"Three and a half," she said. She paused. "Handing's Scout is the other wreck down there?"
"Yes. There was one survivor ... as far as we know. You may recall his name. Leed Farous."
Duomart nodded. "The little kwil hound. He was assistant navigator. How did Dr. Egavine...?"
Dasinger said, "Farous died in a Federation hospital on Mezmiali two years ago, apparently of the accumulative effects of kwil addiction. He'd been picked up in Hub space in a lifeboat which we now know was one of the two on Handing's Scout."
"In Hub space? Why, it must have taken him almost a year to get that far in one of those tubs!"
"From what Dr. Egavine learned," Dasinger said, "it did take that long. The lifeboat couldn't be identified at the time. Neither could Farous. He was completely addled with kwil ... quite incoherent, in fact already apparently in the terminal stages of the addiction. Strenuous efforts were made to identify him because a single large star hyacinth had been found in the lifeboat ... there was the possibility it was one of the stones the Dosey Asteroids Company had lost. But Farous died some months later without regaining his senses sufficiently to offer any information.
"Dr. Egavine was the physician in charge of the case, and eventually also the man who signed the death certificate. The doctor stayed on at the hospital for another year, then resigned, announcing that he intended to go into private research. Before Farous died, Egavine had of course obtained his story from him."
Miss Mines looked puzzled. "If Farous never regained his senses ..."
"Dr. Egavine is a hypnotherapist of exceptional ability," Dasinger said. "Leed Farous wasn't so far gone that the information couldn't be pried out of him with an understanding use of drug hypnosis."
"Then why didn't others ..."