e before a rifle cracked. She
dropped, to twitch once and lie still.

Almost with her death, another figure leaped from one of the houses, his
face bare of the necessary aspirator. He took off at a violent run, but
he was falling from lack of air before the bullet ended his struggles.

The people suddenly began to move apart, as if trying to get away from
each other. For weeks they had faced the horror with courage; now it was
finally too much for them.

Tension mounted as no news came from the cities. Doc noticed that it
seemed to aggravate or speed up the disease. He saw three men shot in
the next half-hour.

He was trying to calm them with word of a possible cure for the plague,
but their reactions were as curiously dull as those of Jake had been. As
he spoke, they faced him with set expressions. At his mention of the
need for the blood of young children, they turned from him, sullenly
silent.

Jake came over, nodding unhappily. "It's what I was afraid might happen,
Doc. George Lynn! Tell Doc what's wrong."

Lynn was reluctant, but he finally stumbled out his explanation. "It
ain't like you, Doc. Comes from that Lobby woman you got. It's her dirty
idea. We've seen the Lobby doctors cutting open our kids, poisoning
their blood, and bleeding them dry. That ain't gonna happen again, Doc.
You tell her it ain't!"

Doc swore as he realized their ignorance. An unexplained vaccination
looked like poisoning of the blood. But he couldn't understand the
bleeding part until Jake filled him in.

"Northport infant's wing. Each department has its own blood bank and
donation is compulsory. Southport started it a couple months ago, too."

The long arm of the Lobby had reached out again. Now if he ever got them
to try the treatment, it would be only after long sessions of preparing
them with the facts, and there was hardly enough time for the crucial
work!

By afternoon, Judge Ben Wilson reached them. His voice shook with
fatigue as he climbed up to address the crowd through a power megaphone.
"Southport's going crazy." He had to pause for breath between each
sentence. "Earth's pulling back all the important people. They're
packing them into the ships. They're leaving only colonials with no
Earth rights. Those ships left when they decided the plague was coming
from here. They won't let anybody back until the plague is licked. There
won't be an Earth technician on Mars tomorrow."

"No bombs?" someone called.

"No bombs.