ed to assimilate the news. But once the surprise was gone, he
found it meant very little. Maybe his revolutionary zeal had cooled,
once the Lobby men had pulled out. "We'll need a lot more plasma than
there is in Southport," he said.

"Not so much, maybe," Jake denied. "Doc, three of the men you injected
were shot down as runners. Your plasma's no good."

"It takes time to work, Jake. I told you there might be a case or two
that would be too close to the edge. Three is more than I expected; but
it's not impossible."

"There was plenty of time. They blew after we got back from Southport."
Jack dropped his hand on Doc's shoulder, and his face softened.
"Harkness tested every man you injected. He finished half an hour ago.
Five showed dead bugs. The rest of them weren't helped at all."

Doc fumbled for a weed, trying to think. But his thoughts refused to
focus. "Five!"

"Five out of two hundred. That's about average. And what about Tom? He
was jumping around after the test last night, telling how you'd cured
him, how he'd seen the dead bugs; but he never had the jumping headache,
and you never gave him the plasma! He's got dead bugs, though. Harkness
tested him."

Doc let his realization of his own idiocy sink in until he could believe
it. Jake was right. Tom had never been treated, yet Chris had reported
dead bugs. They'd all been so ready to believe in miracles that no one
had been able to think straight after the long wait.

"There was a bump on his neck--a small one," he said slowly. "Jake, he
must have caught it, even if he seemed immune. If he was taking anodyne
anyway for something--or unconscious--"

"He was up in Northport six years ago for a kidney operation," Jake
admitted doubtfully. "We had to chip in to pay for it. But you still
didn't treat him, and he's cured. Face it, Doc, that plasma is no good
inside the body."

His hand tightened on Doc's shoulder again. "We're not blaming you. We
don't judge a man here except by what he is. Maybe the stuff helps a
little. We'll go on using it when we get it; tell everybody you were a
mite optimistic, so they'll figure it's a gamble, but have a little hope
left. And you keep trying. Something cured it in Tom. Now you find out
what."

Doc watched him go out numbly, and turned to Chris.

"It can't be right," she said shakily. "You and Swanee were cured. Maybe
it was the accelerator. It had to be something."

"You didn't have the accelerator," he accused.