Broderick MacNeil lay in his bed and felt pleasantly ill. He treasured each one of his various symptoms; each pain and ache was just right. He hadn’t been so comfortable in years. It really felt fine to have all those doctors fussing over him. They got snappy and irritable once in a while, but then, all them brainy people had a tendency to do that. He wondered how the rest of the boys were doing on their diet of banana-pears. Too bad they weren’t getting any special treatment.
MacNeil had decided just that morning that he’d leave the whole state of his health in the hands of the doctors. No need for a fellow to dose himself when there were three medics on the job, was there? If he needed anything, they’d give it to him, so he’d decided to take no medicine.
A delightful, dulling lassitude was creeping over him.
“MacNeil! MacNeil! Wake up, MacNeil!”
The spaceman vaguely heard the voice, and tried to respond, but a sudden dizziness overtook him. His stomach felt as though it were going to come loose from his interior.
“I’m sick,” he said weakly. Then, with a terrible realization, “I’m really awful sick!”
He saw Dr. Smathers’ face swimming above him and tried to lift himself from the bed. “Shoulda taken pills,” he said through the haze that was beginning to fold over him again. “Locker box.” And then he was unconscious again.
Dr. Smathers looked at him bleakly. The same thing was killing MacNeil as had killed the others. It had taken longer—much longer. But it had come.