"This is wonderful. You must share this," said Sister Beatrice.

"Can't. Drug companies were interested for a while, but a handful of mung lasts forever and there's no way they can put it in expensive pills for people to take over and over again. As a matter of fact, I believe they might kill anyone trying to bring it into the country. It would ruin their tranquilizer and antidepressant market. Put thousands out of work. The way they explained it, I'd be robbing people of jobs."

"What about medical journals? They could get word to the world."

"I haven't done enough experiments."

"We'll do them now," said Sister Beatrice, her eyes

7

lit like furnaces in a winter storm. She saw herself as assistant to the great missionary scientist, the Rev. Dr. Prescott Plumber, discoverer of depression relief. She saw herself appearing at church halls, telling about the heat and the drums and the cockroaches and the filth of missionary work.

That,would be so much nicer than working in Baqia, which was the pits.

Dr. Plumber blushed. There was an experiment he had been planning. It had to do with rays.

"If we shoot electrons through the mung, which I believe is actually a glycolpolyaminosilicilate, we should be able to demonstrate its effect on cell structure."

"Wonderful," said Sister Beatrice, who had not understood one word he had said.

She insisted he use her. She insisted he do it now. She insisted that he use full force. She sat down in a wicker chair.

Dr. Plumber put the mung in a box over a heavy little gas generator that provided electricity for the tubes that emitted electrons, smiled at Sister Beatrice, and then fried her to a gloppy stain seeping through the wicker.