"But not good enough to rate Lensman's mate, eh?" Haynes completed the thought. "Then take her out. Pick the best skeletons you've got for this job, and see that no others come anywhere near him. Transfer them to some other hospital—to some other floor of this one, at least. Any woman that he ever falls for will fall for him, in spite of your ideas as to the one-wayness of hospital romance; and I don't want him to have such a good chance of making a dive at something that doesn't rate up. Am I right or wrong, you old sawbones, and for how much?"
"Well, I haven't had time yet to really study his skeleton, but——"
"Better take a week off and study it. I've studied a lot of people in the last sixty-five years, and I'll match my experience against your knowledge of bones, any time. Not saying that he will fall this trip, you understand—just playing safe. Good-by, Lacy!"
XVIII.
Kinnison was dragged out of unconsciousness by the knowledge that he had landed his speedster inertialess. He came to—or, rather, to say that he came half to would be a more accurate statement—with a yell directed at the blurrily seen figure in white which he knew must be a nurse.
"Nurse!" Then, as a searing stab of pain shot through him at the effort, he went on, thinking at the figure in white through his Lens: "My speedster! I landed her free! Get the space port——"
"There, there, Lensman," a low, rich voice crooned, and a red head bent over him. "The speedster has been taken care of. Everything is on the needles; go to sleep and rest."
"But my ship——"
"Never mind your ship," the unctuous voice went on. "It was landed and put away——"