The psychos would probably name the Marties' current condition Acute Virulent Mass Burke-itis and laugh it off. But the psychos don't know Mike as Bill and I do. So Bill insists it's our duty as Earth citizens to divulge everything, and I'm inclined to agree. The thought of a whole planetful of Marties obsessed with Mike's sense of humor is appalling. Telling this really should be Mike's job--he's the only human who ever made contact with the Martian Thing--but he and Polly live at Venus Central now and the Professor is out there now visiting his grandchildren, Mike, Jr. and Bridget Dorrene. So I'm stuck. But I still think Bill ran in his own dice when we rolled to see which of us had to write this. * * * * * The Malignant Inertia Complex started while we were in space and was already pretty widespread when Bill and Mike and I brought the _Banshee_ in from a Venus haul, and during the three weeks we spent getting ready for the Mars transit and installing the Professor's latest special equipment I had the creeping geevils constantly. There was a sour, stagnant undercurrent to life in Spaceport City. For once the rowdy place was actually quiet, dead in fact, and although there were a dozen ships in, the Ursa Major Tavern was almost deserted. Day and night the telaudio jabbered about the Complex, mostly learned doctors issuing statements that it was a purely psychological phenomenon, a sort of hysteria induced by this, that and the other factor in a civilization altering too rapidly for human minds to adjust. Most of them followed the line that the disease would cure itself soon, but behind their seven-jet words they seemed a bit uneasy themselves. And I'll never forget the particularly learned gent who suffered an attack right in the middle of his broadcast speech. He was talking reassuringly when all of a sudden his voice petered out. His eyes got all glazed and his face took on an empty look, and he sat there staring at the mike until the control room cut him off. It gave me the shivers. It was like that all over Earth. Each day more and more people got longer spells where they'd do absolutely nothing. It was raising the very devil with organized civilization and nobody could do anything about it. And the worst of it was that the victims didn't seem to mind. Everything was slowing down, and it made it plenty tough to do business with the outfits that furnished our supplies. People kept acting more and more like zombies--or Martians. But nobody thought of connecting the Complex with the Cultural Emissaries. The whole thing hit me right in my pet phobia. * * * * * Then it was blast-off morning, with me trying to keep my mind off my phobia and those nagging fears that had nothing to do with space-hopping. I cornered the Professor in the _Banshee's_ control room.