they made their daily rounds. Tiger brought a pink dispatch sheet in to
Dal one day, grinning happily. "This is from the weekly news capsule,"
he said. "It ought to cheer you up."

It was a brief news note, listed under "incidental items." "The Black
Service of Pathology," it said, "has announced that Black Doctor Hugo
Tanner will enter Hospital Philadelphia within the next week for
prophylactic heart surgery. In keeping with usual Hospital Earth
administrative policy, the Four-star Black Doctor will undergo a total
cardiac transplant to halt the Medical education administrator's
progressively disabling heart disease." The note went on to name the
surgeons who would officiate at the procedure.

Dal smiled and handed back the dispatch. "Maybe it will improve his
temper," he said, "even if it does give him another fifty years of
active life."

"Well, at least it will take him out of _our_ hair for a while," Tiger
said. "He won't have time to keep us under too close scrutiny."

Which, Dal was forced to admit, did not make him too unhappy.

Shipboard rounds kept all three doctors busy. Often, with contact
landings, calls, and studying, it seemed only a brief time from sleep
period to sleep period, but still they had some time for minor luxuries.
Dal was almost continuously shivering, with the ship kept at a
temperature that was comfortable for Tiger and Jack; he missed the
tropical heat of his home planet, and sometimes it seemed that he was
chilled down to the marrow of his bones in spite of his coat of gray
fur. With a little home-made plumbing and ingenuity, he finally managed