Bob struck the match. It left a little smear of white stuff on the striker but didn’t light. He struck it again with the same result. On the third try, the paper match bent. Most of the flammable head was gone, anyway.

“My, my,” he said in an utterly unsurprised tone. “I suppose they must be wet. Let’s try a book from the bottom, shall we? They should be dry.”

He dug to the bottom of the bowl, spilling a number of matchbooks off the top and onto the counter as he did so. They all looked perfectly dry to Albert. Behind him, Nick and Brian exchanged another glance.

Bob fished out another book of matches, pulled one, and tried to strike it. It didn’t light.

“Son of a bee,” he said. “We seem to have discovered yet another problem. May I borrow your book of matches, Bethany?”

She handed it over without a word.

“Wait a minute,” Nick said slowly. “What do you know, matey?”

“Only that this situation has even wider implications than we at first thought,” Bob said. His eyes were calm enough, but the face from which they looked was haggard. “And I have an idea that we all may have made one big mistake. Understandable enough under the circumstances... but until we’ve rectified our thinking on this subject, I don’t believe we can make any progress. An error of perspective, I’d call it.”

Warwick was wandering back toward them. He had selected a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of beer. His acquisitions seemed to have cheered him considerably. “What’s happening, folks?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” Brian said, “but I don’t like it much.”

Bob Jenkins pulled one of the matches from Bethany’s book and struck it. It lit on the first strike. “Ah,” he said, and applied the flame to the tip of his cigarette. The smoke smelled incredibly pungent, incredibly sweet to Brian, and a moment’s reflection suggested a reason why: it was the only thing, save for the faint tang of Nick Hopewell’s shaving lotion and Laurel’s perfume, that he could smell. Now that he thought about it, Brian realized that he could also smell his travelling companions’ sweat.

Bob still held the lit match in his hand. Now he bent back the top of the book he’d taken from the bowl, exposing all the matches, and touched the lit match to the heads of the others. For a long moment nothing happened. The writer slipped the flame back and forth along the heads of the matches, but they didn’t light. The others watched, fascinated.

At last there was a sickly phsssss sound, and a few of the matches erupted into dull, momentary life. They did not really burn at all; there was a weak glow and they went out. A few tendrils of smoke drifted up... smoke which seemed to have no odor at all.

Bob looked around at them and smiled grimly. “Even that,” he said, “is more than I expected.”

“All right,” Brian said. “Tell us about it. I know—”

At that moment, Rudy Warwick uttered a cry of disgust. Dinah gave a little shriek and pressed closer to Laurel. Albert felt his heart take a high skip in his chest.

Rudy had unwrapped his sandwich — it looked to Brian like salami and cheese — and had taken a large bite. Now he spat it out onto the floor with a grimace of disgust.

“It’s spoiled!” Rudy cried. “Oh, goddam! I hate that!”

“Spoiled?” Bob Jenkins said swiftly. His eyes gleamed like blue electrical sparks. “Oh, I doubt that. Processed meats are so loaded with preservatives these days that it takes eight hours or more in the hot sun to send them over. And we know by the clocks that the power in that cold-case went out less than five hours ago.”

“Maybe not,” Albert spoke up. “You were the one who said it felt later than our wristwatches say.”

“Yes, but I don’t think... Was the case still cold, Mr Warwick? When you opened it, was the case still cold?”

“Not cold, exactly, but cool,” Rudy said. “That sandwich is all fucked up, though. Pardon me, ladies. Here.” He held it out. “If you don’t think it’s spoiled, you try it.”

Bob stared at the sandwich, appeared to screw up his courage, and then did just that, taking a small bite from the untouched half. Albert saw an expression of disgust pass over his face, but he did not get rid of the food immediately. He chewed once... twice... then turned and spat into his hand. He stuffed the half-chewed bite of sandwich into the trash-bin below the condiments shelf, and dropped the rest of the sandwich in after it.

“Not spoiled,” he said. “Tasteless. And not just that, either. It seemed to have no texture.” His mouth drew down in an involuntary expression of disgust. “We talk about things being bland — unseasoned white rice, boiled potatoes — but even the blandest food has some taste, I think. That had none. It was like chewing paper. No wonder you thought it was spoiled.”

“It was spoiled,” the bald man reiterated stubbornly.

“Try your beer,” Bob invited. “That shouldn’t be spoiled. The cap is still on, and a capped bottle of beer shouldn’t spoil even if it isn’t refrigerated.”

Rudy looked thoughtfully at the bottle of Budweiser in his hand, then shook his head and held it out to Bob. “I don’t want it anymore,” he said. He glanced at the cold-case. His gaze was baleful, as if he suspected Jenkins of having played an unfunny practical joke on him.

“I will if I have to,” Bob said, “but I’ve already offered my body up to science once. Will somebody else try this beer? I think it’s very important.”

“Give it to me,” Nick said.

“No.” It was Don Gaffney. “Give it to me. I could use a beer, by God. I’ve drunk ’em warm before and they don’t cross my eyes none.”

He took the beer, twisted off the cap, and upended it. A moment later he whirled and sprayed the mouthful he had taken onto the floor.

“Jesus!” he cried. “Flat! Flat as a pancake!”

“Is it?” Bob asked brightly. “Good! Great! Something we can all see!” He was around the counter in a flash, and taking one of the glasses down from the shelf. Gaffney had set the bottle down beside the cash register, and Brian looked at it closely as Bob Jenkins picked it up. He could see no foam clinging to the inside of the bottleneck. It might as well be water in there, he thought.

What Bob poured out didn’t look like water, however; it looked like beer. Flat beer. There was no head. A few small bubbles clung to the inside of the glass, but none of them came pinging up through the liquid to the surface.

“All right,” Nick said slowly, “it’s flat. Sometimes that happens. The cap doesn’t get screwed on all the way at the factory and the gas escapes. Everyone’s gotten a flat lager from time to time.”

“But when you add in the tasteless salami sandwich, it’s suggestive, isn’t it?”

“Suggestive of what?” Brian exploded.

“In a moment,” Bob said. “Let’s take care of Mr Hopewell’s caveat first, shall we?” He turned, grabbed glasses with both hands (a couple of others fell off the shelf and shattered on the floor), then began to set them out along the counter with the agile speed of a bartender. “Bring me some more beer. And a couple of soft drinks, while you’re at it.”

Albert and Bethany went down to the cold-case and each took four or five bottles, picking at random.

“Is he nuts?” Bethany asked in a low voice.

“I don’t think so,” Albert said. He had a vague idea of what the writer was trying to show them... and he didn’t like the shape it made in his mind. “Remember when he told you to save your matches? He knew something like this was going to happen. That’s why he was so hot to get us over to the restaurant. He wanted to show us.”