thought back to something detective clark had said , days ago . where the hell did you learn this ? we followed the alien machine for another half hour before it stopped and slowly turned towards the camp . miller asked , always getting straight to business . the hard physical life , made for tough strong men . he came back and handed it to me . my skin feels hot , tight almost . it was when people started doing things with it that the rot set in . `` how bad are the tests going to be ? 