they tried it! Half the planetary population wiped out before they realized that the antibiotic was more deadly to the race than the virus was...."

"Might not be such a bad idea for Morua," the Red Doctor muttered grimly. "Well, what did you expect me to do—politely refuse? And have our throats slit right on the spot?" He grabbed a pad and began scribbling. "We've got to do something just to keep alive for a while."

"Yeah," said Wally. "What, for instance?"

"Well, we've got a little to go on just from looking at them. They're oxygen-breathers, which means they manage internal combustion of carbohydrates, somehow. From the grey skin color I'd guess at a cuprous or stannous heme-protein carrying system. They're carnivores, but god knows what their protein metabolism is like—Let's get going on some of these specimens Aguar has rounded up for us."

They dug in frantically. Under normal conditions a GPP ship would send in a full crew of technicians to a newly-Contracted planet to make the initial Bio-survey of the indigenous races. Bio-chemists, physiologists, anatomists, microbiologists, radiologists—survey workers from every Service would examine and study the new clients, take them apart cell by cell to see what made them tick.

Certain basic principles were always the same, a fact which accelerated the program considerably. Humanoid or not, all forms of life had basic qualities in common. Biochemical reactions were biochemical reactions, whether they happened to occur in a wing-creature of Wolf IV or a doctor from Sol III. Anatomy was a broad determinant: a jelly-blob from Deneb I with its fine skein of pulsating nerve fibrils was still just a jelly-blob, and would never rise above the level of amoeboid yes-no response because of its utter lack of organization. But a creature with an organized central nervous system and a functional division of work among organ systems could be categorized, tested, studied, and compared, and the information used in combating native disease. Given no major setbacks, and full cooperation of the natives, the job only took about six months to do—

For the crew of the Lancet six hours was seven hours too long. They herded cringing Moruan "volunteers" into the little ship's lab. Jenkins handled external examinations and blood and tissue chemistries; Stone ran the X-ray and pan-endoscopic examinations. After four grueling hours the Red Doctor groaned and scowled at the growing pile of data. "Okay. It seems that they're vaguely humanoid. And that's 

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