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was merely the compound which came most readily to it in a human gut. It was more accustomed to utilise a chemical analogue which human digestion passed through the system, disregarded.
    But there were many, many possible compounds which the interaction of Earthly vegetables with Asgard soil might produce, and he lacked the stored computer-data which would have listed them for him—or rather, for the computer which he could later have asked whether they would also affect human metabolism. So far none of the control animals fed on locally grown plants had shown signs of disease, but a man was not a pig or a rat.
    He said harshly, “I think we shall have to call for volunteers!”
    There was a long pause. Parvati winced, but only on the inside of her mind, wishing Tai had consulted her before making the announcement. The pivotal psychological element of their success, it seemed to her, was the way they had totally eliminated conflict among the group; they were all collaborators in a single venture. Splitting them into “test subjects” and “others” could easily be disastrous.
Any
division implied a threat. Always hovering over her estimates and predictions there loomed the stormcloud of what had happened to DennisMalone on his first visit to Asgard—that instant of insanity which might have killed him and Sigrid by letting in infection, or poison. That it had not done so made no difference in principle. And there was Dennis himself, now, rising to his feet, thrusting his fingers through his tousled brown hair, almost defiantly addressing the rest of the audience.
    “Sure, I’ll volunteer!”
    Martyr complex.
Parvati nudged Hassan, whose skill in controlling the massed individualities of the colony was instinctive rather than trained, and found he was already rapping for attention.
    “Just a moment, Dennis,” he said mildly, and continued, addressing Tai. “You’ll have to give us a few more data, I’m afraid, before we can reasonably decide on that proposal of yours. Have you asked the computers to weigh the alternatives?”
    “Yes, naturally.” Tai wiped his face with a fluttering handkerchief. “Unfortunately the incidence of this scurvy has gone from zero ten days ago to twenty-two cases today. That’s a rate of increase which they are ordered to regard as a major threat. So they recommend diverting our entire resources to eliminating the bacterium and synthesising ascorbic acid. Which of course we can’t do. Not without the
Pinta.”
    One or two people were starting to tremble, Parvati’s keen gaze informed her. This was worse than she had anticipated.
    “The next best possibility is the one I’ve mentioned,” Tai went on. “That’s to supplement our diet with the native-grown plants. But I can’t hide the element of risk which doing that entails. Some animals, as you heard, are now living exclusively off local fodder without visible ill effects. But this has only been the case for three weeks, and there are compounds which accumulate in the body, and we—well, again thanks to the loss of the
Pinta,
we need to keep alive as many of the test animals as possible, for breeding, so we can’t kill enough of them to carry out daily analyses of their tissue. We’re relyingon blood and serum samples mainly, which are excellent in their way, but not infallible.”
    “How long before we run out of ready-made ascorbic acid?” Hassan demanded.
    “I don’t want to run out,” Tai grunted. “I want to keep enough in reserve to tide us over the winter, when we may not be able to go out and gather even hardy leaf-vegetables, let alone citrus fruits or any other highly concentrated sources of the stuff. And that means we ought to start supplementing our diet at once.”
    “I said I’d volunteer!” Dennis Malone called out again, and several people frowned at him for interrupting. Parvati was debating whether to cut in herself, when Ulla spoke up with admirable timeliness.
    “I need you to go and find