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He started to draw back, but something stopped him. Deep in his mind he could sense a gentle voice reassuring him, saying, It's all right, there is nothing to fear, no harm will come to me. These creatures need help, and this is the way to help them. He saw the Bruckian reach out a trembling hand.
"We'd better get help, and fast," Jack said as he slammed the entrance lock closed behind them. "I don't like the looks of this a bit. Dal, we'd better see what we can learn from this poor creature here." As Tiger headed for the earphones, Dal and Jack went to work once again, checking the blood and other body fluids from the stricken Bruckian.
And as the doctors sifted through the data, the Bruckian they had brought up from the enclosure sat staring off into space, making small noises with his mouth and moving his arms aimlessly. After a while they led him back to a bunk, gave him a medicine for sleep and left him snoring gently.
They had landing permission from the Bruckian spokesman within minutes, and an hour later the Lancet made an orderly landing on a newly-repaved landing field near one of the central cities on the seventh planet of 31 Brucker.
But now there were two, each just one-half the size of the original. As Dal watched, one of the two drew away from the other, creeping in to snuggle closer to Dal's side, and a pair of shoe-button eyes appeared and blinked up at him trustingly. But the other creature was moving down his arm, straining out toward the Bruckian spokesman.... Dal realized instantly what was happening.
They also had an excellent understanding, thanks to their eavesdropping on Confederation interstellar radio chatter, of the existence and functions of the Galactic Confederation of worlds, and of Hospital Earth's work as physician to the galaxy. But about Bruckian anatomy, physiology or biochemistry, the little emissary would tell them nothing.
If this is a virus infection, we might only need to find an antibody for inoculation to stop it in its tracks. But first we need a good look at the planet and some more of the people both infected and healthy ones. We'd better make arrangements as fast as we can." An hour later they had reached an agreement with the Bruckian emissary.
Jack turned to the Bruckian spokesman in alarm. "What's happened here?" he asked. "What's become of the ones we inoculated? Where have you taken them?" The spokesman shrank back as though afraid Jack might reach out to touch him. "Taken them!" he cried. "We have moved none of them! Those are the ones you poisoned with your needles. What have you done to make them like this?"
"There is no record of your people in our Confederation, yet you use our own universal language." The Bruckian nodded. "We know the language well. My people dread outside contact it is a racial characteristic but we hear the Confederation broadcasts and have learned to understand the common tongue." The space-suited stranger looked at the doctors one by one.
The crew of the Lancet would be called back to Hospital Earth for a full report on the newly contacted race, and their days as probationary doctors in the General Practice patrol would be over. After they had slept themselves out, the doctors prepared the ship for launching, and made their farewells to the Bruckian spokesman.
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