CHAPTER 5
It seemed that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men werecadaverous. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon theground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung looselyupon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks werehollow. They were emaciated. And there were the splotches of pigment ofwhich Calhoun had heard. The leader of the truculent group was blue,except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination seemed whiterthan 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 ortwo. It should have amounted to identification, but there was skepticismin the the armed party.
"Oh, you're one of us, eh?" said the guard-leader sardonically. "You'llhave a chance to prove that! Come out of there!"
Calhoun spoke abruptly;
"This is a Med Ship," he said. "There are medicines and bacterialcultures, inside it. They shouldn't be meddled with. Here on Dara you'vehad enough of plagues!"
The man with the blue hand said as sardonically as before;
"I said the government was taking over your ship! It won't be looted.But you're not taking a full cargo of food away! In fact, it's notlikely you're leaving!"
"I want to speak to someone in authority," snapped Calhoun. "We've justcome from Weald." He felt bristling hatred all about him as he namedWeald. "There's tumult there. They're talking about dropping fusionbombs here. It's important that I talk to somebody with the authority totake a few sensible precautions!"
He descended to the ground. There was a panicky "_Chee! Chee!_" frombehind him, and Murgatroyd came dashing to swarm up his body and clingapprehensively to his neck.
"What's that?"
"A _tormal,_" said Calhoun. "He's not a pet. Your medical men will knowsomething about him. This is a Med Ship and I'm a Med Ship man, and he'san important member of the crew. He's a Med Ship _tormal_ and he stayswith me!"
The man with the blue hand said harshly;
"There's somebody waiting to ask you questions. Here!"
A ground-car came rolling out from the side of the landing-gridenclosure. The ground-car ran on wheels, and wheels were not much usedon modern worlds. Dara was behind the times in more ways than one.
"This car will take you to Defense and you can tell them anything youwant. But don't try to sneak back in this ship! It'll be guarded!"
The ground-car was enclosed, with room for a driver and the three fromthe Med Ship. But armed men festooned themselves about its exterior andit went bumping and rolling to the massive ground-layer girders of thegrid. It rolled out under them and there was paved highway. It picked upspeed.
There were buildings on either side of the road, but few showed lights.This was night-time, and the men at the landing-grid had set a patternof hunger, so that the silence and the dark buildings did not seem asign of tranquility and sleep, but of exhaustion and despair. Thehighway lamps were few, by comparison with other inhabited worlds, andthe ground-car needed lights of its own to guide its driver over a pavedsurface that needed repair. By those moving lights other depressingthings could be seen. Untidiness. Buildings not kept up to perfection.Evidences of apathy. The road hadn't been cleaned lately. There waslitter here and there.
Even the fact that there were no stars added to the feeling ofwretchedness and gloom and--ultimately--of hunger.
Maril spoke nervously to the driver.
"The famine isn't any better?"
He moved his head in negation, but did not speak.
"I left--two years ago," said Maril. "It was just beginning then.Rationing hadn't started then--."
The driver said evenly;
"There's rationing now!"
* * * * *
The car went on and on. A vast open space appeared ahead. Lights aboutits perimeter seemed few and pale.
"E-everything seems--worse. Even the lights."
"Using all the power," said the driver, "to warm up ground to grow cropswhere it ought to be winter. Not doing too well, either."
Calhoun knew, somehow, that Maril moistened her lips.
"I--was sent," she explained to the driver, "to go ashore on Trent andthen make my way to Weald. I--mailed reports of what I found out back toTrent. Somebody got them back to here whenever--it was possible."
The driver said;
"Everybody knows the man on Trent disappeared. Maybe he got caught,maybe somebody saw him without makeup. Or maybe he just quit being oneof us. What's the difference? No use!"
Calhoun found himself wincing a little. The driver was not angry. He washopeless. But men should not despair. They shouldn't accept hostilityfrom those about them as a device of fate for their destruction. Theyshouldn't ...
Maril said quickly to him;
"You understand? Dara's a heavy-metals planet. There aren't many lightelements in our soil. Potassium is scarce. So our ground isn't veryfertile. Before the Plague we traded heavy metals and manufactures forimports of food and potash. But since the Plague we've had no off-planetcommerce. We've been--quarantined."
"I gathered as much," said Calhoun. "It was up to Med Service to seethat that didn't happen. It's up to Med Service now to see that itstops."
"Too late now for anything," said the driver, "whatever Med Service maybe! They're talking about cutting down our population so there'll befood enough for some to live. There are two questions about it: who's tobe kept alive and why."
The ground-car aimed now for a cluster of faintly brighter lights on thefar side of the great open space. They enlarged as they grew nearer.Maril said hesitantly;
"There was someone--Korvan--" Calhoun didn't catch the rest of the name,Maril said hesitantly; "He was working on food-plants. I--thought hemight accomplish something ..."
The driver said caustically;
"Sure! Everybody's heard about him! He came up with a wonderful thing!He and his outfit worked out a way to process weeds so they can beeaten. And they can. You can fill your belly and not feel hungry, butit's like eating hay. You starve just the same. He's still working. Headof a government division."
The ground-car passed through a gate. It stopped before a lighted door.The armed men hanging to its outside dropped off. They watched Calhounclosely as he stepped out with Murgatroyd riding on his shoulder.
Minutes later they faced a hastily-summoned group of officials of theDarian government. For a ship to land on Dara was so remarkable an eventthat it called practically for a cabinet meeting. And Calhoun noted thatthey were no better fed than the guards at the space-port.
They regarded Calhoun and Maril with oddly burning eyes. It was, ofcourse, because the two of them showed no signs of hunger. Theyobviously had not been on short rations.
"My name is Calhoun," said Calhoun briskly. "I've the usual Med Servicecredentials. Now ..."
He did not wait to be questioned. He told them of the appalling state ofthings in the Twelfth Sector of the Med Service, so that men had beenborrowed from other sectors to remedy the intolerable, and he was one ofthem. He told of his arrival at Weald and what had happened there, fromthe excessively cautious insistence that he prove he was not a Darian,to the arrival of the death-ship from Orede. He was giving them the newsaffecting them, as they had not heard it before.
He went on to tell of his stop at Orede and his purpose, and hisencounter with the men he found there. When he finished there wassilence. He broke it.
"Now," he said, "Maril's an agent of yours. She can add to what I'vetold you. I'm Med Service. I have a job to do here to repair what wasn'tdone before. I should make a planetary health inspection and makerecommendations for the improvement of the state of things. I'll be gladif you'll arrange for me to talk to your health officials. Things lookbad, and something should be done."
Someone laughed without mirth.
"What will you recommend for long-continued under
nourishment?" he askedderisively. "That's our health problem!"
"I recommend food," said Calhoun.
"Where'll you fill the prescription?"
"I've the answer to that, too," said Calhoun curtly. "I'll want to talkto any space-pilots you've got. Get your astrogators together and Ithink they'll approve my idea."
The silence was totally skeptical.
"Orede ..."
"Not Orede," said Calhoun. "Weald will be hunting that planet over forDarians. If they find any, they'll drop bombs here."
"Our only space-pilots," said a tall man, presently, "are on Orede now.If you've told the truth, they'll probably head back because of yourwarning. They should bring meat."
His mouth worked peculiarly, and Calhoun knew that it was at the thoughtof food.
"Which," said another man sharply, "goes to the hospitals! I haven'ttasted meat in two years!"
"Nobody 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. Puta guard on his ship. Otherwise let our health men give him his head.They'll find out if he's from this Medical Service he tells of! And thisMaril--"
"I--can be identified," said Maril. "I was sent to gather informationand sent it in secret writing to one of us on Trent. I have a familyhere. They'll know me! And I--there was someone who was working onfoods, and I believe he--made it possible to use--all sorts ofvegetation for food. He will identify me."
Someone laughed harshly.
"Oh, yes!" said a man with a blue forehead. "He's a valuable man! Withinthe year he's come up with a way to make his weeds taste like any foodone chooses. If we decide to cut our population, we'll simply give thepeople to be eliminated all they want to eat of his products. They'llnot be hungry. They'll be quite happy. But they'll die for lack ofnourishment. He's volunteered to prove it painless by going through ithimself!"
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 saidbluntly;
"Don't look for them to be glad to see you. And you'd better not showyourself 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 theMinister of Health at hand--he looked most harried of all the officialsgathered to question Calhoun--and proposed that he get a look at thehospital 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 asmany hours out of the traditional twenty-four as they could manage. Itwas much more pleasant to sleep than to be awake and constantly naggedat 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 normallybe the leaders of opinion felt shame because they were obsessed bythoughts of food. It was best when people slept.
Still, Calhoun was in the hospitals by daybreak. What he found moved himto savage anger. There were too many sick children. In every caseundernourishment contributed to their sickness. And there was not enoughfood to make them well. Doctors and nurses denied themselves food tospare it for their patients.
Calhoun brought out hormones and enzymes and medicaments from the MedShip while the guard in the ship looked on. He demonstrated theprocesses of synthesis and autocatalysis that enabled such small samplesto be multiplied indefinitely. He was annoyed by a clamorous appetite.There were some doctors who ignored the irony of medical techniquesbeing taught to cure non-nutritional disease, when everybody washalf-fed, or less. They approved of Calhoun. They even approved ofMurgatroyd when Calhoun explained his function.
He was, of course, a Med Service _tormal_, and _tormals_ were creaturesof talent. They'd originally been found on a planet in the Deneb area,and they were engaging and friendly small animals, but the remarkablefact about them was that they couldn't contract any disease. Not any.They had a built-in, explosive reaction to bacterial and viral toxins,and there hadn't yet been any pathogenic organism discovered to which a_tormal_ could not more or less immediately develop antibody-resistance.So that in interstellar medicine _tormals_ were priceless. LetMurgatroyd be infected with however localized, however specialized aninimical organism, and presently some highly valuable defensivesubstance could be isolated from his blood and he'd remain in his usualexuberant good health. When the antibody was analyzed by thosetechniques of microanalysis the Service had developed,--why--that wasthat. The antibody could be synthesized and one could attack anyepidemic with confidence.
The tragedy for Dara was, of course, that no Med Ship had come there,three generations ago, when the Dara plague raged. Worse, after theplague Weald was able to exert pressure which only a criminallyincompetent Med Service director would have permitted. But criminalincompetence and its consequences was what Calhoun had been loaned toSector Twelve to help remedy.
He was not at ease, though. No ship arrived from Orede to bear out hisaccount of an attempt to get that lonely world evacuated before Wealddiscovered it had blueskins on it. Maril had vanished, to visit orreturn to her family, or perhaps to consult with the mysterious Korvanwho'd arranged for her to leave Dara to be a spy, and had advised hersimply to make a new life somewhere else, abandoning a famine-ridden,despised, and outcast world. Calhoun had learned of two achievementsthe same Korvan had made for his world. Neither was remarkablyconstructive. He'd offered to prove the value of the second by dying ofit. Which might make him a very admirable character, or he could have apassion for martyrdom,--which is much more common than most peoplethink. In two days Calhoun was irritable enough from unaccustomed hungerto suspect the worst of him.
And there was Weald to worry about. Weald was hysterically resolved toend what it considered the blueskin menace for once and for all. Therewere parallels to such unreasoning frenzy even in the ancient history ofEarth. A word still remained in the dictionaries referring to it.Genocide.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Calhoun worked doggedly; in the hospitals while the patientswere awake and in the Med Ship--under guard--afterward. He had hungercramps now, but he tested a plastic cube with a thriving biologicalculture in it. He worked at increasing his store of it. He'd snippedsamples of pigmented skin from dead patients in the hospitals, andexamined the pigmented areas, and very, very painstakingly verified atheory. It took an electron microscope to do it, but he found a virus inthe blue patches which matched the type discovered on Tralee. The Traleeviruses had effects which were passed on from mother to child, andheredity had been charged with the observed results of quasi-livingviral particles. And then Calhoun very, very carefully introduced into avirus culture the material he had been growing in a plastic cube. Hewatched what happened.
He was satisfied, so much so that immediately afterward he barelymanaged to stagger off to bed.
That night the ship from Orede came in, packed with frozen bloodycarcasses of cattle. Calhoun knew nothing of it. But next morning Marilcame back. There were shadows under her eyes and her expression was ofsomeone who has lost everything that had meaning in her life.
"I'm all right," she insisted, when Calhoun commented. "I've beenvisiting my family. I've seen--Korvan. I'm quite all right."
"You haven't eaten any better than I have," Calhoun observed.
"I--couldn't!" admitted Maril. "My sisters--my little sisters--sothin.... There's rationing for everybody and it's all efficientlyarranged. They even had rations for me. But I couldn't eat! I--gave mostof my food to my sisters and they--squabbled over it!"
Calhoun said nothing. There was nothing to say. Then she said in a noless desolate tone;
"Korvan said I was foolish to come back."
"He could be right," said Calhoun.
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"But I had to!" protested Maril. "Because I--I've been eating all Iwanted to, on Weald and in the ship, and I'm ashamed because they'rehalf-starved and I'm not. And when you see what hunger does to them ...It's terrible to be half-starved and not able to think of anything butfood!"
"I hope," said Calhoun, "to do something about that. If I can get holdof an astrogator or two."
"The--ship that was on Orede came in during the night," Maril told himshakily. "It was loaded with frozen meat, but one ship-load's not enoughto make a difference on a whole planet! And if Weald hunts for us onOrede, we daren't go back for more meat."
She said abruptly;
"There are some prisoners. They were miners. They were crowded out ofthe ship. The Darians who'd stampeded the cattle took them prisoners.They had to!"
"True," said Calhoun. "It wouldn't have been wise to leave Wealdiansaround on Orede with their throats cut. Or living, either, to tell abouta rumor of blueskins. Even if their throats will be cut now. Is that theprogram?"
Maril shivered.
"No ... They'll be put on short rations like everybody else. And peoplewill watch them. The Wealdians expect to die of plague any minutebecause they've been with Darians. So people look at them and laugh.But it's not funny."
"It's natural," said Calhoun, "but perhaps lacking in charity. Lookhere! How about those astrogators? I need them for a job I have inmind."
Maril wrung her hands.
"C--come here," she said in a low tone.
* * * * *
There was an armed guard in the control-room of the ship. He'd watchedCalhoun a good part of the previous day as Calhoun performed hismysterious work. He'd been off-duty and now was on duty again. He wasbored. So long as Calhoun did not touch the control-board, though, hewas uninterested. He didn't even turn his head when Maril led the wayinto the other cabin and slid the door shut.
"The astrogators are coming," she said swiftly. "They'll bring someboxes with them. They'll ask you to instruct them so they can handle ourship better. They lost themselves coming back from Orede, no, theydidn't lose themselves, but they lost time--enough time almost to makean extra trip for meat. They need to be experts. I'm to come along, sothey can be sure that what you teach them is what you've been doingright along."
Calhoun said;
"Well?"
"They're crazy!" said Maril vehemently. "They knew Weald would dosomething monstrous sooner or later. But they're going to try to stop itby more monstrousness sooner! Not everybody agrees, but there areenough. So they want to use your ship--it's faster in overdrive and soon. And they'll go to Weald--in this ship--and--they say they'll giveWeald something to keep it busy without bothering us!"
Calhoun said drily;
"This pays me off for being too sympathetic with blueskins! But if I'dbeen hungry for a couple of years, and was despised to boot by thepeople who kept me hungry, I suppose I might react the same way. No," hesaid curtly as she opened her lips to speak again. "Don't tell me thetrick. Considering everything, there's only one trick it could be. But Idoubt profoundly that it would work. All right."
He slid the door back and returned to the control-room. Maril followedhim. He said detachedly;
"I've been working on a problem outside of the food one. It isn't thetime to talk about it right now, but I think I've solved it."
Maril turned her head, listening. There were footsteps on the tarmacoutside the ship. Both doors of the airlock were open. Four men came in.They were young men who did not look quite as hungry as most Darians,but there was a reason for that. Their leader introduced himself and theothers. They were the astrogators of the ship Dara had built to try tobring food from Orede. They were not good enough, said theirself-appointed leader. They overshot their destination. They came out ofoverdrive too far off line. They needed instructions.
Calhoun nodded, and observed that he'd been asking for them.
"We've got orders," said their leader, steadily, "to come on board andlearn from you how to handle this ship. It's better than the one we'vegot."
"I asked for you," repeated Calhoun. "I've an idea I'll explain as we goalong. Those boxes?"
Someone was passing in iron boxes through the airlock. One of the fourvery carefully brought them inside.
"They're rations," said a second young man. "We don't go anywherewithout rations--except Orede."
"Orede, yes. I think we were shooting at each other there," said Calhounpleasantly. "Weren't we?"
"Yes," said the young man.
He was neither cordial nor antagonistic. He was impassive. Calhounshrugged.
"Then we can take off immediately. Here's the communicator and there'sthe button. You might call the grid and arrange for us to be lifted."
The young man seated himself at the control-board. Very professionally,he went through the routine of preparing to lift by landing-grid, whichroutine has not changed in two hundred years. He went briskly aheaduntil the order to lift. Then Calhoun stopped him.
"Hold it!"
He pointed to the airlock. Both doors were open. The young man at thecontrol-board flushed vividly. One of the others closed and dogged thedoors.
* * * * *
The ship lifted. Calhoun watched with seeming negligence. But he foundoccasion for a dozen corrections of procedure. This was presumably atraining voyage of his own suggestion. Therefore when the blueskin pilotwould have flung the Med Ship into undirected overdrive, Calhoun grewstern. He insisted on a destination. He suggested Weald. The young menglanced at each other and accepted the suggestion. He made the actingpilot look up the intrinsic business of its sun and measure its apparentbrightness from just off Dara. He made him estimate the change inbrightness to be expected after so many hours in overdrive, if one brokeout to measure.
The first blueskin student pilot ended a Calhoun-determined tour of dutywith rather more of respect for Calhoun than he'd had at the beginning.The second was anxious to show up better than the first. Calhoun drilledhim in the use of brightness-charts, by which the changes in apparentbrightness of stars between overdrive hops could be correlated withangular changes to give a three-dimensional picture of the nearerheavens. It was a highly necessary art which had not been worked out onDara, and the prospective astrogators became absorbed in this and otherfine points of space-piloting. They'd done enough, in a few trips toOrede, to realize that they needed to know more. Calhoun showed them.
Calhoun did not try to make things easy for them. He was hungry andeasily annoyed. It was sound training tactics to be severe, and tophrase all suggestions as commands. He put the four young men in commandof the ship in turn, under his direction. He continued to use Weald as adestination, but he set up problems in which the Med Ship came out ofoverdrive pointing in an unknown direction and with a precessory motion.He made the third of his students identify Weald in the celestial globecontaining hundreds of millions of stars, and get on course in overdrivetoward it. The fourth was suddenly required to compute the distance toWeald from such data as he could get from observation, without referenceto any records.
By this time the first man was chafing to take a second turn. Calhoungave each of them a second gruelling lesson. He gave them, in fact, ahighly condensed but very sound course in the art of travel in space.His young students took command in four-hour watches, with at least onebreakout from overdrive in each watch. He built up enthusiasm in them.They ignored the discomfort of being hungry, though there had been noreason for them to stint on food in Orede--in growing pride in what theycame to know.
When Weald was a first-magnitude star, the four were not highlyqualified astrogators, to be sure, but they were vastly better spacementhan at the beginning. Inevitably, their attitude toward Calhoun wasrespectful. He'd been irritable and right. To the young, the combinationis impressive.
Maril had served as passenger only. In theory she was to compareCalhoun's lessons with his practise when alone. But he did nothing onthis journey which-
-teaching considered--was different from the twointerstellar journeys Maril had made with him. She occupied thesleeping-cabin during two of the six watches of each ship-day. Sheoperated the food-readier, which was almost completely emptied of itsoriginal store of food;--confiscated by the government of Dara. Thatamount of food would make no difference to the planet, but it was wisefor everyone on Dara to be equally ill-fed.
On the sixth day out from Dara, the sun of Weald had a magnitude ofminus five-tenths.[A] The electron telescope could detect its largerplanets, especially a gas-giant fifth-orbit world of high albedo.Calhoun had his four students estimate its distance again, pointing outthe difference that could be made in breakout position if the Med Shipwere mis-aimed by as much as one second of arc.
[A] Earth's sun, from Earth, is of magnitude roughly minus thirty-six.
"That does it," Calhoun announced cheerfully. "That's the last orderI'll give you. You're graduate pilots from here on! Relax and have somecoffee."
* * * * *
"And now," said Calhoun, "I suppose you'll tell me the truth about thoseboxes you brought on board. You said they were rations, but they haven'tbeen opened in six days. I have an idea what they mean, but you tellme."
The four looked uncomfortable. There was a long pause.
"They could be," said Calhoun detachedly, "cultures to be dumped onWeald. Weald is making plans to wipe out Dara. So some fool has decidedto get Weald too busy fighting a plague of its own to bother with you.Is that right?"
The young men stirred uneasily. "Well--l--l, sir," said one of them,unhappily, "that's what we were ordered to do."
"I object," said Calhoun. "It wouldn't work. I just left Weald a littlewhile back, remember. They've been telling themselves that some day Darawould try that. They've made preparations to fight any imaginablecontagion you could drop on them. Every so often somebody claims it'shappening. It wouldn't work."
"But--"
"In fact," said Calhoun, "I will not permit you to do anything of thekind."
One of the young men, staring at Calhoun, nodded suddenly. His eyesclosed. He jerked his head erect and looked bewildered. A second sankheavily into a chair. He said remotely, "Thish sfunny!" and abruptlywent to sleep. The third found his knees giving away. He paid elaborateattention to them, stiffening them. But they yielded like rubber and hewent slowly down to the floor. The fourth said thickly with difficulty,yet reproachfully;
"'Thought y'were our frien'!"
He collapsed.
Calhoun very soberly tied them hand and foot and laid them outcomfortably on the floor. Maril watched, white-faced, her hand to herthroat. "What have you done to them? Are they dead?"
"No," said Calhoun, "just drugged. They'll wake up presently."
Maril said in a tense and desperate whisper;
"You're--betraying us! You're going to take us to Weald."
"No," said Calhoun. "We'll only orbit around it. First, though, I wantto get rid of those damned packed-up cultures. They're dead, by the way.I killed them with supersonics a couple of days ago, while a fineargument was going on about distance-measurements by variable Cepheidsof known period."
He put the four boxes carefully in the waste-disposal unit. He operatedit. The boxes and their contents streamed out to space in the form ofmetallic and other vapors. Calhoun sat at the control-desk.
"I'm a Med Service man," he said detachedly. "I couldn't cooperate inthe spread of plague, anyhow, though a useful epidemic might be anothermatter. But the important thing right now is not keeping Weald busy withtroubles to increase their hatred of Dara. It's getting some food forDara. And driblets won't help. What's needed is in thousands oftons,--or tens of thousands." Then he said; "Overdrive coming,Murgatroyd! Hold fast!"
The universe vanished. The customary unpleasant sensations accompaniedthe change. Murgatroyd burped.
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