"Someone should have warned you I dislike cliches," he said. He paused a moment and eyed her curiously. "Just why did you apply?" he asked. "Why are you imprisoning yourself in a sealed laboratory which you won't leave as long as you work here. You know, of course, what the conditions are. Unless you resign or are carried out feet first you will remain here ... have you considered what such an imprisonment means?" "I considered it," she said, "and it doesn't make any difference. I have no ties outside and I thought I could help. I've had training. I was a nurse before I was married." "Divorced?" "Widowed." Kramer nodded. There were plenty of widows and widowers outside. Too many. But it wasn't much worse than in the Institute where, despite precautions, Thurston's disease took its toll of life. "Did they tell you this place is called the suicide section?" he asked. She nodded. "Weren't you frightened?" "Of dying? Hardly. Too many people are doing it nowadays." He grimaced, looking more satanic than ever. "You have a point," he admitted, "but it isn't a good one. Young people should be afraid of dying." "You're not." "I'm not young. I'm thirty-five, and besides, this is my business. I've been looking at death for eleven years. I'm immune." "I haven't your experience," she admitted, "but I have your attitude." "What's your name?" Kramer said. "Barton, Mary Barton." "Hm-m-m. Well, Mary--I can't turn you down. I need you. But I could wish you had taken some other job." "I'll survive." He looked at her with faint admiration in his greenish eyes. "Perhaps you will," he said. "All right. As to your duties--you will be my assistant, which means you'll be a dishwasher, laboratory technician, secretary, junior pathologist, and coffee maker. I'll help you with all the jobs except the last one. I make lousy coffee." Kramer grinned, his teeth a white flash across the darkness of his face. "You'll be on call twenty-four hours a day, underpaid, overworked, and in constant danger until we lick Thurston's virus. You'll be expected to handle the jobs of three people unless I can get more help--and I doubt that I can. People stay away from here in droves. There's no future in it." Mary smiled wryly. "Literally or figuratively?" she asked. He chuckled. "You have a nice sense of graveyard humor," he said. "It'll help. But don't get careless. Assistants are hard to find." She shook her head. "I won't. While I'm not afraid of dying I don't want to do it. And I have no illusions about the danger. I was briefed quite thoroughly." "They wanted you to work upstairs?" She nodded. * * * * *