Lister tries reasoning with Epideme directly through a communication link, but has no luck in convincing the virus to leave. Kochanski comes up with a drastic plan to save Lister's life: coax the virus to move down toward Lister's hand and then cut off the hand, isolating the virus outside his body. However, they end up cutting off Lister's right arm instead of the left one as he had requested, and they only manage to dispose of part of the Epideme virus, with the end result that they only succeed in prolonging Lister's life by an hour. Lister sneaks aboard the "Leviathan" with some explosives, intending to kill both himself and Epideme, but the virus talks him out of it by revealing that the destination of the "Leviathan" was Delta VII, a research base that might have a cure.