Part 2 (2/2)

”The idea's been proposed. It's good politics to urge it, but it would be foolish to carry it out. People vote against blueskins. Wipe them out, and where'd you be?”

Calhoun ground his teeth, quietly.

There were more speeches. Then a messenger, white-faced, arrived with a written note for the chief executive. He read it and pa.s.sed it to Calhoun. It was from the Ministry of Health. The s.p.a.ce-port reported that a s.h.i.+p had just broken out from overdrive within the Wealdian solar system. Its tape-transmitter had automatically signalled its arrival from the mining-planet Orede. But, having sent off its automatic signal, the s.h.i.+p lay dead in s.p.a.ce. It did not drive toward Weald. It did not respond to signals. It drifted like a derelict upon no course at all. It seemed ominous, and since it came from Orede--the planet nearest to Dara of the blueskins--the health ministry informed the planet's chief executive.

”It'll be blueskins,” said that astute person, firmly. ”They're next-door to Orede. That's who's done this. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd seeded Orede with their plague, and this s.h.i.+p came from there to give us warning!”

”There's no evidence for anything of the sort,” protested Calhoun. ”A s.h.i.+p simply came out of overdrive and didn't signal further. That's all.”

”We'll see,” said the chief executive ominously. ”We'll go directly to the s.p.a.ceport.”

Calhoun retrieved Murgatroyd who had been visiting with the wives of the higher-up officials. His small paunch distended with cakes and coffee and such delicacies as he'd been plied with. He was half comatose from over-feeding and over-petting, but he was glad to see Calhoun. At the s.p.a.ceport they discovered the situation remained unchanged.

A s.h.i.+p from Orede had come out of overdrive and lay dead in emptiness.

It did not answer calls. It did not move in s.p.a.ce. It floated eerily in no orbit around anything, going nowhere; doing nothing. And panic was the consequence.

It seemed to Calhoun that the official handling of the matter accounted for the terror that he could feel building up. The so-far-unexplained bit of news was on the air all over the planet Weald. There was n.o.body awake of all the world's population who did not believe that there was a new danger in the sky. n.o.body doubted that it came from blueskins. The treatment of the news was precisely calculated to keep alive the hatred of Weald for the inhabitants of the world Dara.

Calhoun put Murgatroyd into the Med s.h.i.+p and went back to the s.p.a.ceport office. A small s.p.a.ce-boat, designed to inspect the circling grain-s.h.i.+ps from time, was already aloft. The landing-grid had thrust it swiftly out most of the way. Now it droned and drove on st.u.r.dily toward the enigmatic s.h.i.+p.

Calhoun took no part in the agitated conferences among the officials and news reporters at the s.p.a.ce-port. But he listened to the talk about him.

As the investigating small s.h.i.+p drew nearer and nearer to the deathly-still cargo vessel, the guesses about the meaning of its breakout and following silence grew more and more wild. But, singularly, there was not one suggestion that the mystery might not be the work of blueskins. Blueskins were scapegoats for all the fears and all the uneasiness a perhaps over-civilized world developed.

Presently the investigating s.p.a.ce-boat reached the mystery s.h.i.+p and circled it, beaming queries. No answer. It reported the cargo-s.h.i.+p dark.

No lights shone anywhere on or in it. There were no induction-surges from even pulsing, idling engines. Delicately, the messenger-craft maneuvered until it touched the silent vessel. It reported that microphones detected no motion whatever inside.

”Let a volunteer go aboard,” commanded the chief executive. ”Have him report what he finds.”

A pause. Then the solemn announcement of an intrepid volunteer's name, from far, far away. Calhoun listened, frowning darkly. This pompous heroism wouldn't be noticed in the Med Service. It would be routine behavior.

Suspenseful, second-by-second reports. The volunteer had rocketed himself across the emptiness between the two again-separated s.h.i.+ps. He had opened the airlock from outside. He'd gone in. He'd closed the outer airlock door. He'd opened the inner. He reported.

The relayed report was almost incoherent, what with horror and incredulity and the feeling of doom that came upon the volunteer. The s.h.i.+p was a bulk-cargo ore-carrier, designed to run between Orede and Weald with cargoes of heavy-metal ores and a crew of no more than five men. There was no cargo in her holds now, though. Instead, there were men. They packed the s.h.i.+p. They filled the corridors. They had crawled into every cargo and other s.p.a.ce where a man could find room to push himself. There were hundreds of them. It was insanity. And it had been greater insanity still for the s.h.i.+p to have taken off with so preposterous a load of living creatures.

But they weren't living any longer. The air apparatus had been designed for a crew of five. It could purify the air for possibly twenty or more.

But there were hundreds of men in hiding as well as in plain view in the cargo-s.h.i.+p from Orede. There were many, many times more than her air apparatus and reserve tanks could possibly have serviced. They couldn't even have been fed during the journey from Orede to Weald!

But they hadn't starved. Air-scarcity killed them before the s.h.i.+p came out of overdrive.

A remarkable thing was that there was no written message in the s.h.i.+p's log which referred to its take-off. There was no memorandum of the taking on of such an impossible number of pa.s.sengers.

”The blueskins did it,” said the chief executive of Weald. He was pale.

All about Calhoun men looked sick and shocked and terrified. ”It was the blueskins! We'll have to teach them a lesson!” Then he turned to Calhoun. ”The volunteer who went on that s.h.i.+p ... He'll have to stay there, won't he? He can't be brought back to Weald without bringing contagion ...”

Calhoun raged at him.

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