This World Is Taboo

ts poles, and there were seas, and the mottled look of land which had that carefully maintained balance of woodland and cultivated areas wh

The four young blueskins still slept, still bound hand and foot upon the control room floor. Murgatroy

sted Calhoun as his search had no result. "They can'

d "Chee!" in a

"A polar orbit would be ridiculous! They-" Then he grunted

mapped in the Sector Directory, against the look of continents and seas on the half-disk s

And it's so obvious! If you want to put something out in space, and not have it i

id not

to the spaceport. You'll put it on the opposite side of the planet. And you'll want it to stay out of t

s, and you'll put it above the equator. And then it will remain quite stationary above one spot on the

bled for

, give or take a few hundred, and-here! An

ht planet below. The sunset line vanished and the planet's disk became a complete circle. Then Calhoun listened to the

y out of a port, handling the solar system drive w

a beacon transmitter at work, just to make sure that nobody bumps into what

ril, despairing and bewildered as she was, caught sight of something vastly larger than the Med Ship, floating in space. She sta

did. They did not drive. They were not in formation. They were not at even distances from e

pacts and then a clanking sound. The appearance out the vision port became stationary, but

panel and brought out a vacuum s

nlikely that we were spotted. Our friends on the floor ought to begin to come to sh

"I don't know what

ct of hauling the vacuum suit up

to help them dump germ-cultures on Weald! I brought them here! Don't you see the point? These are space ships. They're i

his arms into the sleeves and gloves of the suit. He slung

al men. They have things all prepared and tidy. I suspect I'll find these ships with stores of air and fuel, maybe even food

re, power-storage, and other data from the lighted miniature instruments visible through pinholes abov

e I get back," he added, "please res

ver one vacuum-suited arm. The inner lock door closed behind hi

d said that what he was looking for, and what he'd found, was forty-two thousand miles from Weald.

l seeming derelicts and seemingly abandoned. He was able to walk on the nearest because of magnetic-soled sho

s been the habit of clocks since time immemorial. Very small and trivial noises came f

d slept again. Murgatroyd gazed about unhappily, and swung down to the control room floor, and then paused for la

looked at h

he asked

o act as if Murgatroyd were a human bei

aintest of clankings. It repeated. Then, abruptly, there were n

. He carried objects which had been weightless, but were suddenly heavy in the ship's gravity-field. There were two spacesuits and a curious ass

his way out of hi

ady to take off as soon as they're warmed up inside. A half-degree sun doesn't radiate heat enough to keep

and steamed, and the steam disappeared within inches. They were so completely and utterly cold that they condensed the a

are pretty nearly standard. Our sleeping friends will be able to astrogate them back to Dar

the spacesuit, stepp

provisions for everybody concerned, but find that I'm idiot enough to

re isn't any hope fo

ped a

u think we'

ee given them as a graduation ceremony-the ceremony which had consisted solely of drinking coffee and passing out-allowed for

e's a famine on Dara. There've been unmanageable crop surpluses on Weald. On Dara, the government grimly

sed to stand sentry over Dara to keep it out of space when there was another famine

the heaters in its interior, and I've set its overdrive unit for a hop to Dara. Now I'm calling for

out their original fanatic plan, and now offered something much better to make up for it. They

y, first one and then

one grain ship warming up. There are plenty of others around us. Every one of

e'd bossed them and taught them until they felt capable and glamorous and proud. Then he'd pinned their ears back. Bu

ed, in spacesuits, and each had to have its interior warmed so breathable air could exist inside it, and at

e sure again that each of the four could identify Dara's sun under all circumstances and aim for it with the requisite high precision, both before g

of young men intending much greater achievements than their teacher. They wouldn'

to be successful, it had to be perfor

wavered back and forth, seeking a point of aim. A second twisted in its place. A thir

erdrive, heading for Dara at many time

ons he'd given in such a pathetically small number of days. If the four ships reached Dara, their pilots would be heroes.

t him with ver

at?" sh

ppened. It's always possible to pick up a sort of signal when a ship goes into overdrive. Us

ha

back and stealing some more food, like interstellar mice. If they find out what we've done they'll exp

" said Maril, "I'd have joined in the

alhoun. He yawned. "You wouldn't want

hy

his fellow blueskins. All he's accomplished is develop a way to starve painlessly. He wouldn't feel comfortable wit

tion of Korvan, whom Calhoun had never met, or denied that he was more impo

be trying to be a h

have a job to do. It's got to be done.

uld be worth more to Dara than the Med Ship is! And then

you've no idea how much t

over in use on Weald. There was no mention of the oddity of behavior of shiploads of surplus grain aloft. There was no mention of the ships at all. There was plenty of m

ng the Med Ship to an exact, painstakingly precise aim at the sun

a sort of cosmos all its own, into which no signal could come, no danger could enter,

yawned

o understand why people sleep all they can, on Dara. It's one way not to feel hungry. An

re going back? After they

second-order effect. If there were no such thing as a blueskin, there'd be no famine. Foo

ed at hi

," she said with irony

"I didn't get much sleep on the way here, while runn

He settled down into the chair which, to let a Med Ship man break the monotony of life in unc

e Med Ship. Very, very far away, light-years distant and light-years apart, four shiploads of grain hurtled towa

l proportion had been explored and colonized by humanity. The human race was now to be counted in quadrillions on scor

nt of suns on which the human race arose. And between any two solar systems the journeying of the Med Ship cons

little biological laboratory. Maril watched him in a sort of brooding silence. Murgat

timeters of clear liquid as the conclusion of a long process of culturing, and examination by

, and put the bit of clear liquid in a te

asked Maril. "

hand," said Calhoun. He cons

e was music such as she had never heard before. It was another device to counteract isolation and monotonous betwe

easure when indulged in, but would make for stress if it were omitted. Calhoun deliberately went for w

tranquilizing, soothing melodies from the Rim School of co

e. The way you live gives you what other people have to get in crazy ways-making their work feed their v

ught i

s mind," he admitted. "It works pretty well. It satisfi

. He did n

tincts that work and music an

ly, "I'm stern with

ted her to go into the other

hip-day when he got out the sample of cle

handy in case of a slip-up. It's perfectly safe so

alf a cc. under his own skin

will i

e said with some dryness, "make a perfect test for anything.

m utterly witho

ical Service inspection. Weald was there. Dara wasn't. But a Med Service man has much freedom of action, even when only keeping up the r

ed. He made an entry in the ship's log. Two hours later yet he

ein and called to Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd submitted amiably to the very trivial operation Calhoun ca

orn there's a tiny spot on his flank that has the pain-nerves

our friend!

ll the human attributes an animal which lives with huma

myself. But we're both Med Service. And I do things for him th

the familiar word

ed Calhoun. "We'l

e scratched at the place on his flank which had no pain nerves. It itched. But he was pe

ed air went to sleep there. Calhoun disturbed him long enough to get an instrument

hing for me. The time, and ninety-s

he had her write down another time and sequence of figures, only slightly different from the

wn temperatur

re to do," he told her. "Would you

ten minutes Calhoun had diluted the sample, added an anticoagulant, shaken it up thoroughly, and filtered it to clarity with all red and white corpuscles removed. Another Med Ship man would

was simply one of those scrupulous precautions a

sample away and

lt uncomfortable. We simply had a bit of Med Service r

ll fix lunch." She hesitated. "You brought some

ok his

a is Med Service fault. Before my time, but still

ing meal of singularly unappetizing Darian rations, she drank thirstily. He did not comment. He brought out cards and showed h

without appearing to do so, and he was satisfied again. When he mentioned that the Med Ship sh

lood pressure after the injection of the same culture that produced fever and thirstiness in himself

ess than one hour my temperature was 30.8° C. An hour later it was 30.9° C. This was its peak. It immediately returned to normal. The only other observable symptom was slightly i

curled up in his cubbyhole, his ta

ours, ship-time. Calhoun made contact with th

time, when the people of Dara were informed by bro