THE GALACTIC PILL PEDDLERS


The ship stood tall and straight on her launching pad, with the
afternoon sunlight glinting on her hull. Half a dozen crews of check-out
men were swarming about her, inspecting her engine and fuel supplies,
riding up the gantry crane to her entrance lock, and guiding the great
cargo nets from the loading crane into her afterhold. High up on her
hull Dal Timgar could see a golden caduceus emblazoned, the symbol of
the General Practice Patrol, and beneath it the ship's official name:

GPPS 238
_LANCET_

Dal shifted his day pack down from his shoulders, ridiculously pleased
with the gleaming scarlet braid on the collar and cuff of his uniform,
and lifted Fuzzy up on his shoulder to see. It seemed to Dal that
everyone he had passed in the terminal had been looking at the colorful
insignia; it was all he could do to keep from holding his arm up and
waving it like a banner.

"You'll get used to it," Tiger Martin chuckled as they waited for the
jitney to take them across to the launching pad. "At first you think
everybody is impressed by the colors, until you see some guy go past
with the braid all faded and frazzled at the edges, and then you realize
that you're just the latest greenhorn in a squad of two hundred thousand
men."

"It's still good to be wearing it," Dal said. "I couldn't really believe
it until Black Doctor Arnquist turned the collar and cuff over to me."