Jenkins looked at the floor. "I'm sorry, sir."
"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.