The interview was held in the main council chambers of Hospital Seattle,
and Dal could feel the tension the moment he stepped into the room. He
looked at the long semicircular table, and studied the impassive faces
of the four-star Physicians across the table from him.

Each of the major medical services was represented this morning. In the
center, presiding over the council, was a physician of the White
Service, a Four-star Radiologist whose insignia gleamed on his
shoulders. There were two physicians each, representing the Red Service
of Surgery, the Green Service of Medicine, the Blue Service of
Diagnosis, and finally, seated at either end of the table, the
representatives of the Black Service of Pathology. Black Doctor Thorvold
Arnquist sat to Dal's left; he smiled faintly as the young Garvian
stepped forward, then busied himself among the papers on the desk before
him. To Dal's right sat another Black Doctor who was not smiling.

Dal had seen him before--the chief co-ordinator of medical education on
Hospital Earth, the "Black Plague" of the medical school jokes. Black
Doctor Hugo Tanner was large and florid of face, blinking owlishly at
Dal over his heavy horn-rimmed glasses. The glasses were purely
decorative; with modern eye-cultures and transplant techniques, no
Earthman had really needed glasses to correct his vision for the past
two hundred years, but on Hugo Tanner's angry face they added a look of
gravity and solemnity that the Black Doctor could not achieve without
them. Still glaring at Dal, Doctor Tanner leaned over to speak to the
Blue Doctor on his right, and they nodded and laughed unpleasantly at
some private joke.

There was no place for him to sit, so Dal stood before the table, as