Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

with her past puberty; he remembered vaguely that she had a son-a son, no

lessl-who was an eminent physicist in his own right, with whom she

occasionally collaborated on research problems which involved both sciences.

He sighed without being aware of it and stripped Tabath off his forearm.

She promptly coiled fiercely around his hand, but by saying “Shower,

Tabath” to her four or five times with increasing firmness, he managed to

overcome her suspicions of the strange surroundings. Nevertheless, she

promptly disappeared into one of his pockets; ordinarily she would have

coiled inside his collar, where she could keep watch until he reappeared.

The first physical was relative superficial, strictly an assembly-line

procedure. Once past it, however, iom found himself subject to an

individual examination which more than justified Dr. Chase-Huebner’s

prophecy. He had never realized before that he had so many orifices worth

looking into, so many internal organs to be palpated and X-rayed, so many

body products worth sampling, so many vital processes recordable by

appropriate machines. Had Tabath been present through all of this, she

would indeed probably have bitten somebody-or, more likely, everybody. Even

for Jorn it was something of an ordeal; when it was over, he felt as though

he had just run a mile. (And he had in fact run about a quarter of that

distance, on a treadmill, with a breathing mask over his nose and mouth.)

By this time he was deep into the labyrinth which was “room” a-10-primc.,

and had entirely lost sight and track of other applicants for the job, if