Her lips curled in a faint smile. He
would, if only for the trouble he would have in making chaos out of the
order she had created. Why couldn't that elevator hurry?

* * * * *

"Mary! Where are you going?" Kramer's voice was in her ears, and his
hand was on her shoulder.

"Don't touch me!"

"Why not?" His voice was curiously different. Younger, excited.

"I have Thurston's Disease," she said.

He didn't let go. "Are you sure?"

"The presumptive tests were positive."

"Initial stages?"

She nodded. "I had the first coughing attack a few minutes ago."

He pulled her away from the elevator door that suddenly slid open. "You
were going to that death trap upstairs," he said.

"Where else can I go?"

"With me," he said. "I think I can help you."

"How? Have you found a cure for the virus?"

"I think so. At least it's a better possibility than the things they're
using up there." His voice was urgent. "And to think I might never
have seen it if you hadn't put me on the track."

"Are you sure you're right?"

"Not absolutely, but the facts fit. The theory's good."

"Then I'm going to the clinic. I can't risk infecting you. I'm a carrier
now. I can kill you, and you're too important to die."

"You don't know how wrong you are," Kramer said.

"Let go of me!"

"No--you're coming back!"

She twisted in his grasp. "Let me go!" she sobbed and broke into a fit
of coughing worse than before.

"What I was trying to say," Dr. Kramer said into the silence that
followed, "is that if you have Thurston's Disease, you've been a carrier
for at least two weeks. If I am going to get it, your going away can't
help. And if I'm not, I'm not."

"Do you come willingly or shall I knock you unconscious and drag you
back?" Kramer asked.

She looked at his face. It was grimmer than she had ever seen it before.
Numbly she let him lead her back to the laboratory.

* * * * *

"But, Walter--I can't. That's sixty in the past ten hours!" she
protested.

"Take it," he said grimly, "then take another. And inhale. Deeply."

"But they make me dizzy."

"Better dizzy than dead. And, by the way--how's your chest?"

"Better. There's no pain now. But the cough is worse."

"It should be."

"Why?"

"You've never smoked enough to get a cigarette cough," he said.

She shook her head dizzily. "You're so right," she said.

"And that's what nearly killed you," he finis