The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plague, by Teddy Keller

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Title: The Plague

Author: Teddy Keller

Illustrator: Schoenherr

Release Date: September 22, 2009 [EBook #30062]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction
February 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

THE PLAGUE

By TEDDY KELLER

_Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague
showed up.... One that attacked only people within the
political borders of the United States!_

Illustrated by Schoenherr

* * * * *

Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the
excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody
had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip.

Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been
answering the rare call on the single line--in that friendly, husky
voice that gave even generals pause--by saying, "Good morning. Office
of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now
there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to
a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And
now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection."

All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office
deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite
comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or
at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy
McCloud's nerves and patience had frayed thin.

"I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel
Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe
this replace