Incognita ten days ago. Amateur
nursing again! They have some unholy book of rules which says that for
Exposure, Exhaustion and Shock the best therapy is sleep. I don't
doubt it, but it goes on to say that in extreme cases the patient has
been known to benefit by as much as two weeks of it. I didn't find out
that they were trying it on you until about thirty-six hours ago when
I began inquiring why you weren't around. They kept me under for three
days--in fact until their infernal Handbook said it was time for my
leg muscles to have some exercise. Miss Lammergaw was the
ring-leader."

No wonder my legs feel as though someone exchanged the muscles for
cotton wool, just wait till I get hold of Kirsty.

If it hadn't been for her, I shouldn't have spent ten days
remembering, even in my sleep, that--

I say, "Hell's feathers, it was _you_!"

M'Clare makes motions as though to start getting out of his chair,
looking seriously alarmed. I say, "It was your voice! When I asked--"

M'Clare, quite definitely, starts to blush. Not much, but some.

"Lizzie, I believe you're right. I have a sort of vague memory of
someone asking how I was--and I gave what I took to be a truthful
answer. I remember it seemed quite inconceivable that I could be
alive. In fact I still don't understand it. Neither Yardo nor Miss
Laydon could tell me. How _did_ you get me out of that ship?"

Well, I do my best to explain, glossing over one or two points; at the
finish he closes his eyes and says nothing for a while.

Then he says, "So except for this one man who saw you, you left no
traces at all?"

Not that I know of, but--

"Do you know, five minutes later there were at least twenty men in
that bay, most of them scientists? They don't seem to have found
anything suspicious. Visibility was bad, of course, and you can't
leave foot-prints in shingle--"

Hold on, what _is_ all this?

M'Clare says, "We've had two couriers while you were asleep. Yes, I
know it's not ordinarily possible for a ship on Mass-Time to get news.
One of these days someone will have an interesting problem in Cultural
Engineering, working out how to integrate some of these Space Force
secrets into our economic and social structure without upsetting the
whole of the known volume. Though courier boats make their crews so
infernally sick I doubt whether the present type will ever come into
common use. Anyway, we've had transcripts of a good many broadcasts
from Incognita,