cried. "There's been a terrible change!"

In the sickroom His Eminence was drenched with sweat, his face glistening in the light of the bunsen burners. He rolled from side to side, groaning hoarsely. "Faster!" Jenkins shouted to Kiz at the mortar, and began stripping off the sodden bedclothes. "Blankets, now—plenty of them."

The plink-plink rose to a frantic staccato as Jenkins checked the patient's vital signs, wiped more sweat from his furry brow. Quite suddenly His Eminence opened bleary eyes, stared about him, let out a monumental groan and buried his head in the blankets. In two minutes he was snoring softly. His face was cool now, his heart-beat slow and regular.

Jenkins snatched the mortar from Kiz, and with a wild flourish smashed it on the stone floor. Then he grabbed the wizard's paw, raising it high. "You've done well!" he cried to the bewildered physician. "It's over now—the Spirit has departed. His Eminence will recover."

They escorted him in triumphal procession back to the Lancet, where Wally Stone stared in disbelief as Jenkins and Kiz bowed and hugged each other like long-lost brothers at a sad farewell. "I finally got through to somebody at HQ," he said as the Red Doctor climbed aboard. "It'll take them twenty days at least, to get help, considering that Morua is not a Contract planet and we're not supposed to be here in the first place, but that's the best they can do...."

"Tell them to forget the armada," said Jenkins, grinning. "And anyway, they've got things all wrong back at HQ." He brandished a huge roll of parchment, stricken through with the colors of the seven Medical Services of Hospital Earth. "Take a look, my boy—the juiciest Medical Services Contract that's been written in three centuries—" He tossed the Contract in the dry-storage locker with a sigh. "Old Kiz just finished his first lesson, and he's still wondering what went on—"

"So am I," said the Green Doctor suspiciously.

"It was simple. We cured His Eminence of the Pox."

"With what? Incantations?"

"Oh, the incantations were for the doctors," said Jenkins. "They expected them, obviously, since that was the only level of medicine they could understand. And incidentally, the only level that could possibly get us a Contract. Anyway, I couldn't do very much else, under the circumstances, except for a little supportive therapy. Without a 

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