counterfeit of normal life—the stiff upper lip in the face of disaster.

It would have been far more odd, Mary decided, if mankind had given way to panic. Humanity had survived other plagues nearly as terrible as this—and racial memory is long. The same grim patience of the past was here in the present. Man would somehow survive, and civilization go on.

It was inconceivable that mankind would become extinct. The whole vast resources and pooled intelligence of surviving humanity were focused upon Thurston's Disease. And the disease would yield. Humanity waited with childlike confidence for the miracle that would save it. And the miracle would happen, Mary knew it with a calm certainty as she stood in the cross corridor at the end of the hall, looking down the thirty yards of tile that separated her from the elevator that would carry her up to the clinic and oblivion. It might be too late for her, but not for the race. Nature had tried unaided to destroy man before—and had failed. And her unholy alliance with man's genius would also fail.

She wondered as she walked down the corridor if the others who had sickened and died felt as she did. She speculated with grim amusement whether Walter Kramer would be as impersonal as he was with the others, when he performed the post-mortem on her body. She shivered at the thought of that bare sterile room and the shining table. Death was not a pretty thing. But she could meet it with resignation if not with courage. She had already seen too much for it to have any meaning. She did not falter as she placed a finger on the elevator button.

Poor Walter—she sighed. Sometimes it was harder to be among the living. It was good that she didn't let him know how she felt. She had sensed a change in him recently. His friendly impersonality had become merely friendly. It could, with a little encouragement, have developed into something else. But it wouldn't now. She sighed again. His hardness had been a tower of strength. And his bitter gallows humor had furnished a wry relief to grim reality. It had been nice to work with him. She wondered if he would miss her. 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