Star Surgeon Part 11

Dal felt a hand grip his collar then, and Tiger was dragging them apart like two dogs in a fight. "Now stop this!" he roared, holding them both at arm's length. "I said _stop it_! Jack didn't do anything to Fuzzy, he's been sitting here with me ever since you went back to the cubicle.

He hasn't even budged."

"But he's _gone_," Dal panted. "Something's happened to him. I _know_ it."

"How do you know?"

"I--I just know. I can feel it."

"All right, then let's find him," Tiger said. "He's got to be somewhere on the s.h.i.+p. If he's in trouble, we're wasting time fighting."

Tiger let go, and Jack brushed off his s.h.i.+rt, his face very white. "I saw him just a little while ago," he said. "He was sitting up on that silly perch watching us, and then swinging back and forth and swinging over to that cabinet and back."

"Well, let's get started looking," Tiger said.

They fanned out, with Jack still muttering to himself, and searched the control room inch by inch. There was no sign of Fuzzy. Dal had control of himself now, but he searched with a frantic intensity. "He's not in here," he said at last, "he must have gone out somewhere."

"There was only one door open," Tiger said. "The one you just came through, from the rear corridor. Dal, you search the computer room.

Jack, check the lab and I'll go back to the reactors."

They started searching the compartments off the rear corridor. For ten minutes there was no sound in the s.h.i.+p but the occasional slamming of a hatch, the grate of a desk drawer, the bang of a cabinet door. Dal worked through the maze of cubby-holes in the computer room with growing hopelessness. The frightening sense of loneliness and loss in his mind was overwhelming; he was almost physically ill. The warm, comfortable feeling of _contact_ that he had always had before with Fuzzy was gone.

As the minutes pa.s.sed, hopelessness gave way to despair.

Then Jack gave a hoa.r.s.e cry from the lab. Dal tripped and stumbled in his haste to get down the corridor, and almost collided with Tiger at the lab door.

"I think we're too late," Jack said. "He's gotten into the formalin."

He lifted one of the gla.s.s beakers down from the shelf to the work bench. It was obvious what had happened. Fuzzy had gone exploring and had found the laboratory a fascinating place. Several of the reagents bottles had been knocked over as if he had been sampling them. The gla.s.s lid to the beaker of formalin which was kept for tissue specimens had been pushed aside just enough to admit the little creature's two-inch girth. Now Fuzzy lay in the bottom of the beaker, immersed in formalin, a formless, shapeless blob of sickly gray jelly.

"Are you sure it's formalin?" Dal asked.

Jack poured off the fluid, and the acrid smell of formaldehyde that filled the room answered the question. "It's no good, Dal," he said, almost gently. "The stuff destroys protein, and that's about all he was.

I'm sorry--I was beginning to like the little punk, even if he did get on my nerves. But he picked the one thing to fall into that could kill him. Unless he had some way to set up a protective barrier...."

Dal took the beaker. "Get me some saline," he said tightly. "And some nutrient broth."

Jack pulled out two jugs and poured their contents into an empty beaker.

Dal popped the tiny limp form into the beaker and began ma.s.saging it.

Layers of damaged tissue peeled off in his hand, but he continued ma.s.saging and changing the solutions, first saline, then nutrient broth.

"Get me some sponges and a blade."

Tiger brought them in. Carefully Dal began debriding the damaged outer layers. Jack and Tiger watched; then Jack said, "Look, there's a tinge of pink in the middle."

Slowly the faint pink in the center grew more ruddy. Dal changed solutions again, and sank down on a stool. "I think he'll make it," he said. "He has enormous regenerative powers as long as any fragment of him is left." He looked up at Jack who was still watching the creature in the beaker almost solicitously. "I guess I made a fool of myself back there when I jumped you."

Jack's face hardened, as though he had been caught off guard. "I guess you did, all right."

"Well, I'm sorry. I just couldn't think straight. It was the first time I'd ever been--apart from him."

"I still say he doesn't belong aboard," Jack said. "This is a medical s.h.i.+p, not a menagerie. And if you ever lay your hands on me again, you'll wish you hadn't."

"I said I was sorry," Dal said.

"I heard you," Jack said. "I just don't believe you, that's all."

He gave Fuzzy a final glance, and then headed back to the control room.

Fuzzy recovered, a much abashed and subdued Fuzzy, clinging timorously to Dal's shoulder and refusing to budge for three days, but apparently basically unharmed by his inadvertent swim in the deadly formalin bath.

Presently he seemed to forget the experience altogether, and once again took his perch on the platform in the control room.

But Dal did not forget. He said little to Tiger and Jack, but the incident had shaken him severely. For as long as he could remember, he had always had Fuzzy close at hand. He had never before in his life experienced the dreadful feeling of emptiness and desertion, the almost paralyzing fear and helplessness that he had felt when Fuzzy had lost contact with him. It had seemed as though a vital part of him had suddenly been torn away, and the memory of the panic that followed sent chills down his back and woke him up trembling from his sleep. He was ashamed of his unwarranted attack on Jack, yet even this seemed insignificant in comparison to the powerful fear that had been driving him.

Happily, the Blue Doctor chose to let the matter rest where it was, and if anything, seemed more willing than before to be friendly. For the first time he seemed to take an active interest in Fuzzy, "chatting"

with him when he thought no one was around, and bringing him occasional tid-bits of food after meals were over.

Once more life on the _Lancet_ settled back to routine, only to have it shattered by an incident of quite a different nature. It was just after they had left a small planet in the Procyon system, one of the routine check-in points, that they made contact with the Garvian trading s.h.i.+p.

Dal recognized the s.h.i.+p's design and insignia even before the signals came in, and could hardly contain his excitement. He had not seen a fellow countryman for years except for an occasional dull luncheon with the Garvian amba.s.sador to Hospital Earth during medical school days. The thought of walking the corridors of a Garvian trading s.h.i.+p again brought an overwhelming wave of homesickness. He was so excited he could hardly wait for Jack to complete the radio-sighting formalities. "What s.h.i.+p is she?" he wanted to know. "What house?"

Jack handed him the message transcript. "The s.h.i.+p is the _Teegar_," he said. "Flags.h.i.+p of the SinSin trading fleet. They want permission to approach us."

Dal let out a whoop. "Then it's a s.p.a.ce trader, and a big one. You've never seen s.h.i.+ps like these before."

Tiger joined them, staring at the message transcript. "A SinSin s.h.i.+p!

Send them the word, Jack, and be quick, before they get disgusted and move on."

Jack sent out the approach authorization, and they watched with growing excitement as the great trading vessel began its close-approach maneuvers.

The name of the house of SinSin was famous throughout the galaxy. It was one of the oldest and largest of the great trading firms that had built Garv II into its position of leaders.h.i.+p in the Confederation, and the SinSin s.h.i.+ps had penetrated to every corner of the galaxy, to every known planet harboring an intelligent life-form.

Tiger and Jack had seen the mult.i.tudes of exotic products in the Hospital Earth stores that came from the great Garvian s.h.i.+ps on their frequent visits. But this was more than a planetary trader loaded with a few items for a single planet. The s.p.a.ce traders roamed from star system to star system, their holds filled with treasures beyond number. Such s.h.i.+ps as these might be out from Garv II for decades at a time, tempting any s.h.i.+p they met with the magnificent variety of wares they carried.

Slowly the trader approached, and Dal took the speaker, addressing the commander of the _Teegar_ in Garvian. "This is the General Practice Patrol s.h.i.+p _Lancet_," he said, "out from Hospital Earth with three physicians aboard, including a countryman of yours."

"Is that Dal Timgar?" the reply came back. "By the Seven Moons! We'd heard that there was now a Garvian physician, and couldn't believe our ears. Come aboard, all of you, you'll be welcome. We'll send over a lifeboat!"

The _Teegar_ was near now, a great gleaming s.h.i.+p with the sign of the house of SinSin on her hull. A lifeboat sprang from a launching rack and speared across to the _Lancet_. Moments later the three doctors were climbing into the sleek little vessel and moving across the void of s.p.a.ce to the huge Garvian s.h.i.+p.

It was like stepping from a jungle outpost village into a magnificent, glittering city. The Garvian s.h.i.+p was enormous; she carried a crew of several hundred, and the wealth and luxury of the s.h.i.+p took the Earthmen's breath away. The cabins and lounges were paneled with expensive fabrics and rare woods, the furniture inlaid with precious metals. Down the long corridors goods of the traders were laid out in resplendent display, surpa.s.sing the richest show cases in the shops on Hospital Earth.

They received a royal welcome from the commander of the _Teegar_, an aged, smiling little Garvian with a pink fuzz-ball on his shoulder that could have been Fuzzy's twin. He bowed low to Tiger and Jack, leading them into the reception lounge where a great table was spread with foods and pastries of all varieties. Then he turned to Dal and embraced him like a long-lost brother. "Your father Jai Timgar has long been an honored friend of the house of SinSin, and anyone of the house of Timgar is the same as my own son and my son's son! But this collar! This cuff!

Is it really possible that a man of Garv has become a physician of Hospital Earth?"

Dal touched Fuzzy to the commander's fuzz-ball in the ancient Garvian greeting. "It's possible, and true," he said. "I studied there. I am the Red Doctor on this patrol s.h.i.+p."

"Ah, but this is good," the commander said. "What better way to draw our worlds together, eh? But come, you must look and see what we have in our storerooms, feast your eyes on the splendors we carry. For all of you, a thousand wonders are to be found here."

Jack hesitated as the commander led them back toward the display corridors. "We'd be glad to see the s.h.i.+p, but you should know that patrol s.h.i.+p physicians have little money to spend."