Pariah Planet

Ship Aesclipus Twenty notified its arrival and requested co?rdinates for landing. There should have been a crisp description of the direction from the planet's center at which

sh meat for Dara, from the herds I'm told about, it should be manned. But they don't se

, and his fr

in that case it would be reasonable to blast me before I could land and unload some fighting men. On the other hand, no ship from Weald would

ook he

ship at Weald, and what Weald thinks about it! My guess is that you came to tell them. It isn't likely

t she compressed them tightl

orged papers for it, and they'd travel so far from this part of space that when they landed nobody would think of D

pinched, but s

and take ships that went various roundabout ways, and arrive on Weald one by one, to see what could be

an to g

there are other, agents, if you like that word better, on Weald. And there hasn't been a plague on Weald so you people aren't

let it go again. But the people didn'

opped

me!" she cried passio

op," sai

leisurely motion across its screen. Then a huge, gibbous shining shape appeared, and there were irregular patches of that muddy color which

und by members of a hunting-part

found a mineral deposit, it would have been in a temperate zone. Cattle would not be found deep in a mountainous terrain. The mine would not be on a prairie. The settlement on Orede, then, would be near the edge of mountains, not far from a prairie such as wild cattle would frequent

found a speck. He enlarged it many-fold, and it was the mine on Orede. There were hea

call," observed Calhoun,

the emergency-rockets boomed.

sphere. The noise of its rockets had become thunde

royd," commanded Calhoun. "We

y, but continued to descend. It was not directly above the grid. It swept downward until almost level with the peaks of the mountains in which the mine lay. It tilted again, and swept onward

tion, hovered momentarily, and settled to solidity outside the framework of the grid

own below. But there seemed no other sound. There was no other motion. There was absolute stillness all around. But when Calhoun switched on the

aster in his poc

e said with a certain grimness. "I don't

ted and the useless tailings carried away by a conveyor-belt to make a monstrous pile of broken stone. But there was no longer a building. Next to it there had been a structure containing an ore-crush

sides of the buildings. Cattle had piled themselves up against the beams upholding roofs until the buildings collapsed. Then cattle had gone plunging over the wrecked buildings until there was nothing left but

hrough and over and upon it. Senselessly, they'd trampled each other to horrible shapelessnesses. The mine-shaft was n

n said

lement got in the way and it was too bad for the settlement. Everything's explained, except the ship that went to Weald. A cattle stampede, yes. Anybody can believe that! But there was a man-stampede! Men stampeded int

y, "do you intend to get in

ut if-the ship stays here, they're bound to

. If your friends are a meat-getting party from Dara, as I believe, they should cover up their tracks, get off-planet as fast as

I do?" she as

y nothing. I'll work something out ... I've got the devil o

leave me

a supposedly uninhabited planet, with the knowledge that it might actually be uninhabited, and the fu

iding had so much to lose if they were discovered that they might be hundreds or even thousands of miles from anywhere a space-

aid the cattle-herds of Orede for food to carry back to their home planet. That somehow the miners on Orede had found that they had blueskin neighbors,

ell must break loose upon Dara for punishment. But if there were men here, he couldn't leave a written warning for them in default of friendly contact. They might not find it, and a search-party of Weald

ght not be picked up, and were unlikely to be acknowledged.

the GC spectrum, repeating his warning painstakingly and listening without hope for a reply. He did find one spot on the dial where there was re-radiation of his message, as if from a tuned receiver. But he could not get a fix on it, an

any Darians-blueskins-on Orede ought to know. There'd been no answer. And it was all too likely that if he'd

Murgatroyd staring at the exit-port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The tell-tale s

ago, Mur

Murgatroyd

en left behind. He and the girl were close friends, now. If she'd left Mu

not in the ship. He flipped the outside-speak

I are having coffee. Wil

him within a mile. She did not appear. He went to a small and inconspicuous closet and armed himself. A

long minutes, staring angrily about. Almost certainly she wouldn't be looking in the mountains for men of Dara come here for cattle. He used a pair o

nd a far-away hillcrest. It was her

he ground outside, he locked the port with that combination that

rgatroyd sourly. "Come along

out in

determine which she'd followed. That cost time. Then the mountains ended, abruptly, and a vast undulating plain stretched away to

Calhoun increased his stride. He began

"Chee!" in a c

un dourly, "but there was and is a chance I w

be lost. She'd guessed, Calhoun believed, that if there were Darians on the planet, they'd keep the landing-grid under observation. If they saw her leave that area and could see that she was alo

en me marching after her now, which spoils her scheme. And I

dozen or so cattle a little distance away. The bull looked up and snorted. T

f up to a charge. Then Calhoun suddenly remembered one of the items in the da

Fast! Stay with me if you can, but ..." He was jog-trot

lling of the ground. She came to a full stop. He ran. He saw her turn to retrace her steps. He

-a dozen-fifteen-twenty. They moved ominously in her wake. He saw her again, running frantically over another upward swell of the prairie. He let off another blast to gui

ter, now. The girl fled from them, but it is the instinct of beef-cattle on the open range-Calhoun had learned it only two days before-to charge any human

y with shut eyes, as bulls do, but the many-times-more-deadly cows charged with their eyes wid

rds when Calhoun fired from twenty yards beyond. One creature bellowed as the blast-bolt struck. It went down and others crashed into it and swept over it, and m

of hooves became a mutter and then a rumble and then a growl. Plunging, clumsy figures rushed past on either side. But horns and heads heaved up over the mound of animals Calhoun had shot. He s

n their running fellows in whatever crazed urgency they feel. There was a dense, pounding, horrible mass of running bulls and cows and calves; bello

the gruesome pile of animals which had divided the charging herd into two parts. They could see the rears of innumerable runn

he barrel of his blast-rifle a

d coldly, "that I don't k

girl. She swallowe

t! You could have cost me days of hunting for you, days badly needed for more important matters!" He stopped and to

ore bitte

ind to get to you in time! He was

y from her an

ship. We'll go to Dara. We'd h

and draggled, and his tail drooped, and he sneezed again. He moved as if he could barely put one paw before another, but at the sigh

said, "Chee-chee!" and again "Chee-chee!" with the intonatio

ment and the Med Ship. Murgatroyd clung to his

ers began to notice them. And it would have been a matter of no moment if they'd been domesticated dairy-cattle, but these were range-cattle gone wild. Twice, Calhoun had to

was two miles more to the landing-grid with the Me

houn so close that he felt the monstrous heat. There had been no challenge. There was no warning. There