Part 12 (1/2)

”I've the answer to that, too,” said Calhoun curtly. ”I'll want to talk to any s.p.a.ce-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 s.p.a.ce-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!”

”n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 sent 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.

”Oh, yes!” said a man with a blue forehead. ”He's a valuable man! Within the year he's come up with a way to make his weeds taste like any food one chooses. If we decide to cut our population, we'll simply give the people to be eliminated all they want to eat of his products. They'll not be hungry. They'll be quite happy. But they'll die for lack of nourishment. He's volunteered to prove it painless by going through it himself!”

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.”

Maril began to cry. Murgatroyd said bewilderedly;

”_Chee! Chee!_”

Calhoun held him close. There was confusion. And Calhoun found the Minister of Health at hand--he looked most harried of all the officials gathered to question Calhoun--and proposed that he get a look at the hospital situation right away.

It wasn't practical. With all the population on half rations or less, when night came people needed to sleep. Most people, indeed, slept as many hours out of the traditional twenty-four as they could manage. It was much more pleasant to sleep than to be awake and constantly nagged at by continued hunger. And there was the matter of simple decency.

Continuous gnawing hunger had an embittering effect upon everyone.

Quarrelsomeness was a common experience. And people who would normally be the leaders of opinion felt shame because they were obsessed by thoughts of food. It was best when people slept.

Still, Calhoun was in the hospitals by daybreak. What he found moved him to savage anger. There were too many sick children. In every case undernourishment contributed to their sickness. And there was not enough food to make them well. Doctors and nurses denied themselves food to spare it for their patients.

Calhoun brought out hormones and enzymes and medicaments from the Med s.h.i.+p while the guard in the s.h.i.+p looked on. He demonstrated the processes of synthesis and autocatalysis that enabled such small samples to be multiplied indefinitely. He was annoyed by a clamorous appet.i.te.

There were some doctors who ignored the irony of medical techniques being taught to cure non-nutritional disease, when everybody was half-fed, or less. They approved of Calhoun. They even approved of Murgatroyd when Calhoun explained his function.

He was, of course, a Med Service _tormal_, and _tormals_ were creatures of talent. They'd originally been found on a planet in the Deneb area, and they were engaging and friendly small animals, but the remarkable fact about them was that they couldn't contract any disease. Not any.