destination.

"Kwangtan," they all agreed, "wants him killed or sent away."

From what he could piece together from the various relays of women he overheard, Verrill concluded that Kwangtan was the keeper of the shrine; and that medical practice was the monopoly of old women, who cooked up herbs. These potions, plus Kwangtan's incantations, kept the community in health.

The drowsy silence of midafternoon was broken by an hysterical screeching and screaming. Before Verrill could arouse himself from the stupor of half suffocation, the door was jerked open and several men pounced for him.

"You, with the medicine! Work for you. Bring the black box!"

They hustled him to a house where several old women were shaking and back-slapping a boy of three or four. The kid's mother, one of the few redheads in the colony, was wailing at a pitch that made Verrill shiver. A beetle-browed young man with a wiry beard squatted on the floor, looking helpless. All he did was repeat, "Get Kwangtan!" And no one paid him any heed at all.

At the sight of Verrill, one of the old women laid the child on a sheepskin spread on the floor. The child's face was gray. His lips were bluish. His eyes bugged out. He wheezed agonizingly. It made Verrill's skin twitch, just to see the little fellow's losing battle for breath. He was slowly choking. With all voices suddenly stilled at Verrill's approach, the sound became all the more ominous.

In his utter perplexity and dismay, Verrill hoped that what he heard was the death-rattle which would relieve him of the task about to be forced upon him. The absence of Kwangtan, the holy man, told him the story: that wise fellow was not going to lose any prestige by tackling something he could not handle.

"What's wrong?" Verrill asked, with a show of assurance.

"You're a doctor," the kid's father snarled. "Do something."

"He swallowed an apricot seed," the child's redhaired mother said. "It's stuck, we can't shake it out, he's choking. Get it out, you blinking fool!"

The kid's father drew and cocked his pistol. The dry click chilled Verrill to the heart. He remembered an old story of an emergency operation at a trading-post. The yarn had given the Venusians quite a thrill.

Ardelan stalked in. He nodded 

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