“Guranin says it sounds like meningitis,” the navigator suggested.

“It isn’t meningitis.”

O’Brien waited a moment, but the doctor was filling a new hypodermic and seemed indisposed to comment further. He addressed Ghose’s back. “How about those pictures that Belov took? They been developed yet? I’d like to see them.”

The captain turned away from the porthole and walked around the control room with his hands clasped behind his back. “All of Belov’s gear.” he said in a low voice, “is under quarantine in the hospital along with Belov. Those are the doctor’s orders.”

“Oh. Too bad.” O’Brien felt he should leave, but curiosity kept him talking. There was something these men were worried about that was bigger even than the fear niggling the Russians. “He told me over the radio that the Martians had been distinctly humanoid. Amazing, isn’t it? Talk about parallel evolution!”

Schneider set the hypodermic down carefully. “Parallel evolution,” he muttered. “Parallel evolution and parallel pathology. Although it doesn’t seem to act quite like any terrestrial bug. Parallel susceptibility, though. That you could say definitely.”

“You mean you think Belov has picked up a Martian disease?” O’Brien let the concept careen through his mind. “But that city was so old. No germ could survive anywhere near that long!”

The little doctor thumped his small paunch decisively. “We have no reason to believe it couldn’t. Some germs we know of on Earth might be able to. As spores—in any one of a number of ways.”

“But if Belov—”

“That’s enough,” the captain said. “Doctor, you shouldn’t think out loud. Keep your mouth shut about this, O’Brien, until we decide to make a general announcement. Next man!” he called.