irst it was a matter of learning—learning about the "strange particles." Ever hear of them? That's not my term—that's what the physicists call them. Positrons. 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.