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Alcala tried to express it clearly. “We are stronger. Potentially, we are tremendously stronger. But we of this generation are still weak and ill, as our parents were, from the shock of the change. And we need silicone feeding; we have not adjusted yet. Our illness masks our strength.” He thought of what that strength would be!

Camba smiled and took out a small notebook. “The disease is connected with silicones, you say? The original name of John Delgados was John Osborne Drake. His father was Osborne Drake, a chemist at Dow Corning, who was sentenced to the electric chair in 1967 for unauthorized bacterial experiments which resulted in an accidental epidemic and eight deaths. Dow Corning was the first major manufactury of silicones in America, though not connected in any way with Osborne Drake’s criminal experiments. It links together, does it not?”

“It is not a disease, it is strength!” Alcala insisted doggedly.

The small investigator looked up from his notebook and his smile was an unnatural thing, a baring of teeth. “Half the world died of this strength, Senor. If you will not think of the men and women, think of the children. Millions of children died!”