"And as for actual insanity--of our thirty-five million people still unhospitalized, there are four million cases _of which we know_, each one of which should be committed right now for early paranoid schizophrenia--except that were we to commit them, our essential industries would suffer a manpower loss more devastating than anything the enemy has inflicted upon us. Every one of those four million persons is a major hazard to his neighbors and to his job, but how can we do without them? And what can we do about the unrecognized, sub-clinical cases, which probably total twice as many? How long can we continue operating without a collapse under such conditions?" Carson mopped his brow. "I didn't suspect that it had gone that far." "It has gone that far," Hamelin said icily, "and it is accelerating. Your own project has helped to accelerate it. Col. Mudgett here mentioned the opening of isolated cities to the pestilences. Shall I tell you how Louisville fell?" "A spy again, I suppose," Mudgett said. "No, Colonel. Not a spy. A band of--of vigilantes, of mutineers. I'm familiar with your slogan, 'The Earth to those who fight for it.' Do you know the counter-slogan that's circulating among the people?" They waited. Hamelin smiled and said: "'Let's die on the surface.' "They overwhelmed the military detachment there, put the city administration to death, and blew open the shaft to the surface. About a thousand people actually made it to the top. Within twenty-four hours the city was dead--as the ringleaders had been warned would be the outcome. The warning didn't deter them. Nor did it protect the prudent citizens who had no part in the affair." Hamelin leaned forward suddenly. "People won't wait to be told when it's their turn to be re-educated. They'll be tired of waiting, tired to the point of insanity of living at the bottom of a hole. They'll just go. "And that, gentlemen, will leave the world to the enemy ... or, more likely, the rats. They alone are immune to everything by now." There was a long silence. At last Carson said mildly: "Why aren't _we_ immune to everything by now?" "Eh? Why--the new generations. They've never been exposed." "We still have a reservoir of older people who lived through the war: people who had one or several of the new diseases that swept the world, some as many as five, and yet recovered. They still have their immunities; we know; we've tested them. We know from sampling that no new disease has been introduced by either side in over ten years now. Against all the known ones, we have immunization techniques, anti-sera, antibiotics, and so on. I suppose you get your shots every six months like all the rest of us; we should all be very hard to infect now, and such infections as do take should run mild courses." Carson held the under-secretary's eyes grimly. "Now, answer me this question: why is it that, despite all these protections, _every single person_ in an opened city dies?"