“Why not?”
“My guess is that he was one of the first deaths.”
“You mean this thing attacks human beings?”
“Preferentially,” Kennon said. “It’s strange, too, because it originated on Santos so far as we know. In fact, some people think that the Varl bred it for a weapon to use against us before we conquered them. They could have done it. Their biological science was of a high enough order.”
“But how did it get here?”
“I wouldn’t know—unless you’ve hired a Santosian or someone else who was affected.”
“We did have a man from Santos. Fellow called Joe Kryla. We had to let him go because he was a nudist. It made a bad impression on the Lani. But that was over a year ago.”
“That’s about the right time to build up a good reservoir of infection. The fatal cases usually don’t show up before an area is pretty well seeded.”
“That’s not so good.”
“Well, there’s one thing in our favor. The Lani are pretty well concentrated into groups. And so far there doesn’t seem to be any infestation outside of Hillside Station—except for two deaths in Lani recently sent from there. If we quarantine those stations and work fast, may be we can stop this before it spreads all over the island.”