"Here," said Calhoun curtly, "you enter the picture, Murgatroyd! This is the sort of thing you're designed to handle!"
He set to work briskly. But presently he said over his shoulder:
"Besides a delicate digestion and a hair-trigger antibody system, Murgatroyd, you ought to have the instincts of a watchdog. I don't like coming that close to being speared by my patients. See if there's anybody else around, won't you?"
"Chee!" said Murgatroyd shrilly. But he didn't understand. He watched as Calhoun deftly drew a small sample of blood from the unconscious young woman and painstakingly put half the tiny quantity into an almost microscopic ampule in the lab kit. Then he moved toward Murgatroyd.
The tormal wriggled as Calhoun made the injection. But it did not hurt. There was an insensitive spot on his flank where the pain-nerves had been blocked off before he was a week old.
"As one medical man to another," said Calhoun, "what's a good treatment for anoxia when you haven't got any oxygen? You don't know? Neither do I. But we've found out why those chaps in the city tried to shake us to bits, out in space."
He swore in a sudden, bitter anger. Then he looked quickly at the girl, concerned lest she'd heard.
She hadn't. She was still unconscious.
III