Contamination Crew by Alan Edward Nourse

Red Doctor Samuel B. Jenkins thought his career crisis began with a bureaucratic accusation from the icy Black Service. It turns out the real disaster was waiting aboard the medical survey ship Mercy: a pink, shapeless organism called a hlorg, quietly devouring the vessel from within. What first seemed like a mass delusion on Mauki IV becomes a nightmare of hard evidence when the creature follows Jenkins home, forcing Hospital Earth's doctors to confront a biological threat that mocks every rule they trust. As Green Doctor Wally Stone, Black Doctor Turvold Neelsen, and the rest of the crew investigate, they discover a monster with no cells, organs, or waste—only a self-propagating mass of protoplasm capable of breaking matter down to the nuclear level. Severed pieces can regrow or become new hlorgs, making containment nearly impossible. But amid the horror, the crew uncovers a fatal weakness: dilute hydrochloric acid destroys the organism's enzyme system. Faced with dwindling supplies and a threat that cannot be reasoned with, the doctors resort to grim improvisation, dark humor, and quarantine. Sharp, satirical, and suspenseful, this science-fiction tale skewers medical authority, bureaucracy, and scientific certainty as it turns a "fantasy" into a deadly reality. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.