certainly nothing secret about this epidemic. Now you just take it
easy and--. Oh, here's a doctor now."

The doctor, a white-headed Air Force major, bustled into the room. A
lab technician in a white smock was close behind. Andy could only
shrug and indicate the girl.

Turning away, lighting a cigarette, he tried to focus on the tangle of
thoughts that spun through his head. Doctors, writers, society
matrons, office workers--Aspen, Taos and college towns--thousands of
people sick--but none in that valley in Tennessee--and few government
workers--just one girl in his office--and she was sicker and more
frightened about a letter--and....

"Hey, wait!" Andy yelled.

Everyone in the room froze as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's
desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it,
straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He
snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse.
Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through
the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab
technician, he said, "Get me a report. Fast."

The technician darted out.

Andy wheeled to Bettijean. "Get the brass in here. And call the
general first." To the doctor, he said, "Give that girl the best of
everything."

Then he ducked back to his own office and to the pile of reports. He
was still poring over them when the general arrived. Half a dozen
other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The
lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed
his hastily scribbled report to Andy.

* * * * *

It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle
silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around
the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers.

"Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was
babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students,
and little secretaries and big secretaries. Have you established a
trend?"

Andy glanced at the lab report and his smile was as relieved as it was
weary. "Our problem," he said, "was in figuring out what a writer does
that a doctor doesn't--why girls from small offices were sick--and why
senators and postal workers weren't--why college students caught the
bug and people in a Tennessee community didn't.

"The lab report isn't complete. They haven't had tim