"Do you think that you can get away with ordering me not to perform the very duties I have taken an oath to do?" she stormed. "And even if it were not my job, I'd come in and work on him if I had to get a torch and cut the ship apart, plate by plate, to do it! The only way you can keep me out of that operating room, Lacy, is to have about ten of your men put me into a strait jacket--and if you do that I'll have you kicked out of the service bodily. You know that I could and that I would!" "QX, MacDougall, you win." She had him there. This girl could and would do exactly that. "But if you faint, I swear that I'll make you wish--" "You know me better than that, doctor." She was cold now as a woman of marble. "If he dies, I'll die, too, right then. But if he lives, I'll stand by as long as I can do a single thing, however small, to help." "You would, at that," the surgeon admitted. "Probably you would be able to hold together better than anyone else could. But there'll be after-effects in your case, you know." "I know." Her voice was bleak. "I'll live through them--if Kim lives." She became all nurse in the course of a breath. White, cold, inhuman; strung to highest tension and yet placidly calm, as only a truly loving woman in life's great crises can be. "You have had reports on him, doctor. What is your provisional diagnosis?" "Something like elephantiasis, only worse, affecting both arms and both legs. Drastic amputations indicated. Eye sockets require attention. Various multiple and compound fractures. Punctured and incised wounds. Traumatism, ecchymosis, extensive extravasations, œdema. Profound systemic shock, of course. The prognosis, however, seems to be distinctly favorable, as far as we can tell." "Oh, I'm glad of that!" she breathed, the woman for a moment showing through the armor of the nurse. She had not dared even to think of prognosis. Then she had a thought. "Is that really true, or are you just giving me a shot in the arm?" she demanded. "The truth--strictly," he assured her. "Worsel has an excellent sense of perception, and he has reported fully and clearly. Kinnison's mind, brain, and spine are not affected in any way, and we should be able to save his life. That is the one good feature of the whole thing." * * * * * The speedster finally matched the velocity of the hospital ship. She went free, flashed up to the _Pasteur_, inerted, and maneuvered briefly. The larger vessel engulfed the smaller. The Gray Lensman was carried into the operating room. The anæsthetist approached the table and Lacy was stunned at a thought from Kinnison. [Illustration: _They wheeled Kim out of the speedster, grim Worsel's vast strength gentle to help him into the hospital ship._] "Never mind the anæsthetic, Dr. Lacy. You can't make me unconscious without killing me. Go ahead with your work. I'll hold a nerve block while you're doing what has to be done. I can do it perfectly--I've had lots of practice."