"Get it," Dal said, "and the suction machine too. _Quickly!_"

Jack went down the corridor like a shot, and reappeared a moment later
with the big porcelain virus filter and the suction tubing attached to
it. Swiftly Dal dumped the limp little creature in his hand into the top
of the filter jar, poured in some sterile saline, and started the
suction.

Tiger and Jack watched him in amazement. "What are you doing?" Tiger
said.

"Filtering him," Dal said. "He's infected. He must have been exposed to
the plague somehow, maybe when our little Bruckian visitor came on board
the other day. And if it's a virus that's causing this plague, the virus
filter ought to hold it back and still let Fuzzy's molecular structure
through."

They watched and sure enough a bluish-pink fluid began moving down
through the porcelain filter, and dripping through the funnel into the
beaker below. Each drop coalesced in the beaker as it fell until Fuzzy's
whole body had been sucked through the filter and into the jar below. He
was still not quite his normal pink color, but as the filter went dry,
a pair of frightened shoe-button eyes appeared and he poked up a pair of
ears. Presently the fuzz began appearing on his body again.

And on the top of the filter lay a faint gray film. "Don't touch it!"
Dal said. "That's real poison." He slipped on a mask and gloves, and
scraped a bit of the film from the filter with a spatula. "I think we
have it," he said. "The virus that's causing the plague on this