last support when everything else has given way. "So you accept the plague as good? I saw one of your propaganda sheets with the phrase 'Judgment Virus'. An apt name. But it does not judge as men do; it has its own peculiar standards, that virus I found." Euge's voice was level, colorless; he did not look at the others to hold their attention or to see if they were listening. "I will tell you what it is...."

2

Euge was busy in the microscope room, examining tissue from the last run of test animals, when the communicator buzzed and told him that the Dictator had arrived and wanted to see him at once.

He left the room by way of an airlock, in which—Dictatorial summons notwithstanding—he spent full five minutes under a spray of disinfectant chemicals and radiations; after the lock had cleared he stripped off the airtight armor he wore without touching any of its outer surfaces, and left the chamber quickly.

The Dictator's visit was a signal mark of Euge's importance, or at least that of his virus research; there was no doubt that Euge was highly thought of and trusted. His dossier was that of a man who extended his scientist's worship of "Truth" even into the very different field of human relations. The Diktatura could use such men.

Euge knew his status, had given it little thought for years. It was his private social contract, the working agreement by which the powers that be gave him the priceless opportunity to do research, in return for the—to him—worthless byproducts of same.

Now, he thought as he went up in the elevator, the Dictator would be impatient—or at least eager—to hear the results of the newest experiments. The first tests of the new strain showed promise, by inoculations of a monkey, Macacus rhesus. The last series of experimental animals had belonged to another primate species. Homo sapiens. That was the crucial proof, whether men infected with Virus RM4-2197—R for rubeola, or measles, M4 for fourth-stage mutant, the rest the classification number of the culture—would die swiftly, surely, with a minimum of fuss. That was routine, too, but the results were not.

The results had kept Euge lying awake for some nights now. Awake, open-eyed, face to face with himself as he had not been within his memory.

He turned briskly into the contagion laboratory, deliberately making delay, explaining to himself that it would be best to have all the data on the new culture 

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