wareness under the luminescence of the infirmary's
overhead. I was naked on the padding of the table. I could see a
respirator off to my right, and a suction octopus near it. The medic was
just stowing an auto-heart. But for a different tingling in my leg and
an all-is-lost sensation south of my diaphragm, I felt reasonably sound.

The medic approached. I hadn't gotten a very good impression of the
lean, blond youngster on the trip out, but now he seemed Hippocrates,
Luke, Lister, Salk, O'Grady, and Yakamura all rolled into one.

He weakened it by asking the classic redundancy.

"How do you feel?"

I elbowed up for a look at the leg. There was a series of little welts
the length of it, masked by forceheal.

"Where did you learn your trade?" I asked. "In a production expediter's
office?"

He grinned.

"It took more than three hours, Mr. Callum. Suction, flushing, full
transfusion. You've got some good blood in you now."

I lay back and let him talk.

"There'll be nerve damage, probably. Regeneration should take care of
most of it, but you might need transplants. You were lucky. First, that
whatever nipped you barely broke the skin. Second, that the skipper was
there to help. And third, that you had the sense to block the spread of
the toxin by gee forces."

"Yeah. Remind me to thank Moya--immediately after I write him up for
leaving his station."

The medic looked pleased.

"Well, now, the way I got it--and I believe the recorder will bear me
out--is that you requested a witness. You left it up to the skipper to
make the selection."

He cleared his throat.

"And, by the way, Moya said he'd look in on you after a bit. The thing
to do now is rest."

I sat up again.

"Where're my clothes?"

The kid commenced noises of disapproval.

"Damnation! I'm not going anywhere. I just want to look over that pant's
leg."

Came the dawn.

"What'd you say Moya was doing?"

"Oh, I expect he's busy up forward."

The trouble was that he looked me straight in the eye. It takes practice
to lie convincingly. And the Space Academy doesn't list the Art of
Prevarication among its curricula.

"That misbegotten little son of an Aztec! He went back down, didn't he?"

I tried to jackknife off the table.

The medic flexed his muscles and said: "I can't take the
responsibility--"

"When are you people going to get it through your stubborn heads that
the responsibility for this whole shebang is mine and mine alone?"