ant
which has adapted to some particular intermediate host on this world.
Until now, its final host was either man or Varl. Now we have a third,
the Lani. And apparently they are the most susceptible of the three.
It never kills Varl. And humans, while they're more susceptible, only
occasionally succumb, but the Lani appear to be the most susceptible of
all. I've never seen an infestation like those Lani had. Their livers
were literally crawling with flukes." Kennon paused and looked at
Jordan. "You following me?" he asked.

"Slowly and poorly," Jordan said. "You're assuming too much knowledge on
my part."

Kennon chuckled. "You can't say I didn't warn you."

"Well--I'm really interested in only one thing--how do you break the
parasite up in business?"

"There's only one sure way--and that's to break the life cycle. The
technique is thousands of years old, but it's just as good today as it
was then."

"Good--then let's do it."

"To make a varrit stew," Kennon said, "one must first catch the varrit."

"Huh?"

"We have to learn the beastie's life cycle before we can break it,
and like I said, it adapts. Its intermediate host can be any one of a
hundred cold-blooded animals."

"Is there no place else where it can be attacked?"

"Sure, in the body of the final host, or on its final encysting place.
But that won't eliminate the bug."

"Why not?"

"It'll still survive in its infective form and enough Lani will get
subacute dosage to propagate it until the time is right for another
epizootic. We have to kill its intermediate host--or hosts if it has
more than one. That will keep it from growing and will ultimately
eradicate it."

Judson scratched his head. "It sounds complicated."

"It is. It's so complicated that once the fluke becomes well established
it's virtually impossible to eradicate."

"And you think it can be done here?"

"We can give it the old college try. But it's going to take some
detective work."

"Where do we start?"

"With Bay Ten. We look it over real well. Then we check the diet and
habits of the Lani. Then we check each individual Lani. Then we check
the life cycle of the parasite. Somewhere along the line if we're lucky
we'll find a weak point that can be attacked."

"That's a big order," Blalok said.

"It can't be helped. That's the way it is. Of course, we're lucky that
we're on an isolated land mass. That gives us an advantage. We should be
able to clean this up."

"How l