was small and spindly, weighing a bare
ninety pounds, and the coating of fine gray fur that covered all but his
face and palms annoyingly grew longer and thicker as soon as he came to
the comparatively cold climate of Hospital Earth to live. The bone
structure of his face gave his cheeks and nose a flattened appearance,
and his pale gray eyes seemed abnormally large and wistful. And even
though it had long been known that Earthmen and Garvians were equal in
range of intelligence, his classmates still assumed just from his
appearance that he was either unusually clever or unusually stupid.

The gulf that lay between him and the men of Earth went beyond mere
physical differences, however. Earthmen had differences of skin color,
facial contour and physical size among them, yet made no sign of
distinction. Dal's alienness went deeper. His classmates had been civil
enough, yet with one or two exceptions, they had avoided him carefully.
Clearly they resented his presence in their lecture rooms and
laboratories. Clearly they felt that he did not belong there, studying
medicine.

From the first they had let him know unmistakably that he was unwelcome,
an intruder in their midst, the first member of an alien race ever to
try to earn the insignia of a physician of Hospital Earth.

And now, Dal knew he had failed after all. He had been allowed to try
only because a powerful physician in the Black Service of Pathology had
befriended him. If it had not been for the friendship and support of
another Earthman in the class, Tiger Martin, the eight years of study
would have been unbearably lonely.

But now, he thought, it would have been far easier never to have started
than to have his goal snatched away at the last minute. The notice of
the council meeting left no doubt in his mind. He had failed. There
would be lots of talk, some perfunctory debate for the sake of the
record, and the medical council would wash their hands of him once and
for all. The decision, he was certain, was already made. It was just a
matter of going through the formal motions.

Dal felt the motors change in pitch, and the needle-nosed shuttle plane
began to dip once more toward the horizon. Ahead he could see the
sprawling lights of Hospital Seattle, stretching from the Cascade
Mountains to the sea and beyond, north to Alaska and south toward the
great California metropolitan centers. Somewhere down there was a
council room where a dozen of the most power