"You'd better kill me, then," breathed Hughes. "Because you aren't smart enough to hold me."
"No? Hughes, you're wrong." Farradyne continued to smile as he went into the medicine-bay and came up with an ampule and a hypodermic. He filled the needle deliberately, eyed the dose critically and adjusted the quantity by causing a droplet to ooze out of the needle until the plunger was exactly at the mark.
"This is a fine pain-killer," he said. "Marcoleptine. Know it, Hughes?"
Hughes began to mouth curses. Farradyne paid no more attention to the curses than if Hughes had been delivering benedictions. He caught the man's arm, quelled the resulting struggle easily and locked the arm in a cruel arm-bar between the elbow and the wrist beneath his arm-pit. Farradyne lifted, and Hughes came up from the bed slightly; the arm was both rigid and still because to move might break the arm. Hughes glared; Farradyne put on more pressure.
Then, as deliberately as he had measured out the dose, Farradyne slid the needle into Hughes' elbow, probed briefly for the vein and delivered the shot. He withdrew the needle quickly and swabbed the ooze of blood with cotton dipped in an astringent.
He dropped Hughes on the bed and sat down on the chair beside the bed and relaxed a bit.
"Marcoleptine," he said conversationally, "is a fine pain-killer—and habit-forming as hell. You'll blank out in a few moments, and when you come to it will be about this time tomorrow. You'll see me, because I'll be here with another healthy needle full of the stuff. By the time we get to Pluto, you'll be willing to sell your eyeballs for a jolt, Hughes."
Hughes' eyes were heavy-lidded, but beneath them pure hatred looked out.
"As for the reason you're here, that's easy. I can almost quote the Spaceman's Guide to Diagnosis of Common Ailments. I think it's on Page two forty-four." Farradyne did not really remember, but he wanted to keep a drone of speech running to lull Hughes' mind—and also to help keep himself awake until Hughes blanked out under the marcoleptine. "Coryosis, one of the nine allied infections formerly grouped under the ambiguous term 'Common Cold,' is contagious but not fatal except in severe cases of extreme sensitivity. Treatment consists of isolation of the patient plus frequent intravenous injections of MacDonaldson's Formula 2,Ph-D3;Ra7. Nobody will want to spend much time with you for fear of infection themselves, which would be both hazardous to them and to you because of the danger of reinfection.