But you still
didn't treat him, and he's cured. Face it, Doc, that plasma is no good
inside the body."
His hand tightened on Doc's shoulder again. "We're not blaming you. We
don't judge a man here except by what he is. Maybe the stuff helps a
little. We'll go on using it when we get it; tell everybody you were a
mite optimistic, so they'll figure it's a gamble, but have a little hope
left. And you keep trying. Something cured it in Tom. Now you find out
what."
Doc watched him go out numbly, and turned to Chris.
"It can't be right," she said shakily. "You and Swanee were cured. Maybe
it was the accelerator. It had to be something."
"You didn't have the accelerator," he accused.
"No, and I've still got live bugs. I was never supposed to be cured, so
I expected to see just what I saw. How I missed the fact that Tom should
have been like me, I don't know. Damn it, oh, damn it!"
He's never seen her cry before, except in fury. But she mastered it
almost at once, shaking tears out of her eyes. "All right. Plasma works
in a bottle but not in an adult body. Maybe something works in the body
but not in a bottle."
"Maybe. And maybe some people are just naturally immune after it reaches
a certain stage. Maybe we ran into coincidence."
But he didn't believe that, any more than she did. The answer had to be
in the room. He'd taken a massive dose of the disease and been cured in
a few hours.
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