Part 10 (2/2)

I don't know his present official position, but he was certain to become prominent. I'll tell him how you've acted up to now, and your att.i.tude, and of course that you're Med Service. He'll be glad to help you, I'm sure.”

”Splendid!” said Calhoun, nodding. ”That will be Korvan.”

She started.

”How did you know?”

”Intuition,” said Calhoun drily. ”All right. I'll count on him.”

But he did not. He worked in the tiny biological lab all that s.h.i.+p-day and all the next. The girl remained quiet.

On the s.h.i.+p-day after, the time for breakfast approached. And while the s.h.i.+p was practically a world all by itself, it was easy to look forward with confidence to the future. But when contact and--in a fas.h.i.+on--conflict with other and larger worlds loomed nearer, prospects seemed less bright. Calhoun had definite plans, now, but there were so many ways in which they could be frustrated! Weald's political leaders could not oppose hysterical demands for action against blueskins, after a deaths.h.i.+p arrived with no signs whatever of blueskins as responsible for its cargo of corpses. It was certain that a starving Dara would tend to desperate and fatal measures against hereditary enemies.

Calhoun sat down at the control-board and watched the clock.

”I've got things lined up,” he told Maril wrily, ”if only they work out.

_If_ I can make somebody on Dara listen and follow my advice and _if_ Weald doesn't get ideas and isn't doing what I suspect it is, maybe something can be done.”

”I'm sure you'll do your best,” said Maril politely.

Calhoun managed to grin. He watched the s.h.i.+p-clock. There was no sensation attached to overdrive travel except at the beginning and the end. It was now time for the end. He might find that absolutely anything had happened while he made plans which would immediately be seen to be hopeless. Weald could have sent s.h.i.+ps to Dara, or Dara might be in such a state of desperation that ...

As it turned out, Dara was desperate. The Med s.h.i.+p came out nearly a light-month from the sun about which the planet Dara revolved. Calhoun went into a short hop toward it. Then Dara was on the other side of the blazing yellow star. It took time to reach it. He called down, identifying himself and the s.h.i.+p and asking for coordinates so his s.h.i.+p could be brought to ground. There was confusion, as if the request were so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the planet's night side. Presently the s.h.i.+p was locked onto by the grid's force-fields. It went downward without incident.

Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each other, until the s.h.i.+p actually touched ground.

Then he opened the exit-port, and faced armed men in the darkness, with blast-rifles trained on him. There was a portable cannon trained on the Med s.h.i.+p itself.

”Come out!” rasped a voice. ”If you try anything you get blasted! Your s.h.i.+p and its contents are seized by the planetary government!”

CHAPTER 5

It seemed that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men were cadaverous. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon the ground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung loosely upon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks were hollow. They were emaciated. And there were the splotches of pigment of which Calhoun had heard. The leader of the truculent group was blue, except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination seemed whiter than white.

”Out!” said that man savagely. ”We're taking over your stock of food.

You'll get your share of it, like everybody else, but--out!”

Maril spoke over Calhoun's shoulder. She uttered a cryptic sentence or two. It should have amounted to identification, but there was skepticism in the the armed party.

”Oh, you're one of us, eh?” said the guard-leader sardonically. ”You'll have a chance to prove that! Come out of there!”

Calhoun spoke abruptly;

”This is a Med s.h.i.+p,” he said. ”There are medicines and bacterial cultures, inside it. They shouldn't be meddled with. Here on Dara you've had enough of plagues!”

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