Pariah Planet Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  There was a certain coldness in the manner of those at the Wealdspaceport when the Med Ship left next morning. Calhoun was not popularbecause Weald was scared. It had been conditioned to scare easily, whereblueskins might be involved. Its children were trained to reactexplosively when the word "blueskin" was uttered in their hearing, andits adults tended to say "blueskin" when anything to cause uneasinessentered their minds. So a planet-wide habit of non-rational response hadformed and was not seen to be irrational because almost everybody hadit.

  The volunteer who'd discovered the tragedy on the ship from Orede wassafe, though. He'd made a completely conscientious survey of the shiphe'd volunteered to enter and examine. For his courage, he'd have beendoomed but for Calhoun. The reaction of his fellow-citizens was that byentering the ship he might have become contaminated by blueskininfective material if the plague still existed, and if the men in theship had caught it--but they certainly hadn't died of it--and if therehad been blueskins on Orede to communicate it--for which there was noevidence--and if blueskins were responsible for the tragedy. Which wasat the moment pure supposition. But Weald feared he might bring deathback to Weald if he were allowed to return.

  Calhoun saved his life. He ordered that the guard-ship admit him to itsairlock, which then was to be filled with steam and chlorine. Thecombination would sterilize and partly even eat away his space-suit,after which the chlorine and steam should be bled out to space, and airfrom the ship let into the lock. If he stripped off the space-suitwithout touching its outer surface, and reentered the investigating shipwhile the suit was flung outside by a man in another space-suit,handling it with a pole he'd fling after it, there could be no possiblecontamination brought back.

  Calhoun was quite right, but Weald in general considered that he'dpersuaded the government to take an unreasonable risk.

  There were other reasons for disapproving of him. Calhoun had beenunpleasantly frank. The coming of the death-ship stirred to frenzy thosepeople who believed that all blueskins should be exterminated as a piousact. They'd appeared on every visionscreen, citing not only the shipfrom Orede but other incidents which they interpreted as crimes againstWeald. They demanded that all Wealdian atomic reactors be modified toturn out fusion-bomb materials while a space-fleet was made ready for ananti-blueskin crusade. They confidently demanded such a rain offusion-bombs on Dara that no blueskin, no animal, no shred ofvegetation, no fish in the deepest ocean, not even a livingvirus-particle of the blueskin plague could remain alive on the blueskinworld!

  One of these vehement orators even asserted that Calhoun agreed that noother course was possible, speaking for the Interstellar MedicalService. And Calhoun furiously demanded a chance to deny it bybroadcast, and he made a bitter and indiscreet speech from which aplanet-wide audience inferred that he thought them fools. He did.

  So he was definitely unpopular when his ship lifted from Weald. He'dcurtly given his destination as Orede, from which the death-ship hadcome. The landing-grid locked on, raised the small space-craft untilWeald was a great shining ball below it, and then somehow scornfullycast him off. The Med Ship was free, in clear space where there was notenough of a gravitational field to hinder overdrive.

  He aimed for his destination, his face very grim. He said savagely;

  "Get set, Murgatroyd! Overdrive coming!"

  * * * * *

  He thumbed down the overdrive button. The universe of stars went out,while everything living in the ship felt the customary sensations ofdizziness, of nausea, and of a spiralling fall to nothingness. Thenthere was silence. The Med Ship actually moved at a rate which was apreposterous number of times the speed of light, but it felt absolutelysolid, absolutely firm and fixed. A ship in overdrive feels exactly asif it were buried deep in the core of a planet. There is no vibration.There is no sign of anything but solidity and--if one looks out aport--there is only utter blackness plus an absence of sound fit to makeone's eardrums crack.

  But within seconds random tiny noises began. There was a reel and therewere sound-speakers to keep the ship from sounding like a grave. Thereel played and the speakers gave off minute creakings, and meaninglesshums, and very tiny noises of every imaginable sort, all of which werejust above the threshold of the inaudible.

  Calhoun fretted. Sector Twelve was in very bad shape. A conscientiousMed Service man would never have let the anti-blueskin obsession gounmentioned in a report on Weald. Health is not only a physical affair.There is mental health, also. When mental health goes a civilization canbe destroyed more surely and more terribly than by any imaginable war orplague-germ. A plague kills off those who are susceptible to it, leavingimmunes to build up a world again. But immunes are the first to bekilled when a mass neurosis sweeps a population.

  Weald was definitely a Med Service problem world. Dara was another. Andwhen hundreds of men jammed themselves into a cargo-boat which could notfurnish them with air to breathe, and took off and went into overdrivebefore the air could fail.... Orede called for no less of worry.

  "I think," said Calhoun dourly, "that I'll have some coffee."

  "Coffee" was one of the words that Murgatroyd recognized immediately. Hewould usually watch the coffee-maker with bright, interested eyes. He'deven tried to imitate Calhoun's motions with it, once, and had scorchedhis paws in the attempt. This time he did not move.

  Calhoun turned his head. Murgatroyd sat on the floor, his long tailcoiled reflectively about a chair-leg. He watched the door of the MedShip's sleeping-cabin.

  "Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "I mentioned coffee!"

  "_Chee!_" shrilled Murgatroyd.

  But he continued to look at the door. The temperature was kept lower inthe other cabin, and the look of things was different from thecontrol-compartment. The difference was part of the means by which a manwas able to be alone for weeks on end--alone save for his_tormal_--without becoming ship-happy. There were other carefullythought out items in the ship with the same purpose. But none of themshould cause Murgatroyd to stare fixedly and fascinatedly at thesleeping-cabin door. Not when coffee was in the making!

  Calhoun considered. He became angry at the immediate suspicion thatoccurred to him. As a Med Service man, he was duty-bound to beimpartial. To be impartial might mean not to side absolutely with Wealdin its enmity to blueskins. The people of Weald had refused to help Darain a time of famine; they'd blockaded that pariah world for yearsafterward; they had other reasons for hating the people they'd treatedbadly. It was entirely reasonable for some fanatic on Weald to considerthat Calhoun must be killed lest he be of help to the blueskins Wealdabhorred.

  In fact, it was quite possible that somebody had stowed away on the MedShip to murder Calhoun, so that there would be no danger of any reportfavorable to Dara ever being presented anywhere. If so, such a stowawaywould be in the sleeping-cabin now, waiting for Calhoun to walkunsuspiciously in to be shot dead.

  So Calhoun made coffee. He slipped a blaster into a pocket where itwould be handy. He filled a small cup for Murgatroyd and a large one forhimself, and then a second large one.

  He tapped on the sleeping-cabin door, standing aside lest a blaster-boltcame through it.

  "Coffee's ready," he said sardonically. "Come out and join us."

  There was a long pause. Calhoun rapped again.

  "You've a seat at the captain's table," he said more sardonically still."It's not polite to keep me waiting!"

  * * * * *

  He listened, alert for a rush which would be a fanatic's desperateattempt to do murder despite premature discovery. He was prepared toshoot quite ruthlessly.

  But there was no rush. Instead, there came hesitant foot-falls. The doorof the cabin slid slowly aside. A girl appeared in the opening,desperately white and desperately composed.

  "H-how did you know I was there?" she asked shakily. She moistened herlips. "You didn't see me! I was in a closet, and you didn't even enterthe room!"

  Calho
un said grimly;

  "I've sources of information." He pointed to Murgatroyd.

  The girl did not move. Her eyes went from Murgatroyd to Calhoun.

  "And now," said Calhoun, "do you want to tell me your story? You haveone ready, I'm sure."

  "There--there isn't any," said the girl unsteadily. "Just--I--I need toget to Orede, and you're going there. There's no other way to go--now."

  "To the contrary," said Calhoun, "there'll undoubtedly be a fleetheading for Orede as soon as it can be assembled and armed. But I'mafraid that's not a very good story. Try another."

  She shivered a little.

  "I'm--running away ..."

  "Ah!" said Calhoun. "In that case I'll take you back."

  "No!" she said fiercely. "I'll--I'll die first! I'll wreck this shipfirst!"

  Her hand came from behind her. There was a tiny blaster in it. But itshook visibly as she tried to aim it.

  "I'll--shoot out the controls!"

  Calhoun blinked. He'd had to make a drastic change in his estimate ofthe situation the instant he saw that the stowaway was a girl. Now hehad to make another when her threat was not to kill him but to disablethe ship. Women are rarely assassins, and when they are they don't useenergy weapons. Daggers and poisons are more typical.

  "I'd rather you didn't do that," said Calhoun drily. "Besides, you'd getdeadly bored if we were stuck in a derelict waiting for our air and foodto give out."

  Murgatroyd, for no reason whatever, felt it necessary to enter theconversation. He said;

  "_Chee-chee-chee!_"

  "A very sensible suggestion," observed Calhoun. "We'll sit down and havea cup of coffee." To the girl he said, "I'll take you to Orede, sincethat's where you say you want to go."

  "I--there's a boy there--"

  Calhoun shook his head.

  "No," he said reprovingly. "Nearly all the mining colony had packeditself into the ship that came into Weald with everybody dead. But notall. And there's been no check of what men were in the ship and what menweren't. You wouldn't go to Orede if it were likely your fellow had diedon the way to you. Here's your coffee. Sugar or saccho, and do you takecream?"

  She trembled a little, but she took the cup.

  "I--don't understand--."

  "Murgatroyd and I," explained Calhoun--and he did not know whether hespoke out of anger or something else--"we are do-gooders. We go aroundtrying to keep people from getting killed. It's our profession. Wepractise it even on our own behalf. We want to stay alive. So since youmake such drastic threats, we will take you where you want to go.Especially since we're going there anyhow."

  "You--don't believe anything I've said!" It was a statement.

  "Not a word," admitted Calhoun. "But you'll probably tell us somethingmore believable presently. When did you eat last?"

  "Yesterday--."

  "Better have something now. We'll talk more later." Calhoun showed herhow to punch the readier for such-and-such dishes, to be extracted fromstorage and warmed or chilled, as the case might be, and served atdialed-for intervals.

  * * * * *

  Calhoun deliberately immersed himself in the Galactic Directory, lookingup the planet Orede. He was headed there, but he'd had no reason toinform himself about it before. Now he read with every appearance ofabsorption.

  The girl ate daintily. Murgatroyd watched with highly amiable interest.But she looked acutely uncomfortable.

  Calhoun finished with the Directory. He got out the microfilm reelswhich contained more information. He was specifically after the MedService history of all the planets in this sector. He went through thefilmed record of every inspection ever made on Weald and on Dara. ButSector Twelve had not been well-run. There was no adequate account of aplague which had wiped out three-quarters of the population of aninhabited planet! It had happened shortly after one Med Ship visit, andwas over before another Med Ship came by. But there should have beenpainstaking investigation, even after the fact. There should have been acollection of infective material and a reasonably completeidentification and study of the infective agent. It hadn't been made.There was probably some other emergency at the time, and it slipped by.But Calhoun--whose career was not to be spent in this sector--resolvedon a blistering report about this negligence and its consequences.

  He kept himself casually busy, ignoring the girl. A Med Ship man hasresources of study and meditation with which to occupy himself duringoverdrive travel from one planet to another. Calhoun made use of thoseresources. He acted as if he were completely unconscious of thestowaway. But Murgatroyd watched her with charmed attention.

  Hours after her discovery, she said uneasily;

  "Please?"

  Calhoun looked up.

  "Yes?"

  "I--don't know exactly how things stand."

  "You are a stowaway," said Calhoun. "Legally, I have the right to putyou out the airlock. It doesn't seem necessary. There's a cabin. Whenyou're sleepy, use it. Murgatroyd and I can make out quite well here.When you're hungry, you now know how to get something to eat. When weland on Orede, you'll probably go about whatever business you havethere. That's all."

  She stared at him.

  "But--you don't believe what I've told you!"

  "No," agreed Calhoun. But he didn't add to the statement.

  "But--I will tell you," she offered. "The police were after me. I had toget away from Weald! I had to! I'd stolen--"

  He shook his head.

  "No," he said. "If you were a thief, you'd say anything in the worldexcept that you were a thief. You're not ready to tell the truth yet.You don't have to, so why tell me anything? I suggest that you get somesleep."

  She rose slowly. Twice her lips parted as if to speak again, but thenshe went into the other cabin and closed herself in.

  Murgatroyd blinked at the place where she'd disappeared and then climbedup into Calhoun's lap, with complete assurance of welcome. He settledhimself and was silent for moments. Then he said;

  "_Chee!_"

  "I believe you're right," said Calhoun. "She doesn't belong on Weald, orwith the conditioning she'd have had, there'd be only one place she'ddread worse than Orede, and that would be Dara. But I doubt she'd beafraid to land even on Dara."

  Murgatroyd liked to be talked to. He liked to pretend that he carried ona conversation, like humans.

  "_Chee-chee!_" he said with conviction.

  "Definitely," agreed Calhoun. "She's not doing this for her personaladvantage. Whatever she thinks she's doing, it's more important to herthan her own life. Murgatroyd--"

  "_Chee?_" said Murgatroyd in an inquiring tone.

  "There are wild cattle on Orede," said Calhoun. "Herds and herds ofthem. I have a suspicion that somebody's been shooting them. Lots ofthem. Do you agree? Don't you think that a lot of cattle have beenslaughtered on Orede lately?"

  Murgatroyd yawned. He settled himself still more comfortably inCalhoun's lap.

  "_Chee,_" he said drowsily.

  He went to sleep, while Calhoun continued the examination of highlycondensed information. Presently he looked up the normal rate ofincrease, with other data, among herds of _bivis domesticus_ in a wildstate, on planets where they have no natural enemies. It wasn'tunheard-of for a world to be stocked with useful types of Terran faunaand flora before it was attempted to be colonized. Terran life-formscould play the devil with alien ecological systems, very much tohumanity's benefit. Familiar microorganisms and a standard vegetationadded to the practicality of human settlements on otherwise alienworlds. But sometimes the results were strange.

  They weren't often so strange, however, as to cause some hundreds of mento pack themselves frantically aboard a cargo-ship which couldn'tpossibly sustain them, so that every man must die while the ship was inoverdrive.

  Still, by the time Calhoun turned in on a spare pneumatic mattress, hehad calculated that as few as a dozen head of cattle, turned loose on asuitable planet, would have increased to herds of thousands or tens oreven hundreds of thousa
nds in much less time than had probably elapsed.

  The Med Ship drove on in seemingly absolute solidity, with no sound fromwithout, with no sight to be seen outside, with no evidence at all thatit was not buried deep in the heart of a planet instead of flashingthrough emptiness at a speed so great as to have no meaning.

  * * * * *

  Next ship-day the girl looked oddly at Calhoun when she appeared in thecontrol-room. "Shall I--have breakfast?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Why not?"

  Silently, she operated the food-readier. She ate. Calhoun gave theimpression that he would respond politely when spoken to, but that hewas busy with activities that kept him remote from stowaways.

  About noon, ship-time, she asked;

  "When will we get to Orede?"

  Calhoun told her absently, as if he were thinking of something else.

  "What--what do you think happened there? I mean, to make that tragedy inthe ship?"

  "I don't know," said Calhoun. "But I disagree with the authorities onWeald. I don't think it was a planned atrocity of the blueskins."

  "Wh-what are blueskins?"

  Calhoun turned around and looked at her directly.

  "When lying," he said mildly, "you tell as much by what you pretendisn't, as by what you pretend is. You know what blueskins are!"

  "B--but what do you think they are?" she asked.

  "There used to be a human disease called smallpox," said Calhoun. "Whenpeople recovered from it, they were usually marked. Their skin hadlittle scar-pits here and there. At one time, back on Earth, it wasexpected that everybody would catch smallpox sooner or later, and alarge percentage would die of it. And it was so much a matter of coursethat if they printed a description of a criminal, they never mentionedit if he were pock-marked--scarred. It was no distinction. But if hedidn't have the markings, they'd mention that!" He paused. "Thosepock-marks weren't hereditary, but otherwise a blueskin is like a manwho had them. He can't be anything else!"

  "Then you think they're--human?"

  "There's never yet been a case of reverse evolution," said Calhoun."Maybe pithecanthropus had a monkey uncle, but no pithecanthropus everwent monkey."

  She turned abruptly away. But she glanced at him often during that day.He continued to busy himself with those activities which make a MedShip man's life consistent with retained sanity.

  Next day she asked without preliminary;

  "Don't you believe the blueskins planned for the ship with the dead mento arrive at Weald and spread plague there?"

  "No," said Calhoun.

  "Why?"

  "It couldn't possibly work," Calhoun told her. "With only dead men onboard, the ship wouldn't arrive at a place where the landing-grid couldbring it down. So that would be no good. And plague-stricken living menwouldn't try to conceal that they had the plague. They might ask forhelp, but they'd know they'd instantly be killed on Weald if they werefound to be plague-victims. So that would be no good, either! No, theship wasn't intended to land plague on Weald."

  "Are you--friendly to blueskins?" she asked uncertainly.

  "Within reason," said Calhoun, "I am a well-wisher to all the humanrace. You're slipping, though. When using the word 'blueskin' you shouldsay it uncomfortably, as if it were a word no refined person liked topronounce. You don't. We'll land on Orede tomorrow, by the way. If youever intend to tell me the truth, there's not much time."

  She bit her lips. Twice, during the remainder of the day, she faced himand opened her mouth as if to speak, and then turned away again. Calhounshrugged. He had fairly definite ideas about her, by now. He carefullykept them tentative, but no girl born and raised on Weald wouldwillingly go to Orede, with all of Weald believing that a shipload ofminers preferred death to remaining there. It tied in, like everythingelse that was unpleasant, to blueskins. Nobody from Weald would dream oflanding on Orede! Not now!

  * * * * *

  A little before the Med Ship was due to break out from overdrive, thegirl said very carefully;

  "You've been--very kind. I'd like to thank you. I--didn't really believeI would--live to get to Orede."

  Calhoun raised his eyebrows.

  "I--wish I could tell you everything you want to know," she addedregretfully. "I think you're--really decent. But some things...."

  Calhoun said caustically;

  "You've told me a great deal. You weren't born on Weald. You weren'traised there. The people of Dara--notice that I don't say blueskins,though they are--the people of Dara have made at least one space-shipsince Weald threatened them with extermination. There is probably a newfood-shortage on Dara now, leading to pure desperation. Most likely it'sbad enough to make them risk landing on Orede to kill cattle and freezebeef to help. They've worked out."

  She gasped and sprang to her feet. She snatched out the tiny blaster inher pocket. She pointed it waveringly at him.

  "I--have to kill you!" she cried desperately. "I--I have to!"

  Calhoun reached out. She tugged despairingly at the blaster's trigger.Nothing happened. Before she could realize that she hadn't turned offthe safety, Calhoun twisted the weapon from her fingers. He steppedback.

  "Good girl!" he said approvingly. "I'll give this back to you when weland. And thanks. Thanks very much!"

  She stared at him. "Thanks? When I tried to kill you?"

  "Of course!" said Calhoun. "I'd made guesses. I couldn't know that theywere right. When you tried to kill me, you confirmed every one. Now,when we land on Orede I'm going to get you to try to put me in touchwith your friends. It's going to be tricky, because they must be prettywell scared about that ship. But it's a highly desirable thing to getdone!"

  He went to the ship's control-board and sat down before it.

  "Twenty minutes to break-hour," he observed.

  Murgatroyd peered out of his little cubbyhole. His eyes were anxious._Tormals_ are amiable little creatures. During the days in overdrive,Calhoun had paid less than the usual amount of attention to Murgatroyd,while the girl was fascinating. They'd made friends, awkwardly on thegirl's part, very pleasantly on Murgatroyd's. But only moments ago therehad been bitter emotion in the air. Murgatroyd had fled to his cubbyholeto escape it. He was distressed. Now that there was silence again, hepeered out unhappily.

  "_Chee?_" he queried plaintively. "_Chee-chee-chee?_"

  Calhoun said matter-of-factly;

  "It's all right, Murgatroyd. If we aren't blasted as we try to land, weshould be able to make friends with everybody and get somethingaccomplished."

  The statement was hopelessly inaccurate.