"Do you think the BICUSPID brass will be happy to see its expensive guinea-pigs taking off into space?" Dorsey asked. "Since '29, John, there's been eighty million bucks poured into gnotobiotics here at Central University. We're the payoff. We can hardly expect Dr. McQueen to stand on the launching-pad, tossing roses and shouting Bon Voyage as we blast off forever." "I think they could be persuaded to be, if not enthusiastic, at least resigned to our departure," I said. "It does prisoners good to plot escape-plans, even when they're as obviously fantastic as this one," Dorsey said. "Go on, John." "As you say, our purpose in this adventure would be to escape," I said. "There's no place on earth that can take us, so we're forced to escape into space. We'll have to talk this up around the Big Tank to see how many want to break out with us. What the sex-distribution of the volunteers is, whether we've got the right range of specialists to man a spaceship. Right, Bud?" "It's your dream," Dorsey said. "O.K. Immermann Man appears to have been germ-free," I said. "Perhaps his culture had been gnotobiotic for so long that they'd forgotten the existence of micro-organisms. Landing on other planets, they'd not rediscover the danger of infectious disease till it was too late. Suddenly they'd start falling, dying of illnesses as mysterious to them as the plague was to men of the Renaissance. This may have been the manner in which the original owner of the Immermann skull died, on Mars. We have a reasonable suspicion that there was germ-free human life in our corner of the galaxy twenty thousand years ago. Perhaps, as you suggested, these visitors were members of an exploration party. From Alpha Centauri? Is our ham who hammered out the table-of-squares a member of that gnotobiotic race? Is he our brother in purity?" "Go on, Johnny," Dorsey said. "You ain't even winded, yet." "The _Orion Zeta_ is being built for deep space," I went on. "Some group from earth is certain to set out in her on the four-generation hop to Alpha Centauri. Would it be morally right to allow this group of ambassadors to be made up of 'normal,' contaminated humans? To carry to a possibly defenceless population a mixed bag of goodies like _Micrococcus ureae_, _Bacillus vulgaris_, _Staphylococcus aureus_, _Mycobacterium tuberculosis_--a whole spectrum of benign and malignant bacteria? Remember, Bud, bugs that are benign or only mildly pernicious on earth might prove to be killers away from home." "Lots of maybes," Dorsey said. "Lots of perhapses." * * * * * "I've got one more shaft in the quiver," I said. "This one's got a poisoned point, and it carries the names of our keepers. It's dirty, Bud. It's hardly fair to Dr. McQueen to use such blackmail." "Blackmail sounds like just what we need," Dorsey said.