The Lovers   ::   Фармер Филип Хосе

Strange. Such an abnormally high percentage should mean that the renal threshold was passed and that an excess of calcium should be 'spilling' into the urine. Where was it going?

The Labtech flashed a red light: FINISHED.

He took a hematology textbook down from the shelf and opened it to the Ca section. When he quit reading, he straightened his shoulders. New hope? Perhaps. Her case sounded as if she had a form of hypercalcemia, which was manifested by any number of diseases ranging from rickets and steomalacia to chronic hypertropic arthritis. Whatever she had, she was suffering from a malfunction of the parathyroid glands.

The next move was to the Pharm machine. He punched three buttons, dialed a number, waited for two minutes, and then lifted a little door at waist level. A tray slid out. On it was a cellophane sheath containing a hypodermic needle and a tube holding 30 cubic centimeters of a pale blue fluid. It was Jesper's serum, a 'one-shot' readjustor of the parathyroid.

Hal put on his cloak, stuck the package in the inside pocket, and strode out. The orderly didn't even look up.

The next step was the weapons room. There he gave the storekeeper an order-made out in triplicate-for one 1 mm. automatic and a clip of one hundred explosive cartridges. The keeper only glanced over the forged signatures – he, too, was awed by the lamedh – and unlocked the door. Hal took the gun, which he could easily hide in the palm of his hand, and stuck it in his pants pocket.

At the key room, two corridors away, he repeated the crime. Or rather, he tried to.

Moto, the officer on duty, looked at the papers, hesitated, and said, 'I'm sorry. My orders are to check on any requests with the Chief Uzzite. That won't be possible for about an hour, though. He's in conference with the Archurielite.'

Hal picked up his papers.

'Never mind. My business'll hold. Be back in the morning,'

On the way home, he planned what he would do. After injecting Jesper's serum into Jeannette, he would move her into the gig. The floor beneath the gig's control panel would have to be ripped up, two wires would be unhooked, and one connected to another lead. That would remove the fifty-mile limit. Unfortunately, it would also set off an alarm back in the Gabriel.

He hoped that he could take off straight up, level off, and dive behind the range of hills to the west of Siddo. The hills would deflect the radar. The autopilot could be set long enough for him to demolish the box that would be sending out the signal by which the Gabriel might track him down.