than the falsehood--something that had vaguely disturbed him ever since
he had known the big Earthman, and that now seemed to elude him every
time he tried to pinpoint it. Lying in his bunk during a sleep period,
Dal remembered vividly the first time he had met Tiger, early in the
second year of medical school. Dal had almost despaired by then of
making friends with his hostile and resentful classmates and had begun
more and more to avoid contact with them, building up a protective shell
and relying on Fuzzy for company or comfort. Then Tiger had found him
eating lunch by himself in the medical school lounge one day and flopped
down in the seat beside him and began talking as if Dal were just
another classmate. Tiger's open friendliness had been like a spring
breeze to Dal who was desperately lonely in this world of strangers;
their friendship had grown rapidly, and gradually others in the class
had begun to thaw enough at least to be civil when Dal was around. Dal
had sensed that this change of heart was largely because of Tiger and
not because of him, yet he had welcomed it as a change from the previous
intolerable coldness even though it left him feeling vaguely uneasy.
Tiger was well liked by the others in the class; Dal had been grateful
more than once when Tiger had risen in hot defense of the Garvian's
right to be studying medicine among Earthmen in the school on Hospital
Earth.

But that had been in medical school, among classmates. Somehow that had
been different from the incident that occurred on Morua VIII, and Dal's
uneasiness grew stronger than ever the more he thought of it. Talking to
Tiger about it was no help; Tiger just grinned and told him to forget
it, but even in the rush of shipboard activity it stubbornly refused to
be forgotten.

One minor matter also helped to ease the tension between the doctors as