"Just so. You've had a very successful cruise this year with the
_Lancet_, I understand."
Jenkins nodded.
"A most successful cruise. Four planets elevated from Class IV to Class
II contracts, they tell me. Morua II elevated from Class VI to Class I,
with certain special riders. A plague-panic averted on Setman I, and a
very complex virus-bacteria symbiosis unravelled on Orb III. An
illustrious record. You and your colleague from the Green Service are
hoping for a year's exemption from training, I imagine--" The Black
Doctor looked up sharply. "You searched your holds after leaving the
Mauki planets, I presume?"
Jenkins blinked. "Why--no, sir. That is, we decontaminated according
to--"
"I see. You didn't search your holds. I suppose you didn't notice your
food supplies dwindling at an alarming rate?"
"No--" The Red Doctor hesitated. "Not really."
"Ah." The Black Doctor closed his eyes wearily and flipped an activator
switch. The scanner on the far wall buzzed into activity. It focussed on
the rear storage hold of the _Mercy_ where the little _Lancet_ was
resting on its landing rack. "Look closely, Doctor."
At first Jenkins saw nothing. Then his eye caught a long, pink
glistening strand lying across the floor of the hold. The scanner picked
up the strand, followed it to the place where it emerged from a neat
pencil-sized hole in the hull of the _Lancet_. The strand snaked
completely across the room and disappeared through another neat hole in
the wall into the next storage hold.
Jenkins shook his head as the scanner flipped back to the hole in the
_Lancet's_ hull. Even as he watched, the hole enlarged and a pink blob
began to emerge. The blob kept coming and coming until it rested soggily
on the edge of the hole. Then it teetered and fell _splat_ on the floor.
"Friend of yours?" the Black Doctor asked casually.
It was a pink heap of jelly just big enough to fill a scrub bucket. It
sat on the floor, quivering noxiously. Then it sent out pseudopods in
several directions, probing the metal floor. After a few moments it
began oozing along the strand of itself that lay on the floor, and
squeezed through the hole into the next hold.
"Ugh," said Sam Jenkins, feeling suddenly sick.
"The hydroponic tanks are in there," the Black Doctor said. "You've seen
one of those before?"
"Not in person." Jenkins shook his head weakly. "Only pictures. It's a
_hlorg_. We thought it was only a Maukivi persecution fantasy."
"This thing is growing pretty fast for a persecution fantasy. We spotted
it eight hours ago, demolishing what was left of your food supply. It's
twice as big now as it was then."
"Well, we've got to get rid of it," said Jenkins, suddenly coming to
life.
"Amen, Doctor."
"I'll get the survey crew alerted right away. We won't waste a minute.
And my apologies." Jenkins was hurrying for the door. "I'll get it
cleared out of here fast."
"I do hope so," said the Black Doctor. "The thing makes me ill just to
think about."
"I'll give you a clean-ship report in twenty-four hours," the Red Doctor
said as confidently as he could and beat a hasty retreat down the
corridor. He was wishing fervently that he felt as confident as he
sounded.
The Maukivi had described the _hlorg_ in excruciating detail. He and
Green Doctor Stone had listened, and smiled sadly at each other, day
after day, marvelling at the fanciful delusion. _Hlorgs_, indeed! And
such creatures to dream up--eating, growing, devouring plant, animal and
mineral without discrimination--
And the Maukivi had stoutly maintained that this _hlorg_ of theirs was
indestructible--
* * * * *
Green Doctor Wally Stone, true to his surgical calling, was a man of
action.
"You mean there _is_ such a thing?" he exploded when his partner
confronted him with the news. "For real? Not just somebody's pipe
dream?"
"There is," said Jenkins, "and we've got it. Here. On board the _Mercy_.
It's eating like hell-and-gone and doubling its size every eight hours."
"Well what are you waiting for? Toss it overboard!"
"Fine! And what happens to the next party it happens to land on? We're
supposed to be altruists, remember? We're supposed to worry about the
health of the Galaxy." Jenkins shook his head. "Whatever we do with it,
we have to find out just what we're tossing before we toss."
The creature had made itself at home aboard the _Mercy_. In the spirit
of uninvited guests since time immemorial, it had established a toehold
with remarkable asperity, and now was digging in for the long winter.
Drawn to the hydroponic tanks like a flea to a dog, the _hlorg_ had
settled its bulbous pink body down in their murky depths with a
contented gurgle. As it grew larger the tank-levels grew lower, the
broth clearer.
The fact that the twenty-five crewmen of the _Mercy_ depended on those
tanks for their food supply on the four-month run back to Hospital Earth
didn't seem to bother the _hlorg_ a bit. It just sank down wetly and
began to eat.
Under Jenkins' whip hand, and with Green Doctor Stone's assistance, the
Survey Crew snapped into action. Survey was the soul and lifeblood of
the medical services supplied by Hospital Earth to the inhabited planets
of the Galaxy. Centuries before, during the era of exploration, every
Earth ship had carried a rudimentary Survey Crew--a physiologist, a
biochemist, an immunologist, a physician--to determine the safety of
landings on unknown planets. Other races were more advanced in
technological and physical sciences, in sales or in merchandising--but
in the biological sciences men of Earth stood unexcelled in the Galaxy.
It was not surprising that their casual offerings of medical services
wherever their ships touched had led to a growing demand for those
services, until the first Medical Service Contract with Deneb III had
formalized the planetary specialty. Earth had become Hospital Earth,
physician to a Galaxy, surgeon to a thousand worlds, midwife to those
susceptible to midwifery and psychiatrist to those whose inner lives
zigged when their outer lives zagged.
In the early days it had been a haphazard arrangement; but gradually
distinct Services appeared to handle problems of medicine, surgery,
radiology, psychiatry and all the other functions of a well-appointed
medical service. Under the direction of the Black Service of Pathology,
Hospital ships and Survey ships were dispatched to serve as bases for
the tiny General Practice Patrol ships that answered the calls of the
planets under Contract.
But it was the Survey ships that did the basic dirty-work on any new
planet taken under Contract--outlining the physiological and biochemical
aspects of the races involved, studying their disease patterns, their
immunological types, their susceptibility to medical, surgical, or
psychiatric treatment. It was an exacting service to perform, and Survey
did an exacting job.
Now, with their own home base invaded by a hungry pink jelly-blob, the
Survey Crew of the _Mercy_ dug in with all fours to find a way to
exorcise it.
The early returns were not encouraging.
Bowman, the anatomist, spent six hours with the creature. He'd go after
the functional anatomy first, he thought, as he approached the task with
gusto. Special organs, vital organ systems--after all, every Achilles
had his heel. Functional would spot it if anything would--
Six hours later he rendered a preliminary report. It consisted of a
blank sheet of paper and an expression of wild frustration.
"What's this supposed to mean?" Jenkins asked.
"Just what it says."
"But it says nothing!"
"That's exactly what it means." Bowman was a thin, wistful-looking man
with a hawk nose and a little brown mustache. He subbed as ship's cook
when things were slow in his specialty. He wasn't a very good cook, but
what could anyone do with the sludge from the harvest shelf of a
hydroponic tank? Now, with the _hlorg_ incumbent, there wasn't even any
sludge.
"I drained off a tank and got a good look at it before it crawled over
into the next one," Bowman said. "Ugly bastard. But from a strictly
anatomical standpoint I can't help you a bit."
Green Doctor Stone glowered over Jenkins' shoulder at the man. "But
surely you can give us _something_."