`Tried to uncompress it. It was taking a LONG time. Kept going—expanded to 8 megabytes.'

`Oh NO. Bad Bad Bad,' Phoenix moaned. `Should only be 3 meg. If it's making a million files, it's fucked.'

`Christ,' Pad typed. `Too painful.'

`I got the makefile—licensing agreement text etc., but the Deszip program itself was corrupted,' Gandalf concluded.

`I don't understand what is wrong with it. <Sob>' Phoenix wrote.

`AgonyAgonyAgony,' Electron groaned. `It'll never never never work.'

`Can we get a copy anywhere else?' Gandalf asked.

`That FTP bug has been fixed at Purdue,' Pad answered. `Can't use that to get in again.'

Disappointment permeated the atmosphere on Altos.

There were, of course, other possible repositories for Deszip. Phoenix and Electron had already penetrated a computer at Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California. They had procured root on the gamm5 machine and planned to use it as a launchpad for penetrating security expert Russell Brand's computer at LLNL, called Wuthel. They were sure Brand had Deszip on his computer.