Chris prepared a slide in dull silence. The familiar cell was there when Doc looked through the microscope. He picked up one of the little creatures and cut it open, removing one of the foetuses.
“Make a film of that,” he suggested.
She worked rapidly, scraping out the almost microscopic brain, dissolving out the fatty substance, and transferring the result to a film. This time, even at full magnification, there was no sign of the filaments that were always present in diseased flesh. The results were the same for the other samples they made.
“Something about the very young animal or a secretion from the mother’s organs keeps the bug from working.” Doc reached for a bracky weed and accepted a light from Chris without thinking of it. “Every kid I’ve heard about contracted the plague betwe
