you can be very happy." He scowled at Jack. "It's only thanks to our
friend here that the Black Doctor heard about this at all. A hospital
ship would have come to take the patient aboard, and the local doctors
would have been quieted down and that would have been all there was to
it. This business about losing a contract is a lot of nonsense."

"Then you think this thing was just used as an excuse to get at me?"

"Ask him," Tiger said, looking at Jack again. "Ask him why a Black
Doctor and a Four-star Surgeon turned up when we just called for a
hospital ship."

"I called the hospital ship," Jack said sullenly.

"But you called Dr. Tanner too," said Tiger. "Your nose has been out of
joint ever since Dal came aboard this ship. You've made things as
miserable for him as you could, and you just couldn't wait for a chance
to come along to try to scuttle him."

"All right," Jack said, "but he was making a mistake. Anybody could see
that. What if the patient had died while he was standing around waiting?
Isn't that important?"

Tiger started to answer, and then threw up his hands in disgust. "It's
important--but something else is more important. We've got a job to do
on this ship, and we can't do it fighting each other. Dal misjudged a
case and got in trouble. Fine, he won't make that mistake again. It
could just as well have been you, or me. We'll all make mistakes, but if
we can't work as a team, we're sunk. We'll all be drummed out of the
patrol before a year is out." Tiger stopped to catch his breath, his