A soldier falls in Vietnam, felled by an unusual bullet. Miraculously, he survives long enough to be sent to the US for an operation. Adam Ballard, the Assistant to the Secretary of Science, apprises his boss of the situation. Lt. Minns survived, but now has a second brainwave pattern, much stronger than his own. Just like the other three. All four experience dramatic increases in intelligence, over 200. And new interests: biochemistry, metallurgy, physics and finance. And each seem to be driven to a mysterious goal, unknown even to themselves. Ballard tracks down each of them, or tries to. Conover turns away from the Swedish shipyard where he was working because he seems to sense that Ballard is inside, talking to his supervisor. Ballard learns that Hadley (now in South America searching for the herb rara coelensis) was working on ventilation systems. Conover had devised new alloys which were stronger and lighter than the original metals. And he finds that Renaldo has invented an anti