down on the table. "I don't have to
listen to insolence like this," he roared.

"Yes, you do," Dal said. "Just this once. Then I'll be through."
Suddenly Dal's words were tumbling out of control, and his whole body
was trembling with anger. "You have been determined from the very
beginning that I should never finish the medical training that I
started. You've tried to block me time after time, in every way you
could think of. You've almost succeeded, but never quite made it until
this time. But now you _have_ to make it. If that contract were to go
through I'd get my Star, and you'd never again be able to do anything
about it. So it's now or never if you're going to break me."

"Nonsense!" the Black Doctor stormed. "I wouldn't lower myself to meddle
with your kind. The charges speak for themselves."

"Not if you look at them carefully. You claim I failed to notify
Hospital Earth that we had entered a plague area--but our records of our
contact with the planet prove that we did only what any patrol ship
would have done when the call came in. We didn't have enough information
to know that there was a plague there, and when we finally did know the
truth we could no longer make contact with Hospital Earth. You claim
that I brought harm to two hundred of the natives there, yet if you
study our notes and records, you will see that our errors there were
unavoidable. We couldn't have done anything else under the
circumstances, and if we hadn't done what we did, we would have been
ignoring the basic principles of diagnosis and treatment which we've
been taught. And your charges don't mention that by possibly harming two
hundred of the Bruckians, we found a way to save two million of them
from absolute destruction."

The Black Doctor glared at him. "The charges will stand up, I'll see to
that."

"Oh, I'm sure you will! You can ram them through and make them stick
before anybody ever has a chance to examine them carefully. You have the
power to do it. And by the time an impartial judge could review all the
records, your survey ship will have been there and gathered so much more
data and muddied up the field so thoroughly that no one will ever be
certain that the charges aren't true. But you and I know that they
wouldn't really hold up under inspection. We know that they're false
right down the line and that you're the one who is responsible for
them."

The Black Doctor grew darker, and he trembled with rage as he drew
him