sense Jack's growing confidence in his abilities, grudging though it
might be.

Dal had ample time to mull over the thing that had happened on Morua
VIII and to think about the interview with Black Doctor Tanner
afterward. He knew he was glad that Tiger had intervened even on the
basis of a falsehood; until Tiger had spoken up Dal had been certain
that the Black Doctor fully intended to use the incident as an excuse to
discharge him from the General Practice Patrol. There was no question in
his mind that the Black Doctor's charges had been exaggerated into a
trumped-up case against him, and there was no question that Tiger's
insistence on taking the blame had saved him; he could not help being
thankful.

Yet there was something about it that disturbed Dal, nibbling away
persistently at his mind. He couldn't throw off the feeling that his own
acceptance of Tiger's help had been wrong.

Part of it, he knew, was his native, inbred loathing for falsehood. Fair
or unfair, Dal had always disliked lying. Among his people, the truth
might be bent occasionally, but frank lying was considered a deep
disgrace, and there was a Garvian saying that "a false tongue wins no
true friends." Garvian traders were known throughout the Galaxy as much
for their rigid adherence to their word as they were for the hard
bargains they could drive; Dal had been enormously confused during his
first months on Hospital Earth by the way Earthmen seemed to accept
lying as part of their daily life, unconcerned about it as long as the
falsehood could not be proven.

But something else about Tiger's defense of him bothered Dal far more