* * * * *
I
The Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ rode in overdrive while her ship's
company drank coffee. Calhoun sipped at a full cup of strong brew,
while Murgatroyd the _tormal_ drank from the tiny mug suited to his
small, furry paws. The astrogation unit showed the percentage of this
overdrive hop covered up to now, and the needle was almost around to
the stop pin.
There'd been a warning gong an hour ago, notifying that the end of
overdrive journeying approached. Hence the coffee. When breakout came,
the overdrive field must collapse and the Duhanne cells down near the
small ship's keel absorb the energy which maintained it. Then
_Esclipus Twenty_ would appear in the normal universe of suns and
stars with the abruptness of an explosion. She should be somewhere
near the sun Tallien. She should then swim toward that sol-type sun
and approach Tallien's third planet out at the less-than-light-speed
rate necessary for solar-system travel. And presently she should
signal down to ground and Calhoun set about the purpose of his
three-week journey in overdrive.
His purpose was a routine checkup on public health on Tallien Three.
Calhoun had lately completed five such planetary visits, with from one
to three weeks of overdrive travel between each pair. When he left
Tallien Three he'd head back to Sector Headquarters for more orders
about the work of the Interstellar Medical Service.
Murgatroyd zestfully licked his empty cup to get the last least drop
of coffee. He said hopefully:
"_Chee?_" He wanted more.
"I'm afraid," said Calhoun, "that you're a sybarite, Murgatroyd. This
impassioned desire of yours for coffee disturbs me."
"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd, with decision.
"It's become a habit," Calhoun told him severely. "You should taper
off. Remember, when anything in your environment becomes a normal part
of your environment, it becomes a necessity. Coffee should be a
luxury, to be savored as such, instead of something you expect and
resent being deprived of."
Murgatroyd said impatiently:
"_Chee-chee!_"
"All right, then," said Calhoun, "if you're going to be emotional
about it! Pass your cup."
He reached out and Murgatroyd put the tiny object in his hand. He
refilled it and passed it back.
"But watch yourself," he advised. "We're landing on Tallien Three.
It's just been transferred to us from another sector. It's been
neglected. There's been no Med Service inspection for years. There
could be misunderstandings."
Murgatroyd said, "_Chee!_" and squatted down to drink.
Calhoun looked at a clock and opened his mouth to speak again, when a
taped voice said abruptly:
"_When the gong sounds, breakout will be five seconds off._"
There was a steady, monotonous _tick, tock, tick, tock,_ like a
metronome. Calhoun got up and made a casual examination of the ship's
instruments. He turned on the vision screens. They were useless in
overdrive, of course, Now they were ready to inform him about the
normal cosmos as soon as the ship returned to it. He put away the
coffee things. Murgatroyd was reluctant to give up his mug until the
last possible lick. Then he sat back and elaborately cleaned his
whiskers.
Calhoun sat down in the control chair and waited.
* * * * *
"_Bong!_" said the loud-speaker, and Murgatroyd scuttled under a chair. He
held on with all four paws and his furry tail. The speaker said,
"_Breakout in five seconds ... four ... three ... two ... one ..._"
There was a sensation as if all the universe had turned itself inside
out, and Calhoun's stomach tried to follow its example. He gulped, and
the feeling ended, and the vision screens came alight. Then there were
ten thousand myriads of stars, and a sun flaming balefully ahead, and
certain very bright objects nearby. They would be planets, and one of
them showed as a crescent.
Calhoun checked the solar spectrum as a matter of course. This was the
sun Tallien. He checked the brighter specks in view. Three were
planets and one a remote brilliant star. The crescent was Tallien
Three, third out from its sun and the Med Ship's immediate
destination. It was a very good breakout; too good to be anything but
luck. Calhoun swung the ship for the crescent planet. He
matter-of-factly checked the usual items. He was going in at a high
angle to the ecliptic, so meteors and bits of stray celestial trash
weren't likely to be bothersome. He made other notes, to kill time.
He reread the data sheets on the planet. It had been colonized three
hundred years before. There'd been trouble establishing a human-use
ecological system on the planet because the native plants and animals
were totally useless to humankind. Native timber could be used in
building, but only after drying-out for a period of months. When
growing or green it was as much water-saturated as a sponge. There had
never been a forest fire here, not even caused by lightning!
There were other oddities. The aboriginal microorganisms here did not
attack wastes of introduced terrestrial types. It had been necessary
to introduce scavenger organisms from elsewhere. This and other
difficulties made it true that only one of the world's five continents
were human-occupied. Most of the land surface was strictly as it had
been before the landing of men--impenetrable jungles of spongelike
flora, dwelt in by a largely unknown useless fauna. Calhoun read on.
Population ... government ... health statistics.... He went through
the list.
He had time to kill, so he rechecked his course and speed relative to
the planet. He and Murgatroyd had dinner. Then he waited until the
ship was near enough to report in.
"Med Ship _Esclipas Twenty_ calling ground," he said when the time
came. He taped his own voice as he made the call. "Requesting
co-ordinates for landing. Our mass is fifty tons. Repeat, five-oh
tons. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection."
He waited while his taped voice repeated and re-repeated the call. An
incoming voice said sharply:
"_Calling Med Ship! Cut your signal! Do not acknowledge this call! Cut
your signal! Instructions will follow. But cut your signal!_"
Calhoun blinked. Of all possible responses to a landing call, orders
to stop signaling would be least likely. But after an instant he
reached over and stopped the transmission of his voice. It happened to
end halfway through a syllable.
Silence. Not quite silence, of course, because there was the taped
record of background noise which went on all the time the Med Ship was
in space. Without it, the utter absence of noise would be sepulchral.
The voice from outside said:
"_You cut off. Good! Now listen! Do not--repeat, do not!--acknowledge
this call or respond to any call from anyone else! There is a drastic
situation aground. You must not--repeat, must not--fall into the hands
of the people now occupying Government Center. Go into orbit. We will
try to seize the spaceport so you can be landed. But do not
acknowledge this call or respond to any answer from anyone else! Don't
do it! Don't do it!_"
* * * * *
There was a click, and somehow the silence was clamorous. Calhoun
rubbed his nose reflectively with his finger. Murgatroyd, bright-eyed,
immediately rubbed his nose with a tiny dark digit. Like all
_tormals_, he gloried in imitating human actions, as parrots and
parakeets imitate human speech. But suddenly a second voice called in,
with a new and strictly professional tone:
"_Calling Med Ship!_" said this second voice. "_Calling Med Ship!
Spaceport Tallien Three calling Med Ship Esclipus Twenty! For landing,
repair to co-ordinates--_"
The voice briskly gave specific instructions. It was a strictly
professional voice. It repeated the instructions with precision.
Out of sheer habit, Calhoun said, "Acknowledge." Then he added
sharply: "Hold it! I've just had an emergency call--"
The first voice interrupted stridently:
"_Cut your signal, you fool! I told you not to answer any other call!
Cut your signal!_"
The strictly professional other voice said coldly:
"_Emergency call, eh? That'll be paras. They're better organized than
we thought, if they picked up your landing request! There's an
emergency, all right! It's the devil of an emergency--it looks like
devils! But this is the spaceport. Will you come in?_"
"Naturally," said Calhoun. "What's the emergency?"
"_You'll find out...._" That was the professional voice. The other
snapped angrily, "_Cut your signal!_" The professional voice again:
"_... you land. It's not...._" "_Cut your signal, you fool! Cut
it...._" The other voice again.
There was confusion. The two voices spoke together. Each was on a
tight beam, while Calhoun's call was broadcast. The voices could not
hear each other, but each could hear Calhoun.
"_Don't listen to them! There's...._" "_to understand, but...._"
"_Don't listen! Don't...._" "_... When you land._"
Then the voice from the spaceport stopped, and Calhoun cut down the
volume of the other. It continued to shout, though muffled. It
bellowed, as if rattled. It mouthed commands as if they were arguments
or reasons. Calhoun listened for fully five minutes. Then he said
carefully into his microphone:
"Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ calling spaceport. I will arrive at given
co-ordinates at the time given. I suggest that you take precautions if
necessary against interference with my landing. Message ends."
He swung the ship around and aimed for the destination with which he'd
been supplied--a place in emptiness five diameters out, with the
center of the sun's disk bearing so-and-so and the center of the
planet's disk bearing so-and-thus. He turned the communicator volume
down still lower. The miniature voice shouted and threatened in the
stillness of the Med Ship's control room. After a time Calhoun said
reflectively:
"I don't like this, Murgatroyd! An unidentified voice is telling
us--and we're Med Ship personnel, Murgatroyd!--who we should speak to
and what we should do. Our duty is plainly to ignore such orders. But
with dignity, Murgatroyd! We must uphold the dignity of the Med
Service!"
Murgatroyd said skeptically:
"_Chee_?"
"I don't like your attitude," said Calhoun, "but I'll bear in mind
that you're often right."
Murgatroyd found a soft place to curl up in. He draped his tail across
his nose and lay there, blinking at Calhoun above the furry half-mask.
* * * * *
The little skip drove on. The disk of the planet grew large. Presently
it was below. It turned as the skip moved, and from a crescent it
became a half-circle and then a gibbous near-oval shape. In the rest
of the solar system nothing in particular happened. Small and heavy
inner planets swam deliberately in their short orbits around the sun.
Outer, gas-giant planets floated even more deliberately in larger
paths. There were comets of telescopic size, and there were
meteorites, and the sun Tallien sent up monstrous flares, and storms
of improbable snow swept about in the methane atmosphere of the
greater gas giant of this particular celestial family of this sun and
its satellites. But the cosmos in general paid no attention to human
activities or usually undesirable intentions. Calhoun listened,
frowning, to the agitated, commanding voice. He still didn't like it.
Suddenly, it cut off. The Med Ship approached the planet to which it
had been ordered by Sector Headquarters now some months ago. Calhoun
examined the nearing world via electron telescope. On the hemisphere
rolling to a position under the Med Ship he saw a city of some size,
and he could trace highways, and there were lesser human settlements
here and there. At full magnification he could see where forests had
been cut away in wedges and half-squares, with clear spaces between
them. This indicated cultivated ground, cleared for human use in the
invincibly tidy-minded manner of men.
Presently he saw the landing grid near the biggest city--that
half-mile-high, cagelike wall of intricately braced steel girders. It
tapped the planet's ionosphere for all the power that this world's
inhabitants could use, and applied the same power to lift up and let
down the ships of space by which communication with the rest of
humanity was maintained. From this distance, though, even with an
electron telescope, Calhoun could see no movement of any sort. There
was no smoke, because electricity from the grid provided all the
planet's power and heat, and there were no chimneys. The city looked
like a colored map, with infinite detail but nothing which stirred.
A tiny voice spoke. It was the voice of the spaceport.
"_Calling Med Ship. Grid locking on. Right?_"
"Go ahead," said Calhoun. He turned up the communicator.
The voice from the ground said carefully:
"_Better stand by your controls. If anything happens down here you may
need to take emergency action._"
Calhoun raised his eyebrows. But he said:
"All set."
He felt the cushiony, fumbling motions as force fields from the
landing grid groped for the Med Ship and centered it in their complex
pattern. Then there came the sudden solid feeling when the grid locked
on. The Med Ship began to settle, at first slowly but with increasing
speed, toward the ground below.
It was all very familiar. The shape of the continents below him were
strange, but such unfamiliarity was commonplace. The voice from the
ground said matter-of-factly:
"_We think everything's under control, but it's hard to tell with
these paras. They got away with some weather rockets last week and may
have managed to mount war heads on them. They might use them on the
grid, here, or try for you._"
Calhoun said:
"What are paras?"
"_You'll be briefed when you land_," said the voice. It added:
"_Everything's all right so far, though._"
* * * * *
The _Esclipus Twenty_ went down and down and down. The grid had locked
on at forty thousand miles. It was a long time before the little ship
was down to thirty thousand and another long time before it was at
twenty. Then more time to reach ten, and then five, and one thousand,
and five hundred. When solid ground was only a hundred miles below
and the curve of the horizon had to be looked for to be seen, the
voice from the ground said:
"_The last hundred miles is the tricky part, and the last five will be
where it's tight. If anything does happen, it'll be there._"
Calhoun watched through the electron telescope. He could see
individual buildings now, when he used full magnification. He saw
infinitesimal motes which would be ground cars on the highways. At
seventy miles he cut down the magnification to keep his field of
vision wide. He cut the magnification again at fifty and at thirty and
at ten.
Then he saw the first sign of motion. It was an extending thread of
white which could only be smoke. It began well outside the city and
leaped up and curved, evidently aiming at the descending Med Ship.
Calhoun said curtly:
"There's a rocket coming up. Aiming at me."
The voice from the ground said:
"_It's spotted. I'm giving you free motion if you want to use it._"
The feel of the ship changed. It no longer descended. The landing-grid
operator was holding it aloft, but Calhoun could move it in evasive
action if he wished. He approved the liberty given him. He could use
his emergency rockets to dodge. A second thread of smoke came
streaking upward.
Then other threads of white began just outside the landing grid. They
rushed after the first. The original rockets seemed to dodge. Others
came up. There was an intricate pattern formed by the smoke trails of
rockets rising and other rockets following, and some trails dodging
and others closing in. Calhoun carefully reminded himself that it was
not likely that there'd be atomic war heads. The last planetary wars
had been fought with fusion weapons, and only the crews of single
ships survived. The planetary populations didn't. But atomic energy
wasn't much used aground, these days. Power for planetary use could be
had more easily from the upper, ionized limits of atmospheres.
A pursuing rocket closed in. There was a huge ball of smoke and a
flash of light, but it was not brighter than the sun. It wasn't atomic
flame. Calhoun relaxed. He watched as every one of the first-ascended
rockets was tracked down and destroyed by another. The last, at that,
was three-quarters of the way up.
The Med Ship quivered a little as the force fields tightened again. It
descended swiftly. It came to ground. Figures came to meet Calhoun as,
with Murgatroyd, he went out of the air lock. Some were uniformed. All
wore the grim expression and harried look of men under long-continued
strain.
The landing-grid operator shook hands first.
"Nice going! It could be lucky that you arrived. We normals need some
luck!"
He introduced a man in civilian clothes as the planetary Minister for
Health. A man in uniform was head of the planetary police. The others
weren't introduced.
"We worked fast after your call came!" said the grid operator. "Things
are lined up for you, but they're bad!"
"I've been wondering," admitted Calhoun dryly, "if all incoming ships
are greeted with rockets."
"That's the paras," said the police head, grimly. "They'd rather not
have a Med Service man here."
* * * * *
A ground car sped across the spaceport. It came at a headlong pace
toward the group just outside the Med Ship. There was a sudden howl of
a siren by the spaceport gate. A second car leaped as if to intercept
the first. Its siren screamed again. Then bright sparks appeared near
the first car's windows. Blasters rasped. Incredulously, Calhoun saw
the blue-white of blaster bolts darting toward him. The men about him
clawed for weapons. The grid operator said sharply:
"Get in your ship! We'll take care of this! It's paras!"
But Calhoun stood still. It was instinct not to show alarm. Actually,
he didn't feel it. This was too preposterous! He tried to grasp the
situation and fearfulness does not help at such a time.
A bolt crackled against the Med Ship's hull just beyond him. Blasters
rasped from beside him. A bolt exploded almost at Calhoun's feet.
There were two men in the first-moving ground car, and now that
another car moved to head them off, one fired desperately and the
other tried to steer and fire at the same time. The siren-sounding car
send a stream of bolts at them. But both cars jounced and bounced.
There could be no marksmanship under such conditions.
[Illustration]
But a bolt did hit. The two-man car dipped suddenly to one side. Its
fore part touched ground. It slued around, and its rear part lifted.
It flung out its two passengers and with an effect of great
deliberation it rolled over end for end and came to a stop upside
down. Of its passengers, one lay still. The other struggled to his
feet and began to run--toward Calhoun. He fired desperately, again and
again----
Bolts from the pursuing car struck all round him. Then one struck him.
He collapsed.
Calhoun's hands clenched. Automatically, he moved toward the other
still figure, to act as a medical man does when somebody is hurt. The
grid operator seized his arm. As Calhoun jerked to get free, that
second man stirred His blaster lifted and rasped. The little pellet of
ball-lightning grazed Calhoun's side, burning away his uniform down to
the skin, just as there was a grating roar of blaster fire. The second
man died.
"Are you crazy?" demanded the grid operator angrily. "He was a para!
He was here to try to kill you!"
The police head snapped:
"Get that car sprayed! See if it had equipment to spread contagion!
Spray everything it went near! And hurry!"
There was silence as men came from the spaceport building. They pushed
a tank on wheels before them. It had a hose and a nozzle attached to
it. They began to use the hose to make a thick, foglike, heavy mist
which clung to the ground and lingered there. The spray had the biting
smell of phenol.
"What's going on here?" demanded Calhoun angrily. "Damnation! What's
going on here?"
The Minister for Health said unhappily:
"Why ... we've a public-health situation we haven't been able to meet.
It appears to be an epidemic of ... of ... we're not sure what, but it
looks like demoniac possession."