Pariah Planet Part 11

The man with the blue hand said as sardonically as before;

"I said the government was taking over your s.h.i.+p! It won't be looted.

But you're not taking a full cargo of food away! In fact, it's not likely you're leaving!"

"I want to speak to someone in authority," snapped Calhoun. "We've just come from Weald." He felt bristling hatred all about him as he named Weald. "There's tumult there. They're talking about dropping fusion bombs here. It's important that I talk to somebody with the authority to take a few sensible precautions!"

He descended to the ground. There was a panicky "_Chee! Chee!_" from behind him, and Murgatroyd came das.h.i.+ng to swarm up his body and cling apprehensively to his neck.

"What's that?"

"A _tormal,_" said Calhoun. "He's not a pet. Your medical men will know something about him. This is a Med s.h.i.+p and I'm a Med s.h.i.+p man, and he's an important member of the crew. He's a Med s.h.i.+p _tormal_ and he stays with me!"

The man with the blue hand said harshly;

"There's somebody waiting to ask you questions. Here!"

A ground-car came rolling out from the side of the landing-grid enclosure. The ground-car ran on wheels, and wheels were not much used on modern worlds. Dara was behind the times in more ways than one.

"This car will take you to Defense and you can tell them anything you want. But don't try to sneak back in this s.h.i.+p! It'll be guarded!"

The ground-car was enclosed, with room for a driver and the three from the Med s.h.i.+p. But armed men festooned themselves about its exterior and it went b.u.mping and rolling to the ma.s.sive ground-layer girders of the grid. It rolled out under them and there was paved highway. It picked up speed.

There were buildings on either side of the road, but few showed lights.

This was night-time, and the men at the landing-grid had set a pattern of hunger, so that the silence and the dark buildings did not seem a sign of tranquility and sleep, but of exhaustion and despair. The highway lamps were few, by comparison with other inhabited worlds, and the ground-car needed lights of its own to guide its driver over a paved surface that needed repair. By those moving lights other depressing things could be seen. Untidiness. Buildings not kept up to perfection.

Evidences of apathy. The road hadn't been cleaned lately. There was litter here and there.

Even the fact that there were no stars added to the feeling of wretchedness and gloom and--ultimately--of hunger.

Maril spoke nervously to the driver.

"The famine isn't any better?"

He moved his head in negation, but did not speak.

"I left--two years ago," said Maril. "It was just beginning then.

Rationing hadn't started then--."

The driver said evenly;

"There's rationing now!"

The car went on and on. A vast open s.p.a.ce appeared ahead. Lights about its perimeter seemed few and pale.

"E-everything seems--worse. Even the lights."

"Using all the power," said the driver, "to warm up ground to grow crops where it ought to be winter. Not doing too well, either."

Calhoun knew, somehow, that Maril moistened her lips.

"I--was sent," she explained to the driver, "to go ash.o.r.e on Trent and then make my way to Weald. I--mailed reports of what I found out back to Trent. Somebody got them back to here whenever--it was possible."

The driver said;

"Everybody knows the man on Trent disappeared. Maybe he got caught, maybe somebody saw him without makeup. Or maybe he just quit being one of us. What's the difference? No use!"

Calhoun found himself wincing a little. The driver was not angry. He was hopeless. But men should not despair. They shouldn't accept hostility from those about them as a device of fate for their destruction. They shouldn't ...

Maril said quickly to him;

"You understand? Dara's a heavy-metals planet. There aren't many light elements in our soil. Pota.s.sium is scarce. So our ground isn't very fertile. Before the Plague we traded heavy metals and manufactures for imports of food and potash. But since the Plague we've had no off-planet commerce. We've been--quarantined."

"I gathered as much," said Calhoun. "It was up to Med Service to see that that didn't happen. It's up to Med Service now to see that it stops."

"Too late now for anything," said the driver, "whatever Med Service may be! They're talking about cutting down our population so there'll be food enough for some to live. There are two questions about it: who's to be kept alive and why."

The ground-car aimed now for a cl.u.s.ter of faintly brighter lights on the far side of the great open s.p.a.ce. They enlarged as they grew nearer.

Maril said hesitantly;

"There was someone--Korvan--" Calhoun didn't catch the rest of the name, Maril said hesitantly; "He was working on food-plants. I--thought he might accomplish something ..."

The driver said caustically;

"Sure! Everybody's heard about him! He came up with a wonderful thing!

He and his outfit worked out a way to process weeds so they can be eaten. And they can. You can fill your belly and not feel hungry, but it's like eating hay. You starve just the same. He's still working. Head of a government division."

The ground-car pa.s.sed through a gate. It stopped before a lighted door.

The armed men hanging to its outside dropped off. They watched Calhoun closely as he stepped out with Murgatroyd riding on his shoulder.

Minutes later they faced a hastily-summoned group of officials of the Darian government. For a s.h.i.+p to land on Dara was so remarkable an event that it called practically for a cabinet meeting. And Calhoun noted that they were no better fed than the guards at the s.p.a.ce-port.

They regarded Calhoun and Maril with oddly burning eyes. It was, of course, because the two of them showed no signs of hunger. They obviously had not been on short rations.

"My name is Calhoun," said Calhoun briskly. "I've the usual Med Service credentials. Now ..."

He did not wait to be questioned. He told them of the appalling state of things in the Twelfth Sector of the Med Service, so that men had been borrowed from other sectors to remedy the intolerable, and he was one of them. He told of his arrival at Weald and what had happened there, from the excessively cautious insistence that he prove he was not a Darian, to the arrival of the death-s.h.i.+p from Orede. He was giving them the news affecting them, as they had not heard it before.

He went on to tell of his stop at Orede and his purpose, and his encounter with the men he found there. When he finished there was silence. He broke it.

"Now," he said, "Maril's an agent of yours. She can add to what I've told you. I'm Med Service. I have a job to do here to repair what wasn't done before. I should make a planetary health inspection and make recommendations for the improvement of the state of things. I'll be glad if you'll arrange for me to talk to your health officials. Things look bad, and something should be done."

Someone laughed without mirth.

"What will you recommend for long-continued undernourishment?" he asked derisively. "That's our health problem!"

"I recommend food," said Calhoun.

"Where'll you fill the prescription?"