There was a certain coldness in the manner of those at the Weald
spaceport when the Med Ship left next morning. Calhoun was not popular
because Weald was scared. It had been conditioned to scare easily, where
blueskins might be involved. Its children were trained to react
explosively when the word "blueskin" was uttered in their hearing, and
its adults tended to say "blueskin" when anything to cause uneasiness
entered their minds. So a planet-wide habit of non-rational response had
formed and was not seen to be irrational because almost everybody had
it.
The volunteer who'd discovered the tragedy on the ship from Orede was
safe, though. He'd made a completely conscientious survey of the ship
he'd volunteered to enter and examine. For his courage, he'd have been
doomed but for Calhoun. The reaction of his fellow-citizens was that by
entering the ship he might have become contaminated by blueskin
infective material if the plague still existed, and if the men in the
ship had caught it--but they certainly hadn't died of it--and if there
had been blueskins on Orede to communicate it--for which there was no
evidence--and if blueskins were responsible for the tragedy. Which was
at the moment pure supposition. But Weald feared he might bring death
back to Weald if he were allowed to return.
Calhoun saved his life. He ordered that the guard-ship admit him to its
airlock, which then was to be filled with steam and chlorine. The
combination would sterilize and partly even eat away his space-suit,
after which the chlorine and steam should be bled out to space, and air
from the ship let into the lock. If he stripped off the space-suit
without touching its outer surface, and reentered the investigating ship
while the suit was flung outside by a man in another space-suit,
handling it with a pole he'd fling after it, there could be no possible
contamination brought back.
Calhoun was quite right, but Weald in general considered that he'd
persuaded the government to take an unreasonable risk.
There were other reasons for disapproving of him. Calhoun had been
unpleasantly frank. The coming of the death-ship stirred to frenzy those
people who believed that all blueskins should be exterminated as a pious
act. They'd appeared on every visionscreen, citing not only the ship
from Orede but other incidents which they interpreted as crimes against
Weald. They demanded that all Wealdian atomic reactors be modified to
turn out fusion-bomb materials while a space-fleet was made ready for an
anti-blueskin crusade. They confidently demanded such a rain of
fusion-bombs on Dara that no blueskin, no animal, no shred of
vegetation, no fish in the deepest ocean, not even a living
virus-particle of the blueskin plague could remain alive on the blueskin
world!
One of these vehement orators even asserted that Calhoun agreed that no
other course was possible, speaking for the Interstellar Medical
Service. And Calhoun furiously demanded a chance to deny it by
broadcast, and he made a bitter and indiscreet speech from which a
planet-wide audience inferred that he thought them fools. He did.
So he was definitely unpopular when his ship lifted from Weald. He'd
curtly given his destination as Orede, from which the death-ship had
come. The landing-grid locked on, raised the small space-craft until
Weald was a great shining ball below it, and then somehow scornfully
cast him off. The Med Ship was free, in clear space where there was not
enough of a gravitational field to hinder overdrive.
He aimed for his destination, his face very grim. He said savagely;
"Get set, Murgatroyd! Overdrive coming!"
* * * * *
He thumbed down the overdrive button. The universe of stars went out,
while everything living in the ship felt the customary sensations of
dizziness, of nausea, and of a spiralling fall to nothingness. Then
there was silence. The Med Ship actually moved at a rate which was a
preposterous number of times the speed of light, but it felt absolutely
solid, absolutely firm and fixed. A ship in overdrive feels exactly as
if it were buried deep in the core of a planet. There is no vibration.
There is no sign of anything but solidity and--if one looks out a
port--there is only utter blackness plus an absence of sound fit to make
one's eardrums crack.
But within seconds random tiny noises began. There was a reel and there
were sound-speakers to keep the ship from sounding like a grave. The
reel played and the speakers gave off minute creakings, and meaningless
hums, and very tiny noises of every imaginable sort, all of which were
just above the threshold of the inaudible.
Calhoun fretted. Sector Twelve was in very bad shape. A conscientious
Med Service man would never have let the anti-blueskin obsession go
unmentioned in a report on Weald. Health is not only a physical affair.
There is mental health, also. When mental health goes a civilization can
be destroyed more surely and more terribly than by any imaginable war or
plague-germ. A plague kills off those who are susceptible to it, leaving
immunes to build up a world again. But immunes are the first to be
killed when a mass neurosis sweeps a population.
Weald was definitely a Med Service problem world. Dara was another. And
when hundreds of men jammed themselves into a cargo-boat which could not
furnish them with air to breathe, and took off and went into overdrive
before the air could fail.... Orede called for no less of worry.
"I think," said Calhoun dourly, "that I'll have some coffee."
"Coffee" was one of the words that Murgatroyd recognized immediately. He
would usually watch the coffee-maker with bright, interested eyes. He'd
even tried to imitate Calhoun's motions with it, once, and had scorched
his paws in the attempt. This time he did not move.
Calhoun turned his head. Murgatroyd sat on the floor, his long tail
coiled reflectively about a chair-leg. He watched the door of the Med
Ship's sleeping-cabin.
"Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "I mentioned coffee!"
"_Chee!_" shrilled Murgatroyd.
But he continued to look at the door. The temperature was kept lower in
the other cabin, and the look of things was different from the
control-compartment. The difference was part of the means by which a man
was able to be alone for weeks on end--alone save for his
_tormal_--without becoming ship-happy. There were other carefully
thought out items in the ship with the same purpose. But none of them
should cause Murgatroyd to stare fixedly and fascinatedly at the
sleeping-cabin door. Not when coffee was in the making!
Calhoun considered. He became angry at the immediate suspicion that
occurred to him. As a Med Service man, he was duty-bound to be
impartial. To be impartial might mean not to side absolutely with Weald
in its enmity to blueskins. The people of Weald had refused to help Dara
in a time of famine; they'd blockaded that pariah world for years
afterward; they had other reasons for hating the people they'd treated
badly. It was entirely reasonable for some fanatic on Weald to consider
that Calhoun must be killed lest he be of help to the blueskins Weald
abhorred.
In fact, it was quite possible that somebody had stowed away on the Med
Ship to murder Calhoun, so that there would be no danger of any report
favorable to Dara ever being presented anywhere. If so, such a stowaway
would be in the sleeping-cabin now, waiting for Calhoun to walk
unsuspiciously in to be shot dead.
So Calhoun made coffee. He slipped a blaster into a pocket where it
would be handy. He filled a small cup for Murgatroyd and a large one for
himself, and then a second large one.
He tapped on the sleeping-cabin door, standing aside lest a blaster-bolt
came through it.
"Coffee's ready," he said sardonically. "Come out and join us."
There was a long pause. Calhoun rapped again.
"You've a seat at the captain's table," he said more sardonically still.
"It's not polite to keep me waiting!"
* * * * *
He listened, alert for a rush which would be a fanatic's desperate
attempt to do murder despite premature discovery. He was prepared to
shoot quite ruthlessly.
But there was no rush. Instead, there came hesitant foot-falls. The door
of the cabin slid slowly aside. A girl appeared in the opening,
desperately white and desperately composed.
"H-how did you know I was there?" she asked shakily. She moistened her
lips. "You didn't see me! I was in a closet, and you didn't even enter
the room!"
Calhoun said grimly;
"I've sources of information." He pointed to Murgatroyd.
The girl did not move. Her eyes went from Murgatroyd to Calhoun.
"And now," said Calhoun, "do you want to tell me your story? You have
one ready, I'm sure."
"There--there isn't any," said the girl unsteadily. "Just--I--I need to
get to Orede, and you're going there. There's no other way to go--now."
"To the contrary," said Calhoun, "there'll undoubtedly be a fleet
heading for Orede as soon as it can be assembled and armed. But I'm
afraid that's not a very good story. Try another."
She shivered a little.
"I'm--running away ..."
"Ah!" said Calhoun. "In that case I'll take you back."
"No!" she said fiercely. "I'll--I'll die first! I'll wreck this ship
first!"
Her hand came from behind her. There was a tiny blaster in it. But it
shook visibly as she tried to aim it.
"I'll--shoot out the controls!"
Calhoun blinked. He'd had to make a drastic change in his estimate of
the situation the instant he saw that the stowaway was a girl. Now he
had to make another when her threat was not to kill him but to disable
the ship. Women are rarely assassins, and when they are they don't use
energy weapons. Daggers and poisons are more typical.
"I'd rather you didn't do that," said Calhoun drily. "Besides, you'd get
deadly bored if we were stuck in a derelict waiting for our air and food
to give out."
Murgatroyd, for no reason whatever, felt it necessary to enter the
conversation. He said;
"_Chee-chee-chee!_"
"A very sensible suggestion," observed Calhoun. "We'll sit down and have
a cup of coffee." To the girl he said, "I'll take you to Orede, since
that's where you say you want to go."
"I--there's a boy there--"
Calhoun shook his head.
"No," he said reprovingly. "Nearly all the mining colony had packed
itself into the ship that came into Weald with everybody dead. But not
all. And there's been no check of what men were in the ship and what men
weren't. You wouldn't go to Orede if it were likely your fellow had died
on the way to you. Here's your coffee. Sugar or saccho, and do you take
cream?"
She trembled a little, but she took the cup.
"I--don't understand--."
"Murgatroyd and I," explained Calhoun--and he did not know whether he
spoke out of anger or something else--"we are do-gooders. We go around
trying to keep people from getting killed. It's our profession. We
practise it even on our own behalf. We want to stay alive. So since you
make such drastic threats, we will take you where you want to go.
Especially since we're going there anyhow."
"You--don't believe anything I've said!" It was a statement.
"Not a word," admitted Calhoun. "But you'll probably tell us something
more believable presently. When did you eat last?"
"Yesterday--."
"Better have something now. We'll talk more later." Calhoun showed her
how to punch the readier for such-and-such dishes, to be extracted from
storage and warmed or chilled, as the case might be, and served at
dialed-for intervals.
* * * * *
Calhoun deliberately immersed himself in the Galactic Directory, looking
up the planet Orede. He was headed there, but he'd had no reason to
inform himself about it before. Now he read with every appearance of
absorption.
The girl ate daintily. Murgatroyd watched with highly amiable interest.
But she looked acutely uncomfortable.
Calhoun finished with the Directory. He got out the microfilm reels
which contained more information. He was specifically after the Med
Service history of all the planets in this sector. He went through the
filmed record of every inspection ever made on Weald and on Dara. But
Sector Twelve had not been well-run. There was no adequate account of a
plague which had wiped out three-quarters of the population of an
inhabited planet! It had happened shortly after one Med Ship visit, and
was over before another Med Ship came by. But there should have been
painstaking investigation, even after the fact. There should have been a
collection of infective material and a reasonably complete
identification and study of the infective agent. It hadn't been made.
There was probably some other emergency at the time, and it slipped by.
But Calhoun--whose career was not to be spent in this sector--resolved
on a blistering report about this negligence and its consequences.
He kept himself casually busy, ignoring the girl. A Med Ship man has
resources of study and meditation with which to occupy himself during
overdrive travel from one planet to another. Calhoun made use of those
resources. He acted as if he were completely unconscious of the
stowaway. But Murgatroyd watched her with charmed attention.
Hours after her discovery, she said uneasily;
"Please?"
Calhoun looked up.
"Yes?"
"I--don't know exactly how things stand."
"You are a stowaway," said Calhoun. "Legally, I have the right to put
you out the airlock. It doesn't seem necessary. There's a cabin. When
you're sleepy, use it. Murgatroyd and I can make out quite well here.
When you're hungry, you now know how to get something to eat. When we
land on Orede, you'll probably go about whatever business you have
there. That's all."
She stared at him.
"But--you don't believe what I've told you!"
"No," agreed Calhoun. But he didn't add to the statement.
"But--I will tell you," she offered. "The police were after me. I had to
get away from Weald! I had to! I'd stolen--"
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "If you were a thief, you'd say anything in the world
except that you were a thief. You're not ready to tell the truth yet.
You don't have to, so why tell me anything? I suggest that you get some
sleep."
She rose slowly. Twice her lips parted as if to speak again, but then
she went into the other cabin and closed herself in.
Murgatroyd blinked at the place where she'd disappeared and then climbed
up into Calhoun's lap, with complete assurance of welcome. He settled
himself and was silent for moments. Then he said;
"_Chee!_"
"I believe you're right," said Calhoun. "She doesn't belong on Weald, or
with the conditioning she'd have had, there'd be only one place she'd
dread worse than Orede, and that would be Dara. But I doubt she'd be
afraid to land even on Dara."
Murgatroyd liked to be talked to. He liked to pretend that he carried on
a conversation, like humans.
"_Chee-chee!_" he said with conviction.
"Definitely," agreed Calhoun. "She's not doing this for her personal
advantage. Whatever she thinks she's doing, it's more important to her
than her own life. Murgatroyd--"
"_Chee?_" said Murgatroyd in an inquiring tone.
"There are wild cattle on Orede," said Calhoun. "Herds and herds of
them. I have a suspicion that somebody's been shooting them. Lots of
them. Do you agree? Don't you think that a lot of cattle have been
slaughtered on Orede lately?"
Murgatroyd yawned. He settled himself still more comfortably in
Calhoun's lap.
"_Chee,_" he said drowsily.
He went to sleep, while Calhoun continued the examination of highly
condensed information. Presently he looked up the normal rate of
increase, with other data, among herds of _bivis domesticus_ in a wild
state, on planets where they have no natural enemies. It wasn't
unheard-of for a world to be stocked with useful types of Terran fauna
and flora before it was attempted to be colonized. Terran life-forms
could play the devil with alien ecological systems, very much to
humanity's benefit. Familiar microorganisms and a standard vegetation
added to the practicality of human settlements on otherwise alien
worlds. But sometimes the results were strange.
They weren't often so strange, however, as to cause some hundreds of men
to pack themselves frantically aboard a cargo-ship which couldn't
possibly sustain them, so that every man must die while the ship was in
overdrive.
Still, by the time Calhoun turned in on a spare pneumatic mattress, he
had calculated that as few as a dozen head of cattle, turned loose on a
suitable planet, would have increased to herds of thousands or tens or
even hundreds of thousands in much less time than had probably elapsed.
The Med Ship drove on in seemingly absolute solidity, with no sound from
without, with no sight to be seen outside, with no evidence at all that
it was not buried deep in the heart of a planet instead of flashing
through emptiness at a speed so great as to have no meaning.
* * * * *
Next ship-day the girl looked oddly at Calhoun when she appeared in the
control-room. "Shall I--have breakfast?" she asked uncertainly.
"Why not?"
Silently, she operated the food-readier. She ate. Calhoun gave the
impression that he would respond politely when spoken to, but that he
was busy with activities that kept him remote from stowaways.
About noon, ship-time, she asked;
"When will we get to Orede?"
Calhoun told her absently, as if he were thinking of something else.
"What--what do you think happened there? I mean, to make that tragedy in
the ship?"
"I don't know," said Calhoun. "But I disagree with the authorities on
Weald. I don't think it was a planned atrocity of the blueskins."
"Wh-what are blueskins?"
Calhoun turned around and looked at her directly.
"When lying," he said mildly, "you tell as much by what you pretend
isn't, as by what you pretend is. You know what blueskins are!"
"B--but what do you think they are?" she asked.
"There used to be a human disease called smallpox," said Calhoun. "When
people recovered from it, they were usually marked. Their skin had
little scar-pits here and there. At one time, back on Earth, it was
expected that everybody would catch smallpox sooner or later, and a
large percentage would die of it. And it was so much a matter of course
that if they printed a description of a criminal, they never mentioned
it if he were pock-marked--scarred. It was no distinction. But if he
didn't have the markings, they'd mention that!" He paused. "Those
pock-marks weren't hereditary, but otherwise a blueskin is like a man
who had them. He can't be anything else!"
"Then you think they're--human?"
"There's never yet been a case of reverse evolution," said Calhoun.
"Maybe pithecanthropus had a monkey uncle, but no pithecanthropus ever
went monkey."
She turned abruptly away. But she glanced at him often during that day.
He continued to busy himself with those activities which make a Med
Ship man's life consistent with retained sanity.
Next day she asked without preliminary;
"Don't you believe the blueskins planned for the ship with the dead men
to arrive at Weald and spread plague there?"
"No," said Calhoun.
"Why?"
"It couldn't possibly work," Calhoun told her. "With only dead men on
board, the ship wouldn't arrive at a place where the landing-grid could
bring it down. So that would be no good. And plague-stricken living men
wouldn't try to conceal that they had the plague. They might ask for
help, but they'd know they'd instantly be killed on Weald if they were
found to be plague-victims. So that would be no good, either! No, the
ship wasn't intended to land plague on Weald."
"Are you--friendly to blueskins?" she asked uncertainly.
"Within reason," said Calhoun, "I am a well-wisher to all the human
race. You're slipping, though. When using the word 'blueskin' you should
say it uncomfortably, as if it were a word no refined person liked to
pronounce. You don't. We'll land on Orede tomorrow, by the way. If you
ever intend to tell me the truth, there's not much time."
She bit her lips. Twice, during the remainder of the day, she faced him
and opened her mouth as if to speak, and then turned away again. Calhoun
shrugged. He had fairly definite ideas about her, by now. He carefully
kept them tentative, but no girl born and raised on Weald would
willingly go to Orede, with all of Weald believing that a shipload of
miners preferred death to remaining there. It tied in, like everything
else that was unpleasant, to blueskins. Nobody from Weald would dream of
landing on Orede! Not now!
* * * * *
A little before the Med Ship was due to break out from overdrive, the
girl said very carefully;
"You've been--very kind. I'd like to thank you. I--didn't really believe
I would--live to get to Orede."
Calhoun raised his eyebrows.
"I--wish I could tell you everything you want to know," she added
regretfully. "I think you're--really decent. But some things...."
Calhoun said caustically;
"You've told me a great deal. You weren't born on Weald. You weren't
raised there. The people of Dara--notice that I don't say blueskins,
though they are--the people of Dara have made at least one space-ship
since Weald threatened them with extermination. There is probably a new
food-shortage on Dara now, leading to pure desperation. Most likely it's
bad enough to make them risk landing on Orede to kill cattle and freeze
beef to help. They've worked out."
She gasped and sprang to her feet. She snatched out the tiny blaster in
her pocket. She pointed it waveringly at him.
"I--have to kill you!" she cried desperately. "I--I have to!"
Calhoun reached out. She tugged despairingly at the blaster's trigger.
Nothing happened. Before she could realize that she hadn't turned off
the safety, Calhoun twisted the weapon from her fingers. He stepped
back.
"Good girl!" he said approvingly. "I'll give this back to you when we
land. And thanks. Thanks very much!"
She stared at him. "Thanks? When I tried to kill you?"
"Of course!" said Calhoun. "I'd made guesses. I couldn't know that they
were right. When you tried to kill me, you confirmed every one. Now,
when we land on Orede I'm going to get you to try to put me in touch
with your friends. It's going to be tricky, because they must be pretty
well scared about that ship. But it's a highly desirable thing to get
done!"
He went to the ship's control-board and sat down before it.
"Twenty minutes to break-hour," he observed.
Murgatroyd peered out of his little cubbyhole. His eyes were anxious.
_Tormals_ are amiable little creatures. During the days in overdrive,
Calhoun had paid less than the usual amount of attention to Murgatroyd,
while the girl was fascinating. They'd made friends, awkwardly on the
girl's part, very pleasantly on Murgatroyd's. But only moments ago there
had been bitter emotion in the air. Murgatroyd had fled to his cubbyhole
to escape it. He was distressed. Now that there was silence again, he
peered out unhappily.
"_Chee?_" he queried plaintively. "_Chee-chee-chee?_"
Calhoun said matter-of-factly;
"It's all right, Murgatroyd. If we aren't blasted as we try to land, we
should be able to make friends with everybody and get something
accomplished."
The statement was hopelessly inaccurate.