The Rangers kept busy. Only one or two remained in the house to cook and look after Kim and me. The rest lay low during the day and reconnoitred by night so that they were soon familiar with the layout of the virus factory and the surrounding country. They briefed me on every trip they made until I felt I knew it almost as well as if I'd seen it myself. That week, Anders came three times. We always had guards posted and, once he knew he was safe, he relaxed and talked quite volubly in Russian or English. "It may be fortunate for you that you have had Songho Fever," Anders said, during one of these early talks. "Why so?" "The western world has not yet discovered the cause of it, but we have." He was obviously proud of the achievements of his laboratory, in spite of the horrible use to which they had been put. "It's a very simple virus, carried, as you suspected, by mites which live on small rodents. We have now taken that virus and changed it so that it does not require to pass through other animals as part of its life cycle. It can now pass in droplets of sputum from one man to another. In the process of change it has become much more virulent, almost one hundred percent fatal, I would say, with an incubation period of only one or two days. Also it is now extremely infectious and, I believe, far worse than the measlepox. That is the virus we have begun producing, in large quantities, in our factory." "What are the symptoms of this new disease?" I asked. "It acts much like the natural disease except for its extreme rapidity. There is a tremendous increase in the hemorrhagic tendency, with fatal bleeding into the gastrointestinal tract, the urinary system, or sometimes the lungs. The victims die in shock within forty-eight hours, as a rule." "How do you know how it will act on human beings?" I said curiously although I thought I already knew the answer. "Our people are more realistic than yours," he said, quite sincerely. "We offered men condemned to die a pardon if they lived after being exposed to the virus. Most of them agreed." "I'm surprised they got a choice," I said acidly. "Our rulers have softened since the days of Stalin," he replied with a wry smile. "Why didn't you use it instead of the measlepox?" I asked him. "We did not have enough, and also we did not have a vaccine against it until recently. In fact only a few people have been protected. I am one, and so are my helpers in the Laboratory ... and, to some extent, so will you be for a while." "Do you really think so?" "We have found there is limited cross-immunity from having had the natural fever, especially early in convalescence, but that protection wears off rapidly." "What do you mean by limited?" "Let us suppose you had an accident with the vials I shall give you for your return journey and spilled the contents on you. You would be very ill with the fever but you would have a fair chance of living." "Have you given the new syndrome a name?"