"Oh, about four days," I guessed, "or, perhaps a day more or less. We aren't quite sure of the incubation period yet, and there's always a chance of a mutation with a shorter period if a synthetic virus is liable. We don't know that either."
"It's practically certain you'll be sterile, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid so," I said ruefully.
"What about convalescent serum, wouldn't it help?" she asked hopefully.
"If I got a big enough and strong enough dose, it might. There isn't any ready yet. I asked Hallam just before we left this morning. If it isn't injected early it may modify the disease but probably wouldn't prevent it completely. I might still be sterile. It doesn't always work anyway."
"What about me?"
"Last night, before I went to bed, Dr. Hallam got a report that very few women had shown symptoms of sex gland involvement. The biopsies taken by Bruce Thompson from the ovaries of women who have had the flu showed only minor changes that Smith could detect. That isn't absolute proof that everything is all right, of course. It will take time to find that out."
"What about miscarriages in infected women," she persisted.
"They checked that out too. There have been occasional cases, but no more than you are likely to see with any heavy fever. That ferret may have been an exception. Perhaps it's a peculiarity of the ferret's reaction to the virus. It may prove to be a rare complication in people. Of course we don't know yet if the children of infected mothers will be born deformed in any way, as they often are in German measles. This virus may have no such power."
"Well, that's a chance I'll have to take," she said.