The captain took the Venusian forward into the control room, where he daubed the welts on the creature's naked shoulders with arnica.
McFerson, easy-going, but dependable old spaceman, watched the operation critically. Gheal winced as the arnica touched his skin. He squirmed and tried to resist.
"Hold on a minute, Cap," McFerson said. "Look at the right shoulder, where you put the arnica; it's red and inflamed."
"So it is, but arnica ought to help."
"Look at the left shoulder, where you haven't put any arnica."
"Great guns! It's almost healed!"
"I'd say maybe arnica wasn't the best treatment."
Captain Arlen corked the bottle and put it aside. "Gheal looks like a man. Sometimes he acts like a man. Yet he's entirely different most of the time.
"I've been watching him, Cap. I somehow get the idea that Gheal finds it unhandy, most of the time, to be built like a man."
The captain laughed. He took Gheal's arm and held it up. "Look at that. Good, human bones, but the body of a monster. I wish you could talk, Gheal. I wish you could tell us more about yourself. Why are you almost a man yet the farthest point south?"