the plague, and she's the perfect Judas goat. But they
have to have some way to get in touch with her. I'll bet there's a
tracer in the mike and a switch so she can modulate it or key it to send
out Morse."

"Yeah," Jake nodded. "Well, she does her own dirty work. I might get to
like her if she was on our side. Okay, Doc. If they've put things into
the mike, I've got a boy who'll find and fix it so she won't guess it's
been touched."

Doc relaxed. For the moment, there would be no power in the instrument,
nor any excuse for her to use it. But she must have handled some secret
arrangement during the work periods. She used the mike more than he did.
The switch could be camouflaged easily enough. If anyone detected the
signal, they'd probably only think it was some leak in the electrical
circuit.

Far away, the shuttle rockets had appeared as tiny dots in the sky. They
were standing on their tails a second later, just off the ground,
letting the full force of their blasts bake the area where headquarters
had been.

Jake watched grimly, driving by something close to instinct. Then he
looked back. "Know anything about a Dr. Harkness?"

"Not much, except that he protested sealing off the villages. Why?"

"He and five other doctors were picked up, trying to get through to us.
Claimed they wanted to give us medical help. We can use them, God knows.
I guess I'll have to chance it."

They stopped at a halfway village and hid the tractors before looking
for a place to rest. Doc found Chris curled up asleep against the
microscope. He had a hard time getting her to leave it in the tractor,
but she was too genuinely tired to put up any real argument.

Jake reported in the morning before they set out again. "You were right,
Doc. It was a nice job of work. Must have taken the best guys in
Southport to hide the circuit so well. But it's safe now. It just makes
a kind of meaningless static nobody can trace. Maybe we can get you a
permanent lab now."

Doc debated again having Chris left behind and decided against it. The
Lobby was determined to let him find a cure for them if he could. That
meant Chris would work herself to exhaustion trying to help. Let her
think she was doing it for the Lobby! It was time she was on the
receiving end of a double cross.

"It's a stinking way to run a war," he decided.

Jake chuckled without much humor. "It's the war you wanted, remember?
They forced our hand, but it had to come sometime. Ri