, uncontrollable urination, continuous and violent muscle spasms… And if only the efferent nerves were damaged, if the rest of the nervous system remained intact, there would be excruciating, unrelenting pain.”
    “Six to twelve hours of hell,” Copperfield confirmed.
    “Until the heart stops,” Houk said, “or until the victim simply stops breathing and suffocates.”
    For long seconds, as Niven clicked the last of his photographs, no one spoke.
    Finally, Jenny said, “I still don’t think a nerve gas could’ve played any part in this, not even something like T-139 that would explain these beheadings. For one thing, none of the victims we found showed any signs of vomiting or incontinence.”
    “Well,” Copperfield said, “we could be dealing with a derivative of T-139 that doesn’t produce those symptoms. Or some other gas.”
    “No gas can explain the moth,” Tal Whitman said.
    “Or what happened to Stu Wargle,” Frank said.
    Copperfield said, “Moth?”
    “You didn’t want to hear about that until you’d seen these other things,” Bryce reminded Copperfield. “But now I think it’s time you—”
    Niven said, “Finished.”
    “All right,” Copperfield said. “Sheriff, Dr. Paige, deputies, if you will please maintain silence until we’ve completed the rest of our tasks here, your cooperation will be much appreciated.”
    The others immediately set to work. Yamaguchi and Bettenby transferred the severed heads into a pair of porcelain-lined specimen buckets with locking, airtight lids. Valdez carefully pried the hands away from the rolling pin and put them in a third specimen bucket. Houk scraped some flour off the table and into a small plastic jar, evidently because dry flour would have absorbed—and would still contain—traces of the nerve gas—if, in fact, there had been any nerve gas. Houk also took a sample of the pie crust dough that lay under the rolling pin. Goldstein and Roberts inspected the two ovens from which the heads had been removed, and then Goldstein used a small, battery-powered vacuum cleaner to sweep out the first oven. When that was done, Roberts took the bag of sweepings, sealed it, and labeled it, while Goldstein used the vacuum to collect minute and even microscopic evidence from the second oven.
    All of the scientists were busy except for the two men who were wearing the suits that had no names on the helmets. They stood to one side, merely watching.
    Bryce watched the watchers, wondering who they were and what function they preformed.
    As the others worked, they described what they were doing and made comments about what they found, always speaking in a jargon that Bryce couldn’t follow. No two of them spoke at once; that fact—when coupled with Copperfield’s request for silence from those who were not team members—made it seem as if they were speaking for the record.
    Among the items that hung from the utility belt around Copperfield’s waist there was a tape recorder wired directly into the communications system of the general’s suit. Bryce saw that the reels of tape were moving.
    When the scientists had gotten everything they wanted from the bakery kitchen, Copperfield said, “All right, Sheriff. Where now?”
    Bryce indicated the tape recorder. “Aren’t you going to switch that off until we get there?”
    “Nope. We started recording from the moment we were allowed past the roadblock, and we’ll keep recording until we’ve found out what’s happened to this town. That way, if something goes wrong, if we all