es--you will be my
assistant, which means you'll be a dishwasher, laboratory technician,
secretary, junior pathologist, and coffee maker. I'll help you with all
the jobs except the last one. I make lousy coffee." Kramer grinned, his
teeth a white flash across the darkness of his face. "You'll be on call
twenty-four hours a day, underpaid, overworked, and in constant danger
until we lick Thurston's virus. You'll be expected to handle the jobs of
three people unless I can get more help--and I doubt that I can. People
stay away from here in droves. There's no future in it."

Mary smiled wryly. "Literally or figuratively?" she asked.

He chuckled. "You have a nice sense of graveyard humor," he said. "It'll
help. But don't get careless. Assistants are hard to find."

She shook her head. "I won't. While I'm not afraid of dying I don't want
to do it. And I have no illusions about the danger. I was briefed quite
thoroughly."

"They wanted you to work upstairs?"

She nodded.

* * * * *

"I suppose they need help, too. Thurston's Disease has riddled the
medical profession. Just don't forget that this place can be a death
trap. One mistake and you've had it. Naturally, we take every
precaution, but with a virus no protection is absolute. If you're
careless and make errors in procedure, sooner or later one of those
submicroscopic protein molecules will get into your system."

"You're still alive."

"So I am," Kramer said, "but I don't take chances. My predecessor, my
secretary, my lab technician, my junior pathologist, and my dishwasher
all died of Thurston's Disease." He eyed her grimly. "Still want the
job?" he asked.

"I lost a husband and a three-year old son," Mary said with equal
grimness. "That's why I'm here. I want to destroy the thing that killed
my family. I want to do something. I want to be useful."

He nodded. "I think you can be," he said quietly.

"Mind if I smoke?" she asked. "I need some defense against that pipe of
yours."

"No--go ahead. Out here it's all right, but not in the security
section."

Mary took a package of cigarettes from her pocket, lit one and blew a
cloud of gray smoke to mingle with the blue haze from Kramer's pipe.

"Comfortable?" Kramer asked.

She nodded.

He looked at his wrist watch. "We have half an hour before the roll tube
cultures are ready for examination. That should be enough to tell you
about the modern Pasteur and his mutant vir