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Med Service-Murray Leinster · 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert

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  Speaker 1: Part one of med Service. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Phil shinever Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Med Service by Murray Leinster.
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  Speaker 1: This story was first published in Astounding Science Fiction August
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, Part one. The probability of unfavorable consequences
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  Speaker 1: cannot be zero in any action of common life, but
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  Speaker 1: the probability increases by a very high power as a
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  Speaker 1: series of actions is lengthened. The effect of moral considerations
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  Speaker 1: in conduct may be stated to be a mathematically verifiable
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  Speaker 1: reduction in the number of unfavorable possible chance happenings. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: whether this process is termed the intelligent use of probability,
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  Speaker 1: or ethics or piety makes no difference in the fact
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  Speaker 1: it is the method by which unfavorable chance happenings are
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  Speaker 1: made least probable. Arbitrary actions such as we call criminal,
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  Speaker 1: cannot ever be justified by mathematics. For example, probability and
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  Speaker 1: human conduct. Fitzgerald Calhoun lay in his bunk and read
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  Speaker 1: Fitzgerald on Probability and human conduct as the little midship
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  Speaker 1: floated in overdrive. In overdrive travel, there is nothing to
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  Speaker 1: do but pass the time away. Murgatroyd, the Tormoal slept
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  Speaker 1: curled up in a ball in one corner of the
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  Speaker 1: small ship's cabin. His tail was meticulously curled about his nose.
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  Speaker 1: The ship's lights burned steadily. There were those small, random
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  Speaker 1: noises which have to be provided to keep a man
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  Speaker 1: sane in the dead stillness of a ship traveling at
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  Speaker 1: thirty times the speed of light. Calhoun turned a page
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  Speaker 1: and yawned. Something stirred somewhere. There was a click and
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  Speaker 1: a taped for He said, when the tone sounds break out,
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  Speaker 1: will be five seconds off. A metronomic chicking, grave and
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  Speaker 1: deliberate resounded in the stillness. Calhoun heaved himself up from
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  Speaker 1: the bunk and marked his place in the book. He
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  Speaker 1: moved to and seated himself in the controlled chair and
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  Speaker 1: fastened the safety belt. He said, Murgatroyd, hark, hark, the
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  Speaker 1: lark in heavens, something or other doth saying, wake up
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  Speaker 1: and comb your whiskers. We are getting there. Murgatroyd opened
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  Speaker 1: one eye and saw Calhoun in the pilot's chair. He
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  Speaker 1: uncurled himself and patted to a place where there was
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  Speaker 1: something to grab hold of. He recorded, Calhoun, with bright eyes,
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  Speaker 1: long said the tape. He counted down five, four, three
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  Speaker 1: two one is stopped. The ship popped out of overdrive.
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  Speaker 1: The sensation was unmistakable. Calhoun's stomach seemed to turn over twice,
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  Speaker 1: and he had a sickish feeling of spiraling dizzily in
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  Speaker 1: what was somehow a cone. He swallowed. Murgatroyd made gulping
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  Speaker 1: noises outside. Everything changed. The sun Marius blazed silently in
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  Speaker 1: emptiness off to port. The setist star cluster was astern,
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  Speaker 1: and the light by which he could be seen had
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  Speaker 1: traveled for many years to reach here, Though Calhoun had
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  Speaker 1: left mid headquarters only three weeks before. The third planet
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  Speaker 1: of Marius swung plendidly in its orbit. Calhoun checked and
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  Speaker 1: nodded in satisfaction. He spoke over his shoulder to Murkatroyd.
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  Speaker 1: We're here, all right, chee, shrilled Murgatroyd. He uncoiled his
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  Speaker 1: tail from about a cabinet handle and hopped up to
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  Speaker 1: look at the vision screen. What he saw, of course,
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  Speaker 1: meant nothing to him, but all termal imitate the actions
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  Speaker 1: of human beings as paris imitate their speech. He blinked
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  Speaker 1: wisely at the screen and turned his eyes to Calhoun.
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  Speaker 1: It's Maris three, Calhoun told him, and pretty close. It's
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  Speaker 1: a colony of Detra two. One city was reported started
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  Speaker 1: two earth years ago. It should just about be colonized now, gee,
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  Speaker 1: trilled Murgatroyd. So get out of the way, commanded Calhoun.
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  Speaker 1: We'll make our approach and I'll tell them we're here.
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  Speaker 1: He made a standard approach on interplanetary drive. Naturally, it
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  Speaker 1: was a long process, but after some hours he flipped
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  Speaker 1: over the call switch and made the usual identification in
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  Speaker 1: landing requests madship of Slippus twenty to ground. He set
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  Speaker 1: into the transmitter, requesting coordinates for landing. Our mass is
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  Speaker 1: fifty tons repeat five o tons. Purpose of landing planetary
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  Speaker 1: health inspection. He relaxed. This job ought to be purest routine.
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  Speaker 1: There was a landing grid in the spaceport city on
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  Speaker 1: Maris three. From its control room, instructions should be sent
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  Speaker 1: in to Katy, a position some five planetary diameters or
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  Speaker 1: further out from the surface of that world. Calhoun's little
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  Speaker 1: ship should repair to that spot. The giant landing grid
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  Speaker 1: should then reach out its specialized force field and lock
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  Speaker 1: onto the ship, and then bring it gently but irresistibly
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  Speaker 1: down to ground. Then Calhoun, representing MED Surface, should confer
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  Speaker 1: gravely with planetary authorities about public health conditions on Maris three.
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  Speaker 1: It was not to be expected that anything important would
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  Speaker 1: turn up. Calhoun would deliver full details of recent advances
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  Speaker 1: in the progress of medicine. These might already have reached
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  Speaker 1: Maris three in the ordinary course of commerce, but he
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  Speaker 1: would make sure he might. But it was unlikely learn
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  Speaker 1: if some novelty worked out here. In any case, within
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  Speaker 1: three days he should return to the small medship. The
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  Speaker 1: landing ridge should heave it firmly heavenward to not less
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  Speaker 1: than five planetary diameters distance, and then release it, and
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun and Murgatroyd and the medship would flick into overdrive
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  Speaker 1: and speed back toward headquarters from which they had come.
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  Speaker 1: Right now, Calhoun waited for an answer to his landing call,
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  Speaker 1: but he regarded the vast disc of the nearby planet
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  Speaker 1: by the map he observed to Murgatroyd, the city ought
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  Speaker 1: to be on the shore of that bay, somewhere near
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  Speaker 1: the terminus, close to the sunset line. His call was answered.
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  Speaker 1: A voice said, incredulously on the spacephone speaker, what what's that?
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  Speaker 1: What's that you say? Medship is Sclippius twenty, Calhoun repeated, patiently,
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  Speaker 1: requesting co ordinates for landing. Our mass is fifty tons
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  Speaker 1: repeat five oh tons. Purpose of landing planetary health inspection.
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  Speaker 1: The voice said, more incredulously, Still a medship. Holy. By
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  Speaker 1: the change of sound, the man down on the planet
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  Speaker 1: had turned away from the microphone. Hey, listen to this.
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  Speaker 1: There was abrupt silence. Calhoun raised his eyebrows. He drummed
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  Speaker 1: on the control desk before him. There was a long pause,
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  Speaker 1: a very long pause. Then a new voice came on
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  Speaker 1: the spacephone up from the ground. You up aloft there,
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  Speaker 1: identify yourself, Calhoun said, very politely, This is medship Esclippius twenty.
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  Speaker 1: I would like to come to ground. Purpose of landing
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  Speaker 1: health inspection. Wait, said the voice from the planet. It
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  Speaker 1: sounded strained. A murmuring sounded transmitted from fifty third miles away.
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  Speaker 1: Then there was a clique. The transmitter down below had
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  Speaker 1: cut off. Calhoun raised his eyebrows again. This was not
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  Speaker 1: according to routine, not at all. The MED service was
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  Speaker 1: badly overworked and understaffed. The resources of interplanetary services were
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  Speaker 1: always apt to be stretched to their utmost because there
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  Speaker 1: could be no galactic government. As such, some thousands of
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  Speaker 1: occupied planets, the closest of them light years apart or
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  Speaker 1: weeks of traveling, couldn't hold elections or have political parties
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  Speaker 1: for the simple reason that travel, even in overdrive was
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  Speaker 1: too slow. They could only have service organizations whose authority
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  Speaker 1: depended on the consent of the people served, and whose
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  Speaker 1: support had to be gathered when and as it was possible.
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  Speaker 1: But the MED service was admittedly important. The local sector
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  Speaker 1: headquarters was in the Setis cluster. It was a of
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  Speaker 1: interstellar clinic with additions. It gathered and disseminated the results
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  Speaker 1: of experience in health and medicine among some thousands of
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  Speaker 1: colony worlds, and from time to time it made contact
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  Speaker 1: with other headquarters carrying on the same work elsewhere. It
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  Speaker 1: admittedly took fifty years for a new technique and gene
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  Speaker 1: selection to cross the so far occupied part of the galaxy,
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  Speaker 1: but it was a three year voyage in overdrive to
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  Speaker 1: cover the same distance direct and the MED service was worthwhile.
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  Speaker 1: There was no problem of human ecological adjustment it had
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  Speaker 1: so far been unable to solve, and there were some
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  Speaker 1: dozens of planets whose human colonies owed their existence to it.
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  Speaker 1: There was nowhere, nowhere at all, that a medship was
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  Speaker 1: not welcomed on its errand from headquarters around there said
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun sharply, what's the matter? Are you landing me or not?
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  Speaker 1: There was no answer. Then suddenly every sound producing device
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  Speaker 1: in the ship abruptly emitted a hoarse and monstrous noise.
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  Speaker 1: The lights flashed up, and circuit breakers cut them off.
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  Speaker 1: The nearby object horn squawked, The hull temperature warning squealed,
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  Speaker 1: the ship's internal gravity feel tugged horribly for an instant
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  Speaker 1: and went off. Every device within the ship's designed to
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  Speaker 1: notify emergency langed or shrieked or roared or screamed. There
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  Speaker 1: was a momentary bedlam. It lasted for a part of
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  Speaker 1: a second. Only then everything stopped. There was no weight
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  Speaker 1: within the ship, and there were no lights, and there
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  Speaker 1: was dead silence, and Murgatrod made whimpering sounds in the darkness.
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun thought absurdly to himself. According to the book, This
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  Speaker 1: is an unfavorable chance consequence of something or other. But
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  Speaker 1: it was more than an unfavorable chance occurrence. It was
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  Speaker 1: an intentional and drastic and possibly a deadly one. Somebodies
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  Speaker 1: acting up, said Calhoun, measuredly in the blackness. What's the
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  Speaker 1: matter with them? He flipped the screen switch to bring
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  Speaker 1: back vision of what was outside. The vision screens of
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  Speaker 1: a ship are very carefully fused against overload burnouts, because
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  Speaker 1: there was nothing in all the cosmos white as helpless
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  Speaker 1: and foredoomed as a ship which is blind in the
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  Speaker 1: emptiness of space. But the screens did not light again.
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  Speaker 1: They couldn't. The cutouts hadn't worked in time. Calhoun's scalp crawled,
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  Speaker 1: but as his eyes adjusted, he saw the palely fluorescent
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  Speaker 1: handles of switches and doors. They hadn't been made fluorescent
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  Speaker 1: in expectation of an emergency like this, of course, but
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  Speaker 1: they would help a great deal. He knew what had happened.
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  Speaker 1: He couldn't be but one thing. A landing grid feel
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  Speaker 1: clamped on the fifty ton metship with the power needed
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  Speaker 1: to grasp land a twenty thousand ton liner of that strength,
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  Speaker 1: it would paralyze every instrument and blow every cutoff. It
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  Speaker 1: could not be accident. The reception of the news of
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  Speaker 1: his identity, the repeated request that he identify himself, and
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  Speaker 1: then the demand that he wait. This murderous performance was deliberate, maybe,
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  Speaker 1: said Calhoun in the inky black cabin as the madship.
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  Speaker 1: Our arrival is an unfavorable chance consequence of something, or
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  Speaker 1: the unfavorable on ess is, and somebody means to keep
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  Speaker 1: us from happening. It looks like it, Murgatroit whimpered, and
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  Speaker 1: I think, added Calhoun coldly, that somebody may need a
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  Speaker 1: swift kick in the negative feedback, he released himself from
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  Speaker 1: the safety belt and dived across the cabin, in which
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  Speaker 1: there was now no weight at all. In the blackness,
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  Speaker 1: he opened a cabinet door. What he did inside was
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  Speaker 1: customarily done by a man wearing thick insulating gloves. In
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  Speaker 1: the landing grid back at headquarters, he threw certain switches
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  Speaker 1: which would allow the discharge of the power storage cells
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  Speaker 1: which worked the med ship's overdrive. Monstrous quantities of energy
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  Speaker 1: were required to put even a fifty ton ship into overdrive,
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  Speaker 1: and monstrous amounts were returned when it came out. The
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  Speaker 1: power amounted to ounces of pure raw energy, and as
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  Speaker 1: a safety precaution, such amounts were normally put into the
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  Speaker 1: Duhanes cells only just before a medship's launching, and drained
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  Speaker 1: out again on its return. But now Calhoun threw switches
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  Speaker 1: which made a rather incredible amount of power available for
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  Speaker 1: dumping into the landing grid field about him if necessary.
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  Speaker 1: The ship lurched violently, it would be moved by the
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  Speaker 1: grid field without any gentleness at all. Calhoun's hands barely
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  Speaker 1: grasped the back of the pilot's chain before the jerk came,
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  Speaker 1: and it almost tore them free. He just missed being
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  Speaker 1: flung against the back wall of the cabin by the
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  Speaker 1: applied acceleration. But he was a long way out from
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  Speaker 1: the planet. He was at the end of a lever
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand miles long. For that lever to be used
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  Speaker 1: to shake him too brutally would require special adjustments, but
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  Speaker 1: somebody was making them. The jerk reversed directions. He was
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  Speaker 1: flung savagely against the chair to which he'd been clinging.
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  Speaker 1: He struggled another yank in another direction, another one still
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  Speaker 1: it flung him violently into the chair behind him. Murkatroyd
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  Speaker 1: squealed angrily as he went hurtling across the cabin. He
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  Speaker 1: grabbed for holding places with all four paws and his tail.
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  Speaker 1: Another shake, Calhoun had barely clipped the safety belt fast
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  Speaker 1: before a furious jolt nearly flung him out of it
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  Speaker 1: again to crash against the cabin's ceiling. Yet another vicious
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  Speaker 1: surge of acceleration. He scrabbled for the controls. The yanks
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  Speaker 1: and plungings of the ship increased intolerably. He was nauseated.
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  Speaker 1: Once he was thrust so furiously into the control chair
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  Speaker 1: that he was on the verge of blocking out, and
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  Speaker 1: then the direction of thrust was changed to the exact opposite,
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  Speaker 1: so that the blood rushing to his head seemed about
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  Speaker 1: to explode it. His arms flailed out of control. He
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  Speaker 1: became dazed, But when his hands were flung against the
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  Speaker 1: control board, despite their bruising, he tried to cling to
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  Speaker 1: the control knobs, and each time he threw them over.
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  Speaker 1: Practically all his circuits were blown, but there was one.
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  Speaker 1: His numbing fingers threw it. There was a roar so
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  Speaker 1: fierce that it seemed an explosion. He'd reached the switch
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  Speaker 1: which made effective the discharged circuit of the Duhanes cells.
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  Speaker 1: It was designed to let the little ship's overdrive power
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  Speaker 1: reserve flow into storage at headquarters on return from duty. Now,
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  Speaker 1: though it poured into the landing grid field outside, it
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  Speaker 1: amounted to hundreds of millions of kilowatt hours delivered. In
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  Speaker 1: the fraction of a second, there was the smell of ozone.
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  Speaker 1: The sound was like a thunderclap, But abruptly there was
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  Speaker 1: a strange and incredible peace. The lights came on waveringly
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  Speaker 1: as his shaking fingers restored the circuit breakers. Murgatroyd shrilled indignantly,
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  Speaker 1: clinging desperately to an instrument wreck, but the vision screens
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  Speaker 1: did not light again. Calhoun swore swiftly he threw more
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  Speaker 1: circuit restorers. The nearest object indicator told of the presence
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  Speaker 1: of Mars three at forty odd thousand miles. The hull
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  Speaker 1: temperature indicator was up some fifty six degrees. The internal
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  Speaker 1: gravity feel came faintly and then built up to normal,
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  Speaker 1: but the screens would not light. They were permanently dead.
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun raged for seconds. Then he got hold of himself.
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  Speaker 1: Chee chee, chee, chattered, murgatroy desperately chee chee. Shut up,
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  Speaker 1: growled Calhoun. Some bright lad ground thought up a new
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  Speaker 1: way to commit murder. Damn near got away with it too.
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  Speaker 1: He figured he'd shake us to death like a dog
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  Speaker 1: does a rat, only he was using a landing grid
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  Speaker 1: field to do it with. Right now, I hope I
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  Speaker 1: fried him, But it was not likely. Such quantities of
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  Speaker 1: power as are used to handle twenty thousand tons space
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  Speaker 1: liners are not controlled direct but by relays. The power
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  Speaker 1: Calhoun had flung into the grid field should have blown
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  Speaker 1: out the grid's transformers with a spectacular display of fireworks,
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  Speaker 1: but it was hardly probable it had gotten back to
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  Speaker 1: the individual at the controls. But I suspect, observed Calhoun
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  Speaker 1: bingefully that he'll consider this business an unfavorable occurrence. Some
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: body'll twist his tail too, either for trying what he
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  Speaker 1: did or for not getting away with it only as
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  Speaker 1: a matter of pure precaution. His expression changed suddenly. He'd
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  Speaker 1: been trying to think of the consequences of having no
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  Speaker 1: sight of the cosmos outside the ship. Now he remembered
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  Speaker 1: the electron telescope. It had not been in circuit, so
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  Speaker 1: it could not have been burnt out like his vision screens.
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  Speaker 1: He switched it on. A star Fiel appeared over his head.
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  Speaker 1: Chee chee, cried murkatroy hysterically. Calhoun glanced at him. The
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  Speaker 1: jerking of the ship had shifted the instrument in the
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  Speaker 1: rack to which Murgatroyd clung clipped into place though they were.
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  Speaker 1: They caught Murgatroyd's tail and pinched it tightly. You'll have
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  Speaker 1: to wait, snapped Calhoun. Right now. I've got to make
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  Speaker 1: us look like a successful accident. Although wise, whoever tried
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  Speaker 1: to spread us all over the cabin walls will try
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  Speaker 1: something else. The metship flung through space in whatever direction
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  Speaker 1: and at whatever velocity it had possessed. When the grid
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  Speaker 1: field blew, Calhoun shifted the electron telescope field and simultaneously
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  Speaker 1: threw on the emergency rocket controls. There was a growling
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  Speaker 1: of the pencil thin high velocity blasts. There was a
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  Speaker 1: surging of the ship. No straight line stuff, Calhoun reminded himself.
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  Speaker 1: He swung the ship into a dizzy spiral, as if
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: innumerable things had been torn or battered loose in the ship,
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  Speaker 1: and its rockets had come on themselves. Paints takingly, he
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: juttisened in one explosive burst, all the stored waste of
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: his journey, which could not be disposed of while in overdrive.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: To any space scanning instrument on the ground, it would
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: look like something detonating violently inside the ship. Now, the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: planet in Marris three swung across the electron telescope's field.
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  Speaker 1: It looked hideously near, but that was the telescope's magnification.
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  Speaker 1: Yet Calhoun sweated. He looked at the nearest object dial
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  Speaker 1: for reassurance. The planet was nearer by a thousand miles,
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  Speaker 1: ha said Calhoun. He changed the ship's spiral course. He
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: changed it again. He abruptly reversed the direction of its turn.
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  Speaker 1: Adequate training in space combat might have helped plot an
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  Speaker 1: evasion course, but it might have been recognizable. Nobody could
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  Speaker 1: anticipate his maneuvers now, though he adjusted the telescope next time,
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  Speaker 1: the planet swept across its field and flipped on the
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  Speaker 1: photo recorder. Then he pulled out of the spiral, whirled
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  Speaker 1: the ship until the city was covered by the telescope,
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  Speaker 1: and ran the recorder as long as he dared to
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  Speaker 1: keep a straight course, and he swooped toward the planet
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  Speaker 1: in a crazy twisting fall with erratic intermissions, and made
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  Speaker 1: a final lunatic dash almost parallel to the planet's surface.
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  Speaker 1: At five hundred miles. He unshielded the ports, which of
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  Speaker 1: necessity had to be kept covered. In clear space, there
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: was a sky which was vividly bright with stars. There
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  Speaker 1: was a vast blackness off to starboard, which was the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: night side of the planet. He went down at four
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  Speaker 1: hundred miles. The outside pressure indicator wavered away from its pin.
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  Speaker 1: He used it like a pilot tube recording, doing sums
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  Speaker 1: in his head to figure the static pressure that should
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: exist at this height. To compare with the dynamic pressure
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: produced by his velocity through the near hard vacuum, the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: pressure should have been substantially zero. He swung the ship
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  Speaker 1: in for end and killed velocity to bring the pressure
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  Speaker 1: indicator down. The ship descended two hundred miles. He saw
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  Speaker 1: the thin bright line of sunshine at the limb of
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  Speaker 1: the planet. Down to one hundred He caught the rockets
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  Speaker 1: and let the ship fall silently, swinging its nose up.
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  Speaker 1: At ten miles, he listened from man made radiation. There
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: was nothing in the electromagnetic spectrum but the crackling of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: static in an electric storm. Which might be a thousand
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: miles away. At five miles height, the nearest object indicator
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: near the bottom of its scale wavered in a fashion
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: to prove that he was still moving loterally across mountainous country.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: He swung the ship and killed that velocity too. At
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: ten miles to use the rockets for deceleration, the pencil
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: thin flame reached down for an incredible distance by naked
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: eye observation out a port. He tilted the fiercely roaring,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: swiftly falling ship until hillsides and forests underneath had ceased
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: to move. By this time, he was very low in
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: dar He reached ground on a mountain side, which was
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: lighted by the blue white flame of the rocket blast.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: He chose an area in which the tree tops were
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: almost flat, indicating something like a plateau underneath. Murgatroyd was
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: practically frantic by this time because of his capture and
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the pinching of his tail, but Calhoun could not spare
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: time to release him. He let the ship down gently, gently,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: trying to descend in an absolutely vertical line. If he
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: didn't do it perfectly, he came very close. The ship
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: settled into what was practically a burned away tunnel among
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: monstrous trees. The high velocity, slender flame did not splash.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: When it reached round, it penetrated. It burned a hole
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: for itself through humous and clay and bedrock. When the
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: ship touched and settled, there was boiling molten stone some
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: sixty feet underground, But there was a small scratching sound
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: as it came to rest. A flame amputated tree limb
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: rubbed tentatively against the hull. Calhoun turned off the rockets.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: The ships swayed slightly, and there were crunching noises. Then
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it was still on its landing fins. Now, said Calhoun,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I can take care of you, Murgatroyd. He flicked on
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the switches of the exterior microphones, much more sensitive than
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: human ears. The radiation detectors were still in action. They
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: reported only the cracklings of the distant storm, But the
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: microphones brought in the moaning of wind over nearby mountain
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: tops and the almost deafening suscerius of rustling leaves. Underneath
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: these noises, there was a bedlam of other natural sounds.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: There were chirpings and hootings and squeals, and the gruntines
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: made by native animal life. These sounds had a singularly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: peaceful quality. When Calhoun toned them down to be no
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: more than background noises, they suggested the sort of concert
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of night creatures which two men has always seemed an
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: indication of purest tranquility. Presently, Calhoun looked at the pictures
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the photo recorder had taken while the telescoped field swept
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: over the city. It was the colony city reported to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: have been begun two years before to receive colonists from
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: detra I. It was the city of the landing grid,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: which had tried to destroy the medship as a dog
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: kills a rat, by shaking it to fragments some fifty
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: thousand miles in space. It was the city which had
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: made Calhoun land with his vision plates blinded, that had
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: made him pretend his ship was internally a wreck, which
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: had drained his power reserves of some hundreds of millions
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of kilowatt hours of energy. It was the city which
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: had made his return to MED headquarters impossible. He inspected
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the telescopic pictures. They were very clear. They showed the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: city with astonishing detail. There was a lacy pattern of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: highways with their medallions of multiple dwelling units. There were
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the lavish park areas between the buildings of this planetary capital.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: There was the landing grid itself, a half mile high
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: structure of steel girders a full mile in diameter. But
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: there were no vehicles on the highways. There were no
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: specks on the crossing bridges to indicate people on foot.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: There were no copters on the building roofs, nor were
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: there objects in midair to tell of air traffic. The
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: city was either deserted or it had never been occupied,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but it was absolutely intact. The structures were perfect, There
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: was no indication of past panic or disaster, and even
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the highways had not been overgrown by vegetation. But it
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: was empty, or else it was dead. But somebody in
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it had tried very ferociously and with singular effectiveness, to
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: try to destroy the medship because it was a medship.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Calhoun raised his eyebrows and looked at Murgatroyd. Why is
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: all this? He asked, Have you any ideas? Gee shrilled
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd end Part one, Part two of Med Service by
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Murray Leinster. This liveryvox recording is in the public domain.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Part two. The purpose of a contemplated human action is
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: always the attainment of a desired subjective experience, But a
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: subjective experience is desired both in terms of intensity and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: in terms of duration. For an individual, the temptingness of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: different degrees of intensity of experience is readily computed. However,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the temptingness of different durations is equally necessary for the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: computation of the probability of a given individual performing a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: garn action. This modification of desirability by expectable duration depends
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: on the individual's time sence, its acuity, and its accuracy
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: measurements of time since probability and human conduct Fitzgerald. Two
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: days later, Calhoun found a cultivated field and a dead man,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: but before that he found only bewilderment. Before leaving the metship,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: he very carefully monitored all over again the entire radiation
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: spectrum for man made signals. There were no communications in
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: the air of Marris III, which on the face of
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: it was proof that the planet was uninhabited. But the
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: ship's external microphones picked up a rocket roar in mid
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: morning of the day after Calhoun's landing. By the time
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the sound reached the ground, of course, the rocket itself
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: was far below the horizon, but Calhoun saw the faint
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: white trail of its passage against the blue of the sky.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: The fact that he saw it in daytime was proof
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that it was within the atmosphere, which in turn said
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that the rocket was taking photographs from high altitude or
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: signs of the crater the medship should have made in
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: an uncontrolled landing. The fact of search proved that the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: planet was inhabited, and the silence of the radio spectrum
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: said that it wasn't. The absence of traffic in the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: city said that it was dead or empty. But there
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: were people there because they'd answered Calhoun's hail and tried
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to kill him when he identified himself. But nobody would
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: want to destroy a metship except to prevent a health inspection.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And nobody would want to prevent an inspection unless there
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: was a situation aground that the med Service ought to
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: know about. But there should not possibly be such a situation.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: There was no l logical explanation for such a series
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of contradictions. Civilized man acted this way, or that there
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: could only be civilized men here. They acted neither this
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: way nor that. Therefore, the confusion began all over again.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Calhoun dictated that account of events to date into the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: emergency responder and the ship. If a search call came
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: from space, the responder would broadcast this data and Calhoun's
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: intended action. He carefully shut off all other operating circuits
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: so the ship couldn't be found by their radiation. He
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: equipped himself for travel, and he and Murgatroyd left the ship. Obviously,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: he headed toward the city where whatever was wrong was centered.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Travel on foot was unaccustomed, but not difficult. The vegetation
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: was semi familiar. Mars III was an Earth type planet
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and circled a Saul type sun, and given similar conditions
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: of gravity, air, sunlight, and temperature range, similar organisms should develop.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: There would be room, for example, for low growing groundcover plants,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and there would also be advantages to height. There would
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: be some equivalent of grasses, and there would be the
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: equivalent of trees, with intermediate forms having in between habits
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: of growth. Similar reasoning would apply to animal life. There
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: would be parallel ecological niches for animals to fill, and
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: animals would adapt to fill them. Mars Iree was not
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: then an unearthly environment. It was much more like an
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar part of a known planet than a new world altogether.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: But there were some oddities. An herbivorous creature without legs,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: which squirmed like a snake it lived in holes. A
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: pigeon sized creature whose veins were modified gossamer thin scales
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: with iridescent colorings. There were creatures which seemed to live
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in lunatic association, and Calhoun was irritably curious to know
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: if they were really Sembiotes are only unrecognizable forms of
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the same organism, like the terrestrial male and female firefly
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: glow worm. But he was heading for the city. He
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: couldn't spare time to biologize. On his first day's journey,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: he looked for food to save the rations he carried.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd was handy here. The little tormal had his place
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: in human society. He was friendly, and he was passionately
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: imitative of human beings, and he had a definite psychology
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of his own. But he was useful too. When Calhoun
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: strode through the forests, which had so curiously unleaflike foliage,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd strode grandly with him, imitating his walk. From time
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to time. He dropped all four paws to investigate something.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: He invariably caught up with Calhoun within seconds. Once Calhoun
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: saw him interestedly bite a tiny bit of a most
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: unpromising looking shrubstalk. He savored its flavor, then swallowed it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Calhoun took note of the plant and cut off a section.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: He bound it to the skin of his arm up
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: near the elbow. Hours later, there was no allergic reaction,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: so he tasted it. It was almost familiar. It had
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the flavor of a bracken shoot, mingled with a fruity taste.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: It would be a green bulk food like spinach or asparagus, filling,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: but without much substance. Later, Murgatroyd carefully examined a luscious
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: seeming fruit, which grew low enough for him to pluck.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: He sniffed it closely and drew back. Calhoun noted that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: plant too. Murgatroyd's tribe was bred at headquarters for some
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: highly valuable qualities. One was a very sensitive stomach, but
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: it was only one. Murgatroyd's metabolism was very close to man's.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: If he ate something and it didn't disagree with him,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: it was very likely safe for a man to eat
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it too. If he rejected something, it probably wasn't, but
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: his real value was much more important than the tasting
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of questionable foods. When Calhoun camped the first night, he
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: made a fire of a plant shaped like a cactus
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: barrel and permeated with oil. By heaping dirt around it,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: he confined its burning to a round space, very much
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: like the direct each element of an electronic stove. It
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: was an odd illustration of the fact that human progress
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: does not involve anything really new in kind, but only
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: increase in convenience and availability of highly primitive comforts. By
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the light of that circular bonfire, Calhoun actually read a little,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: but the light was inadequate. Presently, he yawned. One did
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: not get very far in the met service without knowing
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: probability in human conduct. It enabled one to check on
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the accuracy of statements made, whether by planets or officials.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: To a medshipman today, though he traveled a long way
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: on foot, he glanced at Murgatroyd, who was gravely pretending
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: to read from a singularly straight edged leaf. Murgatroyd said Calhoun,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: it is likely that you will interpret any strange sound
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: as a possible undesirable subjective experience, which is to say,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: as dangerous. If you hear anything sizeable coming close during
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: the night, I hope you'll squeal. Thank you, Murgatroyd said gee,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and Calhoun rolled over and went to sleep. It was
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: mid morning of the next day when he came upon
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a cultivated field. It had been cleared and planted, of course,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: in preparation for the colonists who'd been expected to occupy
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the city. Familiar earth plants grew in it ten feet
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: high and more, and Calhoun examined it carefully in the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: hope of finding how long since it had received attention.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: In his examination, he found the dead man as a corpse.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: The man was brand new, and Calhoun very carefully put
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: himself into a strictly medical frame of mind before he
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: bent over for a technical estimate of what had happened.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And when the dead man seemed to have died of hunger.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: He was terribly emaciated, and he didn't belong in a
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: cultivated field far from the city. By his garments, he
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: was a city dweller and a prosperous one. He wore
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the jewels, which nowadays indicated a man's profession and status
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: in it, much more than the value of his possessions.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: There was money in its pockets, and writing materials, a
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: wallet with pictures and identification, and the normal oddments a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: man would carry. He'd been a civil servant, and he
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have died of starvation. He especially shouldn't have gone hungry.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Here the sweet maize plants were tall and green. Their
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: ears were ripe. He hadn't gone hungry. There were the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: eaedible remains of at least two dozen sweet maize ears.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: They had been eaten some time some days ago, and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: one had been left unfinished. If the dead man had
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: eaten them but was unable to digest them, his belly
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: should have been swollen with undigested food. It wasn't. He'd
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: eaten and digested and still had died, at least largely
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: of inanition, Calhoun scowled, How about this corn, Murgatroyd, he demanded.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: He reached up and broke off a half yard long ear.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: He stripped away the protecting stringy leaves. The soft grains
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: underneath looked appetizing. They smell like good fresh food. Calhoun
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: offered the ear to Murgatroyd, the little tormal took it
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: in his paws, and on the instant was eating it
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: with gusto. If you keep it down, he didn't die
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: of eating it, said Calhoun, frowning. And if he ate it,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: which he did, he didn't die of starvation, which he did.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: He waited. Murgatroit consumed every grain upon the oversized cob,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: his furry belly distended a little. Calhoun offered him a
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: second ear. He's set to work on that too, with
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: self evident enjoyment. In all history, said Calhoun, nobody's ever
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: been able to poison one of you turmoils, because your
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: digestive system has a qualitative analysis unit in it. That
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: yell's bloody murder. If anything's likely to disagree with you
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: as a probability of turmoil reaction, you'd have been nauseated
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: before now if that stuff wasn't good to eat. But
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Murgatroit ate until he was distinctly pot bellied. He left
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a few grains on the second ear with obvious regret.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: He put it down carefully on the ground. He shifted
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: his left hand whiskers with his paw and elaborately licked
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: them clean. He did the same to the whiskers on
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the right hand side of his mouth. He said comfortably. Gee,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: then that's that, Calhoun told him this man didn't die
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: of starvation. I'm getting queezy. He had his lab kit
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: in his shoulder pack. Of course, it was an absurdly
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: small outfit with almost microscopic instruments, but in medship field
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: work the techniques of microanalysis were standard. Distastefully, Calhoun took
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: the tiny tissue sample from which he could gather necessary information.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Standing he ran through the analytic process that seemed called for.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: When he finished, he buried the dead man as well
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: as he could and started off in the direction of
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the city. Again. He scowled as he walked. He journeyed
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: for nearly half an hour before he spoke. Rod accompanied
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: him on all fours now because of his heavy meal.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: After a mile and a half, Calhoun stopped and said, grimly,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: let's check you over, Murgatroyd. He verified the turmoil's pulse
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: and respiration and temperature. He put a tiny breath sample
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: through the part of the lapkit, which read off a
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: basic metabolism rate. The small animal was quite accustomed to
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the process. He submitted blandly. The result of the checkover
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: was that, Murgatroyd, the turmoil was perfectly normal. But said
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Calhoun angrily, that man died of starvation. There was practically
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: no fat in that tissue sample at all. He arrived
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: where we found him while he was strong enough to eat,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and he stayed where there was good food, and he
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: ate it, and he digested it, and he died of starvation. Why,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd wriggled unhappily, because Calhoun's tone was accusing, he said, gee,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in a subdued tone of voice. He looked pleadingly up
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: at Calhoun. I'm not angry with you, Calhoun told him,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: But damn it. He packed the lap kit back into
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: his pack, which contained the food for the two of
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: them for about a week. Come along, he said bitterly.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: He started off. Ten minutes later he stopped. What I
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: said was impossible, but it happened, so it mustn't have
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: been what I said. I must have stated it wrongly.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: He could eat because he did. He did eat because
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: of the cobs left. He did digest it. So why
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: did he die of starvation? Did he stop eating? Gee?
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Said Murgatroyd, with conviction. Calhoun grunted and marched on once more.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: The man had not died of a disease, not directly.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: The tissue analysis gave a picture of death which denied
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that he came from any argon seizing to function was
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: that the failure of the organism the man to take
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: the action required for living had he stopped eating. Calhoun's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: mind skirted the notion warily. It was not plausible the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: man had been able to feed himself and had done
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: so anything which came upon him and made him unable
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: to feed himself. He was a city man, growled Calhoun.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And this is a long way from the city. What
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: was he doing away out here? Anyhow? He hesitated and
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: tramped on again. A city man found starved in a
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: remote place might have become lost somehow. But if this
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: man was lost, he was assuredly not without food. If
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: there was a ground car, Calhoun considered, it wouldn't mean anything.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: If he dared go back to the city, he might
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: have used it, But he wouldn't have been where I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: found him if he hadn't wanted or needed to leave
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the city. Hum he walked out into the middle of
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the field. He was hungry. Why didn't he have food?
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: And he ate He stayed there for days, stretching by
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the amount of foot he ate and digested. Why did
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: he do that? Then he stopped eating and died again?
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Why he crossed over the top of a rounded hillock,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: some three miles from the shallow grave he'd made. He
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: began to accept the idea that the dead man had
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: stopped eating for some reason as the only possible explanation,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: but that didn't make it plausible. He saw another ridge
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: of higher hills ahead. In another hour he came to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the crust of that further range. It was the worn
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: down remnant of a very ancient mountain range, now eroded
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: to a mere fifteen hundred or two thousand feet. He
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: stopped at the very top. Here was a time and
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: place to look and take note of what he saw.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: The ground stretched away in gently rolling fashion for very
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: many miles, and there was the blue blink of sea
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: at the horizon. A little to the left he saw
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: shining white. He grunted. That was the city of Mars III,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: which had been built to receive colonists from Detra and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: relieve the population pressure there. It had been planned as
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the nucleus of a splendid, spacious, civilized world nation to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: be added to the number of human occupied worlds from
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: its beginning. It should hold a population of the hundreds
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of thousands. It was surrounded by cultivated fields, and the
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: air above it should be a shimmer with flying things
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: belonging to its cappetants. Calhoun stared at it through his binoculars.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: They could not make an image even so near to
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: compare to that the electron telescope had made from space,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: but he could see much. The city was perfect. It
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: was intact. It was new, but there was no sign
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of occupancy anywhere in it. It did not look dead
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: so much as frozen. There were no fliers above it.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: There was no motion on the highways. He saw one
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: straight road which ran directly away along his line of sight.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Had there been vehicles on it, he would have seen
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: at least shifting patches of color as clots of traffic
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: moved together. There were none. He pressed his lips together
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: he began to inspect the nearer terrain. He saw four
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: sharpened areas where square miles of ground had been cleared
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and planted to Earth's vegetation. The ground would have been
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: bulldoze clean, and then great sterilizers would have lumbered back
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: and forth, killing every native seed and root, and even
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the native soil bacteria. Then there would have been spraying
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: with cultures of nitrogen fixing and phosphorus releasing microscopic organisms,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: which normally lived in symbiosis with earth plants. They would
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: have been tested beforehand for their ability to compete with
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: indigenous bacterial life, and then earth plants would have been
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: seated they had been. Calhoun saw that inimitable green which
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: a man somehow always recognizes. It is the green of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: plants whose ancestors throve on Earth and have followed the
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: old planet's children half way across the galaxy. The population
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: must be practically nothing, growled Calhoun, because it doesn't show.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: But the part of it in the city was to
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: keep whatever's happening from the med service. Hm. They're not dying,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: or they'd want help. But at least one dead man
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: in the city where he belonged, and he could have
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: used some help. Maybe there are more like him, Murgatroyd said, chee.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: If there are two kinds of people here, added Calhoun darkly,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: they might be antagonistic to each other. He stared with
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: knitted brows over the vast expanse toward the horizon. Murgatroit
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: had halted a little behind him. He stood up on
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: his hind legs and stared intently off to one side.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: He shaded his eyes with a forepaw in a singularly
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: humanlike fashion, and looked inquisitively at something he saw, but
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Calhoun did not notice. Make a guess. Murgatroyd said Calhoun,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: there are at least a few people in the city
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: who don't want something known to the med surface, so
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: whatever's the matter, it's not fatal to them. There may
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: be people wondering about like that poor devil. We found
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: something fatal to him. Where do we find more of
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: his type? Since they haven't tried to kill me, we
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: might make friends. Murkatroyd did not answer. He stared absobedly
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: at a patch of undergrowth some fifty yards to the left.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: Calhoun shrugged and started down the hillside. Murgatroyd remained fixed
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: in a pose of intense curious attention to the patch
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: of brush. Calhoun went on down the farther hillside. His
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: back was toward the brush thicket. There was a deep toned,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: musical twanging sound from the thicket Calhoun's body jerked violently
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: as the impact sounded. He stumbled and went down, with
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the shaft of a wooden projectile sticking out of his pack.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: He lay still. Murkatroid whimpered. He rushed to where Calhoun
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: lay upon the ground. He danced in agitation, chattering shrilly.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: He wrung his paws in human like distress. He whimpered
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: and chattered together. He tugged at Calhoun. Calhoun made no response.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: A figure came out of the thicket. It was gaunt
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and thin, yet its garments had once been of admirable quality.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: It carried a strange and utterly primitive weapon. It moved
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: toward Calhoun without lightness, but with a dreary resolution. It
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: bent over him and laid a hand to the wooden
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: projectile it had fired into his back. Calhoun moved suddenly.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: He grappled. The gaunt figure toppled, and he swarmed upon
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: it savagely as it struggled, but it was taken by surprise.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Pantings sounded, and Murcatroy danced in a fever of anxiety.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Then Calhoun stood up quickly. He stared down at the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: emaciated figure which had tried to murder him from ambush.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: That figure panted horribly. Now, really, said Calhoun in a
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: professional tone. As a doctor, I'd say that you should
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: be in bed instead of wandering around trying to murder
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: total strangers. When did this trouble begin? I'm going to
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: take your temperature and your pulse. Murgatroyd and I have
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: been hoping to find some one like you. The only
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: other human being I've seen on this planet wasn't able
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: to talk. He swung his shoulder pack around and impatiently
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: jerked a sharp pointed stick out of it. It was
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the missile which had been stopped by the pack. He
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: brought out his lab kit with absolute absorption in the task.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: He prepared to make a swift check of this would
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: be murderer's state of health. It was not good. There
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: was already marked emaciation. The desperately panting young woman's eyes
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: were deep, sunk, pollow. She gasped and gasped, Still gasping,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: she lapsed into unconsciousness. Here, said Calhoun, curtly, you entered
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: the picture of Murgatroyd. This is the sort of thing
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you're designed to handle. He set to work briskly, but presently.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: He set over his shoulder, besides a delicate digestion and
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: a hair triggered antibody system. Murgatroyd, you ought to have
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: the instincts of a watchdog. I don't like coming that
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: close to being speared by my patients. See if there's
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: anybody else around, won't you gee, said Murgatroyd shrilly, But
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: he didn't understand. He watched as Calhoun deftly drew a
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: small sample of blood from the unconscious young woman and
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: painstakingly put half the tiny quantity into an almost microscopic
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: impule in the lap kit. Then he moved toward Murgatroyd.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: The turmoil wriggled as Calhoun made the injection, but it
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: did not hurt. There was an insensitive spot on his
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: flank where the pain nerves had been blocked off before
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: he was a week old. As one medical man to another,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun, what's a good treatment for anoxya when you
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: haven't got any oxygen? You don't know, neither do I.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: But we found out why those chaps in the city
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: tried to shake us to bits out in space, he
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: swore in a sudden bitter anger. Then he looked quickly
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: at the girl concerned lest she'd heard she hadn't. She
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: was still unconscious. End of Part two, Part three of
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: med Service by Murray Leinster. This LibriVox recording is in
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Phil Shinever Part three. That
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: pattern of human conduct, which is loosely called self respecting,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: has the curious property of restricting to the individual, through
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: his withdrawal of act to communicate misfortune, the unfavorable chance
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: occurrences which probability insists must take place. On the other hand,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the same pattern of human conduct tends to dissemine and
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: to share chance favorable occurrences among the group. The members
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: of a group of persons practicing self respect then increased
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: the mathematical probability of good fortune to all their number.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: This explained the instability of cultures in which principles leading
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: to this type of behavior become obsolete. A decadent society
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: brings bad luck upon itself by the operation of the
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: laws of probability. Probability in human conduct Fitzgerald. She came
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: very slowly back to consciousness. It was almost as if
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: she waked from utterly exhausted sleep. When she first opened
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: her eyes, they wondered vaguely until they fell upon Calhoun.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Then a bitter and contemptuous hatred filled them. Her hand
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: fumbled weakly to the knife at her waist. It was
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: not a good weapon. It had been table cutlery, and
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: the handle was much too slender to permit a grip.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: By whidy, somebody could be killed. Calhoun bent over and
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: took the knife from her. It had been ground unsuccessfully
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: to a point. In my capacity as your doctor, he
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: told her, I must forbid you to stab me. It
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be good for you. Then he said, look, my
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: name's Calhoun. I came from Sector mad headquarters to make
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: a planetary health inspection, and some lads in the city
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: apparently didn't want a madship around, so they tried to
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: kill me by buttering me all over the walls of
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: my ship. With the landing Gridfield, I made what was
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: practically a crash landing, and now I need to know
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: what's up. The burning hatred remained in her eyes, but
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: there was a trace of doubt. Here, said Calhoun, is
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: my identification. He showed her the highly official documents which
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: gave him vast authority where a planetary government was willing
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: to concede it. Of course, he added, papers can be stolen,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: but I have a witness that I am what and
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: who I say I am. You've heard of toarmils. Murgatroyd
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: will vouch for me. He called his small and furry companion.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd advanced and politely offered a small, prehensile paw. He said,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: chee in his shrill voice, and then solemnly took hold
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: of the girl's wrist in imitation of Calhoun's previous action
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: of feeling her pulse. Calhoun watched the girl stared at Murgatroyd.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: But all the galaxy had heard of turmoils. They'd been
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: found on a planet in the DnaB region, and they
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: were engaging pets and displayed an extraordinary immunity to the
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: diseases men were apt to scatter in their interstellar journeyings.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: A forgotten med service researcher made an investigation on the
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: ability of turmoils to live in contact with men. He
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: came up with a discovery which made them very much
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: too valuable to have their lives wasted in mere sociability.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: There were still not enough of Murgatroyd's kind to meet
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: the need that men had of them. And Layman had
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: to forego their distinctly charming society, so Murgatroyd was an identification.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: The girl said faintly. If only you'd come earlier. But
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: it's too late now. I thought you were from the city.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I was headed there, said Calhoun. They'll kill you, yes,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: agreed Calhoun. They probably will, But right now you're ill
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: and I'm Med Service. I suspect there has been an
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: epidemic of some disease here, and that for some reason,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the people in the city don't want the Med Service
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to know about it. You seem to have whatever it is. Also,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: you had a very curious weapon to shoot me with,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the girl said drearily. One of our group had made
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: a hobby of such things, ancient weapons. He had bows
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: and arrows, and what I shot you with was a crossbow.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't need power, not even chemical explosives. So when
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: we ran away from the city, he ventured back in
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: and armed us as well as he could. Calhoun nodded.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: A little irrelevant talk is always useful at the beginning
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: of a patient interview, but what she said was not irrelevant.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: A group of people had fled the city. They needed arms,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: and one of their number had ventured back into the
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: city for them. He'd known where to find, only reconstructions
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: of ancient lethal devices, a hobby collection. It sounded like
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: people of the civil service type. Of course. There were
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: no longer social classes separated by income, not on most
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: worlds anyhow, but there were social groupings based on civil
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: tastes which had led to similar occupations and went on
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: to natural congeniality. Calhoun placed her now. He remembered a
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: long outmoded term upper middle class, which no longer meant
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: anything in economics, but did in medicine. I like a
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: case history, he said conversationally. Name Helen Johns, she said wearily.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: He held the mic of his pocket recorder to pick
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: up her answers. Occupation statistician. She'd been a member of
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the office force, which was needed during the building of
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the city. When the construction work was finished, most of
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the workmen returned to the mother world detra, but the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: office staff stayed on to organize things when colonists should arrive.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: The plague appeared among the last shipload of workers waiting
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: to be returned to the mother world. There were about
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: a thousand people in the city altogether. The disease produced
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: at first no obvious physical symptoms, but those afflicted with
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: it tended to be listless and lackadaisical and without energy.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: The first noticed symptom was a cessation of gripes and
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: quarrelings among the workmen. Sharpness of breath appeared two days later.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: It was progressive. Deaths began. In two weeks. Men sank
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: into unconsciousness and died. By the time the transport ship
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: arrived from Detra with colonists to be landed, it was
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: to take back the workmen. The physicians on the planet
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: were grim. They described the situation by spacephone. The transport
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: returned to Detra without removing the workmen or landing the colonists.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: The people left in the city on Mars three were
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: self quarantined, but they expected help. It was two months
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: before another ship arrived. By then, fewer than two hundred
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: of the original thousand remained. More than half those survivors
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: were already and sharp breast. A good ten percent were
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of that marked lethargy, which deepened into
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: coma and ended fatally. A desperate, baunt, blade stricken few
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: still manned the landing grid the ship came down, men disembarked,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: there was no crowd to greet them. The survivors still
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: in the city had scattered themselves widely, hoping to escape
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: the contagion by isolating themselves in new and uncontaminated dwelling units,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: but there was no lack of communication facilities. Nearly all
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the survivors watched on vision screens in contact with the
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: landing grid. The newcomers did not look like doctors, nor
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: act like them. Visiphone contact with the landing grid was
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: immediately broken. It could not be restored, so the isolated
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: groups spoke agitatedly to each other by other visiphone contacts,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: exchanging messages of desperate hope. Ten new landed men appeared
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: at an apartment whose occupant was in the act of
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: such a conversation with a group in a distant building.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: He left the visitphone on as he went to admit
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: and greet the men he hoped were rescuers that least
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: comp defined the cause of the plague, and ended the
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: viewer at the other visiphone plate gazed eagerly into his
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: friend's apartment. He saw a group of newcomers, admitted he
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: saw them deliberately murder his friend, and the survivors of
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: his family. Plague stricken are merely terrified people in pairs
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: of twos, widely separated through the city, communicated in swift desperation.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: It was possible that there had been a mistake, a blunder,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: and unauthorized crime had been committed, but it was not
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: a mistake. Unthinkable as such an idea was. There developed
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: evidence that the plague on Mars III was to be ended,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: as if it were an epizeutic animals. Those who had
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: it and those who had been exposed to it were
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: to be killed to prevent its spread among the newcomers.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: A conviction of such a horror could not be accepted
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: without absolute proof. But when night fell, the public power
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: supply of the city was cut off. Communications ended. The
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: singular sunset hush of Mars III left utter stillness everywhere,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: and there were screams which echoed among the city's innumerable empty,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: eyed unoccupied buildings. The scant remainder of the plague survivors
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: fled in the night. They fled singly, carrying the plague
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: with them. Some carried members of their families already stricken.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Some helped already doomed wives or friends or husbands to
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: the open country. Flight would not save their lives, It
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: would only prevent their murder. But somehow that seemed a
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: thing to be attempted. This, said Calhoun, is not a
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: history of your own caste. When did you develop the disease?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Whatever it may be? Don't you know what it is?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Asked Helen, hopelessly. Not yet, admitted Calhoun, I've very little information.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get more now. Whatever information he had
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: he'd gathered from a newly dead man in a field
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: some miles away, he did not mention that at this
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: moment the girl went on exhaustedly. The first symptom was listlessness,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: of which the victim was unconscious. One could pull out
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of it with an effort, but one wasn't aware that
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: anything was wrong. The listlessness progressed, one could realize it
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: only by recognizing the more urgent, more violent effort needed
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: to pay attention and the discovery of weakness. When one
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: tried to act. One did not feel discomfort, not even
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: hunger or thirst. One had to summon increasing resolute even
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: to become aware of the need to do anything at all.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: The symptoms were singularly like those of a man too
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: long at too high an altitude without oxygen. They were
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: even more like those of a man in a unpressurized
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: flier whose oxygen supply had been cut off. But such
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: a man would pass out without realizing that he was
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: slipping into unconsciousness. On Mars three, the process was infinitely gradual.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: It was a matter of two weeks or more. I'd
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: been infected before we ran away, she said drearily. I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: didn't know it then. Now I know. I've a few
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: more days of being able to think and act if
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: I try hard enough, but it'll be less and less
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: each day. Then I'll stop being able to try. Calhoun
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: watched the tiny recorder rolled its multiple channel tape from
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: one fool to the other as she talked. You had
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: enough energy to try to kill me, he observed. He
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: looked at the weapon. There was an arched steel spring
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: placed crosswise at the end of a barrel, like a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: sporting blast rifle. Now he saw a handle and a
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: ratchet by which the spring was brought to tension, storing
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: up power to throw the missile. He asked, who wound
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: up this crossbow? Helen hesitated Kim Kim Walpole, you're not
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a solitary refugee. Now there are others of your group
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: still alive. She hesitated again, and then said, some of
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: us came to realize that staying apart didn't matter. We
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: couldn't hope to live anyhow. We already had the plague.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Kim is one of us. He's the strongest. He wound
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: up the crossbow for me. He had the weapons to
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: begin with. Calhoun asked seemingly casual questions. She told him
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: of a group of fugitives remaining together because all were
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: already doomed. There had been eleven of them. Two were
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: dead now three others were in the last lethargy. It
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: was impossible to feed them. They were dying. The strongest
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: was Kim Walpole, who ventured back into the city to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: bring out weapons for the rest. He'd led them and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: now was still the strongest, and so the girl considered
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: the wisest of them all. They were waiting to die,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: but the newcomers to the planet, the invaders, they believed,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: were not content to let them wait. Groups and single
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: hunters came out of the city and searched for them. Probably,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: said the girl dispassionately to burn our bodies against contagion.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: They kill us so they won't have to wait. And
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: it's just seems so horrid, horrible that we felt we
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: ought to defend our right to die naturally by dying fighting.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: That's why I shot at you. I shouldn't have, but
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: she stopped, helpless. Calhoun nodded. The fugitives now aided each
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: other simply to avoid murder. They gathered together, exhaustedly at nightfall,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and those who were strongest did what they could for
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the others. By day, those who could walk scattered to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: separate hiding places, so that if one were discovered, the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: others might still escape the indignity of being butchered. They
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: had no stronger motive than that. They were merely trying
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: to die with dignity instead of being killed as sick beasts,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: which bespoke a tradition and an attitude which Calhoun approved.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: People like these would know something of the science of
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: probability in human conduct, only they would called it ethics.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: But the strangers, the invaders, the occupiers of the city,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: were of another type. They probably came from another world.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: I don't like this, said Calhoun coldly, just a moment.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: He went over to Murgatroyd. Murgatroit seemed to droop a little.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: Calhoun checked his breathing and listened to his heart. Murgatroit submitted,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: saying only gee. When Calhoun put him down. I'm going
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: to help you with your rendezvous, said Calhoun abruptly. Murgatroyd's
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: got the plague. Now I exposed him to it, and
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: he's reacting fast, and I want to see the others
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: of your group before nightfall. The girl just managed to
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: get to her feet. Even speaking had tired her, but
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: she gamely, though wearily, moved off at a slant to
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the hillside slope. Calhoun picked up the odd weapon and
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: examined it thoughtfully. He wound it up as it was
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: obviously meant to be. He picked up the missile it
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: had fired and put it in place. He went after
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: the girl carrying it. Murgatroyd brought up the rear. Within
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile, the girl stopped and clung
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: swaying to the trunk of a slender tree. It was
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: plain that she had to rest and dreaded getting off
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: her feet because of the desperate effort needed to arise
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to carry you, said Calhoun firmly. You tell
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: me the way. He picked her up bodily and marched on.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: She was light. She was not a large girl, but
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: she should have weighed more. Calhoun still carried the quaint
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: ancient type weapon without difficulty. Murgatroyd followed as Calhoun went
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: up a small inclination on the greater hill side and
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: down a very narrow ravine through brushwood. He pushed until
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: he came to a small open space where shelters had
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: been made for a dozen or so human beings. They
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: were utterly primitive, merely roofs of leafy branches over frameworks
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: of sticks. But of course they were not intended for
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: permanent use. They were meant only to protect plague strucken
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: folk while they waited to die. But there was disaster here.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Calhoun saw it before the girl could. There were beds
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: of leaves underneath the shelters. There were three bodies lying
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: upon them. They would be those refugees in the terminal Coma, which,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: since the girl had described it, accounted for the dead
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: man Calhoun had found dead of starvation with food plants
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: all around him. But now Calhoun saw something more, he
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: swung the girl swiftly in his arms so that she
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: could not see. He put her gently down and said
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: stay still, don't move, don't turn. He went to make
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: sure A moment later he raged. Because it was Calhoun's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: profession to combat death and illness in all its farms.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: He took his profession seriously. And there are defeats, of course,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: which a medical man has to accept, though unwillingly. But
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: nobody in the profession, at least of all a medshipman
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: could fail to be roused to fury by the sight
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: of people who should have been his patients, lying utterly
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: still with their throats cut. He covered them with branches.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: He went back to Helen. This place has been found
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: by somebody from the city, he told her harshly. The
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: men in Coma have been murdered. I advise you not
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: to look out. A guess whoever did it is now
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: trying to track down the rest of you. He went
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: grimly to the small open glade, chearching the ground for footprints.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: There was groundcover at most places, but at the edge
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: of the clearing he found one set of heavy footprints.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Going on. He put his own foot beside a print
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and rested his weight on it. His foot made a
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: lesser depression. The other print had been made by a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: man weighing more than Calhoun. Therefore it was not one
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: of the party of plague victims. He found another set
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of such footprints entering the glade from another spot, one
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: man only, he said icily. He won't think he has
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: to be on guard, because a city's administrative personnel, such
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: as were left behind for the plague to hit, doesn't
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: usually have weapons among their possessions. And he's confident that
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: all of you are weak enough not to be dangerous
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: to him. Helen did not turn pale. She was pale before.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: She stared numbly at Calhoun. He looked grimly at the sky.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: It'll be sunset within the hour, he said savagely. If
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: it's the intention of the newcomers, the invaders, to burn
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: the bodies of all plague victims, he'll come back here
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: to dispose of these three. He didn't do it before,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: lest the smoke warned the rest of you, But he
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: knows the shelters held more than three people. He'll be back. Murgatroyd,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: said Chee in a bewildered fashion. He was on all fours,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and he regarded his pause as if they did not
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: belong to him. He panted. Calhoun checked him over, respiration
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: way up, heart action like that of the girl Helen.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: His temperature was not up, but down. Calhoun said remorsefully.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: You and I Murgatroyd, have a bad time of it
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: in our profession, but mine is worse. You don't have
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to play dirty tricks on me, and I've had to
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: on you. Murgatroyd said chee and whimpered. Calhoun laid him
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: gently on a bed of leaves, which was not occupied
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: by a murdered man. Lie still, he commanded, exercise his
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: bad for you. He walked away. Murgatroyd whined faintly, but
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: lay still as if exhausted. I'm going to move you,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Calhoun told the girl, so you won't be sighted if
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: that man from the city comes back, and I've got
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: to keep out of sight for a while, or your
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: friends will mistake me for him. I count on you
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: to vouch for me later. Basically I'm making an ambush. Then,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: he explained, irritably, I daren't try to trail him because
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: he might not backtrack to return here. He lifted the
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: girl and place to where she could see the glade
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: in its entirety, but would not be visible. He settled
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: down himself a little distance away. He was acutely dissatisfied
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: with the measures he was forced to take. He could
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: not follow the murderer and leave Helen and murgatroy unprotected,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: even though the murderer might find another victim, because he
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: was not trailed. In any case, Murgatroyd's life just now
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: was more important than the life of any human being
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: on Marith three. On him depended everything. But Calhoun was
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: not pleased with himself. There was silence except for the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: normal noises of living wild things. There were fluting sounds,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: which later Calhoun would be told from crawling creatures, not
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: too much unlike the land turtles of Earth. There were
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: deep base hummings, which came from the throats of miniature
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: creatures which might roughly be described as birds. There were chirrups,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: which were the cries of what might be approximately described
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: as wild pigs, except that they weren't. But the sun
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: Maurus sank low toward the nearer hill crests, and behind
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: them there came a strange, expectant hush. Over All the landscape.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: At sundown on Mars three, there is a singular period
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: when the creatures of the day are silent and those
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: of the night are not yet active. Nothing moved, nothing stirred.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Even the improbable foliage was still. It was into this
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: stillness and this half light that small, intermittent, rustling sounds entered. Presently,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: there was a faint murmur of speech. A tall, gaunt
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: young man came out of the brushwood supporting a pathetically
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: feeble old man, barely able to walk. Calhoun made a
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: gesture of warning as the girl Helen opened her lips
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: to speak. The slowly moving pair, the young man moving exhaustedly,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: the older man, staggering with weakness despite his help, came
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: into the glade. The younger helped the older to sit down.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: He stood panting. A woman and a man came together,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: assisting each other. There was barely light enough for the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: sun's afterglow to show their faces, emaciated and white. A fifth,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: feeble figure came tottering out of another opening in the brush.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: He was dark, bearded and broad, and he had been
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: a powerful man, but now the plague lay heavily upon him.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: They greeted each other listlessly. They had not yet discovered
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: those of their number who had been murdered. The gaunt
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: young man summoned his strength and moved toward the shelter
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: where Calhoun had covered an unseemly sight with branches. Murgatroyd whimpered.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Then came another rustling sound, but this had nothing of
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: feebleness in it. Someone pushed branches forthrightly out of his way.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: He came striding confidently into the small open space. He
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: was well fleshed, and his color was excellent. Calhoun automatically
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: judged him to be in superlative good health, slightly overfleshed,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: and of that physical type which suffers very few psychosomatic
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: troubles because it lives strictly and enjoyably in the present.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: Calhoun stood up. He stepped out into the fading light,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: just as this sturdy last comer grinned at the group
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: of play stricken semi skeletons. Mackay, he said, amiably, save
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: me a lot of trouble. I'll make one job of it.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: With leisurely confidence, he reached to the blaster at his hip.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: Drop it, snapped Calhoun from quartering behind him. Drop it.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: The sturdy man whirled. He saw Calhoun with a crossbow
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: raised to cover him. There was light enough to show
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: that it was not a blast rifle, in fact, that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: it was no weapon of any kind modern men would
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: ordinarily know. But much more significantly to the sturdy man
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: was the fact that Calhoun wore a uniform and was
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: in good health. He snatched out his blast pistol with
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: professional alertness, and Calhoun shot him with the crossbow. It
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: happened that he shot him dead. End of Part three,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: Part four of med Service by Murray Leinster. This Liebrevox
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Part four. Statistically, it
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: must be recognized that no human action is without consequences
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: to the man who acts. Again, Statistically, it must be
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: recognized that the consequences of an action tend with strong
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: probability to follow the general pattern of the action. A
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: violent action, for example, has a strong probability of violent consequences,
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: and since some at least of the consequences of an
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: act must affect the person acting, a man who acts
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: violently exposes himself to the probability that chance consequences which
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: affect him, if unfavorable, will be violently so probability and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: human conduct Fitzgerald. Murgatroyd had been inoculated with a blood
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: sample from the girl Helen, some three hours or less
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: before sunset, but it was one of the more valuable
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: genetic qualities of the turmoil race that they reacted to
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: bacterial infection as a human being react medication. Medicine on
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: the skin of a human being rarely has any systemic effect.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: Medication on mucous membrane penetrates better ingested medication. Medication that
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: is swallowed has greater effectiveness still, but substances injected into
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: tissues or the bloodstream have most effect of all. A
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: centigram of almost any drug administered by injection will have
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: an effect close to that of a gram taken orally.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: It lacts at once, and there is no modification by
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: gastric juices. Murgatroyd had had half a cubic centimeter of
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: the girl's blood injected into the spot on his flank
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: where he could feel no pain. It contained the unknown
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: cause of the plague on Mars III. Its effects as
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: injected were incomparably greater than the same infectious material smeared
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: on his skin or swallowed in either case, of course,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: it would have had no effect at all, because turmoils were,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: to all intent and purposes immune to ordinary contagions. Just
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: as they had a built in unit in their digestive
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: tract to cause the instant rejection of unwholesome food, their
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: body cells had a built in ability to produce antibodies
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: immediately the toxin of a pathogenic organism came into contact
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: with them. So brommels were effectively safe against any disease
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: transmitted by ordinary methods of infection. Yet if a culture
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: of pathogenic bacteria, say, were injected into their bloodstream, their
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: whole body set to work to turn out antibodies. Because
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: all their body was attacked, and all at once, there
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: was practically no incubation period. Murgatroit, who had been given
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: the plague in mid afternoon, was reacting violently to its
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: toxins by sunset, But two hours after darkness fell he
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: arose and said, shrilly, gee, gee gee. He'd been sung
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: in heavy slumber. When he woke, there was a small
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: fire in the glade about which the exhausted, emaciated fugitives
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: consulted with Calhoun. Calhoun was saying bitterly those characters in
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: the city or immune. They have to be, and they
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: know their immune, or they wouldn't risk contagion by murdering
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: you or handling the bodies of plague victims to burn them.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: So they have to know all about the plague, and
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: they knew it before they arrived. They came because they knew.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: That's why I shot that man with the crossbow instead
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: of taking a blaster to him. I meant to wound
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: him so I could make him answer questions, but it's
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: not an accurate weapon, and I killed him instead. I
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: got very little from the stuff in his pockets. The
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: only significant thing was a groundcore key, and even that
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: only means there's a car waiting somewhere for him. The
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: gaunt young man said drearily. He didn't come from Detra,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: our home planet. Fashions are different on different worlds. His
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: footwear was like a style we had on Detra four
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: years back, and his body clothing has fasteners we don't use.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd saw Calhoun and rushed to him, embracing his legs
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: with enthusiasm and chattering shrilly of his relief at finding
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: the man he knew. The skeleton like plague victims stared
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: at him. This, said Calhoun, with infinite relief, is Murgatroyd.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: He's had the plague and is over it. So now
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: we'll get you people cured. I wish I had better light.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: He counted Murgatroyd's breathing and listened to his heart. Murgatroyd
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: was in that state of boisterous good health, which is
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: normal in any lower animal, but amounts to genius in
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: a turmoil. Calhoun regarded him with satisfaction. All right, he said,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: come along. He plucked a brand of burning resinus stuff
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: from the campfire. He handed it to the gaunt young
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: man and led the way. Murgatroyd ambled complacently after him.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: Calhoun stopped under one of the unoccupied shelters and got
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: out his lab kit. He bent over Murgatroyd. What he
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: did did not hurt. When he stood up, he squinted
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: at the red fluid in the instrument he'd used about
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: fifteen c c's. He observed, this is strictly emergency stuff
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: I'm doing now. But I'd say that there is an emergency.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: The gaunt young man said, I'd say you've doomed yourself.
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: The incubation period seems to be about six days. It
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: took that long to develop among the doctors we had
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: in the office staff. Calhoun opened a compartment of the kit,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: whose minuscule test tubes and pipeetes gleamed in the torchlight.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: He obsorbedly transferred the reddish fluid to a miniature filter barrel,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: piercing a self healing plastic cover to do so. He said,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: you're pre med the way you talk. I was an intern,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: said Kim. Now I'm pre corpse. I doubt that last,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun. But I wish I had some distilled water.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: This is anticoagulant. He added the trace of a drop
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: to the sealed ruddy fluid. He shook the whole filter
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: to agitate it. The instrument was hardly larger than his thumb.
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: Now a clumper, he added a minute quantity of a
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: second substance from an almost microscopic ampule. He shook the
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: filter again. You can guess what I'm doing. With a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: decent lab I get the structure and formula of the
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: antibody MURCOTRD has so obligingly turned out for us. We'd
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: set to work to synthesize it in twenty hours lab time.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: We ought to have it coming out of the reaction
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: of flasks in quantity, but there is no lab. There's
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: one in the city, said the gaunt young man helplessly.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: It was for the colonists who were to come, and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: we were staffed to give them proper medical care. When
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the plague came, our doctors did everything imaginable. They not
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: only tried the usual culture tricks, but they culture its
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: samples of every separate tissue. In the fatal cases, they
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: never found a single organism, even in the electron microscopes
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: that could produce the plague, he said, with a sort
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: of weary pride. Those who'd been exposed worked until they
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: had it. Then others took over. Every man worked as
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: long as he could make his brain work. Though Calhoun
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: squinted through the glass tube of the filter at the
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: sputtering torch almost clumped, he observed. Then, he said, did
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: you ever hear a man named pasture? One of his
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: first discoveries that one could get an effective pure culture
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: of a pathogenic organism by giving the disease to an
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: experimental animal. Better ways were found later, but one still
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: expects a pure culture in a patient who has a
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: disease really badly? What did the lab turn up? Tim
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: shook his head. Nothing. The bacteriological survey of the planet
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: had been thorough. Oral and intestinal flora were normal normally.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: The local bacteria couldn't compete with the strains we humans
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: have learned to live with. They couldn't symbiotize, so there
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't anything unknown. There wasn't any cause of the plague.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: Calhoun began to work the filter plunger by the wavering
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: light of the torch. The piston was itself the filter,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: and on one side a clear, mobile liquid began very
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: slowly to appear, muted standard bug. Still, if your doctors
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: dig cultures and couldn't reproduce the disease, they could pass it,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: said Kim bitterly. But they could never find what carried it.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: No pure culture would. Calhoun watched the clear fluid develop
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: on the delivery side of the filtering piston. The job
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: got to one. There was better than twelve cubic centimeters
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: of clear serum on the delivery side and an almost
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: solid block of clumped blood cells on the other. He
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: drew off the transparent fluid with a fine precision. We're
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: doing biochemistry under far from aseptic conditions, he said rily,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: But the work has to be done and we have
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: to take the risk. Anyhow, I'm getting a feeling that
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: this isn't any ordinary plague. A normal pathogenic organism should
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: have been turned up by your doctors. It wasn't, said Kim,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: So said Calhoun. Maybe it isn't one isolatable organism. Maybe
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: the disease producing mechanism simply isn't there when you make
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: pure cultures of the separate strains of virus and microbe.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd was a pretty sick animal. I have only known
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: one other previous case in which a turmoil reacted as
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: violently as Murgatroyd did. That one had a sweating. If
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: I were going to live, said Kim grimly, I might
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: ask what it was, since you're going to Calhoun told him,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, though you don't. It was a pair
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: of organisms. Their toxins acted synergistically together. Separately, they were innocuous. Together,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: they were practically explosive. That one was the devil to
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: track down. He went back across the glade. Murger Troy
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: came skipping after him, scratching at the anesthetic patch. On
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: his hide, which he sometimes seems to notice, not because
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: it felt oddly, but because it did not feel at all. You,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun briefly to Helen John's you go first. This
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: is an antibody serum. You may itch afterward, but I
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: doubt it. Your arm, please, she bared her rather pitifully
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: thin arm. He gave her practically a se sea of fluid, which,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: plus blood cropuscles, and some forty odd other essential substances
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: had been circulating in Murgatroid's bloodstream not long since. The
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: blood corpuscles had been clumped and removed by one compound,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: plus the filter, and the anticoagulant had neatly modified most
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: of the others. In a matter of minutes, the lap
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: kit had prepared as usable a serum as any animal
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: using technique would produce. Logically, the antibodies that contained should
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: be isolated and their chemical structure determined. They should be synthesized,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: and the synthetic antibody complex administered to plague victims. But
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: Calhoun faced a small group of people doomed to die.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: He could only use his fiel kits to produce a
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: small scale miracle for them. He could not do a
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: mass production job. Next, said Calhoun, tell them what it's
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: all about. Kim, the gaunt young man bared his own arm.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: If what he says is so, this will cure us.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: If it is, and so, nothing can do us any harm.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: And Calhoun briskly gave them, one after another the shots
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: of what ought to be a curative serum for an
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: unidentified disease, which he suspected was not caused by any
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: single germ, but by a partnership. Synergy isn't acting together.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: Charcoal will burn quietly, liquid air will not burn at all,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: but the two together constitute a violent explosive. This is
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: analogous to synergy. The ancient simple drug sulfa is not intoxicating,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: a glass of wine is not intoxicating, but the two
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: together have the kick of dynamite. Synergy in medicine is
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: a process in which when one substance with one effect
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: is given in combination with another substance with another effect,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: the two together have the consequences of a third substance
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: and testify to fourth or fifth or tenth power. I think,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun when he finished that by morning, you feel better,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: perhaps secured of the plague, and only weak from failure
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: to force yourself to take nourishment. If it turns out
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: that way, I advise you all to get as far
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: away from the city as possible for a considerable while.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: I think this planet is going to be repopulated. I
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: suspect that shiploads of colonists are on the way here now,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: but not from Detra, which built the city. And I
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: definitely guess that sick or well, you're going to be
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: in trouble if or when you contact the new colonists.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: They looked tiredly at him. They were a singular lot
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: of people. Each one seemed half starved, yet their eyes
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: had not the brightness of suffering. They looked weary, beondbelief,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: and yet there was not self neglect. They were of
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: that singular human type which maintains human civilization against the
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: inertia of the rain, because it drives itself to get
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: needed things done. It is not glamorous, this dogged part
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: of mankind which keeps things going. It is sometimes absurd
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: for dying folks to wash themself when even such exertion
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: calls for enormous resolution. It's not exactly rational to help
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: each other try to die with dignity was much more
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: a matter of self respect than of intellectual decision. But
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: as a medship man, Calhoun viewed them with some warmth.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: They were the type that has to be called on
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: when an emergency occurs, and the wealth gathering type tends
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: to flee, and the low time since part of a
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: population inclines to riot or loot or worse. Now, they
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: waited listlessly for their own deaths. There is no exact
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: precedent for what's happened here, explained Calhoun. A thousand years
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: or so ago, there was a king of France, that's
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: a country back on Old Earth, who tried to wipe
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: out a disease called leprosy by executing all the people
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: who had it. Lepers were a nuisance. They couldn't work,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: They had to be fed by charity. They died in
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: inconvenient places, and only other lepers dared to handle their bodies.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: They tended to throw normal human life out of kilter.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: That wasn't the case here. The man I killed wanted
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: you dead for another reason. He wanted you dead right away.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: The gaunt Kim Walpole said tiredly. He wanted to dispose
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: of our bodies in a sanitary fashion. Nonsense, snapped Calhoun.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: The city's infected. You lived, ate, breathed, and walked in it.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: Nobody can dare use that city unless they know how
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: the contagions transmitted and how to counteract it. Your own
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: colonists turned back. These men wouldn't have landed if they
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: hadn't known they were safe. There was silence. If the
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: plague is an intended crime, added Calhoun, you are the
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: witnesses to it. You've got to be gotten rid of
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: before colonists from somewhere other than Detra arrive here. The
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: dark bearded man growled. Monstrous. Monstrous, agreed, said Calhoun. But
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: there's no interstellar government now any more than there was
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: a planetary government in the old days back on Earth.
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: So if somebody pirates a colony ready to be occupied,
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: there's no authority able to throw them out. The only
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: recourse would be war, and nobody is going to start
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: an interplanetary war, not with the bombs that can be landed.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: If the invaders can land a population here, they can
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: keep it. It's piracy, with nobody able to do anything
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to the pirates. He paused and said with irony. Of
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: course they could be persuaded that they were wrong, but
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: that was not even worth thinking about. In the computation
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: of probabilities. In human conduct, self interest is a high
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: value factor. Children and barbarians have clear ideas of justice
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: due to them, but no idea at all justice due
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: from them. And though human colonies spread toward the galaxy's rim,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: there was still a large part of every population which
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: was civilized only in that it could use tools. Most
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: people still remain comfortably barbaric or childish in their emotional lives.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: It was a fact that had to be considered in
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: Calhoun's profession. It bore remarkably on matters of health. So
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: you'll have to hide, I think, permanently, Calhoun told him.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: But in the morning, after I've checked on you people again,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: I think I'll go into the the city and see
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: what I can do about it. Try to rest now,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: you should all feel much better in the morning. Kim
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: Walpole said, abruptly, you've been exposed to the plague. Have
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: you protected yourself? Not yet, acknowledged Calhoun, give me a
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: quarter of ASSISI. He handed the injector to the gaunt
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: young man. He noted the precision with which Kim handled it.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: Then he helped get the survivors of the original group.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: There were six of them, to the leafy beds under
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: the shelters. They were very quiet, even more quiet than
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: their illness demanded. They were very polite. The old man
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and woman who had struggled back to the glade together
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: made an especial attempt to bid Calhoun good night with
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: the courtesy appropriate to city folk of tradition. Calhoun settled
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: down to keep watch through the night. Murgatroit snuggled confidingly
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: close to him. There was silence, but not complete silence.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: The night of Marris three was filled with tiny noises
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: and some not so tiny. There were little squeaks which
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: seemed to come from all directions, including overhead. There were
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: chirpings which were definitely a ground level. There was a
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: sound like effortful grunting somewhere in the direction of the
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: rampart of hills in the lowlands. There was a rumbling
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: which moved very slowly from one place to another. By
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: its rate of motion, Colhoun guessed that a pack or
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: heard of small animals was making a night journey and
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: uttering deep bass noises as it traveled. He debated certain
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: grim possibilities. The man he'd killed had had a ground
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: or key in his pocket, he'd probably come out in
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: a powered vehicle. He might have had a companion, and
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: the method of hunting fugitives successful in his case was
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: probably well established. That companion might come looking for him,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: so watchfulness was necessary. Meanwhile, the plague, the idea of
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: synergy was still most plausible. Supposed to toxins, the poisonous
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: metabolic products of two separate kinds of bacteria combined to
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: lessen the ability of the blood to carry oxygen and
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: scavenge away carbon dioxide, It would be extremely difficult to
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: identify the pair, and the symptoms would be accounted for.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: No pure culture of any organism to be found would
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: give the plague. Each by itself would be harmless. Only
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: a combination of two would be injurious. And if so
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: much was assumed, why if the blood lost its capacity
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: to carry oxygen, mental listlessness would be the first symptom
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: of all the His brain requires a high oxygen level
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: in his blood supply if it is to work properly.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: Let a man's brain be gradually slowly starred of oxygen,
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: and all the noted effects would follow. His other organs
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: would slow down, but at a lesser rate. He would
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: not remember to eat. His blood would still digest food
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: and burn away its own fat, though more and more sluggishly,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: while his brain worked only foddily. He would become only
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: semi conscious, And then there would come a time of
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: coma when unconsciousness claimed him, and his body lived on
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: only as an idly machine until it ran out of
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: fuel and died. Calhoun tried urgently to figure out a
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: synergic combination which might make a man's blood cease to
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: do its work. Perhaps only minute quantities of the dual
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: poison might be needed, like an anti vitamin or an
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: anti enzyme. Or the invaders of the city were immune.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: Quite possibly the same antibodies murgtrd had produced were responsible
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: for their safety. Somewhere, somebody had very horribly used the
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: science of medicine to commit a monstrous crime. But the
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: science of medicine a savage idea came to Calhoun. Its
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: practicality might depend on the number of men in the city.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: But his eyes burned, he heard a movement across the glade.
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: He reached for his blaster. Then he saw where the
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: motion was. It was Kim Walpole, intolerably weary, trudging with
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: infinite effort to where Helen john Slay. Calhoun heard him
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: ask heavily, you're all right, Yes, Kim, said the girl softly.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: I couldn't sleep. I'm wondering if we can hope. Kim
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: did not answer. If we live, said the girl yearningly,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: and stopped. Calhoun felt that he ought to put his
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: fingers in his ears. The conversation was strictly private, but
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: he needed to be on guard, so he coughed to
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: give notice that he heard Kim called to him across
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: the starlit glade. Calhoun. Yes, said Calhoun. If you two talk,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: I suggest that you do it in whispers. I want
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: to listen in case the man I killed had friends
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: who'll come looking for him. Did you get his blaster,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: by the way, Yes, said Kim from the darkness across
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: the way. Good, said Calhoun. Keep it, and against all
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: medical ethics, I advise you to use it freely if
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: you find suitable targets. But now just talk quietly if
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: you can. He settled back. Murgatroy stirred and cuddled closer
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: against him without wakening. There was the faintest possible murmur
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: of voices where Kim Walpole and the girl Helen talked
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: wistfully of the possibility of hope. Calhoun felt very lonely,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: despite the violent activities he foresaw for the morrow. He
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: almost envied Kim Walpole, but he could not have traded
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: places with him. It wouldn't have been a fair trade.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: Calhoun was quite confident that via Murgatroyd, the folks in
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: the glade had a very fair chance of living for
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: some time. Yet his own chances, considering what he had
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: to do, were more nearly zero, just about zero when
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: considered dispassionately. End of Part four, Part five of med
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: Services by Mariray Leinster. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: public domain Part five. Very much of science is merely
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: the comprehension of long observed facts. In human conduct, there
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: is a long tradition of observation, but a very brief
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: record of comprehension. For example, human life in contact with
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: other human lives follows the rules of other ecological systems.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: All too often, however, a man may imagine that an
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: ecological system is composed only of things, whereas such a
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: system operates through the actions of things. It is not
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: possible for any part of an ecological complex to act
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: upon the other parts without being acted upon in its turn,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: so that it is singularly stupid and singularly common for
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: an individual to consider human society as passive and unreactive,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: so that he may do what he pleases without a
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: reaction as energetic as his action, and as well directed. Moreover, probability, probability,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: and human conduct. Gerald An hour after sunrise, Calhoun's shoulder
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: pack was empty of food. The refugees arose, and they
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: were weak and ravenous. Their respiration had slowed to normal,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: their pulses no longer pounded, their eyes were no longer dull,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: but very bright, and they were in advanced states of malnutrition,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: and only now were aware of it. Their brains were
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: again receiving outequate oxygen, and their metabolism was at a
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: normal level, and they knew that they were starving. Calhoun
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: served as cook. He trudged to the spring that Helen
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: described and brought back water while they sucked on sweet
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: tablets from his rations and watched with hungry eyes. He
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: made soup from the dehydrated rations he carried for Murgatroyd
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: and himself. He gave it to them as the first
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: thing their stomachs were likely to digest. He watched as
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: they fed themselves. The elderly man and a woman consumed
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: it delicately, looking at each other. The man with a broad,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: dark beard ate with enormous self restraint. Helen fed the
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: weakest old man between spoonfuls for herself, and Kim Walpole
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: ate slowly brooding. Calhoun drew him aside during the night.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: He said, I got another load of serum ready. I'm
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: leaving it with you with an injector. You'll find other refugees.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: I gave you massive doses. You'd better be stingy. Try
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: half sea sea shots. What about you, demanded Kim Calhoun shrugged.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: You'd be surprised how much authority I have when I
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: can make it stick, he said dryly. As a madship man,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: I have authority to take complete charge of any health emergency.
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: You people have a hitherto unknown plague here, that's one emergency.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: The present inhabitants of the city haven't got it, that's another.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: So since I have authority and reason to exercise it
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: if I can, I'm going to the city to take
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: a little action. You'll be killed, said Kim. Possibly admitted Calhoun,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: but the number of chance happenings that could favor me
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: is very much greater than the number of breaks that
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: could favor the invaders. And there's the matter of colonists,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: prospective colonists. You're being hunted so hard that they must
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: be about due. They've probably been immunized against this plague.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: But technically I shouldn't let them land on a plague
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: stricken planet. Kim Walpole stared, you mean you'll try to
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: stop them. I shall try, said Calhoun, to implement the
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: authority vested in me by the Met Service for such
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: cases as this. The rules about quarantine are rather strict.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: You'll be killed, said Kim again. Calhoun ignored the repeated
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: prediction that hunter found you. He observed because he knew
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: that you'd have to drink. So he found a brook
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: and followed it up, looking for signs of humans drinking
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: from it. He found footprints about the spring. I found
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: his footprints there too. That's the trick you used to
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: find other fugitives. But pass on the word not to
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: leave tracks hereafter for other advice, I'd advise you to
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: get all the weapons you can modern ones. Of course,
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: you've got the blaster from the man I killed. I think,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: said Kim between his teeth, that I'll get some more.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: If hunters from the city do trock us to our
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: drinking places, I'll know how to get more weapons. Yes,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: agreed Calhoun, and added Murcertroyd made the antibodies that cure you.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: As a general rule, you can expect antibody production in
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: your own bodies once an infection begins to be licked.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: In case of extreme emergency, which of you can probably
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: supply antibodies for a fair number of other plague victims.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: You might try serum from blisters you produce are on
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: your skin. Quite often antibodies turn up there. I don't
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: guarantee it, but sometimes it works, he paused. Kim. Walpole said, hoarsely,
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: but you isn't there anything we can do for you?
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you something, said Calhoun. He
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: produced the telephoto films of the city as photographed from space.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: There's a laboratory in the city, a biochemistry lab. Show
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: me where to look for it. Walpole gave explicit directions,
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: pointing out the spot on the photo Calhoun nodded. Then
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: Kim said fiercely, but tell us something we can do.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: We'll be strong presently, we'll have weapons. We'll track downstream
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: to where hunters leave their ground cars and be equipped
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: with them. We can help you. Calhoun nodded approvingly. Right,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: if you see this smoke of a good sized fire
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: in the city, and you've got a fair number of
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: fairly strong men with you, and if you've got ground cars,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: you might investigate, but be cagey about it, very cagey.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: If you signal, we'll come, said Kim Walpole grimly. No
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: matter how few we are, fine, said Calhoun. He had
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: no intention of calling on these weakened, starveling people for help.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: He swung his depleted pack on his back again and
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: slipped away from the glade. He made his way to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: the spring, which flowed clear and cool from unseen depths.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: He headed down the little brook, which flowed away from it.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd raced along its banks. He hated to get his
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: paws wet. Presently, where underbrush grew thickly close to the
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: water's edge, Murgatroyd wailed chee chee, and Calhoun plucked him
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: from the ground and set him on his shoulder. Murgatroyd
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: clawed hung blissfully there as Calhoun followed down the stream bed.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: He adored being carried. Two miles down there was another
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: cultivated field. This one was set out to a giganticized
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: root crop, and Calhoun walked past shoulder high bushes with
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: four inch blue and white flowers. He recognized the plants
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: as of the family Soldanees. Belladonna was still used in medicine,
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't identify it until he dug up a
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: root and found a potato. But the six pound specimen
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: he uncovered was still too young and green to be eaten.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd refused to touch it. Calhoun was ruefully considering the
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: limitations of specialized training. When he came to the end
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: of the cultivated field, there was a highway. It was new,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: of course, Cities, fields, highways, and all the impertinences of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: civilized life had been built on this planet before the
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: arrival of the colonists who were to inhabit it. It
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: was extraordinary to see such preparations for a population not
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: yet on hand, But Calhoun was much more interested in
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: the ground car He found waiting on the highway, hard
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: by a tiny bridge under which the brook he followed flowed.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: The key he'd taken from the hunter fitted. He got
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: in and put Murgatroyd on the seat beside him. He's invaders, Murgatroyd,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: he observed, must be in a bad way. A newly
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: built city which was never occupied will be like an
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: empty house. There's no amusement or loot to be found
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: in prowling it. They were sent to take over the
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: planet and they've done it. But they've nothing to do
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: now except hunt refugees until their colonists arrive. I suspect
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: their board. We'll try to fix that. He set the
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: ground car in motion toward the city. It was a
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: full twenty miles, but he did not encounter a single
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: of a vehicle. Presently, the city lay spread out before him.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: He stopped and surveyed the vast pile. It was a
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: very beautiful city. Fifty generations of architects on many worlds
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: had played with stone and steel, groping for the perfect
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: combination of materials with design. This city was a product
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: of their tradition. There were towers which glittered whitely, and
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: low buildings which seemed to nestle on the vegetation covered ground.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: There were soaring bridges and gracefully curved highways and park
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: areas laid out and ready. There was no monotony anywhere.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: The only exception to gracefulness was the sturdy landing grid
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: itself half a mile high, and the mile across, which
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: was a lace work of massive steel girders with spider
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: thin lines of copper woving about in the complex curves.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: The creation of its force field required. Inside it, Calhoun
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: could see the ship of the invaders. It had been
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: brought down inside the circular structure and was dwarfed by it.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: It gleamed there, and we said, Calhoun, are going to
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: look for a prosaic, probably messy laboratory which people who
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: made a sport of hunting fellow humans won't find amusing.
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: Characters like these Murgatroyd aren't interested in medical science. They
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: consider themselves conquerors. People have strange ideas, gee, said Murgatroyd.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: Calhoun spread out his photographs. Kim Walpole had marked where
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: he should go and a route to it. Having been
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: in the city while it was building, he knew even
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: the service lanes, which being sunken were not a part
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: of the city's good looks. But our enemies, explained Calhoun,
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: will not deign to use such grubby routes. They consider
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: themselves aristocrats because they were sent as conquerors whose job
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: it was to clean up the dead bodies of their victims.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: I wonder what kind of swine are in power in
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: the planetary government which sent them. He put away the
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: photos and headed for the city again. He branched off
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: from the rural highway, where a turnoff descended into a cut.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: This low level road was intended for loads of agricultural
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: produce entering the city. It was strictly utilitarian. It ran
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: below the surface of the park areas and entered the
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: city without pride. It wound between rows of surface gates,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: behind which waste matter was some day to be assembled
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: to be carried off for fertilizer on the fields. The
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: city was very well designed. Rolling along the echoing Sucond Road,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: Calhoun saw just once a ground car in motion on
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: a far flung cobwebby bridge between two tall towers. It
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: was high overhead. Nobody in it would be watching grubby
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: commerce roads. The whole affair was very simple indeed. Calhoun
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: brought the car to a stop beneath the overhang of
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: a balconied building many stories high. He got out and
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: opened the gate. He drove the car into the cavernous,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: so far unused lower part of the building. He closed
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: the gate behind him. He was in the center of
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: the city, and his presence was unknown. He climbed a new,
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: clean flight of steps and came to the sections of
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: the public would use. There were glassy walls, which changed
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: their look as one moved between them. There were the lifts.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: Calhoun did not try to use them. He led Murgatroyd
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: up the circular ramps which led upward. In a case
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: of unthinkable emergency, he and Murgatroyd plodded up and up.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: Calhoun kept count. On the fifth level, there were signs
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: of use, while all the others had that dusty cleanliness
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: of a structure which had been completed but not yet occupied.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: Here we are, said Calhoun cheerfully. But he had his
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: blaster in his hand. When he opened the door of
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: the laboratory, it was empty. He looked approvingly about as
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: he hunted for the storeroom. It was a perfectly equipped
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: biological laboratory, and it had been in use. Here the
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: few doomed physicians awaiting the city's population had worked desperately
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: against the plague. Calhoun saw the trays of cultures they'd made,
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: dried up and dead. Now somebody had turned over a chair,
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: probably when the laboratory was searched by the invaders, lest
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: somebody not of their kind remain alive in it. He
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: found the storeroom. Murgatroyd watched with bright eyes as he rummaged.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: Here we have the things men used to cure each other,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun, oracularly. Practically every one in a poison, save
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: for its special use. Here's an assortment of spores pathogen organisms, Murgatroyd.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: One could start a plague with them. And here are
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: drugs which are synthesized nowadays, but are descended from the
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: compounds found by the sphears of savages, great helps in medicine.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: And here are the anesthetics poisons too. These are what
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: I was counting on. He chose very painstakingly dextra thrill polysulfate,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: the one marked inflammable and dangerous, the other with the
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: maximum permissible doze on its label, and the name of
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: the counteracting substances which would neutralize it. He burdened himself.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd reached up a paw. Since Calhoun was carrying something,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: he wanted to carry something too. They went down the
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: circular ramp again. Calhoun searched once more in the below
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: surface levels of the building. He found what he wanted,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: a painter's vortex gun, which would throw smoke rings of
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: tiny paint droplets at a wall or object to be painted.
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: One could vary the size of the ring at impact,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: from a bare inch to a three foot spread. Calhoun
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: cleaned the paint gun. He was meticulous about it. He
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: filled its tank with dextra thrill brought down from the laboratory.
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: He piled the empty containers out of sight. The trick
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: he observed as he picked up the paint gun again
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: was devised to be used on a poor devil of
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: a lunatic who carried a bomb in his pocket for
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: protection against imaginary assassins. It would have devastated a quarter
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: mile circle, so he had to be handled gently. He
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: patted his pockets. He nodded, Now we go hunting with
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: an oversized atomizer loaded with dextra thrill. I've polysulfate and
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: an injector to secure each specimen. I knock over. Not
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: too good, eh, But if I have to use a blaster,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: I'll have failed. He looked out a wind at the sky.
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: It was now late afternoon. He went back to the
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: gate to the service road. He went out and piously
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: closed it behind him. On foot, with many references to
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: the photo maps, he began to find his way toward
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: the landing grid. It ought to be something like the
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: center of the invader's location. It was dark when he
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: climbed other service stairs from the cellar of another building.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: This was the communications center of the city. It had
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: been the key to the mopping up process the invaders
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: began on landing. Its callboard would show which apartments had
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: communicators in use. When such a call showed, a murder
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: party could be sent to take care of the caller.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: Even after the first night, some individual, isolated folk might remain,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: perhaps unaware of what went on, so there would be
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: somebody on watch, just in case a dying man called
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: for the solace of a human voice. While he still lived.
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: There was a man on watch. Calhoun saw a lighted
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: room paint gunnet the ready He moved very silently toward it.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd padded faithfully behind him. Outside the door, Calhoun adjusted
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: his curious weapon. He entered. There was a man nodding
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: in a chair before the lifeless board. When Calhoun entered,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: he raised his head and yawned. He turned. Calhoun sprayed
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: him with smoke rings vortex rings, but the rings were
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: spinning thistles of vaporized extra thrill, that anesthetic developed from
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: ethyl chloride some two hundred years before, and not yet
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: bettered for its special uses. One of his properties was
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: that the faintest whiff of its odor produced a reflex
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: impulse to gasp. A second property was that, like the
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: ancient ethyl chloride, it was the quickest acting anesthetic known.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: The man on the callboard saw Calhoun, his nostrils taught
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: the odor of dexter thrill. He gasped, He fell unconscious.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: Calhoun waited patiently until the dexter thrill was out of
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: the way. It was almost unique among vapors in that,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: at room temperature it was lighter than air. It rose
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: toward the ceiling. Calhoun moved forward, brought out the polysulfate injector,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: and bent over the unconscious man. He did not touch
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: him otherwise. He turned and walked out of the room,
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: with Murcatroyd piously marching behind him. Outside, Calhoun said, as
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: one medical man to another, maybe I shouldn't have done that.
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: I doubt these invaders have a competent physician among them.
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: But even he would be apt to think that that
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: man had collapsed suddenly and directly into the coma of
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 1: the plague. That polysulfates an assisting anesthetic. It's not used alone,
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: because when you knock a man out with it, he
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: stays out for days. It's used just below the quantity
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: that would affect a man, and then the least whiff
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: of another anesthetic puts him under, and he can be
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: brought out fast, and he's better off all around. But
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: I've got this man knocked out. He'll stay unconscious for
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: a week. Murgatroyd piped chee. He won't die, said Calhoun grimly.
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: But he won't come out fighting unless somebody wakes him earlier.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: And of course he is a murderer, gee, agreed Murgatroyd.
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: He reached up a furry paw and took hold of
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: Calhoun's hand. They walked out into the street together. It
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: is notorious that the streets of a city at night
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: are ghostly and strange. That is true of a city
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: whose inhabitants are only asleep. There is more and worse
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: of eeriness in a deserted city whose inhabitants are dead.
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: But a city which has never lived, which lies lifeless
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: under the stars because its people never came to live
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: in it, that has the most ghastly feel of all.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: Calhoun and Murgatroyd walked hand in pau through such a
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: place that the invaders felt the same eeriness was presently proved.
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: Calhoun found a place where a light shone and voices
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: came out into the tiny, remote night sound of Marris.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: Three men were drinking in an unnecessarily small room, as
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: if crowded together to make up for the loneliness outside.
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: In the still night, They made a pigmy tumult with
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: their voices. They banged drunkenly on a table and on
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: the floor. Calhoun stood in the doorway and held the
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: paint gun trigger down. He traversed the room twice. Whirling
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: rings of invisible vapor filled the place. Men gagged. Calhoun
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: waited a long time because he had put a great
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: deal of dextra thrill into a small space. But presently
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: he went in and bent over each man in turn,
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: while Murgatroyd watched with bright in inquisitive eyes. He arranged
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: one figure so that it seemed to have been stricken
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: while bending over another fallen companion. The others he carried out,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 1: one at a time and placed at different distances, as
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: if they had fallen while fleeing from a plague. One
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: he carried quite a long distance and left him with
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: dusty knees and hands, as if he had tried to
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: crawl when streth failed him. They'd have been immunized at
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: pretty well the same time before they were shipped on
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: this job. Calhoun told Murgatroyd, it'll seem very plague like
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: for them to fall into comas nearly together. If I
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: found men like this and didn't know what to do,
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: I suspect that it was a delayed action effect of
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: some common experience, like an immunization shot. We'd better try
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: the ship. Murgatroyd. On the way, he passed close to
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: the control building of the landing grid. There was a
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: light inside it too. There were four men on watch,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: two remained as side, very very still. When Calhoun went on.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: The others seemed to have fled and collapsed in the act.
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: They breathed to be sure their hearts beat solidly, but
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: it would not be possible to rouse them to consciousness.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: Calhoun didn't get into the ship, though a chance happening intervened,
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: which seemed an unfavorable one. Its port was locked, and
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: his cautious attempt to open it brought a challenge and
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: a blaze of light. He fled for the side of
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: the landing grid, with blaster boats searing the ground all
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: about him. Murgatrod leaped and pranced with him as he ran.
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: End of Part five, Part six of met Service by
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: Murray Leinster. This liveryvox recording is in the public domain.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: Part six. The probable complete success of a human enterprise
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: which affects none cooperating other human beings may be said
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: to vary inversely as the fourth power of the number
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: of favorable happenings necessary for complete success. This formula is
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: admittedly empirical, but its accordance with observation is remarkably close.
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: In practice. The probability of absolute total success in any
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: undertaking is negligible. For this reason, mathematics and sanity alike
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: counsel the avoidance of complex plannings, and most especially of
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: plans which must succeed totally to succeed at all. Probability
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: and human conduct Fitzgerald. When morning came, Calhoun very rilely
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: considered the situation. He couldn't know the actual state of
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: things to be sure he'd been shot at. But even so,
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: though that fact did not allow his hope to be
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: realized in every detail, the probability of a considerable success remained.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: It was not likely that the invaders would ascribe the
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: finding of unconscious, stentoriously breathing members of their number to Calhoun.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: Making men unconscious was not the kind of warfare a
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: plague refugee would use. Still More certainly, it was not
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: what the invaders themselves would practice to devise and spread
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: a plague. Of course, was not beyond them that had
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: been done. But they would not disabled an enemy and
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: leave him alive. They would murder him or nothing. So
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: when men of their group were found in something singularly
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 1: close to the terminal coma of the plague, they think
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: them victims. They guessed that their supposed immunity was only
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: to the early symptoms, not to the final ones and death.
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: It should not be an encouraging opinion. But this morning
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 1: Calhoun found himself hungry. He looked remorsefully at Murgatroyd. I
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: gave our rations to those refugees, he said, regretfully. I
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: took no thought for the morrow, which has turned out
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: to be today. I'm sorry, Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd said nothing, Maybe,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: suggested Calhoun, we can find some of those invaders at
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: a meal. It was reckless, but recklessness was necessary and
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: the sort of thing Calhoun had started. He and Murgatroyd
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: ventured out into the streets. The emptiness of the city
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: was appalling. If it had been dilapidated, if it had
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: been partly ruined, the emptiness might have seemed somehow romantic.
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: But every building was perfect. Each was complete, but desolately unused.
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: Calhoun spotted a ground card at a distance, stopped before
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: a long, low ground hawking structure near the landing grid.
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: It was perfectly to be the headquarters of the strangers
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: in the city. Calhoun considered it for a long time,
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: peering at it from a doorway. We shouldn't try it,
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: he said at last, But we probably will. If we
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: can make these characters so panic stricken that they run
• 2:10:19
  Speaker 1: out of the city like the earlier refugees, it would
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: be a highly favorable happening. They might do it if
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: their bosses were knocked out by what they thought was
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 1: the plague. And besides, we should get a meal out
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 1: of it. There'll be food in there. He backtracked the
• 2:10:36
  Speaker 1: long way. He darted across a road, with Murgatroyd scampering
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: beside him. He stocked the building, approaching it behind bushes.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: Carrying the paint gun. He reached its wall. He began
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: to crawl around the outside to reach the doorway. He
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: heard voices as he passed the first windows. When I
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: tell you where we are, immune, cried a voice furiously.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: It can't be the same thing those detrans died from.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: It can't. And there was that man who ran from
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: the ship last night. Calhoun crawled on. Murgatroyd skipped. Calhoun
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: heard an exclamation behind him. He turned his head, and
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd was fifteen feet away from the building wall and
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: plainly visible to those inside. And he'd been seen fleeing
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: with Calhoun from the ship. Calhoun swore softly. He ran.
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: He reached the door, before which a ground car stood.
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: He wrenched it open and set the pate gun at work,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: firing a steady stream of vortex rings into the interior.
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: He drew his blaster and faced the outside world. There
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: was a crashing of glass. Somebody had plunged out a window.
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: There were rushing feet inside. They'd be racing toward his
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: doorway from within, but the hall room anteroom. Fore, whatever
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: was immediately inside the door would be filled with dexterra
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: thrill vapor. Men would gasp and fall. A man did fall.
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: Calhoun heard the crash of his body to the floor,
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: but also a man came plunging around the building's corner,
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: blaster out, searching for Calhoun. But he had to sight
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: his target and then aim it. Calhoun had only to
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: pull trigger. He did. Shoutings inside the building, more rushing feet,
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: more falls. Then there was the beginning of the rasping
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: snarl of a blaster, and then a cushioned, booming, roaring detonation,
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: which was the explosive dexter thrill vapor ignited by it.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: The blast lifted the building's roof its shattered partitions. It
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 1: blew every window out. Calhoun sprinted for the ground car.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: A blaster bolt flashed past him. He halted and deliberately
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: traversed the building with the trigger held down, Smoke and
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: flamely out. At least one more invader crumpled. Calhoun heard
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 1: a voice yelling inside somewhere, where is hact. Those refugees
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: are throwing bombs. Rally, Rally, we need help. It would
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: be a broadcast call for assistance. Whatever men lolled or loafed,
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: or tried desultorily to find something to loot, they would
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 1: hear it. Even the standby crew in the spaceship would
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: hear it. Those who repaired the grid transformers Calhoun had
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: burned out would hear it. Men would come running, Hunters
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: would come, men in cars. Calhoun snatched Murgatroy to the
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: seat beside him. He turned the key, and the tires screamed,
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: and he shot away. The highways were, of course, superb.
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: He raced forward, and the car's communicator began to motter
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: as somebody in the undamaged part of the building chattered
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: that he'd gotten in a car and away. It described
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: his course it command that he beheaded off. It hysterically
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: demanded that he be killed, killed, killed. Another voice took
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: its place. This voice was curt and coldly furious. It
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: snapped precise instructions. Calhoun found himself on a gracefully curving
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: rising road. He was midway between towers when another car
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: flashed toward him. He took his blaster in his left hand.
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: In the split second during which the cars passed each other,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: he blasted it. There was a monster surge of smoke
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: and flame as the stricken cars do haines sell sharking
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: and vaporized half the middle of the car itself. Then
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: came other voices. Somebody had sighted the explosion. The voice
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 1: in the communicator roared for silence. You, he rasped, If
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: you got him, report yourself, gee gee gee, chattered Murgatroy excited,
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: But Calhoun did not report. He got one of us.
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: Raged the icy voice get ahead of him and blast him.
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: Calhoun's car went streaking down the farest side of the
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: traffic bridge. It rounded a curve on two wheels. It
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: flashed between two gigantic empty buildings and came to a
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: sideway and plunged into that and came again to a
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: division and took the left hand turn, and next time
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: took the right, But the muttering voices continued. In the communicator,
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: a voice by name was ordered to the highest possible bridge,
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: from which it could watch all lower level roadways. Others
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: were to post themselves here and there, and to stay still.
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: A group of four cars was coming out of the
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: storage building. Blast any single car in motion, blast it
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: and report, report, Report I suspect, said Calhoun to the
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: agitatedtroit beside him, that this is what is known as
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: military tactics. If they ring us in, there aren't but
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: so many of them. Though the trick for us is
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 1: to get out of the city. We need more choices
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: for action. So the communicator panted a report of his
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: sighting from a cobweb like bridge at the highest point
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 1: of the city he was heading. He changed his heading.
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: He has so far seen but one car of his pursuers.
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: Now he went racing along empty, curving highways, among untintted
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: towers and between balconied walls with blank eyed windows gazing
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 1: at him everywhere. It was nightmarish because of the magnificence
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: and the emptiness of the city all about him. He
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: plunged along graceful highways, across delicately arched bridges, through crazy
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: ramifications of its lesser traffic orderies, and he saw no
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: motion anywhere. The wind whistled past the car windows, and
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: the tires sang a high pitched wine, and the sun
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: shone down, and small clouds floated tranquility in the sky.
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: There was no sign of life or danger anywhere on
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: the splendid highways or in the heart wrenchingly beautiful buildings.
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: Only voices muttered in the communicator of the car. He'd
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: been seen here. Flashing around a steeply banked curve, he
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: swerved from a waiting ambush by pure chance he saw
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: green to the left. He dived down a sloping ramp
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: toward one of the smaller park areas of the city,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: and as he came from between the stone guard rails
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: of the road, the top of the car exploded over
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 1: his head. He swerved and roared into dense shrubbery, jerked
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: murgatrod free despite the turmoils, clinging fast with all four
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: paws and his tail, and dived into the underbrush. He ran,
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: swearing and plucking solidified droplets of still hot metal from
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: his garments and his flesh. They hurt abominably, but the
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: man who'd fired wouldn't believe he'd missed. Followed by as
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: his blasting was by the instant wrecking of the car.
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: The man who'd fired would report his success before he
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: moved to view the corpse of his supposed victim. But
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: there'd be other cars coming at the moment. It was
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: necessary for Calhoun to get elsewhere fast. He heard the
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: rushing sound of arriving cars while he panted and sweated
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: through the foliage of the park. He reached the far
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: side in the road, and on beyond there was a
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: low stone wall. He knew instantly what it was. Service
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: highways ran in cuts, now and again roofed over to
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: hide them from sight, but now and again open to
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: the sky for ventilation. He'd entered the city by one
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: of them. Here was another. He swung himself over the
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: wall and dropped murcatroyd recklessly and excitedly followed. It was
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: a long drop, and he was staggered when he landed.
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: He heard a soft rushing noise above. A car raced past.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: Instants later, another limping Calhoun ran to the nearest service gate.
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: He entered and closed it. Scorched and aching, he climbed
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: to the echoing upper stories of the building. Presently he
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: looked out. His car had been wrecked in one of
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: the smaller park areas of the city. Now there were
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 1: other cars at two hundred yard intervals all about it.
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: It was believed that he was in the brushwoods somewhere
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: besides the cars of the garden. There were now twenty
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: men on foot, retrieving orders from an authoritative figure. In
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 1: their midst they scattered twenty yards apart. They began to
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: move across the park. Other men arrived and strengthened the
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: corridor toward which he was supposed to be driven. A
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: fly could not have escaped. Those who marched across the
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: park began methodically to burn it to ashes before them
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: with their blasters. Calhoun watched. Then he remembered something and
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: was appalled. Among the fugitives in the glade, Kim Walpole
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: had asked hungrily if they whose lives he had saved,
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: could not do something to help him, and he said
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: that if they saw the smoke of a good sized
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: fire in the city, they might investigate. He'd had no
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: faintest intention of calling on them, but they might see
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: this cloud of smoke and believe he wanted them to
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 1: come and help. Damn, he said rilely to Murgatrode. After all,
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: there is a limit to any one's series of actions
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 1: with probable favorable chance consequences. I had better start a
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: new one. We might have whittled them down and made
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: the unwittled ones run away, but I had to start
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: using a car, and then they try to blame me
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: for everything. So we start over with a new policy.
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: He explored the building quickly he prepared his measures. He
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: went back to the window from which he looked. He
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: cracked its window. He opened fire with his blaster. The
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: range was long, but with the beam cut down to
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: minimum spread, he knocked over a satisfying number of the
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: men below before they swarmed toward the building, sending before
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: them a barrage of blasted fire that shattered the windows
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: and had the stone facade smoking furiously. This, said Calhoun,
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: is an occasion where we have to change their advantage
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: in numbers and weapons into an unfavorable circumstance for them.
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: They'll be brave because they are many. Let's go. He
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: met the two ground car loads of refugees with his
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: arms in the air. He did not want to be
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: shot down by mistake, he said hurriedly, when Kim and
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: the other lean survivors gathered about him. Everything's all right.
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 1: We've a pack of prisoners, but we won't bother to
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: feed them intraveniously for the moment. How'd you get the
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: ground cars hunters, said Kim savagely. We found them and
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: killed them and took their cars. We found some other
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: refugees too, and I cured them. At least they will
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: be cured. When we saw the smoke, we started for
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: the city. Some of us still have the plague, but
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: we've all had our serum shots. His face worked. When
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: we started for the city, another car overtook us. Naturally,
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: he wasn't suspicious of a car. We blasted him. Half
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: of us have arms, now, I don't think we need them,
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 1: said Calhoun. Our prisoners are quite peacefully sleeping. They stormed
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: a building where I'd fired on them, and I dumped
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: some dextra thrill in the air conditioning system. They keeled over. Later,
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: Murcertrard and I went in and made their slumber more
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 1: lasting with polysulphate. The few who weren't caught. Were I
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: think the city's clean now, but we've got to get
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: to the landing grid control room. There are some calls
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 1: coming in from space. I think the first shipload of
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 1: colonists is arriving. I didn't answer, so they went in
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: orbit around the planet. I want you people to talk
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: to them. We'll bring their ship down, said the bearded
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: man hungrily, and blast them as they come out the
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: exit port. Calhoun shook his head to the contrary, he said, regretfully.
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: You'll put on the clothes of some of our prisoners.
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: You'll tell the arriving colonists so that the plague hit
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: you two. You'll pretend to be one of the characters
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: we really have safely sleeping, and you'll say all the
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: rest have been bowled over by the plague that was
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: sowd here to win the planet for the character as
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: you're talking to. If they land, they'll die, or so
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: you will tell them, And so they will all go
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: home very unhappy, and they'll tell the public about it,
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: and there will be no more ship loads of colonists surarriving.
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: We don't want them. If we persuade them to go
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: home and not come back, there are fewer chances of
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: unfavorable consequences to us, the bearded man growled, but later
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: he was one of the most convincing of the scarecrow
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: figures whose images appeared in the vision plates of the
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: ship overhead. He was especially pathetic and alarming when he'd finished.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: There'd have been a mass mutiny of the passengers had
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: the spaceship Skipper tried to land them. Later on, all
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: the fugitives were very conscientious about bringing the captive invaders
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: out of the lethargy that had been begun by dextra
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: thrill and reinforced by polysulfate. They enjoyed their labor. After
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 1: Calhoun explained they came in their own ship, he said mildly,
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: and is still in the landing grid, which they prepared
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: for us, by the way, and I've been aboard the
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 1: ship with Kim here, and we've smashed their drive and
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: communicators and wreck their do Haines circuits. We took out
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: the breech plugs of their rockets and dumped their rocket fuel.
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: Of course, we remove their landing boats. So we're going
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: to put them in their ship and hoist them up
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: to space with the landing grid and we're going to
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: set them in a lovely orbit to wait until we've
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: time to spare for them. Up there, they can't run,
• 2:25:22
  Speaker 1: or land or even signal if another shipload of colonists
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 1: turns up. They'll feed themselves and they won't need guarding,
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: and they'll be quite safe until we get help from DETRA,
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: and that will come as soon as the METS Service
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: has told Detra that it wasn't a plague but an
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: invasion that seemed to take their colony away from them.
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: But that was Kim Walpole frowning. I'm bringing my ship
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: to the grid, said Calhoun, and we'll recharge my do
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: Haines cells and replace my vision screens. I can make
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: it here on rocket power, but it's a long way
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: back to headquarters. So I'll report and a field team
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: will come here from med Service get the exact data
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: on the plague and just how this synergy factor worked,
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: and to make everything safe for the people the city
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: was built for. Incidentally, I have a tiny blood sample
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: from Helen that they can get to work on for
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: the bacteriology, Kim said, frowning. I wish we could do
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: something for you. Put up a statue, said Calhoun dryly,
• 2:26:25
  Speaker 1: and in twenty years nobody will know what it was.
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: For you and Helen are going to be married, aren't you.
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 1: When Kim nodded, Calhoun said, in course of time, if
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: you remember and think it worthwhile, you may inflict the
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: child with my name, that child will wonder why and ask,
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 1: and so my memory will be kept green for a
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: full generation longer than that, insisted Kim, You'll never be
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: forgotten here. Calhoun grinned at him. Three days later, which
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: was six days longer than he'd ecpt expected to be grounded.
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: On Mars three, the landing grid heaved the little medship
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: out to space. The beautiful, nearly empty city dwindled as
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: the grid feel took the tiny spacecraft out to five
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: planetary diameters and then released it, and Calhoun spun the
• 2:27:17
  Speaker 1: medship about and oriented it carefully for that place in
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: the Cephis cluster where MED Service headquarters was, and through
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: the overdrive switch, the universe reeled. Calhoun's stomach seemed to
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: turn over twice, and he had a sickish feeling of
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: spiraling dizzily in what was somehow a cone. He swallowed.
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd made gulping noises. There was no longer a universe
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: perceptible about the ship. There was dead silence. Then those
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: small random noises began, which have to be provided if
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: a man is not to crack up in the dead
• 2:27:55
  Speaker 1: stillness of a ship traveling at thirty times the speed
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: of light. Then there was there's nothing more to do.
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: In overdrive travel, there was never anything to do but
• 2:28:04
  Speaker 1: pass the time away. Murgatroyd took his right hand whiskers
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: in his right paw and licked them elaborately. He did
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: the same to his left hand whiskers. He contemplated the cabin,
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: deciding upon a soft place in which to go to sleep.
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: Murgatroyd said Calhoun severely. I have to have an argument
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: with you. You imitate us humans too much. Kim Walpole
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: caught you prowling around with an injector, starting to give
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: our prisoners another shot of polysulfate. It might have killed
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: them personally, I think it would have been a good idea,
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 1: but in a medical man it would have been most unethical.
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: We professional men have to curb our impulses, understand gee,
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: said Murgatroyd. He curled up and wrapped his tail meticulously
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: about his nose. Preparing to doze, Calhoun settled himself comfortably
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: in his bunk. He picked up a book. It was Fitzgerald,
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: on Probability and Human Conduct. He began to read as
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: the ship went on through emptiness. End of Part six,
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 1: End of med Service by Murray Leinster. This story told
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: by Phil Schineber March twenty twenty three.