Part 2 (1/2)

But they built a s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p and came here. They went in orbit around Weald. They asked to trade for s.h.i.+ploads of food. They offered any price in heavy metals, gold, platinum, iridium, and so on. They talked from orbit by vision communicators. They could be seen to be blueskins. You can guess what happened!”

”Tell me,” said Calhoun.

”We armed s.h.i.+ps in a hurry,” admitted the doctor, ”We chased their s.p.a.ce-s.h.i.+p back to Dara. We hung in s.p.a.ce off the planet. We told them we'd blast their world from pole to pole if they ever dared take to s.p.a.ce again. We made them destroy their one s.h.i.+p, and we watched on visionscreens as it was done.”

”But you gave them food?”

”No,” said the doctor ashamedly. ”They were blueskins.”

”How bad was the famine?”

”Who knows? Any number may have starved! And we kept a squadron of armed s.h.i.+ps in their skies for years. To keep them from spreading the plague, we said. And some of us believed it, probably!”

The doctor's tone was purest irony.

”Lately,” he said, ”there's been a move for economy in our government.

Simultaneously, we began to have a series of over-abundant crops. The government had to buy the excess grain to keep the price up. Retired patrol-s.h.i.+ps--built to watch over Dara--were available for storage-s.p.a.ce. We filled them up with grain and sent them out into orbit. They're there now, hundreds of thousands or millions of tons of grain!”

”And Dara?”

The Doctor shrugged. He stood up.

”Our hatred of Dara,” he said, again ironically, ”has produced one thing. Roughly halfway between here and Dara there's a two-planet solar system, Orede. There's a usable planet there. It was proposed to build an outpost of Weald there, against blueskins. Cattle were landed to run wild and multiply and make a reason for colonists to settle there. They did, but n.o.body wants to move nearer to blueskins! So Orede stayed uninhabited until a hunting-party shooting wild cattle found an outcropping of heavy-metal ore. So now there's a mine there. And that's all. A few hundred men work the mine at fabulous wages. You may be asked to check on their health. But not Dara's!”

”I see,” said Calhoun, frowning.

The doctor moved toward the Med s.h.i.+p's exit-port.

”I answered your questions,” he said grimly. ”But if I talked to anyone else as I've done to you, I'd be lucky only to be driven into exile!”

”I shan't give you away,” said Calhoun. He did not smile.

When the doctor had gone, Calhoun said deliberately;

”Murgatroyd, you should be grateful that you're a _tormal_ and not a man. There's nothing about being a _tormal_ to make you ashamed!”

Then he grimly changed his garments for the full-dress uniform of the Med Service. There was to be a banquet at which he would sit next to the planet's chief executive and hear innumerable speeches about the splendor of Weald. Calhoun had his own, strictly Med Service opinion of the planet's latest and most boasted-of achievement. It was a domed city in the polar regions, where n.o.body ever had to go outdoors. He was less than professionally enthusiastic about the moving streets, and much less approving of the dream-broadcasts which supplied hypnotic, sleep-inducing rhythms to anybody who chose to listen to them. The price was that while asleep one would hear high praise of commercial products, and one might believe them when awake.

But it was not Calhoun's function to criticize when it could be avoided.

Med Service had been badly managed in Sector Twelve. So at the banquet Calhoun made a brief and diplomatic address in which he temperately praised what could be praised, and did not mention anything else.

The chief executive followed him. As head of the government he paid some tribute to the Med Service. But then he reminded his hearers proudly of the high culture, splendid health, and remarkable prosperity of the planet since his political party took office. This, he said, was in spite of the need to be perpetually on guard against the greatest and most immediate danger to which any world in all the galaxy was exposed.

He referred to the blueskins, of course. He did not need to tell the people of Weald what vigilance, what constant watchfulness was necessary against that race of depraved and malevolent deviants from the norm of humanity. But Weald, he said with emotion, held aloft the torch of all that humanity held most dear, and defended not alone the lives of its people against blueskin contagion, but their n.o.ble heritage of ideals against Blueskin pollution.

When he sat down, Calhoun said very politely;

”It looks like some day it should be practical politics to urge the ma.s.sacre of all blueskins. Have you thought of that?”

The chief executive said comfortably;