Why? Bradshaw ... Samuels ... Cummings ...
A pattern was forming. And it was forming with a viciousness and a regularity which left little doubt as to the probable outcome.
Did that pattern embrace the space ship with its ring of rain-washed skeletons? Had they disintegrated under a pressure as relentless as the swiftly-tightening jaws of a vise. Something was forcing normal men into homicidal insanity. But what?
Gallifa didn't know. But he did know that someone had better come up with some answers—intelligent ones, and very much to the point. Or was it already too late? Was the compound already infected—with each man only waiting to be struck down?
Gallifa draped the limp body of Cummings over his shoulder, and sloshed his way back to the hospital. The doctor grimly made room in the ward room for the new patient. While he was treating the gash in Gallifa's cheek, MacFarland, Hawkins, and some of the early-rising camp cooks brought in two more men from the weather group.
Gallifa watched in tight-lipped silence as the corpsmen administered hypos and set the new cots end to end in the already overcrowded sickbay.
"There were only two restraint jackets," Dr. Thorndyke said jerkily. "We'll have to secure the rest of them to the bunks."
MacFarland nodded. When he spoke, his voice was low and strained. "This is getting out of hand. I think we'd better get everybody over to the Administration Building as soon as possible."
"All right," Gallifa said quietly. "Only—"
"Only what?" MacFarland asked sharply.