"Exceptionally so, I should say," the woman replied almost gleefully. "Look for yourself."

Marc accepted the invitation reluctantly, and peered around the edge of the rock with eyes that were only partly open. Then he gasped with amazement. It wasn't that there was so much to see, but rather that there was so little. Certainly, there was no sign of the rock or the little man. In the spot where they should have been, however, there was a deep hole in the sand that looked much like the work of a sizable dredger. Around this, there seemed to linger a sort of undefined gaseous body.

"Where ... where is he ... the little man, I mean!" he asked hesitantly.

"I told you," the woman replied impatiently. "He's gone."

"But his ... his remains? Where are they?"

"Vaporized, most likely," the woman answered airily, as though explaining a self-evident mathematical rule to a not-too-bright child.

"Vaporized?" The word seemed meaningless when applied to human bodies.

"Certainly. Those gases you see out there are all that's left of him."

Marc stared at the illusive last remains of Mr. Epperson, and shuddered.

"A noisy way to go," the woman reflected philosophically, "but nice and clean." She seemed to be speaking of an experiment that had turned out with surprising success. "He was a dirty little pest anyway. I never did like having him around." She smiled and it was no improvement. "I'll bet it's the first time anyone's ever gone to heaven with a rock ... if he went there at all."

"What happened to him? What did it?"

The woman regarded Marc thoughtfully for a time and seemed to come to a decision. She reached into the pocket of her grimy skirt and drew forth a minute, white capsule. She held it out for his inspection. "See that?" she asked.

"Just barely," Marc answered truthfully. "It's awfully small."

"And awfully powerful," the woman went on with dramatic emphasis. "That's what did it. Anyway, it was one just like that."

"What is it? What's it made of?"

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