The little Med Ship came out[6] of and the were and the Milky Way unfamiliar. Which, of course, was the Milky Way and the local Cepheid marker-stars were from an and a not-yet-commonplace pattern of magnitudes. But Calhoun in satisfaction. There was a sun off to port, which was[7] good. A at no more than sixty light-hours from one's wasn't bad, in a of the Galaxy and after three light-years of blind.
"Arise and shine, Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "Comb your whiskers. Get set to the natives!"
A sleepy, small, voice said;
"Chee!"
Murgatroyd the came out of his small cubbyhole. He at Calhoun.
"We're to land shortly," Calhoun observed. "You'll the local inhabitants. I'll be unpopular. According to the records, there's been no Med Ship here for twelve years. And that was no inspection, to judge by the report."
Murgatroyd said;
"Chee-chee!"
He to make his toilet, his right-hand and then his left. Then he up and himself and looked at Calhoun. Tormals are small animals. They are when somebody speaks to them. They great, in the of humans, as and and speech. But have useful, which make them much more valuable than or pets.
Calhoun got a light-reading for the sun. It be an measure of distance, but it was a guide. He said;
"Hold on to something, Murgatroyd!"
Calhoun the and the Med Ship into that of being in which of some hundreds of times that of light are possible. The of going into was unpleasant. A moment later, the of out was no less so. Calhoun had it often enough, and still didn't like it.
The sun Weald and terrible in space. It was close, now. Its a of arc.
"Very neat," Calhoun. "Weald Three is our port, Murgatroyd. The plane of the would be—Hm...."
He the telescope, up a object, its image to details, and it against the local star-pilot. He calculated a moment. The was too for the of hops, but it would take time to there on solar-system drive.
He the communicator-button and spoke into a microphone.
"Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty and coördinates for landing. Purpose of landing, health inspection. Our is fifty standard. We should arrive at a landing position in something under four hours. Repeat. Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty ..."
He the regular second and coffee for himself while he waited for an answer. Murgatroyd wanted a cup of coffee too. Murgatroyd coffee. He a cup in a small and at the liquid.
A voice came out of the communicator;
"Aesclipus Twenty, repeat your identification!"
Calhoun to the control-board.
"Aesclipus Twenty," he said patiently, "is a Med Ship, sent by the Interstellar Medical Service to make a health on Weald. Check with your public health authorities. This is the Med Ship visit in twelve years, I believe, which is inexcusable. But your health will know all about it. Check with them."
The voice said truculently;
"What was your last port?"
Calhoun named it. This was not his home sector, but Sector Twelve had into a very situation. Some of its had gone for as long as twenty years, and twelve was almost common-place. Other had been called on to help it catch up. Calhoun was one of the Med Ship men, and of the he'd been a list of a dozen to be one after another, of to after each visit. He'd had minor with landing-grid in Sector Twelve.
So he was very patient. He named the last inspected, the one from which he'd set out for Weald Three. The voice from the said sharply;
"What port that?"
Calhoun named the one the last.
"Don't drive any closer," said the voice harshly, "or you'll be destroyed!"
Calhoun said coldly;
"Now you to me, friend! I'm from the Interstellar Medical Service! You in touch with health services immediately! Remind them of the Interstellar Medical Inspection Agreement, on Tralee two hundred and years ago. Remind them that if they do not in medical that I can put your under and your space will be cut off like that! No ship will be for Weald from any other in the until there has been a health inspection! Things have well gone to pot so as the Med Service in this is concerned, but we're trying to it out. You have twenty minutes to clear this and then, I'm in. If I'm not landed, a goes on! Tell your health that!"
Silence. Calhoun off and himself another cup of coffee. Murgatroyd out his cup for a refill. Calhoun gave it to him.
"I to put on an official hat, Murgatroyd," he said annoyedly, "but there are some people who won't have any other way."
Murgatroyd said "Chee!" and at his cup.
Calhoun the of the Med Ship. It on through space. There were from the communicator. There were and and the occasional and sometimes notes is yet obscure, but which, since they are by of wave-lengths, are not likely to be the music of the spheres. He waited.
In fifteen minutes a different voice came from the speaker.
"Med Ship Aesclipus! Med Ship Aesclipus!"
Calhoun answered and the voice said anxiously;
"'Sorry about the challenge, but we have the problem always with us. We have to be careful! Will you come in, please?"
"I'm on my way," said Calhoun.
"The health authorities," said the voice, more still, "are very to be coöperative. We need Med Service help! We a of sleep over the blueskins! Could you tell us the name of the last Med Ship to land here, and its inspector, and when that was made? We want to look up the record of the event to be able to you in every possible way."
"He's lying," Calhoun told Murgatroyd, "but he's more than hostile."
He up the order-folio on Weald Three. He gave the about the last Med Ship visit. He off.
"What?" he asked, "is a blueskin?"
He'd read the on Weald, of course, but as the ship through he through it again. The last medical had been only perfunctory. Twelve years earlier—instead of three—a Med Ship had on Weald. There had been official with health officials. There was a report on the birth-rate, the death-rate, the anomaly-rate, and a of all reported diseases. But that was all. There were no special and no picture.
Presently Calhoun the word in a Sector dictionary, where of only local were to be found.
"Blueskin; Colloquial term for a person from a which left large of over the body. Especially, of Dara. The condition is said to be by a chronic, non-fatal of Dara and has been said to be non-infectious, though this is not certain. The of Dara has not been out. The condition is but not a modification, as appear in non-Mendellian distributions...."
Calhoun puzzled over it. Nobody have read the entire Sector directory, with unlimited travel systems. Calhoun hadn't tried. But now he through and cross-references while the ship travel onward. He no other to blueskins. He looked up Dara. It was as an planet, some four hundred years colonized, with a landing-grid and at the time the main notice was out, a commerce. But there was a memo, added to the entry in some of editions.
"Since plague, special from Med Service is for landing."
That was all. Absolutely all.
The said suavely;
"Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty! Come in on vision, please!"
Calhoun to the control-board and on vision.
"Well, what now?" he demanded.
His screen lighted. A looked out at him.
"We have—ah—verified your statements," said the third voice from Weald. "Just one more item. Are you alone in your ship?"
"Of course," said Calhoun, frowning.
"Quite alone?" the voice.
"Obviously!" said Calhoun.
"No other creature?" the voice again.
"Of—Oh!" said Calhoun annoyedly. He called over his shoulder. "Murgatroyd! Come here!"
Murgatroyd to his and at the screen. The remarkably. The voice more.
"Very good!" it said. "Very, very good! Blueskins do not have tormals! You are Med Service! By all means come in. Your coördinates will be ..."
Calhoun them down. He off the again and to Murgatroyd;
"So I might have been a blueskin, eh? And you're my passport, only Med Ships have members of your aboard! What the hell's the matter, Murgatroyd? They act like they think somebody's trying to on their with a of plague-germs!"
He to himself for minutes. The life of a Med Ship man is not a sinecure, at best. It means long in empty space in overdrive, which is and tedium. Then two or three days aground, official documents and statistics, and questions to see how many of the medical have this or that, and the of about such as have not arrived. Then out to space for long of tedium, to repeat the else. Med Ships only one man two not the close without with each other. But Med Ships do tormals, like Murgatroyd, and a and a man can along indefinitely, like a man and a dog. It is a friendship, but it to be satisfactory to both.
Calhoun was very much with the way the Med Service had been in Sector Twelve. He was one of many men at work to the results of in Med Service in the sector. But it is always to have to labor at making up for somebody else's blundering, when there is so much new work that needs to be done.
The condition by the landing-grid was a case in point. Blueskins were people who a skin-pigmentation from other people who'd a plague. Weald a one-planet against them. But a is an measure. The Med Service should have taken over, out the need for a quarantine, and then it. It hadn't been done.
Calhoun to himself.
The world of Weald Three and and a disk. The had ice-caps and a of land and water surface. The Med Ship decelerated, and voices from the surface, and the little came to a stop some five out from solidity. The landing-field force-field locked on to it, and its began.
The of landing was all very familiar, from the which appeared at the of the from one out, to the flowing-apart of the surface as the ship still lower. There was the landing-grid, for nearly a mile. It let from and them out to again, with great and economy for everyone.
It the Med Ship in its center, and there were officials to Calhoun, and he in the part of his visit. There would be an with the planet's executive, by title he was called. There would be a banquet. Murgatroyd would be by everybody. There would be painful to Calhoun with the of public health on Weald. He would be told much scandal. He might one man, somewhere, who to the of his by out how to keep them well, or that how to make them well when they got sick. And in two days, or three, Calhoun would be to the landing-grid, and out to space, and he'd long empty days in and land else to do the whole thing all over again.
It all as he expected, with one exception. Every being he met on Weald wanted to talk about blueskins. Blueskins and the idea of everyone. Calhoun without questions until he had the picture of what meant to the people who talked of them. Then he there would be no use questions at random. Nobody mentioned having a blueskin. Nobody mentioned a event in which a had at any named time taken part. But was of blueskins. It was a patterned, an inculcated, a stage-directed idea. And it in to the vileness, the depravity, the of the of Dara, from Weald must at all be protected.
It did not make sense. So Calhoun until he an medical man who wanted some special about gene-selection as across the galaxy. He that man to the Med Ship, where he the not available. He saw his guest's a little with that a man when he out something he has wanted long and to know.
"Now," said Calhoun, "tell me something! Why on this the of Dara? It's light-years away. Nobody to have in person from them. Why make a point of them?"
The Wealdian doctor grimaced.
"They've on their skins. They're different from us. So they can be pictured as a and our political parties can make an election issue out of for the of us from them. They had a on Dara, once. They're of still having it for export."
"Hm," said Calhoun. "The is that they want to spread here, eh? Doesn't anybody"—his was sardonic—"doesn't that they be as an act of piety?"
"Yes—s—s—s," the doctor reluctantly. "It's mentioned in political speeches."
"But how's it rationalized?" Calhoun. "What's the to make pigment-patches involve and physical degradation, as I'm is the case?"
"In the public schools," said the doctor, "the children are that are now of the they three ago! That they who isn't a blueskin. That they are to their here so most of us will die and the blueskins. That's rationalizing. It can't be true, but it's not safe to it."
"Bad business," said Calhoun coldly. "That of thing lives, in the end. It lead to massacre!"
"Perhaps it has, in a way," said the doctor unhappily. "One doesn't like to think about it." He paused, and said; "Twenty years ago there was a on Dara. There were crop-failures. The must have been very bad. They a space-ship. They've no use for such normally, no will with them or let them land. But they a space-ship and came here. They in around Weald. They asked to for of food. They offered any price in metals, gold, platinum, iridium, and so on. They talked from by communicators. They be to be blueskins. You can what happened!"
"Tell me," said Calhoun.
"We ships in a hurry," the doctor, "We their space-ship to Dara. We in space off the planet. We told them we'd blast their world from to if they take to space again. We them their one ship, and we on as it was done."
"But you gave them food?"
"No," said the doctor ashamedly. "They were blueskins."
"How was the famine?"
"Who knows? Any number may have starved! And we a of ships in their for years. To keep them from the plague, we said. And some of us it, probably!"
The doctor's was purest irony.
"Lately," he said, "there's been a move for economy in our government. Simultaneously, we to have a series of over-abundant crops. The government had to the to keep the price up. Retired patrol-ships—built to watch over Dara—were available for storage-space. We them up with and sent them out into orbit. They're there now, hundreds of thousands or millions of of grain!"
"And Dara?"
The Doctor shrugged. He up.
"Our of Dara," he said, again ironically, "has produced one thing. Roughly here and Dara there's a two-planet system, Orede. There's a there. It was to an of Weald there, against blueskins. Cattle were to wild and and make a for to settle there. They did, but nobody wants to move nearer to blueskins! So Orede until a hunting-party wild an of heavy-metal ore. So now there's a mine there. And that's all. A hundred men work the mine at wages. You may be asked to check on their health. But not Dara's!"
"I see," said Calhoun, frowning.
The doctor moved toward the Med Ship's exit-port.
"I answered your questions," he said grimly. "But if I talked to anyone else as I've done to you, I'd be lucky only to be into exile!"
"I shan't give you away," said Calhoun. He did not smile.
When the doctor had gone, Calhoun said deliberately;
"Murgatroyd, you should be that you're a and not a man. There's nothing about being a to make you ashamed!"
Then he his for the full-dress of the Med Service. There was to be a at which he would next to the planet's executive and speeches about the of Weald. Calhoun had his own, Med Service opinion of the planet's latest and most boasted-of achievement. It was a city in the regions, where nobody had to go outdoors. He was less than about the moving streets, and much less of the dream-broadcasts which hypnotic, sleep-inducing to who to to them. The price was that while asleep one would high of products, and one might them when awake.
But it was not Calhoun's to when it be avoided. Med Service had been managed in Sector Twelve. So at the Calhoun a and address in which he what be praised, and did not mention anything else.
The executive him. As of the government he paid some to the Med Service. But then he his proudly of the high culture, health, and of the since his political party took office. This, he said, was in of the need to be on against the and most to which any world in all the was exposed. He to the blueskins, of course. He did not need to tell the people of Weald what vigilance, what was necessary against that of and from the of humanity. But Weald, he said with emotion, the of all that most dear, and not alone the of its people against contagion, but their of against Blueskin pollution.
When he sat down, Calhoun said very politely;
"It looks like some day it should be practical politics to the of all blueskins. Have you of that?"
The executive said comfortably;
"The idea's been proposed. It's good politics to it, but it would be to it out. People vote against blueskins. Wipe them out, and where'd you be?"
Calhoun ground his teeth, quietly.
There were more speeches. Then a messenger, white-faced, with a note for the executive. He read it and passed it to Calhoun. It was from the Ministry of Health. The space-port reported that a ship had just out from the Wealdian system. Its tape-transmitter had its from the mining-planet Orede. But, having sent off its signal, the ship in space. It did not drive toward Weald. It did not respond to signals. It like a upon no at all. It ominous, and since it came from Orede—the nearest to Dara of the blueskins—the health ministry the planet's executive.
"It'll be blueskins," said that person, firmly. "They're next-door to Orede. That's who's done this. It wouldn't me if they'd Orede with their plague, and this ship came from there to give us warning!"
"There's no for anything of the sort," Calhoun. "A ship came out of and didn't further. That's all."
"We'll see," said the executive ominously. "We'll go directly to the spaceport."
Calhoun Murgatroyd who had been visiting with the of the higher-up officials. His small with and coffee and such as he'd been with. He was from over-feeding and over-petting, but he was to see Calhoun. At the they the unchanged.
A ship from Orede had come out of and in emptiness. It did not answer calls. It did not move in space. It in no around anything, going nowhere; doing nothing. And panic was the consequence.
It to Calhoun that the official of the for the terror that he up. The so-far-unexplained of news was on the air all over the Weald. There was nobody of all the world's population who did not that there was a new in the sky. Nobody that it came from blueskins. The of the news was calculated to keep alive the of Weald for the of the world Dara.
Calhoun put Murgatroyd into the Med Ship and to the office. A small space-boat, designed to the grain-ships from time, was already aloft. The landing-grid had it out most of the way. Now it and on toward the ship.
Calhoun took no part in the among the officials and news reporters at the space-port. But he to the talk about him. As the small ship nearer and nearer to the deathly-still vessel, the about the meaning of its and more and more wild. But, singularly, there was not one that the might not be the work of blueskins. Blueskins were for all the and all the a over-civilized world developed.
Presently the space-boat the ship and it, queries. No answer. It reported the cargo-ship dark. No lights on or in it. There were no induction-surges from pulsing, engines. Delicately, the messenger-craft until it touched the vessel. It reported that no motion inside.
"Let a go aboard," the executive. "Have him report what he finds."
A pause. Then the of an volunteer's name, from far, away. Calhoun listened, darkly. This wouldn't be noticed in the Med Service. It would be behavior.
Suspenseful, second-by-second reports. The had himself across the the two again-separated ships. He had opened the from outside. He'd gone in. He'd closed the door. He'd opened the inner. He reported.
The report was almost incoherent, what with and and the of that came upon the volunteer. The ship was a bulk-cargo ore-carrier, designed to Orede and Weald with of heavy-metal and a of no more than five men. There was no in her now, though. Instead, there were men. They packed the ship. They the corridors. They had into every and other space where a man room to push himself. There were hundreds of them. It was insanity. And it had been still for the ship to have taken off with so a of creatures.
But they weren't any longer. The air had been designed for a of five. It the air for possibly twenty or more. But there were hundreds of men in as well as in plain view in the cargo-ship from Orede. There were many, many times more than her air and possibly have serviced. They couldn't have been the from Orede to Weald!
But they hadn't starved. Air-scarcity killed them the ship came out of overdrive.
A thing was that there was no message in the ship's which to its take-off. There was no of the taking on of such an number of passengers.
"The did it," said the executive of Weald. He was pale. All about Calhoun men looked and and terrified. "It was the blueskins! We'll have to teach them a lesson!" Then he to Calhoun. "The who on that ship ... He'll have to there, won't he? He can't be to Weald without ..."
Calhoun at him.
