“You are going to be shot,” he said with a terrifying quietness, “if you answer my questions truthfully. If you do not answer them, you will not be shot. But you will beg very pitifully for a chance to reconsider and earn a firing squad! Do you understand?”
Surgeon General Mors seated himself with great composure. His attempt at shaving had not been very successful. He was in every way a disreputable contrast to the invading general’s dapper splendor.
“I asked for this interview,” said Mors matter-of-factly, “to ask if you are prepared to surrender the troops under your command. You mentioned once that I was the ranking officer of my army in your hands. I doubt that you have captured any other. So I seem to be the person to make the demand.”
General Vladek made a violent gesture. Then he composed himself. But he breathed quickly, and his cheek twitched, and his teeth showed when he smiled. He did not look conspicuously sane.
“What is this epidemic?” he demanded in a deadly quietness. “My men die at the rate of ten thousand a day! Your citizens do not! We have lost thirty-five thousand men in four days, and so far not more than six civilians native to Kantolia have been stricken! What is it, Mors?”
Surgeon General Mors leaned back in his chair. He showed no sigh of triumph.
“It would be an organism we developed,” he said heavily. “The official designation is CK-211. I understand that it is an artificial mutation, a variation on a fairly common bacterium. I have been told that it could be described as a dwarf form of one of the diplococci. It is hardly larger than a virus molecule. You would not expect me to be more precise.”
General Viadek’s nostrils distended.
“Ah-h-h-h!” he said with deadly softness. “It is no normal plague! it is biological war! Too cowardly to fight as honorable men fight, your nation—”
“There is no war between our countries,” said Surgeon General Mors, prosaically, “and you invaded our country like a brigand, making your own rules for attack. So we made our own rules for defense. If you surrender the troops under your command, there is a good chance that we can save their lives. Have you given thought to the matter?”
General Viadek’s cheeks twitched. His hands shook with hate.
“Tell me the truth,” he said hoarsely, “and I will have you shot. I will concede so much! I promise that I will have you shot! But if you do not—”
“I think you are being absurd, General,” said Mors stolidly. “As I recall the details, death occurs on the third day after infection, usually within a few hours of the appearance of the first noticeable symptoms. Sulfa, streptomycin, and penicillin are ineffective against this particular strain, which was especially bred up to be resistant to such drugs. Also, from my recollection, the patient is infectious almost from the instant of his own infection, I think you understate your losses. Moreover, in an epidemic of this sort, the death rate should mount geometrically until natural immunes and the lack of susceptibles lower it.”
Mors paused, and said inquiringly, “You have ordered your men to abstain from all contact with the civil population?”
General Viadek panted with fury.
“I suspected intention when the plague began! My medical corps insisted that since only my men were infected, its cause must be contaminated supplies from home! I ordered my troops to subsist on local supplies and distributed our rations among the people—for revenge in case your spies in our supply system were responsible! But the rate of infection tripled! And your people do not die! My men die! Only my men.”
Surgeon General Mors nodded. His eyes were sober, yet very resolute.
“That is natural,” he observed. “Our population is immune.” Then he said explanatorily. “We have immunized practically our entire population against certain formerly prevalent diseases. And included in the injection given to each citizen was a fraction of a very interesting formula which produces immunity to diplococci in a quite new fashion.”
The dapper General Vladek sat frozen and speechless, in a rage so murderous that he seemed almost calm.
“It makes symbiosis possible,” said Surgeon General Mors, in an interested tone. “It produces a condition under which the human body and the entire series of diplococci can live together. It does not produce the relationship. That requires the organisms, too. It merely makes the relationship possible. We have had practically no diplococci infections in our country for years back. Such diseases happen to be very rare among us. But the inoculation makes it possible for any of our inoculated citizens to establish a truly symbiotic relationship in case he encounters them. It is like the adjustment of intestinal flora and colon bacilli to us. They do not harm us, and we do not harm them. You follow the reasoning?”
General Vladek’s voice was quite inhuman. “How were my men infected?” he demanded. His voice cracked. “Tell me, how were my men infected? My medical corps says—”
“We did not infect them,” said Surgeon General Mors calmly. “We infected only our own population. On the morning of your invasion we spread the infection in the drinking water, in the food. We infected our own people—who could not be harmed by it—and then I came to you and warned you to keep your soldiers aloof from our people. I also advised you to get your troops out of our country for their own safety, but you would not believe me. Because you see”—his tone was absolutely commonplace—“every citizen of our country is now a carrier of the plague of which your soldiers die. A carrier. Not suffering from it, but able to give it to anyone not immunized against it. You have heard of typhoid carriers. We are a nation of carriers, bearers of the plague which is destroying your army.”
General Viadek looked like an image of frozen, despairing rage. His face was gray. His cheek twitched. He had led an invading army triumphantly into this province.
Then without one shot being fired, his army had ceased to be an army, and a sentry lay dead on the street before his headquarters.
“We did not like to do it,” said Surgeon General Mors, heavily. “But we had to defend ourselves. The soil of our nation is now deadly to your troops. If you murdered and burned every citizen of our country, our land would still be fatal to your men and to the settlers who might follow them. You cannot make use of Kantolia. You cannot make use of any of the rest of our country. And the loot you have sent back has spread infection in your cities. Couriers have carried it back and transmitted it before they died. The quislings you sent to your country to be rewarded for betraying their own—they were carriers, too. The plague must rage horribly in your nation. Other countries will close their frontiers in quarantine, if they have not already done so. You nation is destroyed unless you let us save it. I beg that you will give us the power.”
Then Surgeon General Mors said very wearily: “I hope you will surrender your army, General Viadek. Your men, as our prisoners, will become our patients and we will cure them. Otherwise they will die. Permit us, and we will check the epidemic you created in your own country by invading us. We did not defend ourselves without knowing our weapon thoroughly. But you will have to give us the power to rescue you. You and your nation must surrender without conditions. ...”
General Vladek stood up. He rang a bell. An officer and soldiers entered.
“Take him out,” panted General Vladek hoarsely. Then his voice rose to a scream. “Take him out and kill him!”
The officer moved. Then there was a clatter. A rifle had dropped to the floor. One of the soldiers staggered. He reeled against one of the steel filing cases and clung there desperately. Sweat poured out on his face; he was ashen white. He knew, of course, what was the matter. He sobbed. He was already a dead man, though he still moved and breathed. Great tears welled out of his eyes. The other soldiers wavered—and fled.