was something that could usually be determined. Chris
could testify to that, anyhow, since she'd kept a lot of them for him.

At best, there would be a chance for some compromise and perhaps some
clue for them that might eventually end the plague. They had enough men
to work on it, and billions in equipment. At worst, he should gain a
little time.

"Cheer up, Chris," he told her as he climbed through the little airlock.
"Maybe Harkness will turn up the cure before our negotiations break
down. He has the whole of Northport Hospital to play with. They haven't
tried to chase him out of there yet. After all, we almost found
something with no equipment except wild imaginations."

She shook her head as the tractor began moving. "Shut up! I've got
enough trouble without your coming down with logorrhea. Don't be a
fool."

"Why change now?" he asked her. "Everything I've done has been because I
am a fool. I guess my luck lasted longer than I could expect. And I'm
still fool enough to think that the solution has to turn up eventually.
We know it has to be in that room. Damn it, we must know it--if we could
only think straight now."

She reached over and touched his hand, but made no comment. They had
been over that statement of desperation too many times already. But it
kept nagging at him--something in the room, something in the room!
Something so common that nobody noticed it!

They passed a crowd chasing down a runner. Something in that room could
have saved the unlucky man. It could have saved Mars, perhaps.

He growled for the hundredth time, cursing his fatigue-numbed mind. Too
little sleep, too much coffee and bracky....

He reached for the package of weed, realizing that he would miss it on
Earth, if he ever got there. Like everything here on the planet, he'd
begun by detesting it and wound up finding it the thing he wanted to
keep forever. He lighted the bracky and sat smoking, watching Lou drive.
When the first was finished, he lighted another from the butt.

She put out a hand and took it away. "Please, Dan. I can stand the
stuff, but I'll never like it, and the tractor's stuffy enough already.
I've taken enough of it. And it keeps reminding me of our test--the
three of you stinking up the place, puffing and blowing that out, while
I couldn't even get a breath of air...."

She was getting logorrhea herself now and--

The answer finally hit him! He jerked around, making a grab for Lou's
shoulder, motioning