Star Surgeon | Page 7

"Right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you really feel it's just normal procedure that your application is
being challenged?"
"No, sir."
"How do you feel about it, Dal? Angry, maybe?"
Dal squirmed. "Yes, sir. You might say that."
"Perhaps even bitter," the Black Doctor said.
"I did as good work as anyone else in my class," Dal said hotly. "I did
my part as well as anyone could, I didn't let up once all the way through.
Bitter! Wouldn't you feel bitter?"
The Black Doctor nodded slowly. "Yes, I imagine I would," he said,
sinking down into the chair behind the desk with a sigh. "As a matter of
fact, I do feel a little bitter about it, even though I was afraid that it
might come to this in the end. I can't blame you for your feelings." He
took a deep breath. "I wish I could promise you that everything would
be all right tomorrow, but I'm afraid I can't. The council has a right to
review your qualifications, and it holds the power to assign you to a
patrol ship on the spot, if it sees fit. Conceivably, a Black Doctor might
force the council's approval, if he were the only representative of the
Black service there. But I will not be the only Black Doctor sitting on
the council tomorrow."
"I know that," Dal said.

Doctor Arnquist looked up at Dal for a long moment. "Why do you
want to be a doctor in the first place, Dal? This isn't the calling of your
people. You must be the one Garvian out of millions with the patience
and peculiar mental make-up to permit you to master the scientific
disciplines involved in studying medicine. Either you are different from
the rest of your people--which I doubt--or else you are driven to force
yourself into a pattern foreign to your nature for very compelling
reasons. What are they? Why do you want medicine?"
It was the hardest question of all, the question Dal had dreaded. He
knew the answer, just as he had known for most of his life that he
wanted to be a doctor above all else. But he had never found a way to
put the reasons into words. "I can't say," he said slowly. "I know, but I
can't express it, and whenever I try, it just sounds silly."
"Maybe your reasons don't make reasonable sense," the old man said
gently.
"But they do! At least to me, they do," Dal said. "I've always wanted to
be a doctor. There's nothing else I want to do. To work at home, among
my people."
"There was a plague on Garv II, wasn't there?" Doctor Arnquist said.
"A cyclic thing that came back again and again. The cycle was broken
just a few years ago, when the virus that caused it was finally isolated
and destroyed."
"By the physicians of Hospital Earth," Dal said.
"It's happened again and again," the Black Doctor said. "We've seen the
same pattern repeated a thousand times across the galaxy, and it has
always puzzled us, just a little." He smiled. "You see, our knowledge
and understanding of the life sciences here on Earth have always grown
hand in hand with the physical sciences. We had always assumed that
the same thing would happen on any planet where a race has developed
intelligence and scientific methods of study. We were wrong, of course,
which is the reason for the existence of Hospital Earth and her
physicians today, but it still amazes us that with all the technology and

civilization in the galaxy, we Earthmen are the only people yet
discovered who have developed a broad knowledge of the processes of
life and illness and death."
The old man looked up at his visitor, and Dal felt his pale blue eyes
searching his face. "How badly do you want to be a doctor, Dal?"
"More than anything else I know," Dal said.
"Badly enough to do anything to achieve your goal?"
Dal hesitated, and stroked Fuzzy's head gently. "Well ... almost
anything."
The Black Doctor nodded. "And that, of course, is the reason I had to
see you before this interview, my friend. I know you've played the
game straight right from the beginning, up to this point. Now I beg of
you not to do the thing that you are thinking of doing."
For a moment Dal just stared at the little old man in black, and felt the
fur on his arms and back rise up. A wave of panic flooded his mind. He
knows! he thought frantically. He must be able to read minds! But he
thrust the idea away. There was no way that the Black Doctor could
know. No race of creatures in the galaxy had that power. And yet there