_Chee!_"

"Very well," agreed Calhoun. "We'll all have some."

He made coffee. Murgatroyd sipped at the cup especially made for his
little paws. Once he scratched at the place on his flank which had no
pain-nerves. It itched. But he was perfectly content. Murgatroyd would
always be contented when he was somewhere near Calhoun.

Another hour went by. Murgatroyd climbed up into Calhoun's lap and with
a determined air went to sleep there. Calhoun disturbed him long enough
to get an instrument out of his pocket. He listened to Murgatroyd's
heartbeat with it while Murgatroyd dozed.

"Maril," he said. "Write down something for me. The time, and
ninety-six, and one-twenty over ninety-four."

She obeyed, not comprehending. Half an hour later--still not stirring to
disturb Murgatroyd--he had her write down another time and sequence of
figures, only slightly different from the first. Half an hour later
still, a third set. But then he put Murgatroyd down, well satisfied.

He took his own temperature. He nodded.

"Murgatroyd and I have one more chore to do," he told her. "Would you go
in the other cabin for a moment?"

She went disturbedly into the other cabin. Calhoun drew a sample of
blood from the insensitive area on Murgatroyd's flank. Murgatroyd
submitted with complete confidence in the man. In ten minutes Calhoun
had diluted the sample, added an anticoagulant, shaken it up thoroughly,
and filtered it to clarity with all red and white corpuscles removed.
Another Med Ship man would have considered that Calhoun had had
Murgatroyd prepare a splendid small sample of antibody-containing serum,
in case something got out of hand. It would assuredly take care of two
patients.

But a Med Ship man would also have known that it was simply one of those
scrupulous precautions a Med Ship man takes when using cultures from
store.

Calhoun put the sample away and called Maril back and offered no
explanation. She said;

"I'll fix lunch." She hesitated. "You brought some food from the first
Weald ship. Do you want it?"

He shook his head.

"I'm squeamish," he admitted. "The trouble on Dara is Med Service fault.
Before my time, but still--I'll stick to rations until everybody eats."

* * * * *

He watched her unobtrusively as the day went on. Presently he considered
that she was slightly flushed. Shortly after the evening meal of
singularly unappetizing Darian rations, she drank thirstily. He did