"Aluminum, principally. If we could get trucks through to Louisville,
we could get all we need. There were several aluminum plants there
before the plague."
"Just a minute." He buzzed the organic lab on the telecaster and got
Sawyer. "What's the latest development, Jesse?"
Sawyer passed a chubby hand across his eyes. They were red and swollen
with fatigue.
"Bad. Bad. We've distinguished nineteen distinct species, all
adaptations of the aquatic form. They reproduce in a rather peculiar
form of fission. Instead of dividing in half, they break up into twenty
or thirty units at maturity, each unit growing and breaking up into
twenty or thirty more. They grow rapidly--and adjust rapidly."