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 Well, stand away so you're not in line with those cages and we'll get this over with."

Ole Doc looked at Hippocrates and Hippocrates looked at Ole Doc. It would have taken a very good poker player to have told what passed between them. But Ole Doc knew what he wanted to know. During his chicken treatments his orders had been carried out. He laid his hypo on the table with an histrionic sigh and carelessly thumbed the button on the magnetic release. Very small in the distance there were slight, pinging sounds.

"You know," said Ole Doc, "I wouldn't be too much in a hurry, Smalley."

"And why not?"

Because I was just giving this kid a treatment to save his life."

"Yeah. I believe you."

"Happens to be the truth," said Ole Doc. "Of course I didn't have any idea that their friends would be along so soon, but I just didn't like to see kids die wholesale. If you'll call up your medico, I'll show him what's to be done—"

"About what?"

"About this illness," said Ole Doc. "Strange thing. Must be a lion disease or something. Very rare. Affects all the nerve centers."

"Those two kids look all right to me!" said Smalley, getting alert and peering at the cages on the porch.

"These I've practically cured, although the girl there still wants her final treatment. But down at the pens—"

"What about the pens?" demanded Smalley.

"There's thirty-eight thousand mighty sick babies. And it's going to take a lot of know-how to heal them. Left untreated, they'll die. But, as you're the one who's interested—"

"Say, how do you know so much?" snarled Smalley.

"I happen to be a doctor," said Ole Doc.

"He is Ole Doc Methuselah!" said Hippocrates with truculence. "He is a Soldier of Light!"

"What's that?" said Smalley.

"A doctor," said Ole Doc. "Now if you'll bring your medico here—"

"And if I don't have one?"

"Why, that's surprising," said Ole Doc. "How do you expect to keep thirty-eight thousand kids whole without a doctor?"

"We'll manage! Now get this, doc. You're going to unbuckle that blaster belt right where you stand and you're going to walk ahead of me slow to the pens. And you'd better lie telling the truth."

Ole Doc dropped his belt, made a sign to Hippocrates to gather up the graduates and stepped out toward the pens.

Here, under the slanting yellow rays of the afternoon sun it became very obvious that there wasn't an Achnoid in sight. Instead there were various beings in disordered dress who held carefully ordered OLE MOTHER METHUSELAH