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Sarah stared round her. She had no idea what she ought to do now. The man who operated the die press had gone off to get help, but had not yet returned. Several more men, also mechanics, stood staring aghast at Becca's corpse. Two workers had pulled it out into the aisle and hidden it, as best they could, beneath a canvas cover. They stared at Sarah in great apprehension, for in their eyes it was she who had caused the horrible death of Becca Blair. Sarah staggered away. She came around another corner and was once again within sight of the conveyer belt and the long line of her friends and acquaintances.

Sarah looked about her distractedly and attempted, without knowing what she was doing, to wipe on to her dress the blood that stained her hands. Suddenly she gasped. The amulet, gleaming gold and black, was caught around the barrel of one of the weapons on the conveyer belt.

A woman with a drill faltered when she saw the amulet appear before her, and in her surprise she drove the drill through the palm of her hand. She screamed shrilly in pain, and all the workers near her pulled back in alarm. The injured woman overturned her chair, and lurched across the floor. In another moment her friends rose and gathered around her.

Sarah tried to get at the amulet, but could not reach the assembly belt through the knot of people blocking her path. She screamed for them to get out of her way, but they only stared at her uncomprehendingly, and then turned back to the woman whose hand was being bandaged.

Sarah knew now thai she had to get hold of the amulet before anything else happened, so she picked up a rifle that lay atop an unclosed box along the outside wall. She waved it round menacingly, and though the women all knew that it was unloaded, instinctively they drew back. By this action, and by the blood on her dress and her hands that they noticed for the first time, all the women were sure that Sarah had gone entirely out of her mind.

A woman, who had never liked Sarah, ran up and attempted to wrest the rifle from her. Sarah pushed her down on to the floor with the butt of the weapon, but had to work to disentangle her foot from the woman's crossed arms.

On the other side of the building there was now a large amount of shouting and a general commotion over the discovery of Becca Blair's mangled body. Nothing was intelligible because of the noise of the machinery.

The men gaping around Becca's corpse had no idea of what was happening on the other side. Most of the women from the assembly line had abandoned their positions, and were now crouching behind their partitions, or the shelving, and stared in wonder at Sarah Howell, who scrambled among the partitions, knocking the incomplete rifles on to the floor.

A very few workers had remained in their places as long as possible, but they had now given up in frustration, when the rifles shuddered past them having been neglected in the previous stages of assembly.

Never before had the Pine Cone Munitions Factory fallen into chaos. Machinery had broken down before, even the conveyer belt, and people had sat on their hands until it was repaired. But now everything moved on, and none of the machinery was still - but ijothing worked properly. The male workers attempted to shut off their machines, but the switches were ineffectual in cutting the power. Even the die machine under which Becca Blair had perished so miserably suddenly reactivated itself, and punched at a terrible speed, as if greedy for another victim. The men cautiously backed away from their machines with the growing, terrifying realisation that they no longer had control over them.

The chief electrician ran to the main power boxes at the end of the great room, and though he changed the position of all the levers, no alteration was apparent. None of the machines was shut off.

Beneath all this, the conveyer belt had continued to move, and even to accelerate beyond its accustomed pace. The rifles shook and danced around on the belt; some were shaken off on to the floor. The wail of the machinery increased in volume and in pitch, until it was a piercing, unavoidable scream. All the shouting stopped, and every worker - even the woman who had pushed the drill through her hand - stood still, with their hands over their ears, and looked open-mouthed at the assembly belt. When they turned around again, Sarah was nowhere to be seen. The belt went faster and faster, and all the rifles were shaken apart into their components. Those scraps of metal bounded, and flew about, and were thrown off the belt. Several women who had sought to retrieve their purses and other personal belongings from the partitions, were brutally injured by the flying bits of metal, which seemed to seek out their eyes, mouths, and throats.

Two rifles at the very end of the line unaccountably exploded, with bright sparks and terrific reports. A woman standing nearby threw her hands above her face, and collapsed on to her knees, swaying widely in intense pain.

On the other aisle, several of the largest pieces of machinery, which were operating at twice and three times their normal speed, began to smoke. White gasps of clouds shot out from their tops at first, but soon the double row of machines was billowing forth black smoke along its entire length. In another few moments, these dark clouds were shot through with shooting sparks and small, licking flames.

One worker, who took hold of the handle which controlled the velocity of his machine, had his arm wrenched out of its socket when the handle suddenly reversed the direction of its circular motion.

Every worker in the building at once directed his gaze upward. The incandescent lights in the rafters above had suddenly increased in brightness. Then the workers, who were standing together in the aisles, as far from the machinery as possible, stared down at the floor, so as not to be blinded. The lights went searing white and then burst, showering hot glass everywhere and on everyone, inflicting small painful cuts on every inch of exposed skin.

Throughout the building, windows shot up so suddenly and so forcefully that the glass in the panes shattered, and the frames of the windows splintered. The factory workers turned and gaped, astounded by the sight of the factory falling apart around them. They had not yet the sense to leave the place, so surprised were they by the extraordinary events themselves. Because of the noise, no communication was possible. Each worker was alone in his fear.

The clothing of two workmen was ignited by stray sparks and the men ran down the aisle followed by a third, spraying a foaming fire extinguisher at them. The sight of these two men, fleeing in their flames, scared the workers more than anything else, and as one man they started to run for the door. It was as if they had realised, each at the same moment, that they were doomed if they remained inside a moment longer.

Shelves and cases filled with tools and spare parts toppled over in quick succession, as during an earthquake. Three women were caught beneath the largest and heaviest of these.

A man was jostled by his own wife in their attempt to escape and he fell against a machine used to fashion and attach serial-number plates to the rifles. Two small bolts drove through

his arm, riveting him to the machine. He tore away from it, leaving behind two bloody mounds of flesh, muscle, and splintered bone, but fainted from the shock before he could reach the exit.

In the managerial offices in a different building, all work had stopped for a moment while everyone discussed the news that had just been phoned over: that one of the assembly line workers had died on the job. They wondered who it might have been, \ how she might have died, and whether the accident would entail an investigation. The machinery in the plant was a distant, constant hum under these whispered conversations, only a little louder than a refrigerator motor.

Conversation stopped altogether when that hum greatly increased in volume, peaking in a piercing whine. All the office workers - executives and secretaries and stock-room clerks -ran to the windows that faced the factory buildings to see what had happened. They all gasped to see the first few workers spilling out of the plant. They fried aloud when a young woman fell down the stairs and was trampled in the rush.

'Let's go see what's wrong!' someone shouted and there was a general movement to the front door of the offices. But before even one man had gone through those double doors, every telephone in the building rang at once, setting up an intolerable jangling. The workers looked at one another in perplexity. A secretary lifted one of the phones; there was no one on the odier end, but as soon as she replaced the receiver, it began to ring again.

Two frosted-glass partitions between executive offices shattered noisily and the glass poured on to the floor, again with small but painful injury to those standing nearby.

All the water fountains in the corridors suddenly arched their jets of icy water far into the air, and could not be stopped. The floors became spotted with slippery pools of cold water. In hurrying from one room to another, people skidded and fell in their haste.

Bracketed walls of shelves gave way in every office, sending hundreds of pounds of books and supplies on to the heads of those who turned helplessly about in the rooms, unable to conceive of what was happening to them. Filing drawers shot out of their casings with force great enough to crack the ribs of

those unlucky enough to be standing near them. All the toilets overflowed at once so that even more water poured out into the corridors.

One by one, piles of stationery on typists' desks toppled, and the sheets flew out in all directions, as with will, and literally shredded the skin of the women who huddled around their desks, whimpering. Untouched, the typewriters in the room set up an intolerable clacking, joined by the adding machines, the duplicators, and the posting machines, until the machines erupted with an oily smoke.

In every office, the lights in the ceiling glared brightly, more brightly still, and then exploded. Immediately after, the ceilings started to give way, and great clouds of plaster filled the rooms. Pipes burst in all the walls, which bellied ominously, and water poured out of every crack and seam.

Workers trying to leave were hampered by the water that was now inches deep in some places, by doors that suddenly swung open or locked shut, by drawers that shot out of desks and cabinets, by piles of anything at all that without cause toppled heavily over. But they stumbled forward, screamed and struggled, and a few even aided one another. Some even managed, whimpering and scared, to get out of the building.

Those who tried to escape by the windows regretted the attempt, for when they were halfway out, the window would smash down heavily enough to shatter the glass, splinter the frame, and break the back of the secretary or administrative assistant caught beneath. One of these unfortunates could be seen in half a dozen windows all around the building, dazed, or unconscious, or already dead.

Smoke gathered in the rooms, and fire travelled from office to office, apparently unhampered by the quantity of water on the floors.

Nearly all of the workers were now out of the main plant building, in which Becca Blair had died. Two women were still trapped beneath shelves that had fallen, "but they were likely to remain there, since no one had seen them disappear. Those workers who had been near the exits now stood about the parking lot, staring at the factory, still unable to comprehend what was happening. Smoke billowed from the centre of the building where a portion of the roof had collapsed. Everyone was watching for flames. The last workers were struggling out, many with torn and bloody clothing, some limping. A female worker held the hands of a man while he lowered himself out one of the side windows. He ran off immediately, and she jumped down to the ground after him.

An explosion, loud but still somehow indistinct, blew out part of the side wall of the plant, and directly afterwards large sheets of flame appeared in that part of the building. When it seemed likely that there might be more explosions, the people panicked and ran to their cars.

Many had left their keys inside the building, and banged futilely on the car doors; others who had left the automobiles unlocked cowered in the back seats. Those who could drive away immediately locked bumpers in their rush, or dented fenders so that tyres would not turn. A limping woman was run down, and the guilty driver, though he knew he had been seen, kept going. Two pickup trucks parked on the edge of the lot drove off, each carrying twenty people in the back.

In the line of cars parked nearest the building, one automobile suddenly began to roll backward, and ran down a man with a broken leg who had taken shelter just behind it. In halting succession, the other vehicles in that row also began to move backward, or turn in wide slow arcs, until they had smashed into something else. This set up a chain reaction that spread all over the lot, but in a haphazard fashion, so that it was impossible for those fleeing through and among the automobiles to avoid being hit by the rolling, unoccupied cars.

These collisions were not violent, but they prevented any more cars from leaving the lot. Those fortunate enough to have remembered their ignition keys were now forced to abandon their vehicles. The injured and the simply frightened fell over into babbling hysteria and uncontrolled weeping when they realised that they had to dodge through nearly an acre of these marauding vehicles before they reached the safety of the street - and who knew if they would be completely free of these inexplicable dangers even then?

Residents of the houses directly across from the lot came out and stood on the kerb, staring with wonder at the destruction of the factory, and the lumbering mayhem of the automobiles. The braver and kinder of these ventured across the street and helped to the relative safety of their front yards the workers who at last had made it to the edge of the factory property. But there was nothing to do for those who struggled and stumbled and screamed, trying to avoid the cars that roiled about the lot at random, nothing to be done for those with broken limbs and severe burns who had taken shelter in the automobiles, and were now rigid with fear at being trapped in cars that were driverless but mobile.