Produced by Greg Weeks, Dave Lovelace, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net _PANDEMIC_ _BY J. F. BONE_ _Generally, human beings don't do totally useless things consistently and widely. So--maybe there is something to it--_ "We call it Thurston's Disease for two perfectly good reasons," Dr. Walter Kramer said. "He discovered it--and he was the first to die of it." The doctor fumbled fruitlessly through the pockets of his lab coat. "Now where the devil did I put those matches?" "Are these what you're looking for?" the trim blonde in the gray seersucker uniform asked. She picked a small box of wooden safety matches from the littered lab table beside her and handed them to him. "Ah," Kramer said. "Thanks. Things have a habit of getting lost around here." "I can believe that," she said as she eyed the frenzied disorder around her. Her boss wasn't much better than his laboratory, she decided as she watched him strike a match against the side of the box and apply the flame to the charred bowl of his pipe. His long dark face became half obscured behind a cloud of bluish smoke as he puffed furiously. He looked like a lean untidy devil recently escaped from hell with his thick brows, green eyes and lank black hair highlighted intermittently by the leaping flame of the match. He certainly didn't look like a pathologist. She wondered if she was going to like working with him, and shook her head imperceptibly. Possibly, but not probably. It might be difficult being cooped up here with him day after day. Well, she could always quit if things got too tough. At least there was that consolation. He draped his lean body across a lab stool and leaned his elbows on its back. There was a faint smile on his face as he eyed her quizzically. "You're new," he said. "Not just to this lab but to the Institute." [Illustration: ILLUSTRATED BY BARBERIS] She nodded. "I am, but how did you know?" "Thurston's Disease. Everyone in the Institute knows that name for the plague, but few outsiders do." He smiled sardonically. "Virus pneumonic plague--that's a better term for public use. After all, what good does it do to advertise a doctor's stupidity?" She eyed him curiously. "_De mortuis?_" she asked. He nodded. "That's about it. We may condemn our own, but we don't like laymen doing it. And besides, Thurston had good intentions. He never dreamed this would happen." "The road to hell, so I hear, is paved with good intentions." "Undoubtedly," Kramer said dryly. "Incidentally, did you apply for this job or were you assigned?" "I applied."