The Hate Disease
Page 8
who moved in the same direction never happened to beovertaken. They also turned corners or slipped into doors. They wouldbe, Calhoun realized dispassionately, people who still consideredthemselves normals, out upon desperate errands for food and tryinghopelessly not to take contagion back to those they got food for. AndCalhoun was shaken with a horrible rage that such things could happen.He, himself, had been sprayed with something.... And Dr. Lett had heldout a plastic container for him to smell.... He'd held his breath then,but he could not keep from breathing now. He had a certain period oftime, and that period only, before--
He forced his thoughts back to the Med Ship when it was twenty mileshigh, and ten, and five. He'd watched the ground through the electrontelescope and he had a mental picture of the city from the sky. It wasas clear to him as a map. He could orient himself. He could tell wherehe was.
A ground car came to a stop some distance ahead. A man got out, hisarms full of bundles which would be food. Calhoun broke into a run.The man tried to get inside the doorway before Calhoun could arrive.But he would not leave any of the food.
Calhoun showed his blaster.
"I'm a para," he said quietly, "and I want this car. Give me the keysand you can keep the food."
The man groaned. Then he dropped the keys on the ground. He fled intothe house.
"Thanks," said Calhoun politely to the emptiness.
He took his place in the car. He thrust Murgatroyd again out of sight.
"It's not," he told the _tormal_ with a sort of despairing humor,"that I'm ashamed of you, Murgatroyd, but I'm afraid I may becomeashamed of myself. Keep low!"
He started the car and drove away.
He passed through a business district, with many smashed windows. Hepassed through canyons formed by office buildings. He crossed amanufacturing area, in which there were many ungainly factories but nosign of any work going on. In any epidemic many men stay home fromwork to avoid contagion. On Tallien Three nobody would be willing torisk employment, for fear of losing much more than his life.
There there was a wide straight highway leading away from the city butnot toward the spaceport. Calhoun drove his stolen car along it. Hesaw the strange steel embroidery of the landing grid rising to theheight of a minor mountain against the sky. He drove furiously. Beyondit. He had seen the highway system from twenty miles height, and ten,and five. From somewhere near here stolen weather rockets had gonebillowing skyward with explosive war heads to shatter _EsclipusTwenty_.
They'd failed. Now Calhoun went past the place from which they hadbeen launched, and did not notice. Once he could look across flatfields and see the spaceport highway. It was empty. Then there wassunset. He saw the topmost silvery beams and girders of the landinggrid still glowing in sunshine which no longer reached down to theplanet's solid ground.
He drove. And drove. Government Center might put a road block to thespaceport, just in case. But they'd really believe him still hidingsomewhere in Government Center with no hope of--actually--accomplishinganything but his own destruction.
* * * * *
After sunset he was miles beyond the spaceport. When twilight wasdone, he'd crossed to another surface road and was headed back towardthe city. But this time he would pass close to the spaceport. And twohours after sundown he turned the car's running-lights off and drove adark and nearly noiseless vehicle through deep-fallen night. Even so,he left the ground car a mile from the tall and looming lacework ofsteel. He listened with straining ears for a long time.
Presently he and Murgatroyd approached the spaceport, on foot, from arather improbable direction. The gigantic, unsubstantiated tower roseincredibly far toward the sky. As he drew near it he crouched lowerand lower so he was almost crawling to keep from being silhouettedagainst the stars. He saw lights in the windows of the grid's controlbuilding. As he looked, a lighted window darkened from someone movingpast it inside. There was an enormous stillness, broken only by faint,faint noises of the wind in the metal skeleton.
He saw no ground cars to indicate men brought here and waiting forhim. He went very cautiously forward. Once he stopped anddistastefully restored his blaster to lethal-charge intensity. If hehad to use it, he couldn't hope to shoot accurately enough to stun anantagonist. He'd have to fight for his life--or rather, for the chanceto live as a normal man, and to restore that possibility to the peoplein the ghastly-quiet city at the horizon and the other lesser citieselsewhere on this world.
He took infinite precautions. He saw the Med Ship standing valiantlyupright on its landing fins. It was a relief to see it. The gridoperator could have been ordered to lift it out to space--thrown awayto nowhere, or put in orbit until it was wanted again, or....
That was still a possibility. Calhoun's expression turned wry. He'dhave to do something about the grid. He must be able to take off onthe ship's emergency rockets without the risk of being caught by thetremendously powerful force fields by which ships were launched andlanded.
He crept close to the control building. No voices, but there wasmovement inside. Presently he peered in a window.
The grid operator who'd been the first man to greet him on hislanding, now moved about the interior of the building. He pushed atank on wheels. With a hose attached to it, he sprayed. Mist pouredout and splashed away from the side walls. It hung in the air andsettled on the desks, the chairs, and on the control board with itsdials and switches. Calhoun had seen the mist before. It had been usedto spray instead of burning the bodies of the two men who'd tried tomurder him, and their wrecked ground car, and everywhere that the carwas known to have run. It was a decontaminant spray; credited with theability to destroy the contagion that made paras out of men.
Calhoun saw the grid operator's face. It was resolute beyondexpression, but it was very, very bitter.
Calhoun went confidently to the door and knocked on it. A savage voiceinside said:
"Go away! I just found out I'm a para!"
Calhoun opened the door and walked inside. Murgatroyd followed. Hesneezed as the mist reached his nostrils.
"Ive been treated," said Calhoun, "so I'll be a para right along withyou, after whatever the development period is. Question: Can you fixthe controls so nobody else can use the grid?"
The grid operator stared at him numbly. He was deathly pale. He didnot seem able to grasp what Calhoun had said.
* * * * *
"I've got to do some work on the para condition," Calhoun told him. "Ineed to be undisturbed in the ship, and I need a patient further alongtoward being a para than I am. It'll save time. If you'll help, we maybe able to beat the thing. If not, I've still got to disable thegrid."
The grid operator said in a savage, unhuman voice:
"I'm a para. I'm trying to spray everything I've touched. Then I'mgoing to go off somewhere and kill myself--"
Calhoun drew his blaster. He adjusted it again to non-lethalintensity.
"Good man!" he said approvingly. "I'll have a similar job to do if I'mnot a better medical man than Lett! Will you help me?"
Murgatroyd sneezed again. He said plaintively:
"_Chee!_"
The grid's operator looked down at him, obviously in a state of shock.No ordinary sight or sound could have gotten through to hisconsciousness. But Murgatroyd was a small, furry animal with longwhiskers and a hirsute tail and a habit of imitating the actions ofhumans. He sneezed yet again and looked up. There was a handkerchiefin Calhoun's pocket. Murgatroyd dragged it out and held it to hisface. He sneezed once more and said, "_Chee!_" and returned thehandkerchief to its place. He regarded the grid operatordisapprovingly. The operator was shocked out of his despair. He saidshakenly:
"What the devil--" Then he stared at Calhoun. "Help you? How can Ihelp anybody? I'm a para!"
"Which," said Calhoun, "is just what I need. I'm Med Service, man!I've got a job to do with what they call an epidemic! I need a parawho's willing to be cured! That's you! Let's get this grid fixed so itcan't work and--"
"_All citizens attention! The Planetary President is about to give yougood news about the end of the para epidemic!_"
A pause. Then a grave and trembling voice came out of the speakers:
"_My fellow-citizens, I have the happiness to report that a vaccinecompletely protecting normals against the para condition, and curingthose already paras, has been developed. Dr. Lett, of the planetaryhealth service, has produced the vaccine which is already insmall-scale production and will shortly be available in largequantities, enough for everyone! The epidemic which has threatenedevery person on Tallien Three