Part 4 (1/2)

”_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 s.h.i.+p that came into Weald with everybody dead. But not all. And there's been no check of what men were in the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p visit, and was over before another Med s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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.