fulfill the hopes pinned on it. The plague had taken hold and spread slowly, but, on the bright side, it was doing its work now all the more thoroughly.... There followed a map, showing the estimated extent of plague areas in the enemy lands, and an extrapolation by noted pathologists of the time that must pass, the time that must be endured with courage, fortitude and hard work, before the foe would be blotted from the face of the Earth.

Euge closed his eyes and made comparisons with his private map and with his extrapolations from it, and he smiled unpleasantly yet again.

He asked for and received a bundle of newspapers; it was among those there chanced to be an ill-printed pamphlet issued by the Witnesses of the Lord, which stated positively that, had the original experiments been correctly understood, it would have been plain at once that RM4 was the Judgment Virus, come to slay the wicked and spare the righteous, whose lintels were sprinkled with blood....

Euge read the pamphlet through with a sharp quickening of interest, but when he had finished he shook his head sadly.

He was brought before the Dictator for the last time.

The leader's eyes were sunken and spoke of sleepless nights. They rested on Euge with the cold impersonal enmity of a snake's.

"You lied to me," he stated flatly.

"No," denied the scientist. "I let you interpret the data in your own way. It is not my fault that you believed what you wanted to believe."

The Dictator strove visibly to say what he had planned. "I have recalled you, despite grave suspicions, to—to appeal for assistance. Perhaps you have had pacifist sentiments all along—" Euge made a scornful gesture. "In any case, it is no longer a question of making war. The enemy has practically ceased to fight, now it is the plague that must be conquered—"

"I imagine," said Euge softly, "that your statisticians have told you that RM4 will be pandemic in this country as soon as, or before, it is in the enemy's."

The other's mouth twitched. "You performed exhaustive experiments with the plague; you hold the key to its nature and possibly to a remedy."

"It is true that I learned something about the virus' raison d'etre. Novik must have told you about it. There was nothing which pointed to a preventive, 

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