, keeping the patient under
as light a dosage of medication as was possible.

"What's eating them?" he asked Dal quietly.

"They don't want a hospital ship here very much," Dal said. "Afraid
they'll look like fools all over the Confederation if the word gets out.
But that's their worry. Ours is to keep this bruiser alive until the
ship gets here."

They settled back to wait.

It was an agonizing time for Dal. Even Fuzzy didn't seem to be much
comfort. The patient was clearly not doing well, even with the low body
temperatures Dal had induced. His blood pressure was sagging, and at one
time Tiger sat up sharply, staring at his anaesthesia dials and frowning
in alarm as the nervous-system reactions flagged. The Moruan physicians
hovered about, increasingly uneasy as they saw the doctors from Hospital
Earth waiting and doing nothing. One of them, unable to control himself
any longer, tore off his sterile gown and stalked angrily out of the
operating suite.

A dozen times Dal was on the verge of stepping in. It was beginning to
look now like a race with time, and precious minutes were passing by. He
cursed himself inwardly for not taking the bit in his teeth at the
beginning and going ahead the best he could; it had been a mistake in
judgment to wait. Now, as minutes passed into hours it looked more and
more like a mistake that was going to cost the life of a patient.

Then there was a murmur of excitement outside the operating room, and
word came in that another ship had been sighted making landing
maneuvers. Dal clenched his fists, praying that the patient would last
until the hospital ship crew arrived.

But the ship that was landing was not a hospital ship. Someone turned on
a TV scanner and picked up the image of a small ship hardly larger than
a patrol ship, with just two passengers stepping down the ladder to the
ground. Then the camera went close-up. Dal saw the faces of the two men,
and his heart sank.

One was a Four-star Surgeon, resplendent in flowing red cape and
glistening silver insignia. Dal did not recognize the man, but the four
stars meant that he was a top-ranking physician in the Red Service of
Surgery.

The other passenger, gathering his black cloak and hood around him as he
faced the blistering wind on the landing field, was Black Doctor Hugo
Tanner.

* * * * *

Moments after the Four-star Surgeon arrived at the hospital, he was
fully and unmistakably in c