stomed
to Tiger and Jack and the surroundings aboard the ship, the little
creature grew bored sitting on Dal's shoulder and wanted to be in the
middle of things. Since the early tension had eased, he was willing to
be apart from his master from time to time, so Dal and Tiger built him a
platform that hung from the ceiling of the control room. There Fuzzy
would sit and swing by the hour, blinking happily at the activity going
on all around him.

But for all the appearance of peace and agreement, there was still an
undercurrent of tension on board the _Lancet_ which flared up from time
to time when it was least expected, between Dal and Jack. It was on one
such occasion that a major crisis almost developed, and once again Fuzzy
was the center of the contention.

Dal Timgar knew that disaster had struck at the very moment it happened,
but he could not tell exactly what was wrong. All he knew was that
something fearful had happened to Fuzzy.

There was a small sound-proof cubicle in the computer room, with a
chair, desk and a tape-reader for the doctors when they had odd moments
to spend reading up on recent medical bulletins or reviewing their
textbooks. Dal spent more time here than the other two; the temperature
of the room could be turned up, and he had developed a certain fondness
for the place with its warm gray walls and its soft relaxing light. Here
on the tapes were things that he could grapple with, things that he
could understand. If a problem here eluded him, he could study it out
until he had mastered it. The hours he spent here were a welcome retreat
from the confusing complexities of getting along with Jack and Tiger.

These long study periods were boring for Fuzzy who wasn't much
interested in the oxygen-exchange mechanism of the intelligent beetles
of Aldebaran VI. Frequently Dal would leave him to swing on his platform
or explore about the control cabin while he spent an hour or two at
the tape-reader. Today Dal had been working for over an hour,
deeply immersed in a review of the intermediary metabolism of
chlorine-breathing mammals, when something abruptly wrenched his
attention from the tape.

It was as though a light had snapped off in his mind, or a door slammed
shut. There was no sound, no warning; yet, suddenly, he felt dreadfully,
frighteningly alone, as if in a split second something inside him had
been torn away. He sat bolt upright, staring, and he felt his skin crawl
and his fingers tremb