Dal hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded. “I’ve learned some things,” he said, “but there’s still one thing that I want to do before I go.”
He lifted his little pink friend gently down from his shoulder and rested him in the crook of his arm. Fuzzy looked up at him, blinking his shoe-button eyes happily. “You asked me once to leave Fuzzy with you, and I refused. I couldn’t see then how I could possibly do without him; even the thought was frightening. But now I think I’ve changed my mind.”
He reached out and placed Fuzzy gently in the Black Doctor’s hand. “I want you to keep him,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll need him any more. I’ll miss him, but I think it would be better if I don’t have him now. Be good to him, and let me visit him once in a while.”
The Black Doctor looked at Dal, and then lifted Fuzzy up to his own shoulder. For a moment the little creature shivered as if afraid. Then he blinked twice at Dal, trustingly, and snuggled in comfortably against the Black Doctor’s neck.
Without a word Dal turned and walked out of the office. As he stepped down the corridor, he waited fearfully for the wave of desolation and loneliness he had felt before when Fuzzy was away from him.
But there was no hint of those desolate feelings in his mind now. And after all, he thought, why should there be? He was not a Garvian any longer. He was a Star Surgeon from Hospital Earth.
He smiled as he stepped from the elevator into the main lobby and crossed through the crowd to the street doors. He pulled his scarlet cape tightly around his throat. Drawing himself up to the full height of which he was capable, he walked out of the building and strode down onto the street.