Pariah Planet

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

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

in the Sector Directory-against the look of continents and seas on the half-disk so pl

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

id not

the way, where anybody can know it is at any time of the day or night without having to calculate anything. So you'll put it out in orbit so it will revolve around Weald in exactly one day, neither more or le

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

eered directly out of a port, handling the solar-syst

he

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

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

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

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

-panel and brought out a vacuum s

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

said d

what you've

the act of hauling the vacu

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

cal men. They have things all prepared and tidy. I suspect I'll find these ships with stores of air and fuel-maybe even foo

e, power-storage, and other data from the lighted miniature instruments visible through pinholes above

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

r one vacuum-suited arm. The inner lock door closed behind him A

agine falling forty-two thousand miles, where one couldn't imagine falling a light-year. Calhoun was walking on the steel plates of a gigantic space-ship which floated among dozens of its fellows, all seeming

s came from the background tape, preventing utter silence from hanging intolerably in the ship. They were traffic-sounds, recorded on a world no one knew how many l

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

looked at h

he asked

me a habit to act as if Mur

aid unsteadil

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

fog out of the lock. He carried objects which had been weightless, but were suddenly heavy in the ship's gravity-field. There

! Turn a heater on

his way out of

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

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

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

the space-suit, step

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

il

any hope for Da

ped a

u think we'

ask. The dosage, mixed in the coffee he had given them earlier, was a light one. Calhoun took

s grain to keep the price up. To save storage costs, it's loaded the grain into out-of-date space-ships it once used to stand sentry over Dara to keep it out of space when there was another famine there. Those ships have been put out in orbit, where we're hooked on to one of them. It's lo

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

to be brought up to reasonable temperature for use on the journey. Then the overdrive unit had to be inspected and set for the length of journey that a direct overdrive hop to Dara would mean, and Calhoun had to make sure again that each of the four coul

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

uccessful, it had to be performed

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

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

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

ha

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

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

said Calhoun. He yawned. "You

hy

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

ction 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. It

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

you've no idea how much t

ver 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. But there was plenty of

or and swung the Med Ship to an exact, painstakingly pr

coming, M

and the universe reeled and the Med S

yawned

wearily, "and I'm beginning to understand why people slee

said t

? After they took

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

Then he said longingly, "I'm a

r cabin. He settled down into the

usands of millions of suns blazed with violence appropriate to their stellar types in a galaxy of which a very small proportion had been explored and colonized by humanity. The human race was now to be counted in quadrillions on scores of hundreds of inhabited worlds, but the tiny Med Ship seemed the least significant of all possible create

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. Again it was a device to counteract isolation and monotonous between-planet voyages. To keep it from losing its effectiveness, Calhoun rationed himself on m

tranquilizing, soothing melodies from the Rim School of co

The way you live gives you what other people have to try to get in crazy ways,-making their work feed the

ught i

mind," he admitted. "It works pretty well. It satisfies a

. He did n

ncts that work and music an

grinne

ith them. I

ted her to go into the other

'd worked so long to produce. "We'll see how it works," he observed. "Murgatroyd's handy in ca

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

looked more pleased still. He made another entry in the log and matter-of-factly drew a small quantity of blood from his own vein and called to Murgatroyd. Murgat

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

's-your

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

rd the familia

he

ed Calhoun. "We'l

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

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

hing for me. The time, and ninety-s

e 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

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 ha

was simply one of those scrupulous precautions a

nd called Maril back and offe

"You brought some food from the f

ok his

ara is Med Service fault. Before my time, but s

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

nize her without appearing to do so, and he was satisfied again. When he mentioned that the Med Shi

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

ss 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 incr

th Murgatroyd curled

ours, ship time. Calhoun made contact with th

hen the people of Dara were informed by broadcast th