“Captain,” O’Brien inquired, “what about trying to get in touch with Earth some way or other? At least to tell them what’s hitting us, for the guidance of future expeditions. I know we don’t have a radio transmitter powerful enough to operate at such a distance, but couldn’t we work out a rocket device that would carry a message and might have a chance of being poked up?”

“I’ve thought of that. It would be very difficult, but granted that we could do it, do you have any way of ensuring that we wouldn’t send the contagion along with the message? And, given the conditions on Earth at the moment, I don’t think we have to worry about the possibility of another expedition if we don’t get back. You know as well as I that within eight or nine months at the most—” The captain broke off. “I seem to have a slight headache,” he said mildly.

Even the men who had been working hard in the hospital and were now lying down got to their feet at this.

“Are you sure?” Guranin asked him desperately. “Couldn’t it just be a—”

“I’m sure. Well, it had to happen, sooner or later. I think you all know your duties in this situation and will work together well enough. And you’re each one capable of running the show. So. In case the matter comes up, in case of any issue that involves a command decision, the captain will be that one among you whose last name starts with the lowest letter alphabetically. Try to live in peace—for as much time as you may have left. Good-bye.”

He turned and walked out of the engine room and into the hospital, a thin, dark-skinned man on whose head weariness sat like a crown.

By supper-time, that evening, only two men had still not hospitalized themselves: Preston O’Brien and Semyon Kolevitch. They went through the minutiae of intravenous feeding, of cleaning the patients and keeping them comfortable, with dullness and apathy.