eyes disappeared completely. “There,” Dal said. “Is that better?”
Jack stared at the place the eyes had been, and his face darkened suspiciously. “Well, what happened to them?” he demanded.
“What happened to what?”
“To his eyes, you idiot!”
Dal looked down at Fuzzy. “I don’t see any eyes.”
Jack jumped up from the stool. He scowled at Fuzzy as if commanding the eyes to come back again. All he saw was a small ball of pink fur. “Look, he’s been blinking them at me for a week,” he snarled. “I thought all along there was something funny about him. Sometimes he’s got legs and sometimes he hasn’t. Sometimes he looks fuzzy, and other times he hasn’t got any hair at all.”
“He’s a pleomorph,” Dal said. “No cellular structure at all, just a protein-colloid matrix.”
Jack glowered at the inert little pink lump. “Don’t be silly,” he said, curious in spite of himself. “What holds him together?”
“Who knows? I don’t. Some kind of electro-chemical cohesive force. The only reason he has ‘eyes’ is because he thinks I want him to have eyes. If you don’t like it, he won’t have them any more.”
“Well, that’s very obliging,” Jack said. “But why do you keep him around? What good does he do you, anyhow? All he does is eat and drink and sleep.”
“Does he have to do something?” Dal said evasively. “He isn’t bothering you. Why pick on him?”
“He just seems to worry you an awful lot,” Jack said unpleasantly. “Let’s see him a minute.” He reached out for Fuzzy, then jerked his finger back with a yelp. Blood dripped from the finger tip.
Jack’s face slowly went white. “Why, he—he bit me!”
“Yes, and you’re lucky he didn’t take a finger off,” Dal said, trembling with anger. “He doesn’t like you any more than I do, and you’ll get bit every time you come near him, so you’d better keep your hands to yourself.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack Alvarez said, “he won’t get another chance. You can just get rid of him.”
“Not a chance,” Dal said. “You leave him alone and he won’t bother you, that’s all. And the same thing goes for me.”
“If he isn’t out of here in twelve hours, I’ll get a warrant,” Jack said tightly. “There are laws against keeping dangerous pets on patrol ships.”
Somewhere in the main corridor an alarm bell began buzzing. For a moment Dal and Jack stood frozen, glaring at each other. Then the door burst open and Tiger Martin’s head appeared. “Hey, you two, let’s get moving! We’ve got a call coming in, and it looks like a tough one. Come on back here!”
They headed back toward the radio room. The signal was coming through frantically as Tiger reached for the pile of punched tape running out on the floor. But as they crowded into the radio room, Dal felt Jack’s hand on his arm. “If you think I was fooling, you’re wrong,” the Blue Doctor said through his teeth. “You’ve got twelve hours to get rid of him.”
Crisis on Morua VIII
The three doctors huddled around the teletype, watching as the decoded message was punched out on the tape. “It started coming in just now,” Tiger said. “And they’ve been beaming the signal in a spherical pattern, apparently trying to pick up the nearest ship they could get. There’s certainly some sort of trouble going on.”
The message was brief, repeated over and over: REQUIRE MEDICAL AID URGENT REPLY AT ONCE. This was followed by the code letters that designated the planet, its location, and the number of its medical service contract.
Jack glanced at the code. “Morua VIII,” he said. “I think that’s a grade I contract.” He began punching buttons on the reference panel, and several screening cards came down the slot from the information bank. “Yes. The eighth planet of a large Sol-type star, the only inhabited planet in the system with a single intelligent race, ursine evolutionary pattern.” He handed the cards to Tiger. “Teddy-bears, yet!”
“Mammals?” Tiger said.
“Looks like it. And they even hibernate.”
“What about the contract?” Dal asked.
“Grade I,” said Tiger. “And they’ve had a thorough survey. Moderately advanced in their own medical care, but they have full medical coverage any time they think they need it. We’d better get an acknowledgment back to them. Jack, get the ship ready to star-jump while Dal starts digging information out of the bank. If this race has its own doctors, they’d only be hollering for help if they’re up against a tough one.”
Tiger settled down with earphones and transmitter to try to make contact with the Moruan planet, while Jack went forward to control and Dal started to work with the tape reader. There was no argument now, and no dissension. The procedure to be followed was a well-established routine: acknowledge the call, estimate arrival time, relay the call and response to the programmers on Hospital Earth, prepare for star-drive, and start gathering data fast. With no hint of the nature of the trouble, their job was to get there, equipped with as much information about the planet and its people as time allowed.
The Moruan system was not distant from the Lancet’s present location. Tiger calculated that two hours in Koenig drive would put the ship in the vicinity of the planet, with another hour required for landing procedures. He passed the word on to the others, and Dal began digging through the mass of information in the tape library on Morua VIII and its people.
There was a wealth of data. Morua VIII had signed one of the first medical service contracts with Hospital Earth, and a thorough medical, biochemical, social and psychological survey had been made on the people of that world. Since the original survey, much additional information had been amassed, based on patrol ship reports and dozens of specialty studies that had been done there.
And out of this data, a picture of Morua VIII and its inhabitants began to emerge.
The Moruans were moderately intelligent creatures, warm-blooded air breathers with an oxygen-based metabolism. Their planet was cold, with 17 per cent oxygen and much water vapor in its atmosphere. With its vast snow-fields and great mountain ranges, the planet was a popular resort area for oxygen-breathing creatures; most of the natives were engaged in some work related to winter sports. They were well fitted anatomically for their climate, with thick black fur, broad flat hind feet and a four-inch layer of fat between their skin and their vital organs.
Swiftly Dal reviewed the emergency file, checking for common drugs and chemicals that were poisonous to Moruans, accidents that were common to the race, and special problems that had been met by previous patrol ships. The deeper he dug into the mass of data, the more worried he became. Where should he begin? Searching in the dark, there was no way to guess what information would be necessary and what part totally useless.
He buzzed Tiger. “Any word on the nature of the trouble?” he asked.
“Just got through to them,” Tiger said. “Not too much to go on, but they’re really in an uproar. Sounds like they’ve started some kind of organ-transplant
