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exotic plagues to be found on strange worlds. But he was a doctor and this was his job. He said, making his voice as firm as he could, “All right, everyone else stand back; but don’t panic, if it was an airborne plague we’d all have caught it, and probably the night we landed here. Dr. Lovat, any other symptoms?”
    Judy said, trying to smile, “None—except I’m scared.”
    Ewen said, “We won’t count that—yet.” Pulling rubber gloves from a steri-pace in his kit, he quickly took her pulse. “No tachycardia, no depressed breathing. You, Heather?”
    “I’m fine, except for the damned itching.”
    Ewen examined the small rash minutely. It was pinpoint at first, but each papule quickly swelled to a vesicle. He said, “Well, let’s start eliminating. What did you and Dr. Lovat do that nobody else did?”
    “I took soil samples,” she said, “looking for soil bacteria and diatoms.”
    “I was studying some leaves,” Judy said, “trying to see if they had a suitable chlorophyll content.”
    Marco Zabal turned back his uniform cuffs. “I’ll play Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “There’s your answer.” He extended his wrists, showing one or two tiny green dots. “Miss Stuart, did you have to move away any leaves to dig up your samples?”
    “Why, yes, some flat reddish ones,” she said, and he nodded. “There’s your answer. Like any good xenobotanist, I handle any plant with gloves until I’m sure what’s in it or on it, and I noticed the volatile oil at the time, but took it for granted. Probably some distant relative of urushiol— rhus toxicodendron —poison ivy to you. And it’s my guess that if it comes out this quickly, it’s simple contact dermatitis and there aren’t any serious side effects.” He grinned, his long narrow face amused. “Try an antihistamine ointment, if you have any, or give Dr. Lovat a shot, since her eyes are swollen so much it’s going to be hard for her to see where she’s going. And from now on don’t go admiring any pretty leaves until I pass on them, all right?”
    Ewen followed his instructions, with a relief so great it was almost pain. He felt totally unable to cope with any alien plagues. A massive hypo of antihistamines quickly shrunk Judith Lovat’s swollen eyes to normal, although the green color remained. The tall Basque showed them all his specimen leaf, encased in a transparent plastic sample case. “The red menace that turns you green,” he said dryly. “Learn to stay away from alien plants, if you can.”
    MacAran said, “If everyone’s all right, let’s move along,” but as they gathered up their equipment, he felt half sick with relief, and renewed fear. What other dangers could be lurking in an innocent-looking tree or flower? He said half-aloud to Ewen, “I knew this place was too good to be true.”
    Zabal heard him and chuckled. “My brother was on the First Landing team that went to the Coronis colony. That’s one reason I was heading out there. That’s the only reason I happen to know all this. The Expedition Force doesn’t care to publicize how tricky planets can be, because no one on our nice, safe Earth would dare go out to them. And of course by the time the major colonizing groups get there, like us, the technological crews have removed the obvious dangers and, shall we say, smoothed things down a bit.”
    “Let’s go,” MacAran ordered, without answering. This was a wild planet, but what could he do about it? He’d said he wanted to take risks, now he was having his chance.
    But they went on without incident, halting near midday to eat lunch from their packs and allow Camilla Del Rey to check her chronometer and come closer to the exact moment of noon. He drew closer to her as she was watching a small pole she had set up in the ground:
    “What’s the story?”
    “The moment when the shadow is shortest is exact noon. So I note the length every two minutes and when it begins to get longer again, noon—the sun