Long rows of glass cells where mice lived and died by ones and twos and threes, were in the contagion laboratory, where by Euge's orders only he and Novik worked now. Less flamboyantly than the Dictator, Euge liked to be sure, and he repeated his experiments doggedly until the statistical results leveled off at well-defined norms. Infected mice, segregated in solitary confinement, developed symptoms and died in the ratio of sixty-five out of a hundred. Among similarly exposed animals distributed two to a cage, the mortality averaged somewhat over eighty-seven per cent. In threes, ninety-six per cent. And when he tried isolating a hundred mice, four to a cage, all of them died. In every case, if one mouse in a group took the disease, so did the rest. That was not unreasonable. Re-exposure by contact with more susceptible specimens.... But Euge played with his apparent immunes. He rigged a number of cages so that the occupants, their food and their water were constantly under a fine mist of virus poison. And only a couple of them died. Then, with difficulty and some danger, working in armor, he opened the cages and shifted the living mice about, breaking up groups and creating new ones. In the next few days, the immunes' mortality rate was better than forty per cent. And in an adjoining storeroom, cleared for the purpose, Euge set up another and cruder experiment. Mice that had survived exposure to RM4 were imprisoned in sealed glass runs, and in the room at large were let loose the half-dozen lean alley cats that Novik had procured. The cats roamed hungrily about, mewed and clawed at the glass and had difficulty understanding that there was no way of getting at the mice. And the mice, likewise deceived, ran and squeaked in terror--and quickly succumbed to the convulsions and lethargy of encephalitis. But when he provided opaque shelters, where the mice could conceal themselves part of the time, most of them remained immune. The cats, Euge determined, were wholly immune; massive injections of the virus did no more than infuriate them. Sleeping fitfully in the small hours, he had nightmares in which the carnivora inherited an Earth from which men and rodents had vanished. That was only one of his nightmares. He was as phlegmatic as a man need be in his line of work, but now his peace of mind had gone glimmering, and he was at odds with his world. From the time when mature reflection had replaced the last sparks of youthful rebellion in him, he had been a faithful and coddled servant of the Diktatura, but now he was increasingly certain that his failure to make known his new data was treason. A fatalistic streak tried to comfort him, whispering that even if he spoke it would make no difference. Of only one thing was he sure: he wanted to know.... * * * * *