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he wound upwith something else entirely. He was like the man who wanted to make aplastic suitable for children's toys and ended up with a new explosive.You see, what Thurston didn't realize was that his cultures werecontaminated. He'd secured them from the University Clinic and had, sohe thought, isolated them. But somehow he'd brought a virusalong--probably one of the orphan group or possibly a phage."

  "Orphan?"

  "Yes--one that was not a normal inhabitant of human tissues. At any ratethere was a virus--and he mutated it rather than the bacteria. Actually,it was simple enough, relatively speaking, since a virus is infinitelysimpler in structure than a bacterium, and hence much easier to modifywith ionizing radiation. So he didn't produce an antigen--he produced adisease instead. Naturally, he contracted it, and during the periodbetween his infection and death he managed to infect the entirehospital. Before anyone realized what they were dealing with, thedisease jumped from the hospital to the college, and from the college tothe city, and from the city to--"

  "Yes, I know that part of it. It's all over the world now--killingpeople by the millions."

  * * * * *

  "Well," Kramer said, "at least it's solved the population explosion." Heblew a cloud of blue smoke in Mary's direction. "And it did makeThurston famous. His name won't be quickly forgotten."

  She coughed. "I doubt if it ever will be," she said, "but it won't beremembered the way he intended."

  He looked at her suspiciously. "That cough--"

  "No, it's not Thurston's Disease. It's that pipe. It's rancid."

  "It helps me think," Kramer said.

  "You could try cigarettes--or candy," she suggested.

  "I'd rather smoke a pipe."

  "There's cancer of the lip and tongue," she said helpfully.

  "Don't quote Ochsner. I don't agree with him. And besides, you smokecigarettes, which are infinitely worse."

  "Only four or five a day. I don't saturate my system with nicotine."

  "In another generation," Kramer observed, "you'd have run through thestreets of the city brandishing an ax smashing saloons. You're a linealdescendent of Carrie Nation." He puffed quietly until his head wassurrounded by a nimbus of smoke. "Stop trying to reform me," he added."You haven't been here long enough."

  "Not even God could do that, according to the reports I've heard," shesaid.

  He laughed. "I suppose my reputation gets around."

  "It does. You're an opinionated slave driver, a bully, an intellectualtyrant, and the best pathologist in this center."

  "The last part of that sentence makes up for unflattering honesty of thefirst," Kramer said. "At any rate, once we realized the situation wewent to work to correct it. Institutes like this were establishedeverywhere the disease appeared for the sole purpose of examining,treating, and experimenting with the hope of finding a cure. Thissection exists for the evaluation of treatment. We check the humancases, and the primates in the experimental laboratories. It is ourduty to find out if anything the boys upstairs try shows any promise. Wewere a pretty big section once, but Thurston's virus has whittled usdown. Right now there is just you and me. But there's still enough workto keep us busy. The experiments are still going on, and there are stillhuman cases, even though the virus has killed off most of thesusceptibles. We've evaluated over a thousand different drugs andtreatments in this Institute alone."

  "And none of them have worked?"

  "No--but that doesn't mean the work's been useless. The research hassaved others thousands of man hours chasing false leads. In thisbusiness negative results are almost as important as positive ones. Wemay never discover the solution, but our work will keep others frommaking the same mistakes."

  "I never thought of it that way."

  "People seldom do. But if you realize that this is international, thatevery worker on Thurston's Disease has a niche to fill, the picture willbe clearer. We're doing our part inside the plan. Others are, too. Andthere are thousands of labs involved. Somewhere, someone will find theanswer. It probably won't be us, but we'll help get the problem solvedas quickly as possible. That's the important thing. It's the biggestchallenge the race has ever faced--and the most important. It's aquestion of survival." Kramer's voice was sober. "We have to solve this.If Thurston's Disease isn't checked, the human race will becomeextinct. As a result, for the first time in history all mankind isworking together."

  "All? You mean the Communists are, too?"

  "Of course. What's an ideology if there are no people to follow it?"Kramer knocked the ashes out of his pipe, looked at the laboratory clockand shrugged. "Ten minutes more," he said, "and these tubes will beready. Keep an eye on that clock and let me know. Meantime you canstraighten up this lab and find out where things are. I'll be in theoffice checking the progress reports." He turned abruptly away, leavingher standing in the middle of the cluttered laboratory.

  "Now what am I supposed to do here?" Mary wondered aloud. "Clean up, hesays. Find out where things are, he says. Get acquainted with the place,he says. I could spend a month doing that." She looked at the litteredbench, the wall cabinets with sliding doors half open, the jars ofreagents sitting on the sink, the drainboard, on top of the refrigeratorand on the floor. The disorder was appalling. "How he ever manages towork in here is beyond me. I suppose that I'd better startsomewhere--perhaps I can get these bottles in some sort of order first."She sighed and moved toward the wall cabinets. "Oh well," she mused, "Iasked for this."

  * * * * *

  "Didn't you hear that buzzer?" Kramer asked.

  "Was that for me?" Mary said, looking up from a pile of bottles andglassware she was sorting.

  "Partly. It means they've sent us another post-mortem from upstairs."

  "What is it?"

  "I don't know--man or monkey, it makes no difference. Whatever it is,it's Thurston's Disease. Come along. You might as well see what goes onin our ultra modern necropsy suite."

  "I'd like to." She put down the bottle she was holding and followed himto a green door at the rear of the laboratory.

  "Inside," Kramer said, "you will find a small anteroom, a shower, and adressing room. Strip, shower, and put on a clean set of lab coverallsand slippers which you will find in the dressing room. You'll findsurgical masks in the wall cabinet beside the lockers. Go through thedoor beyond the dressing room and wait for me there. I'll give you tenminutes."

  * * * * *

  "We do this both ways," Kramer said as he joined her in the narrow hallbeyond the dressing room. "We'll reverse the process going out."

  "You certainly carry security to a maximum," she said through the maskthat covered the lower part of her face.

  "You haven't seen anything yet," he said as he opened a door in thehall. "Note the positive air pressure," he said. "Theoretically nothingcan get in here except what we bring with us. And we try not to bringanything." He stood aside to show her the glassed-in cubicle overhanginga bare room dominated by a polished steel post-mortem table thatglittered in the harsh fluorescent lighting. Above the table a number ofjointed rods and clamps hung from the ceiling. A low metal door andseries of racks containing instruments and glassware were set into theopposite wall together with the gaping circular orifice of an openautoclave.

  "We work by remote control, just like they do at the AEC. See thosehandlers?" He pointed to the control console set into a small stainlesssteel table standing beside the sheet of glass at the far end of thecubicle. "They're connected to those gadgets up there." He indicated thejointed arms hanging over the autopsy table in the room beyond. "I couldperform a major operation from here and never touch the patient. Usingthese I can do anything I could in person with the difference thatthere's a quarter inch of glass between me and my work. I have controlsthat let me use magnifiers, and even do microdissection, if necessary."

  "Where's the cadaver?" Mary asked.

  "Across the room, behind that door," he said, waving at the low, slidingmetal
partition behind the table. "It's been prepped, decontaminated andready to go."

  "What happens when you're through?"

  "Watch." Dr. Kramer pressed a button on the console in front of him. Asection of flooring slid aside and the table tipped. "The cadaver slidesoff that table and through that hole. Down below is a