The car went on and on. A vast open space appeared ahead. Lights about
its perimeter seemed few and pale.
"Everything seems worse. Even the lights."
"Using all the power," said the driver, "to warm up ground to grow
crops where it ought to be winter. Not doing too well, either."
Calhoun knew, somehow, that Maril moistened her lips.
"I was sent," she explained to the driver, "to go ashore on Trent and
then make my way to Weald. I mailed reports of what I found out back
to Trent. Somebody got them back to here whenever it was possible."
The driver said, "Everybody knows the man on Trent disappeared. Maybe
he got caught, maybe somebody saw him without make-up. Or maybe he
just quit being one of us. What's the difference? No use!"
Calhoun found himself wincing a little. The driver was not angry. He
was hopeless. But men should not despair. They shouldn't accept
hostility from those about them as a device of fate for their
destruction.
Maril said quickly to Calhoun, "You understand? Dara's a heavy-metals
planet. There aren't many light elements in our soil. Potassium is
scarce. So our ground isn't very fertile. Before the Plague we traded
metals and manufactured products for imports of food and potash. But
since the Plague we've had no off-planet commerce. We've been
quarantined."
"I gathered as much," said Calhoun. "It was up to Med Service to see
that that didn't happen. It's up to Med Service now to see that it
stops."
"Too late now for anything," said the driver. "Whatever Med Service
may be! They're talking about cutting down our population so there'll
be food enough for some to live. There are two questions about it. One
is who's to be kept alive, and the other is why."
The groundcar aimed now for a cluster of faintly brighter lights on
the far side of the great open space. They enlarged as they grew
nearer. Maril said hesitantly, "There was someone, Korvan--" Calhoun
didn't catch the rest of the name. Maril said hesitantly, "He was
working on food plants. I thought he might accomplish something...."
The driver said caustically, "Sure! Everybody's heard about him! He
came up with a wonderful thing! He and his outfit worked out a way to
process weeds so they can be eaten. And they can. You can fill your
belly and not feel hungry, but it's like eating hay. You starve just
the same. He's still working. Head of a government division."
The groundcar passed through a gate. It stopped before a lighted door.
The armed men hanging to its outside dropped off. They watched Calhoun
closely as he stepped out with Murgatroyd riding on his shoulder.
Minutes later they faced a hastily summoned group of officials of the
Darian government. For a ship to land on Dara was so remarkable an
event that it called practically for a cabinet meeting. And Calhoun
noted that they were no better fed than the guards at the spaceport.
They regarded Calhoun and Maril with oddly burning, eyes. It was, of
course, because the two of them showed no signs of hunger. They
obviously had not been on short rations. Darians had this, now, to
increase a hatred which was inevitable anyhow, directed at all peoples
off their own planet.
"My name is Calhoun," said Calhoun briskly. "I've the usual Med
Service credentials. Now--"
He did not wait to be questioned. He told them of the appalling state
of things in the Twelfth Sector of the Med Service, so that men had
been borrowed from other sectors to remedy the intolerable, and he was
one of them. He told of his arrival at Weald and what had happened
there, from the excessively cautious insistence that he prove he was
not a Darian, to the arrival of the death-ship from Orede.
He was giving them the news affecting them, as they had not heard it
before. He went on to tell of his stop at Orede and his purpose, and
his encounter with the men he found there. When he finished there was
silence. He broke it.
"Now," he said, "Maril's an agent of yours. She can add to what I've
told you. I'm Med Service. I have a job to do here to carry out what
wasn't done before. I should make a planetary health inspection and
make recommendations for the improvement of the state of things. I'll
be glad if you'll arrange for me to talk to your health officials.
Things look bad, and something should be done."
Someone laughed without mirth.
"What will you recommend for long-continued undernourishment?" he
asked derisively. "That's our health problem!"
"I recommend food," said Calhoun.
"Where'll you fill the prescription?"
"I've the answer to that, too," said Calhoun curtly. "I'll want to
talk to any space pilots you've got. Get your astrogators together and
I think they'll approve my idea."
The silence was totally skeptical.
"Orede--"
"Not Orede," said Calhoun. "Weald will be hunting that planet over for
Darians. If they find any, they'll drop bombs here."
"Our only space pilots," said a tall man, presently, "are on Orede
now. If you've told the truth, they'll probably head back because of
your warning. They should bring meat."
His mouth worked peculiarly, and Calhoun knew that it was at the
thought of food.
"Which," said another man sharply, "goes to the hospitals! I haven't
tasted meat in two years!"
"Nobody has," growled another man still. "But here's this man Calhoun.
I'm not convinced he can work magic, but we can find out if he lies.
Put a guard on his ship. Otherwise let our health men give him his
head. They'll find out if he's from this Medical Service he tells of!
and this Maril...."
"I can be identified," said Maril. "I was sent to gather information
and send it in secret writing to one of us on Trent. I have a family
here. They'll know me! And I--there was someone who was working on
foods, and I believe he made it possible to use ... all sorts of
vegetation for food. He will identify me."
Someone laughed harshly.
Maril swallowed.
"I'd like to see him," she repeated. "And my family."
Some of the blue-splotched men turned away. A broad-shouldered man
said bluntly, "Don't look for them to be glad to see you. And you'd
better not show yourself in public. You've been well fed. You'll be
hated for that."