t grew smaller and weaker with every whack.

"Hrunta must have spotted it and come down here alone," Jenkins panted
between slices. "Maybe he slipped, lost his footing, I don't know--"

They continued to work until the supply was exhausted. They had reduced
the _hlorg_ to a quarter its previous size. "Check the other labs, see
if they have some more," said Stone.

"I already have," Bowman said. "They don't. This is it."

"But we haven't got it all killed. There's still--" He pointed to the
thing quailing in the corner.

"I know. We're licked, that's all. There isn't any more of the stuff on
the ship."

They stopped and looked at each other suddenly. Then Jenkins said: "Oh,
yes there is."

There was silence. Bowman looked at Stone, and Stone looked at Bowman.
They both looked at Jenkins. "Oh, no. Sorry. I decline." Stone shook his
head slowly.

"But we have to! There's no other way. If the enzyme system is
inactivated, it's just protoplasm--there's no physiological or
biochemical reason--"

"You know what you can do with your physiology and biochemistry," Bowman
said succinctly. "You can also count me out." He left them and the
hatchway clanged after him.

"Wally?"

"Yeah."

"It'll be months before we get back to Hospital Earth. We know how we
can hold it in check until we get there."

"Yeah."

"Well?"

Green Doctor Wally Stone sighed. "Greater love hath no man," he said
wearily. "We'd better go tell Neelsen, I guess."

* * * * *

Black Doctor Turvold Neelsen's answer was a flat, unequivocal no. "It's
monstrous and preposterous. I won't stand for it. Nobody will stand for
it."

"But you have the proof in your own hands," Jenkins said. "You saw the
specimen that the Green Doctor brought you."

Neelsen hunched back angrily. "I saw it."

"And your impression of it? As a pathologist?"

"I fail to see how my impression applies one way or the other--"

"Doctor, sometimes we have to face facts. Remember?"

"All right." Neelsen seemed to curl up into himself still further. "The
specimen was stomach."

"Human stomach?"

"Human stomach."

"But the only human on this ship that doesn't have a stomach is Hrunta,"
said Jenkins.

"So the _hlorg_ ate him."

"_Most_ of him. Not quite all. It threw out the one part of him it
couldn't eat. The part containing a substance that inactivated its
enzyme system. Dilute hydrochloric acid, to be specific. We used the
entire sh