PANDEMIC

_Generally,
human beings don't do
totally useless things
consistently and widely.
So--maybe there is
something to it--_


"We call it Thurston's Disease for two perfectly good reasons," Dr.
Walter Kramer said. "He discovered it--and he was the first to die of
it." The doctor fumbled fruitlessly through the pockets of his lab coat.
"Now where the devil did I put those matches?"

"Are these what you're looking for?" the trim blonde in the gray
seersucker uniform asked. She picked a small box of wooden safety
matches from the littered lab table beside her and handed them to him.

"Ah," Kramer said. "Thanks. Things have a habit of getting lost around
here."

"I can believe that," she said as she eyed the frenzied disorder around
her. Her boss wasn't much better than his laboratory, she decided as she
watched him strike a match against the side of the box and apply the
flame to the charred bowl of his pipe. His long dark face became half
obscured behind a cloud of bluish smoke as he puffed furiously. He
looked like a lean untidy devil recently escaped from hell with his
thick brows, green eyes and lank black hair highlighted intermittently
by the leaping flame of the match. He certainly didn't look like a
pathologist. She wondered if she was going to like working with him, and
shook her head imperceptibly. Possibly, but not probably. It might be
difficult being cooped up here with him day after day. Well, she could
always quit if things got too tough. At least there was that
consolation.

He draped his lean body across a lab stool and leaned his elbows on
its back. There was a faint smile on his face as he eyed her
quizzically. "You're new," he said. "Not just to this lab but to the
Institute."