Fresh Air Fiend
By KRIS NEVILLE
Illustrated by KARL ROGERS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sick and helpless, he was very lucky to have a
faithful native woman to nurse him. Or was he?
He rolled over to look at the plants. They were crinkled and dead and useless in the narrow flower box across the hut. He tried to draw his arm under his body to force himself erect. The reserve oxygen began to hiss in sleepily. He tried to signal Hertha to help him, but she was across the room with her back to him, her hands fumbling with a bowl of dark, syrupy medicine. His lips moved, but the words died in his throat.
He wanted to explain to her that scientists in huge laboratories with many helpers and millions of dollars had been unable to find a cure for liguna fever. He wanted to explain that no brown liquid, made like cake batter, would cure the disease that had decimated the crews of two expeditions to Sitari and somehow gotten back to cut down the population of Wiblanihaven.