ored liquid.

"When are you leaving, Dick?" the woman asked.

"In about forty minutes. They're sending an auto-pickup."

"Oh, no!"

"Now don't start worrying. They have got the bugs out of it by this
time. The auto-pickups are entirely trustworthy."

"Sure, that's what the army says."

"In theory they should be even more reliable than--"

"I wish you'd wait for the hospital shuttle."

"And miss the chance to address Congress this year? We've worked too
long for this; I don't want to muff it now. We've all the statistical
proof we need, even to convince those pinchpenny halfwits. During the
past eight years we've handled more than a thousand cases up here. On
Earth they were pronounced incurable; we've sent better than eighty per
cent back in good health after an average stay of fourteen months."

"No medical man has ever questioned the efficiency of cosmic radiation
and a reduced atmospheric gravity, Dick."

"It's just our so-called statesmen, always yapping about the budget. But
this time we have the cost problem licked, too. For a year and a half
the ore they send up from Rythar has paid for our entire operation."

"I didn't know that."

"We've kept it under wraps, so the politicians wouldn't cut our
appropriations."

Their glass tubes were full, and they turned toward the door. "It isn't
right," the woman persisted, "for them not to send a piloted shuttle
after you, Dick. It isn't dignified. You're our assistant medical
director and--"

Her words were cut off as the door slid shut behind them. Mryna tried to
fit this new information into what she already knew--or thought she
knew--about the Earth-god. It didn't add up to a pretty picture. She had
once asked for a definition of illness, and it was apparent to her that
this place which they called the Guardian Wheel was an expensive
hospital for Earthmen. It was paid for by the sacrificial ores mined on
Rythar. In a sense, Rythar was being enslaved and exploited by Earth.
True, it was not difficult to dig out the ore, but Mryna resented the
fact that the kids on Rythar had not been told the truth. She had long
ago lost her awe of the man called god; now she lost her respect as
well.

Mryna was glad she had not seen him, glad no one knew she was aboard the
Guardian Wheel. She would return to Rythar. After she told the others
what she knew, Rythar would send up no more sacrifice ores. Let the
Earthmen come down and mine it for themselves!

Very cau