The Hate Disease Read online

know? The vaccinehe's been giving to certain high officials to protect them againstbecoming para--it satisfies the monstrous appetite of para withoutrequiring them to eat scavengers. But it also produces that appetite.In fact, it's one of the ways by which paras are made."

  The Minister for Health stared at Calhoun. His face went literallygray. He tried to speak, and could not.

  Calhoun added again, as unemotionally as before:

  "I left Dr. Lett unconscious in his laboratory, knocked out by alow-power blaster bolt. He knows he's a para. The President is a para,but with a supply of 'vaccine' he can deny it to himself. By the lookon your face you've just found out you can't deny it to yourself anylonger. You're a para, too."

  The Minister for Health made an inarticulate sound. He literally wrunghis hands.

  "So," said Calhoun, "I want to get back to my ship and see what I cando with the 'vaccine' I took from Dr. Lett. Do you help me, or don'tyou?"

  The Minister for Health seemed to have shriveled inside his garments.He wrung his hands again. Then a ground car braked to a stop fiveyards away. Two uniformed men jumped out. The first of them jerked athis blaster in its holster on his hip.

  "That's the _tormal_!" he snapped. "This's the man, all right!"

  Calhoun pulled the trigger of his blaster three times. It whinedinstead of rasping, because of its low-power setting. The Minister forHealth collapsed. Before he touched ground the nearer of the twouniformed men seemed to stumble with his blaster halfway drawn. Thethird man toppled.

  "Murgatroyd!" said Calhoun sharply.

  "_Chee!_" shrilled Murgatroyd. He leaped into the ground car besideCalhoun.

  * * * * *

  The motor squealed because of the violence with which Calhoun appliedthe power. It went shrilly away with three limp figures left behindupon the ground. But there wouldn't be instant investigation. Theatmosphere in Government Center was not exactly normal. People lookedapprehensively at them. But Calhoun was out of sight before the firstof them stirred.

  "It's the devil," said Calhoun as he swung to the right at a roadwaycurve, "to have scruples! If I'd killed Lett in cold blood, I'd havebeen the only hope these people could have! Maybe they'd have let mehelp them!"

  He made another turn. There were buildings here and there, and he washardly out of sight of where he'd dropped three men. But it wasastonishing that action had been taken so quickly after Lett regainedconsciousness. Calhoun had certainly left him not more than a quarterof an hour before. The low-power blaster must have kept him stunnedfor minutes. But immediately he'd recovered he'd issued orders for thecapture or the killing of a man with a small animal with him, a_tormal_. And the order would have been carried out if Calhoun hadn'thappen to have his own blaster actually in his hand.

  But the appalling thing was the over-all situation as now revealed.The people of Government Center were turning para and Dr. Lett had allthe authority of the government behind him. He was the government forthe duration of the emergency. But he'd stay the government becauseall the men in high office were paras who could conceal theircondition only so long as Dr. Lett permitted it. Calhoun could picturethe social organization to be expected. There'd be the tyrant; theabsolute monarch at its head. Absolutely submissive citizens wouldreceive their dosage of vaccine to keep them "normals" so long as itpleased their masters. Anyone who defied him or even tried to fleewould become something both mad and repulsive, because subject tomonstrous and irresistible appetite. And the tyrant could prevent eventheir satisfaction! So the citizens of Tallien Three were faced withan ultimate choice of slavery, or madness, for themselves and theirfamilies.

  Calhoun swerved behind a government building and out of the parkingarea beyond. Obviously, he couldn't leave Government Center by the wayhe'd entered it. If Lett hadn't ordered him stopped, he'd be orderingit now. And Murgatroyd was an absolute identification.

  Again he turned a corner, thrusting Murgatroyd down out of sight. Heturned again, and again.... Then he began concentratedly to rememberwhere the sunset-line had been upon the planet when he was waiting tobe landed by the grid. He could guess at an hour and a half, perhapstwo, since he touched ground. On the combined data, he made a guess atthe local time. It would be mid-afternoon. So shadows would lie to thenortheast of the objects casting them. Then--

  He did not remain on any straight roadway for more than seconds. Butnow when he had a choice of turnings, he had a reason for each choice.He twisted and dodged about--once he almost ran into children playinga ritual game--but the sum total of his movements was steadilysouthward. Paras were turned out of the south gate. That gate, alone,would be the one where someone could go out with a chance of beingunchallenged.

  * * * * *

  He found the gate. The usual tall buildings bordered it to left andright. The actual exit was bare concrete walls slanting together to anexit to the outer world; no more than a house-door wide. Well backfrom the gate, there were four high-side trucks with armed police inthe truck-bodies. They were there to make sure that paras turned out,or who went out of their own accord when they knew their state, wouldnot come back.

  He stopped the ground car and tucked Murgatroyd under his coat. Hewalked grimly toward the narrow exit. It was the most desperate ofgambles, but it was the only one he could make. He could be killed, ofcourse, if anybody suspected him of attempting exit at any gate.

  He got out, unchallenged. The concrete walls rose higher and higher ashe walked away from the trucks and the police who would surely haveblasted him had they guessed. The way he could walk became narrowed.It became a roofed-over passageway, with a turn in it so it could notbe looked through end to end. Then--he reached open air once more.

  Nothing could be less dramatic than his actual escape. He simplywalked out. Nothing could be less remarkable than his arrival in thecity outside of Government Center. He found himself in a city street,rather narrow, with buildings as usual all about him, whose windowswere either bricked shut, or smashed. There were benches against thebase of one of those buildings, and four or five men, quite unarmed,lounged upon them. When Calhoun appeared one of them looked up andthen arose. A second man turned to busy himself with something behindhim. They were not grim. They showed no sign of being mad. But Calhounhad already realized that the appetite which was madness came onlyoccasionally, only at intervals which could probably be known inadvance. Between one monstrous hunger-spell and another, a para mightlook and act and actually be as sane as anybody else. Certainly Dr.Lett and the President and the Cabinet members who were paras actedconvincingly as if they were not.

  One of the men on the benches beckoned.

  "This way," he said casually.

  Murgatroyd poked his head out of Calhoun's jacket. He regarded theseroughly dressed men with suspicion.

  "What's that?" asked one of the five.

  "A pet," said Calhoun briefly.

  The statement went unchallenged. A man got up, lifting a small tankwith a hose. There was a hissing sound. The spray made a fine, foglikemist. Calhoun smelled a conventional organic solvent, well-knownenough.

  "This's antiseptic," said the man with the spray. "In case you gotsome disease inside there."

  The statement was plainly standard, and once it had been exquisiteirony. But it had been repeated until it had no meaning any more,except to Calhoun. His clothing glittered momentarily where the spraystood on its fibres. Then it dried. There was the faintest possibleresidue, like a coating of impalpable dust. Calhoun guessed itssignificance and the knowledge was intolerable. But he said betweenclenched fists.

  "Where do I go now?"

  "Anywheres," said the first man. "Nobody'll bother you. Some normalstry to keep you from getting near'em, but you can do as you please."He added disinterestedly. "To them, too. No police out here!"

  He went back to the bench and sat down. Calhoun moved on.

  * * * * *

  His inward sensations were unbearable, but
he had to continue. It wasnot likely that instructions would have reached the para organizationyet. There was one. There must be one. But eventually he would behunted for even on the unlikely supposition that he'd gotten out ofGovernment Center. Not yet, but presently.

  He went down the street. He came to a corner and turned it. There wereagain a few moving figures in sight. There might be one pedestrian ina city block. This was how they'd looked in the other part of thecity, seen from a ground car. On foot, they looked the same. Windows,too, were broken. Doors smashed in. Trash on the streets....

  None of the humans in view paid any attention to him at all, but hekept Murgatroyd out of sight regardless. Walking men who came towardhim never quite arrived. They turned off on other streets or intodoorways. Those