was stopped or transferred to the Routine Lab. The Research Unit was cleaned and waiting for us. Hallam and I went through the shower routine first and then sat waiting at the table in the living room for Pat. She came in soon afterwards, her cheeks shining from scrubbing and her pink lips, devoid of lipstick, smiling as she tried to tie up her hair with a towel. "Gracious, that needle shower is rough," she said. "I've scrubbed so hard I must surely be sterile." "T hope not, baby," I said. "I've got plans for your future." "Really, John, sometimes you go too far." She blushed as Hallam laughed. "What do we do now, Chief?" I said. "I'm not particularly interested in trying to find out the structure of this virus," Hallam said. "We'll let Biochemistry and the Routine Lab people handle that. I've warned them to be particularly careful. What I should like to do up here is to find out if the virus has any hidden power ... if it does more to people than just give them the flu. The thing that bothers me is the time element. Right now nobody is really worried. I have to find enough evidence to convince the government so they'll do something. We'll keep passing the virus through chicken embryos ... we know it can be kept alive that way; and we'll put it in Hela cells and any other tissue culture we have, both human and animal. They aren't ordinarily suitable for flu virus but with this thing one can't tell." He turned to me. "How many ferrets have we?" "I can't say exactly, I haven't been here since my vacation. But there were plenty." "And monkeys?" "Do you want them for monkey kidney culture, or what?" "No, I want to give them the flu and then see what happens. It could affect ferrets in a different way than human beings. We can't use people so it has to be monkeys." "Well, we have more than a dozen, if we take all varieties." "That'll do nicely. Pat, you might start on mice after you inoculate a fresh batch of eggs. John and I will tackle the ferrets and monkeys. They're difficult for one person to handle easily. And we'll do hamsters and guinea pigs too. Something ought to show up in a day or two." Hours later it was finished. It isn't the easiest job in the world to inoculate ferrets and monkeys with virus, especially when it had to be put in their noses. Those nasty little weasels can bite and even through the puncture proof gloves I felt the pinch when one of them got loose. The monkeys weren't much better. Finally, covered with sweat inside my suit, I came back through the chemical shower, the water shower and the dryer and opened the headpiece for a breath of fresh air. "You'd think they could have air-conditioned these damn suits," I grumbled. "Say Pat, when do we eat?" Pat had just got the helmet off and was fluffing her brown curls, flattened down by the green surgeon's cap she had been wearing underneath it. "Just as soon as you leave and let me get out of this diver's suit," she said.