equipment across in lifeboats almost before contact had been
stabilized. A large passenger boat hurtled away from the hospital ship's
side, carrying a pair of Four-star surgeons, half a dozen Three-star
Surgeons, two Radiologists, two Internists, a dozen nurses and another
Four-star Black Doctor across to the _Lancet_; and when they arrived at
the patrol ship's entrance lock, they discovered that their haste had
been in vain.

It was like Grand Rounds in the general wards of Hospital Philadelphia,
with the Four-star Surgeons in the lead as they tramped aboard the
patrol ship. They found Black Doctor Tanner sitting quietly at his
bedside reading a journal of pathology and taking notes. He glared up at
them when they burst in the door without even knocking.

"But are you feeling well, sir?" the chief surgeon asked him for the
third time.

"Of course I'm feeling well. Do you think I'd be sitting here if I
weren't?" the Black Doctor growled. "Dr. Timgar is my surgeon and the
physician in charge of this case. Talk to him. He can give you all the
details of the matter."

"You mean you permitted a probationary physician to perform this kind of
surgery?" The Four-star Surgeon cried incredulously.

"I did not!" the Black Doctor snapped. "He had to drag me kicking and
screaming into the operating room. But fortunately for me, this
particular probationary physician had the courage of his convictions, as
well as wit enough to realize that I would not survive if he waited for
you to gather your army together. But I think you will find the surgery
was handled with excellent skill. Again, I must refer you to Dr. Timgar
for the details. I was not paying attention to the technique of the
surgery, I assure you."

"But sir," the chief surgeon broke in, "how could there have been
surgery of any sort here? The dispatch that came to us listed the
_Lancet_ as a plague ship--"

"_Plague ship!_" the Black Doctor exploded. "Oh, yes. Egad!
I--hum!--imagine that the dispatcher must have gotten his signals mixed
somehow. Well, I suppose you want to examine me. Let's have it over
with."

The doctors examined him within an inch of his life. They exhausted
every means of physical, laboratory and radiological examination short
of re-opening his chest and looking in, and at last the chief surgeon
was forced reluctantly to admit that there was nothing left for him to
do but provide post-operative follow-up care for the irascible old man.

And