t wait for a chance
to come along to try to scuttle him."

"All right," Jack said, "but he was making a mistake. Anybody could see
that. What if the patient had died while he was standing around waiting?
Isn't that important?"

Tiger started to answer, and then threw up his hands in disgust. "It's
important--but something else is more important. We've got a job to do
on this ship, and we can't do it fighting each other. Dal misjudged a
case and got in trouble. Fine, he won't make that mistake again. It
could just as well have been you, or me. We'll all make mistakes, but if
we can't work as a team, we're sunk. We'll all be drummed out of the
patrol before a year is out." Tiger stopped to catch his breath, his
face flushed with anger. "Well, I'm fed up with this back-stabbing
business. I don't want a fight any more than Dal does, but if I have to
fight, I'll fight to get it over with, and you'd better be careful. If
you pull any more sly ones, you'd better include me in the deal, because
if Dal goes, I go too. And that's a promise."

There was silence for a moment as Jack stared up at Tiger's angry face.
He shook his head and blinked, as though he couldn't quite believe what
he was hearing. He looked across at Dal, and then back at Tiger again.
"You mean you'd turn in your collar and cuff?" he said.

"If it came to that."

"I see." Jack sat down at the control panel, still shaking his head. "I
think you really mean it," he said soberly. "This isn't just a big
brother act. You really like the guy, don't you?"

"Maybe I do," Tiger said, "but I don't like to watch anybody get kicked
around just because somebody else doesn't happen to like him."

The control room was very quiet. Then somewhere below a motor clicked
on, and the ventilation fan made a quiet whirring sound. The teletype
clicked sporadically down the corridor in the communications room. Dal
sat silently, rubbing Fuzzy between the eyes and watching the two
Earthmen. It seemed suddenly as if they were talking about somebody a
million miles away, as if he were not even in the room.

Then the Blue Doctor shrugged and rose to his feet. "All right," he said
to Tiger. "I guess I just didn't understand where you stood, and I
suppose it wasn't my job to let the Black Doctor know about the
situation here. I don't plan to be making all the mistakes you think
we're going to make, and I won't take the blame for anybody else's, but
I guess we've got to work together