The skipper hesitated. "If that last happened, she--"
"I will take whatever measures are necessary," said Doctor Nordenfeld. "To save your conscience, we won't discuss them. They should have been taken on Altaira."
He reached over and flipped off the phone. Then he looked up and into the other part of the ship's hospital space. Kathy came out from behind a screen, where she'd made ready for bed. She was beaming. She had a large picture book under one arm and a doll under the other.
"It's all right for me to have these with me, isn't it, Doctor Nordenfeld?" she asked hopefully. "I didn't have any picture books but one, and it got worn out. And my doll--it was dreadful how shabby she was!"
The doctor frowned. She smiled at him. He said, "After all, picture books are made to be looked at and dolls to be played with."
She skipped to the tiny hospital bed on the far side of the presumably virusproof partition. She climbed into it and zestfully arranged the doll to share it. She placed the book within easy reach.
She said, "I think my father would say you were very nice, Doctor Nordenfeld, to look after me so well."
"No-o-o-o," said the doctor in a detached voice. "I'm just doing what anybody ought to do."
She snuggled down under the covers. He looked at his watch and shrugged. It was very easy to confuse official night with official day, in space. Everybody else was asleep. He'd been putting Kathy through tests which began with measurements of pulse and respiration and temperature and went on from there. Kathy managed them herself, under his direction.
He settled down with one of the medical books he'd brought into the isolation section with him. Its title was _Decontamination of Infectious Material from Different Planets_. He read it grimly.
The time came when the _Star Queen_ should have come out of overdrive with the sun Circe blazing fiercely nearby, and a green planet with ice caps to be approached on interplanetary drive. There should have been droning, comforting drive noises to assure the passengers--who naturally could not see beyond the ship's steel walls--that they were within a mere few million miles of a world where sunshine was normal, and skies were higher than ship's ceilings, and there were fascinating things to see and do.