Pandemic Page 3

highly efficientcrematorium."

  Mary shivered. "Neat and effective," she said shakily.

  "After that the whole room is sprayed with germicide and sterilized withlive steam. The instruments go into the autoclave, and thirty minuteslater we're ready for another post-mortem."

  "We use the handlers to put specimens into those jars," he said,pointing to a row of capped glass jars of assorted sizes on a wall rackbehind the table. "After they're capped, the jars go onto that carrierbeside the table. From here they pass through a decontamination chamberand into the remote-control laboratory across the hall where we can runbiochemical and histological techniques. Finished slides and mountedspecimens then go through another decontamination process to the outsidelab. Theoretically, this place is proof against anything."

  "It seems to be," Mary said, obviously impressed. "I've never seenanything so elegant."

  "Neither did I until Thurston's Disease became a problem." Kramershrugged and sat down behind the controls. "Watch, now," he said as hepressed a button. "Let's see what's on deck--man or monkey. Want to makea bet? I'll give you two to one it's a monkey."

  She shook her head.

  * * * * *

  The low door slid aside and a steel carriage emerged into the necropsyroom bearing the nude body of a man. The corpse gleamed pallidly underthe harsh shadowless glare of the fluorescents in the ceiling as Kramer,using the handlers, rolled it onto the post-mortem table and clamped itin place on its back. He pushed another button and the carriage movedback into the wall and the steel door slid shut. "That'll bedecontaminated," he said, "and sent back upstairs for another body. I'dhave lost," he remarked idly. "Lately the posts have been running threeto one in favor of monkeys."

  He moved a handler and picked up a heavy scalpel from the instrumentrack. "There's a certain advantage to this," he said as he moved thehandler delicately. "These gadgets give a tremendous mechanicaladvantage. I can cut right through small bones and cartilage withoutusing a saw."

  "How nice," Mary said. "I expect you enjoy yourself."

  "I couldn't ask for better equipment," he replied noncommittally. Withdeft motion of the handler he drew the scalpel down across the chestand along the costal margins in the classic inverted "Y" incision."We'll take a look at the thorax first," he said, as he used thehandlers to pry open the rib cage and expose the thoracic viscera. "Ah!Thought so! See that?" He pointed with a small handler that carried aprobe. "Look at those lungs." He swung a viewer into place so Mary couldsee better. "Look at those abscesses and necrosis. It's Thurston'sDisease, all right, with secondary bacterial invasion."

  The grayish solidified masses of tissue looked nothing like the normalpink appearance of healthy lungs. Studded with yellowish sphericalabscesses they lay swollen and engorged within the gaping cavity of thechest.

  "You know the pathogenesis of Thurston's Disease?" Kramer asked.

  Mary shook her head, her face yellowish-white in the glare of thefluorescents.

  "It begins with a bronchial cough," Kramer said. "The virus attacks thebronchioles first, destroys them, and passes into the deeper tissues ofthe lungs. As with most virus diseases there is a transitoryleukopenia--a drop in the total number of white blood cells--and a risein temperature of about two or three degrees. As the virus attacks thealveolar structures, the temperature rises and the white blood cellcount becomes elevated. The lungs become inflamed and painful. There isa considerable quantity of lymphoid exudate and pleural effusion.Secondary invaders and pus-forming bacteria follow the viral destructionof the lung tissue and form abscesses. Breathing becomes progressivelymore difficult as more lung tissue is destroyed. Hepatization andnecrosis inactivate more lung tissue as the bacteria get in their dirtywork, and finally the patient suffocates."

  "But what if the bacteria are controlled by antibiotics?"

  "Then the virus does the job. It produces atelectasis followed byprogressive necrosis of lung tissue with gradual liquefaction of theparenchyma. It's slower, but just as fatal. This fellow was lucky. Heapparently stayed out of here until he was almost dead. Probably he'shad the disease for about a week. If he'd have come in early, we couldhave kept him alive for maybe a month. The end, however, would have beenthe same."

  "It's a terrible thing," Mary said faintly.

  "You'll get used to it. We get one or two every day." He shrugged."There's nothing here that's interesting," he said as he released theclamps and tilted the table. For what seemed to Mary an interminabletime, the cadaver clung to the polished steel. Then abruptly it slid offthe shining surface and disappeared through the square hole in thefloor. "We'll clean up now," Kramer said as he placed the instruments inthe autoclave, closed the door and locked it, and pressed three buttonson the console.

  From jets embedded in the walls a fine spray filled the room with fog.

  "Germicide," Kramer said. "Later there'll be steam. That's all fornow. Do you want to go?"

  Mary nodded.

  "If you feel a little rocky there's a bottle of Scotch in my desk. I'llsplit a drink with you when we get out of here."

  "Thanks," Mary said. "I think I could use one."

  * * * * *

  "Barton! Where is the MacNeal stain!" Kramer's voice came from the lab."I left it on the sink and it's gone!"

  "It's with the other blood stains and reagents. Second drawer from theright in the big cabinet. There's a label on the drawer," Mary calledfrom the office. "If you can wait until I finish filing these papers,I'll come in and help you."

  "I wish you would," Kramer's voice was faintly exasperated. "Ever sinceyou've organized my lab I can't find anything."

  "You just have a disorderly mind," Mary said, as she slipped the lastpaper into its proper folder and closed the file. "I'll be with you in aminute."

  "I don't dare lose you," Kramer said as Mary came into the lab. "You'vemade yourself indispensable. It'd take me six months to undo what you'vedone in one. Not that I mind," he amended, "but I was used to things theway they were." He looked around the orderly laboratory with a mixtureof pride and annoyance. "Things are so neat they're almost painful."

  "You look more like a pathologist should," Mary said as she deftlyremoved the tray of blood slides from in front of him and began to runthe stains. "It's my job to keep you free to think."

  "Whose brilliant idea is that? Yours?"

  "No--the Director's. He told me what my duties were when I came here.And I think he's right. You should be using your brain rather thanfooling around with blood stains and sectioning tissues."

  "But I like to do things like that," Kramer protested. "It's relaxing."

  "What right have you to relax," Mary said. "Outside, people are dying bythe thousands and you want to relax. Have you looked at the latestmortality reports?"

  "No--"

  "You should. The WHO estimates that nearly two billion people have diedsince Thurston's Disease first appeared in epidemic proportions. That'stwo out of three. And more are dying every day. Yet you want to relax."

  "I know," Kramer said, "but what can we do about it. We're working butwe're getting no results."

  "You might use that brain of yours," Mary said bitterly. "You'resupposed to be a scientist. You have facts. Can't you put themtogether?"

  "I don't know." He shrugged, "I've been working on this problem longerthan you think. I come down here at night--"

  "I know. I clean up after you."

  "I haven't gotten anywhere. Sure, we can isolate the virus. It growsnicely on monkey lung cells. But that doesn't help. The thing has noapparent antigenicity. It parasitizes, but it doesn't trigger any immunereaction. We can kill it, but the strength of the germicide is too greatfor living tissue to tolerate."

  "Some people seem to be immune."

  "Sure they do--but why?"

  "Don't ask me. I'm not the scientist."

  "Play like one," Kramer growled. "Here are the facts. The diseaseattacks people of all races and ages. So far every one
who is attackeddies. Adult Europeans and Americans appear to be somewhat more resistantthan others on a population basis. Somewhere around sixty per cent ofthem are still alive, but it's wiped out better than eighty per cent ofsome groups. Children get