course, indicate a serious blood deficiency. On the other hand, maybe the damned beast doesn'tneed red
corpuscles. I think, though, that we'd better go under the assumption that this blood count is pretty near normal.”
“Any reason why?” asked Darlinski.
“The best,” Jennings grinned. “If it's not normal, we're out of luck. I've broken down the blood structure, and there's no way we could synthesize red corpuscles of a type this thing wouldn't reject before it died for lack of them. So, pragmatism being what it is, we'll pretend that whatever else is wrong, the blood count's normal.”
Darlinski nodded his head and grunted his assent. “How about the tissues?” “You mean the scrapings?” asked Jennings. “Well, we might be running into a little more luck there ... or worse luck, depending on your point of view.” “Suppose you tell me what my point of view is,” said Darlinski warily. “If your point of view is that of a doctor looking for something to cure, we might have something for you. Here, take a look.”
Darlinski bent low over the powerful microscope and peered through it. A tiny skin sampling was on the slide, and even without resorting to the highest magnification Darlinski was aware of an enormous amount of cellular activity.
“What's happening?” he asked.
“Can't say for sure,” said Jennings. “But by all rights, that ought to be a very dead piece of skin, and it just as obviously is not. For the life of me I can't figure out what's feeding it or supplying it with whatever it needs in the way of blood and oxygen.” “Speaking of oxygen,” said Darlinski, “what kind of dose can I give her?” “Based on the blood structure, I'd say she's living in her equivalent of an oxygen tent right now. I wouldn't want to be the guy responsible for giving her a higher dose. It just might burn her lungs out.” “How about the smears?”
“Now, that's something really interesting,” said Jennings. “You found something?”
“Nope. I found absolutely nothing.”
“You're an easy guy to interest,” said Darlinski. “Hold on a second, boss,” said Jennings. “Let me ask you a question first: Who the hell told you that this was a female?”
“Hammett.”