The women were first, again. This time it was fever, rising unbelievably. There were no gauges, no thermometers here, but the simple touch of the skin served notice that there were several degrees between the sick and the well. The fever rose to the limit of human endurance. Then it increased.

They no longer tried to march. It was obvious that they could not outrun it, or hide from it. The passage ahead expanded into a bubble-dome, another relic of Chthon’s formation, out of place in this section of the caverns, but welcome. The base was filled with clear, shallow water. This was convenient and relatively safe. They settled down, in and beside the pool, waiting for what might come.

At what point, Aton wondered, did brain damage occur? Surely this fever was already cooking the neural tissues of the present victims. There was no specific limit to the temperature a living body could endure, despite the attitude of the medics—but such fever was dangerous. Was this the actual course of the Bedside madness? If so, was it possible to circumvent it?

Was there some way to hold the fever down until the illness ran its course?

He gazed into the water. It was cold; they were far below the fire cycle. Fully immersed—

The fever came. Aton slipped into the pool and lay down, propping himself in such a way that his face alone was exposed to the air. The relief was a blessed thing. But the juices in him were boiling, the tissues curling. The inferno of the blue garnet itself had hardly been as hot as this.

Vaguely he heard scuffling and splashing around him. Something was going on, but he was afraid to sit up and look, afraid to leave the water because of an irrational fear that he would burst into flame the moment he did so.

But he had to. He was finding it difficult to breathe for some reason. There was an obstruction.

Aton sat up and put his hand to his mouth, to find it slimed with a thick layer of putrid paste. Inside, this time, obscuring nasal and glottal passages, instead of external skin. His nose was already entirely blocked. He hooked one finger into his mouth and scraped out a wad of yellow mucus, rank and rotten, which hardened immediately upon exposure to the air. No wonder his breathing was difficult. The stuff clogged the breathing passages by solidifying around them.

He looked around, or tried to, and discovered that a similar pus rimmed his eyes, almost closing them. It was the same for the others, male and female alike; the illness no longer seemed to distinguish between the sexes. Some were already retching, nauseated by the deposits. One man yanked out a huge solid chunk, and there was blood on it from the adhering membrane. No one dared to let it collect, or the choice would be between mutilation and suffocation. And still the fever raged.