Pariah Planet

er-stars were seen from an unaccustomed angle and a not-yet-commonplace pattern of varying magnitudes. But Calhoun grunted in satisfaction. There was a banded sun off to port,

id Calhoun. "Comb your whiskers.

mall, shril

he

rawling out of his small cub

'll be unpopular. According to the records, there's been no Med Ship inspection here fo

troyd

e-ch

e companionable small animals. They are charmed when somebody speaks to them. They find great, deep satisfaction in imitating the actions of humans, as parrots and myn

sun. It could hardly be an accurate measu

something,

ies of some hundreds of times that of light are possible. The sensation of going into overdrive was unpleasant. A momen

ble in space. It was close, now. It

Three is our port, Murgatroyd. The p

details, and checked it against the local star-pilot. He calculated a moment. The distance was too sho

mmunicator-button and

f landing, planetary health inspection. Our mass is fifty tons standard. We should arrive

aited for an answer. Murgatroyd wanted a cup of coffee too. Murgatroyd adored coff

out of the

ty, repeat your

t to the co

health inspection on Weald. Check with your public health authorities. This is the first Med Ship visit in twelve st

said tru

s your l

spections was almost common-place. Other sectors had been called on to help it catch up. Calhoun was one of the loaned Med Ship men, and because of the emergency he'd been given a list of half

spected, the one from which he'd set out for Weald

rt befor

d the one be

said the voice harshly,

n said

em that if they do not cooperate in medical inspection that I can put your planet under quarantine and your space commerce will be cut off like that! No ship will be cleared for Weald from any other planet in the galaxy until there has been a health inspection! Thi

lf another cup of coffee. Murgatroyd held out

royd," he said annoyedly, "but there are

"Chee!" and si

ings and rustlings and the occasional strange and sometimes beautiful musical notes whose origin is yet obscure, but which, since they

a different voice c

clipus! Med S

d and the voice

blueskin problem always with us. We have to b

way," sai

e help! We lose a lot of sleep over the blueskins! Could you tell us the name of the last Med Ship to land here, and its inspecto

d Murgatroyd, "but he's m

Three. He gave the information about t

asked, "is

y. Twelve years earlier-instead of three-a Med Ship had landed on Weald. There had been official conferences with health officials. There was a report on the birth-r

a Sector dictionary, where words o

f Dara. The condition is said to be caused by a chronic, non-fatal form of Dara plague and has been said to be non-infectious, though this is not certain. The etiology o

ough indices and cross-references while the ship continued travel onward. He found no other reference to blueskins. He looked up Dara. It was listed as an inhabited planet, some four hundred year

icense from Med Service

all. Abso

icator sai

s Twenty! Come in

e control-board an

t now?" he

d. A bland face l

aid the third voice from Weald. "Just on

said Calhou

e?" insiste

ly!" sai

creature?" insist

dly. He called over his shou

restedly at the screen. The bland face chan

ns do not have tormals! You are Med Service! By

licked off the communicator a

ave members of your tribe aboard! What the hell's the matter, Murgatroyd? They act lik

stions to see how many of the newest medical techniques have reached this planet or that, and the supplying of information about such as have not arrived. Then lifting out to space for long periods of tedium, to repeat the process somewhere else. Med Ships carry only one man b

t work to correct the results of incompetence in directing Med Service in the twelfth sector. But it is always disheart

from other people who'd survived a plague. Weald plainly maintained a one-planet quarantine against them. But a quarantine is normally an

fumed to

nd and water surface. The Med Ship decelerated, and voices notified observation from the surface, and the little craft came to

lar flowing-apart of the surface features as the ship sank still lower. There was the circular landing-grid, rearing skyward for nearly a mil

d by everybody. There would be painful efforts to impress Calhoun with the splendid conduct of public health matters on Weald. He would be told much scandal. He might find one man, somewhere, who passionately labored to advance the welfare of his fellow humans by finding out how to

ins meant to the people who talked of them. Then he knew there would be no use asking questions at random. Nobody mentioned ever having seen a blueskin. Nobody mentioned a specific event in which a blueskin had at any named time taken part. But everybody was afr

ne-selection as practised halfway across the galaxy. He invited that man to the Med Ship, where he supplied the information not hitherto avail

net hate the inhabitants of Dara? It's light-years away. Nobody claims

ian docto

and our political parties can make an election issue out of competing for the privilege of defendin

ntagion here, eh? Doesn't anybody"-his tone was sardonic-"doe

ctor reluctantly. "It's ment

s the argument to make pigment-patches involve moral

ee generations ago! That they hate everybody who isn't a blueskin. That they are constantly scheming to introduce their plague here

hat sort of thing usually costs lives,

bad. They built a space-ship. They've no use for such things normally, because no nearby planet will deal with them or let them land. But they built a space-ship and came here. They went in orbit around Weald. They asked

," said

n space off the planet. We told them we'd blast their world from pole to pole if they ever dared take

gave th

tor ashamedly. "Th

was the

of armed ships in their skies for years. To keep them from sprea

s tone was

The government had to buy the excess grain to keep the price up. Retired patrol-ships-built to watch over Dara-were available for storage

d D

shrugged. H

Weald there, against blueskins. Cattle were landed to run wild and multiply and make a reason for colonists to settle there. They did, but nobody wants to move nearer to blueskins! So Orede stayed uninhabited until a hunting

aid Calhou

toward the Med

ut if I talked to anyone else as I've done to y

away," said Calhoun

ad gone, Calhoun

u're a tormal and not a man. There's nothin

strictly Med Service opinion of the planet's latest and most boasted-of achievement. It was a domed city in the polar regions, where nobody ever had to go outdoors. He was less than professionally enthusiastic about the moving streets, and much l

n badly managed in Sector Twelve. So at the banquet Calhoun made a brief and diplomatic addr

he need to be perpetually on guard against the greatest and most immediate danger to which any world in all the galaxy was exposed. He referred to the blueskins, of course. He did not need to tell the people of Weald what vigilance, what constant watchfulness was necessary against that race

n, Calhoun said

ctical politics to urge the massacre of

ecutive said

t, but it would be foolish to carry it out. People vote

und his tee

t from overdrive within the Wealdian solar system. Its tape-transmitter had automatically signalled its arrival from the mining-planet Orede. But, having sent off its automatic signal, the ship lay dead in space. It did not drive toward

to Orede. That's who's done this. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd seeded

protested Calhoun. "A ship simply came out of

executive ominously. "We'll

tended with cakes and coffee and such delicacies as he'd been plied with. He was half comatose from over-feeding a

d not answer calls. It did not move in space. It floated eerily in no orbit

on the air all over the planet Weald. There was nobody awake of all the world's population who did not believe that there was a new danger in the sky. Nobody

designed to inspect the circling grain-ships from time, was already aloft. The landing-grid had th

drew nearer and nearer to the deathly-still cargo vessel, the guesses about the meaning of its breakout and following silence grew more and more wild. But, singularly, there was

-ship dark. No lights shone anywhere on or in it. There were no induction-surges from even pulsing, idling engines. Delicately, t

ommanded the chief executive.

rom far, far away. Calhoun listened, frowning darkly. This pompous heroi

mptiness between the two again-separated ships. He had opened the airlock from outside

es of heavy-metal ores and a crew of no more than five men. There was no cargo in her holds now, though. Instead, there were men. They packed the ship. They filled the corridors. They had crawled into every cargo and o

more. But there were hundreds of men in hiding as well as in plain view in the cargo-ship from Orede. There were many, many times more than

scarcity killed them before t

ship's log which referred to its take-off. There was no memora

d terrified. "It was the blueskins! We'll have to teach them a lesson!" Then he turned to Calhoun. "The volunteer who we

raged