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especially liked the big one of the Last Supper mounted in back of the TV; it had come with sixty different oil colors, Sally had told her, and it took almost three months to finish. It was a real work of art.
    Just as “The Doctors” came back on, baby Cheryl started to cry, a whooping, ugly yell that was broken by bursts of coughing.
    Lila put out her cigarette and hurried into the bedroom. Eva, the four-year-old, was still fast asleep, but Cheryl was lying on her back in her crib, and her face was going an alarming purple color. Her cries began to sound strangled.
    Lila, who was not afraid of the croup after seeing both of her own through bouts with it, picked her up by the heels and swatted her firmly on the back. She had no idea if Dr. Spock recommended this sort of treatment or not, because she had never read him. It worked nicely on Baby Cheryl. She emitted a froggy croak and suddenly spat an amazing wad of yellow phlegm out onto the floor.
    “Better?” Lila asked.
    “Yeth,” said Baby Cheryl. She was almost asleep again.
    Lila wiped up the mess with a Kleenex. She couldn’t remember ever having seen a baby cough up so much snot all at once.
    She sat down in front of “The Doctors” again, frowning. She lit another cigarette, sneezed over the first puff, and then began to cough.

CHAPTER 4
    It was an hour past nightfall.
    Starkey sat alone at a long table, sifting through sheets of yellow flimsy. Their contents dismayed him. He had been serving his country for thirty-six years, beginning as a scared West Point plebe. He had won medals. He had spoken with Presidents, had offered them advice, and on occasion his advice had been taken. He had been through dark moments before, plenty of them, but this . . .
    He was scared, so deeply scared he hardly dared admit it to himself. It was the kind of fear that could drive you mad.
    On impulse he got up and went to the wall where the five blank TV monitors looked into the room. As he got up his knee bumped the table, causing one of the sheets of flimsy to fall off the edge. It seesawed lazily down through the mechanically purified air and landed on the tile, half in the table’s shadow and half out. Someone standing over it and looking down would have seen this:
    OT CONFIRMED
    SEEMS REASONABLY
    STRAIN CODED 848-AB
    CAMPION, (W.) SALLY
    ANTIGEN SHIFT AND MUTATION.
    HIGH RISK/EXCESS MORTALITY
    AND COMMUNICABILITY ESTIMATED
    REPEAT 99.4%. ATLANTA PLAGUE CENTER
    UNDERSTANDS. TOP SECRET BLUE FOLDER.
    ENDS.
    p-t-2223 1 2a
    Starkey pushed a button under the middle screen and the picture flashed on with the unnerving suddenness of solid-state components.
    It showed the western California desert, looking east. It was desolate, made even more eerie by the reddish tinge of infrared photography.
    It’s out there, straight ahead, Starkey thought. Project Blue.
    The fright tried to wash over him again. He reached into his pocket and brought out a pink and yellow capsule. What his daughter would call a “downer.” Names didn’t matter; results did. He dry-swallowed it, his hard, unseamed face wrinkling for a moment as it went down.
    Project Blue.
    He looked at the other blank monitors, and then punched up pictures on all of them. 4 and 5 showed labs. 4 was physics, 5 was viral biology. The vi-bi lab was full of animal cages, mostly for guinea pigs, rhesus monkeys, and a few dogs. All of them appeared to be sleeping. In the physics lab a small centrifuge was still turning around and around. Starkey had complained about that. He had complained bitterly. There was something spooky about that centrifuge going around and around while Dr. Ezwick lay dead on the floor nearby, sprawled out like a scarecrow that had tipped over in a high wind.
    They had explained to him that the centrifuge was on the same circuit as the lights, and if they turned off the centrifuge the lights would go, too. And the cameras down there were not equipped for infrared. Starkey understood. Some more brass might