STAR SURGEON




CHAPTER 1

THE INTRUDER


The shuttle plane from the port of Philadelphia to Hospital Seattle had
already gone when Dal Timgar arrived at the loading platform, even
though he had taken great pains to be at least thirty minutes early for
the boarding.

"You'll just have to wait for the next one," the clerk at the
dispatcher's desk told him unsympathetically. "There's nothing else you
can do."

"But I _can't_ wait," Dal said. "I have to be in Hospital Seattle by
morning." He pulled out the flight schedule and held it under the
clerk's nose. "Look there! The shuttle wasn't supposed to leave for
another forty-five minutes!"

The clerk blinked at the schedule, and shrugged. "The seats were full,
so it left," he said. "Graduation time, you know. Everybody has to be
somewhere else, right away. The next shuttle goes in three hours."

"But I had a reservation on this one," Dal insisted.