and the fire department ignored all alarms a day
later.

But everything did not stop. School teachers still taught their classes;
clerks still sold whatever goods were left on local shelves. Librarians
were still at their desks.

Conservatives said it was a liberal plot to undermine capital and demand
higher wages; liberals said big business could afford the temporary
layoff and wanted to squeeze out the small businessman and labor unions.

Scientists pondered and city officials made speeches over video.

"Something," one of them observed, "has hit our city. Work that requires
anything above a modicum of sound has become impossible; in regards to
such work people have become lazy. No one can offer any valid
suggestions concerning the malady. It merely exists. However, if a stop
is not put to it--and soon--our fair city will disintegrate. Something
is making us lazy, and that laziness can spell doom, being a compulsive
lack of desire to create any noise or disturbance. If anyone believes he
has the solution, he should contact the Department of Science at once.
If you can't use the video-phone, come in person. But come! Every hour
which passes adds to the city's woes."

Nothing but scatter-brained ideas for a week, none of them worth
consideration. Then the bespectacled customs official who had bypassed
quarantine for Black Eyes, got in touch with the authorities. He had
always been a conscientious man--except for that one lapse. Maybe the
queer little beast had nothing to do with this crisis. But then again,
the customs official had never before--or since--had that strange
feeling of lassitude. Could there be some connection?

A staff of experts on extra-terrestrial fauna was dispatched to the
Whitney residence, although, indeed, the chairman of the Department of
Science secretly considered the whole idea ridiculous.

The staff of experts introduced themselves. Then, ignoring the protests
of Lindy, went to work on Black Eyes. At first Judd thought the animal
would object, but apparently it did not. While conditions all about them
in the city worsened, the experts spent three days studying Black Eyes.

They found nothing out of the ordinary.

Black Eyes merely stared back at them, and but for an accident, they
would have departed without a lead. On the third day, a huge mongrel dog
which belonged to the Whitneys' next-door neighbors somehow slipped its
leash. It was a fierce and ugly animal, and it was known to