trons. The neutrino. Pions and muons, plus
and minus; the lambda and the antilambda. K particles, positive and
negative, and anti-protons and anti-neutrons and sigmas, positive,
negative and neutral, and--

Well, that's enough; but physics had come a long way since the classes
I cut at Old Ugly, and there was a lot to catch up on.

The thing was, some of the "strange particles" were stranger than even
most physicists knew. Some--in combination--were in fact Greco's
demons.

We bought animals--mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, even dogs. We infected
the young with some of our own demons--that was simple enough,
frighteningly simple; all we had to do was handle them a bit. And we
watched what happened.

They died--of young age.

Some vital organ or another regressed to embryonic condition, and they
died--as Greco and I would die, if we didn't find the answer. As the
whole world might die. Was it better than reverting past the embryo to
the simple lifeless zygote? I couldn't decide. It was dying, all the
same. When an embryonic heart or liver is called on to do a job for a
mature organism, there is only one way out. Death.

And after death--the demons went on; the dog we fed on the remains of
the guinea pigs followed them to extinction in a matter of weeks.

Minnie was an interesting case.

She was going about her work with more energy every day, and I'll be
blasted if I didn't catch her casting a lingering Marilyn Monroe sort
of look at me when Greco's back was turned.

"Shall we fire her?" I asked El Greco when I told him about it.

"What for?"

"She's disrupting the work!"

[Illustration]

"The work isn't worth a damn anyhow," he said moodily. "We're not
getting anywhere, Virgie. If it was only a matter of smooth,
predictable rates--But look at her. She's picking up speed! She's
dropped five years in the past couple weeks."

"She can stand to drop a lot more," I said, annoyed.

* * * * *

He shrugged. "It depends on where. Her nose? It's shortened to about a
fifteen-year-old level now. Facial hair? That's mostly gone. Skin
texture? Well, I suppose there's no such thing as a too-immature skin,
I mean short of the embryonic capsule, but--Wait a minute."

He was staring at the doorway.

Minnie was standing there, simpering.

"Come here!" he ordered in a voice like thunder. "Come here, you!
Virgie, look at her nose!"

I looked. "Ugh," I said, but more or less under my brea