said, looking up from a pile of bottles and
glassware 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 on
in our ultra modern necropsy suite."

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

"You haven't seen anything yet," he said as he opened a door in the
hall. "Note the positive air pressure," he said. "Theoretically nothing
can get in here except what we bring with us. And we try not to bring
anything." He stood aside to show her the glassed-in cubicle overhanging
a bare room dominated by a polished steel post-mortem table that
glittered in the harsh fluorescent lighting. Above the table a number of
jointed rods and clamps hung from the ceiling. A low metal door and
series of racks containing instruments and glassware were set into the
opposite wall together with the gaping circular orifice of an open
autoclave.

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

"Where's the cadaver?" Mary asked.

"Across the room, behin