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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Med Ship Man - -Author: Murray Leinster - -Release Date: January 22, 2016 [EBook #50999] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MED SHIP MAN *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="373" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>MED SHIP MAN</h1> - -<p>By MURRAY LEINSTER</p> - -<p>Illustrated by ENSH</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Galaxy Magazine October 1963.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3"><i>His work was healing the sick—but<br /> -this planet was already dead!</i></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus1.jpg" width="562" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">I</p> - -<p>Calhoun regarded the communicator with something like exasperation as -his taped voice repeated a standard approach-call for the twentieth -time. But no answer came, which had become irritating a long time ago. -This was a new Med Service sector for Calhoun. He'd been assigned to -another man's tour of duty because the other man had been taken down -with romance. He'd gotten married, which ruled him out for Med Ship -duty. So now Calhoun listened to his own voice endlessly repeating a -call that should have been answered immediately.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd the <i>tormal</i> watched with beady, interested eyes. The planet -Maya lay off to port of the Med Ship <i>Esclipus Twenty</i>. Its almost -circular disk showed full size on a vision screen beside the ship's -control board. The image was absolutely clear and vividly colored. -There was an ice cap in view. There were continents. There were seas. -The cloud system of a considerable cyclonic disturbance could be noted -off at one side, and the continents looked reasonably as they should, -and the seas were of that muddy, indescribable tint which indicates -deep water.</p> - -<p>Calhoun's own voice, taped an hour earlier, sounded in a speaker as it -went again to the communicator and then to the extremely visible world -a hundred thousand miles away.</p> - -<p>"<i>Calling ground</i>," said Calhoun's recorded voice. "<i>Med Ship</i> Esclipus -Twenty <i>calling ground to report arrival and ask coordinates for -landing. Our mass is fifty standard tons. Repeat, five-oh tons. Purpose -of landing, planetary health inspection.</i>"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The recorded voice stopped. There was silence except for the taped -random noises which kept the inside of the ship from feeling like the -inside of a tomb.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd said: "<i>Chee?</i>"</p> - -<p>Calhoun said ironically, "Undoubtedly, Murgatroyd. Undoubtedly! -Whoever's on duty at the spaceport stepped out for a moment, or dropped -dead, or did something equally inconvenient. We have to wait until he -gets back or somebody else takes over."</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd said "<i>Chee!</i>" again and began to lick his whiskers. He -knew that when Calhoun called on the communicator, another human voice -should reply. Then there should be conversation, and shortly the -force-fields of a landing-grid should take hold of the Med Ship and -draw it planet-ward. In time it ought to touch ground in a spaceport -with a gigantic, silvery landing-grid rising skyward all about it. -Then there should be people greeting Calhoun cordially and welcoming -Murgatroyd with smiles and petting.</p> - -<p>"<i>Calling ground</i>," said the recorded voice yet again. "<i>Med Ship</i> -Esclipus Twenty—"</p> - -<p>It went on through the formal notice of arrival. Murgatroyd waited -in pleasurable anticipation. When the Med Ship arrived at a port of -call humans gave him sweets and cakes, and they thought it charming -that he drank coffee just like a human, only with more gusto. Aground, -Murgatroyd moved zestfully in society while Calhoun worked. Calhoun's -work was conferences with planetary health officials, politely -receiving such information as they thought important, and tactfully -telling them about the most recent developments in medical science as -known to the Interstellar Medical Service.</p> - -<p>"Somebody," said Calhoun darkly, "is going to catch the devil for this!"</p> - -<p>The communicator loudspeaker spoke abruptly.</p> - -<p>"Calling Med Ship," said a voice. "Calling Med Ship <i>Esclipus Twenty</i>! -Liner <i>Candida</i> calling. Have you had an answer from ground?"</p> - -<p>Calhoun blinked. Then he said curtly:</p> - -<p>"Not yet. I've been calling all of half an hour, and never a word out -of them!"</p> - -<p>"We've been in orbit twelve hours," said the voice from emptiness. -"Calling all the while. No answer. We don't like it."</p> - -<p>Calhoun flipped a switch that threw a vision screen into circuit -with the ship's electron telescope. A starfield appeared and shifted -wildly. Then a bright dot centered itself. He raised the magnification. -The bright dot swelled and became a chubby commercial ship, with -the false ports that passengers like to believe they looked through -when in space. Two relatively large cargo ports on each side showed -that it carried heavy freight in addition to passengers. It was one -of those workhorse intra-cluster ships that distributed the freight -and passengers the long-haul liners dumped off only at established -transshipping ports.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd padded across the Med Ship's cabin and examined the image -with a fine air of wisdom. It did not mean anything to him, but -<i>tormals</i> imitate human actions as parrots and parrakeets imitate human -speech. He said, "<i>Chee!</i>" as if making an observation of profound -significance, then went back to the cushion and again curled up.</p> - -<p>"We don't see anything wrong aground," the liner's voice complained, -"but they don't answer calls! We don't get any scatter-signals either. -We went down to two diameters and couldn't pick up a thing. And we have -a passenger to land. He insists on it!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>By ordinary, communications between different places on a planet's -surface use frequencies the ion-layers of the atmosphere either reflect -or refract down past the horizon. But there is usually some small -leakage to space, and line-of-sight frequencies are generally abundant. -It is one of the annoyances of a ship coming in to port that space near -most planets is usually full of local signals.</p> - -<p>"I'll check," said Calhoun curtly. "Stand by."</p> - -<p>The <i>Candida</i> would have arrived off Maya as the Med Ship had done, and -called down as Calhoun had been doing. It was very probably a ship on -schedule and the grid operator at the spaceport should have expected -it. Space commerce was important to any planet, comparing more or less -with the export-import business of an industrial nation in ancient -times on Earth. Planets had elaborate traffic-aid systems for the -cargo-carriers which moved between solar systems as they'd once moved -between continents on Earth. Such traffic aids were very carefully -maintained. Certainly for a spaceport landing-grid not to respond to -calls for twelve hours running seemed ominous.</p> - -<p>"We've been wondering," said the <i>Candida</i> querulously, "if there could -be something radically wrong below. Sickness, for example."</p> - -<p>The word "sickness" was a substitute for a more alarming word. But a -plague had nearly wiped out the population of Dorset, once upon a time, -and the first ships to arrive after it had broken out most incautiously -went down to ground, and so carried the plague to their next two ports -of call. Nowadays quarantine regulations were enforced very strictly -indeed.</p> - -<p>"I'll try to find out what's the matter," said Calhoun.</p> - -<p>"We've got a passenger," repeated the <i>Candida</i> aggrievedly, "who -insists that we land him by space-boat if we don't make a ship landing. -He says he has important business aground."</p> - -<p>Calhoun did not answer. The rights of passengers were extravagantly -protected, these days. To fail to deliver a passenger to his -destination entitled him to punitive damages which no spaceline could -afford. So the Med Ship would seem heaven-sent to the <i>Candida's</i> -skipper. Calhoun could relieve him of responsibility.</p> - -<p>The telescope screen winked and showed the surface of the planet a -hundred thousand miles away. Calhoun glared at the image on the port -screen and guided the telescope to the spaceport city—Maya City. He -saw highways and blocks of buildings. He saw the spaceport and its -landing-grid. He could see no motion, of course.</p> - -<p>He raised the magnification. He raised it again. Still no motion. He -upped the magnification until the lattice-pattern of the telescope's -amplifying crystal began to show. But at the ship's distance from the -planet, a ground-car would represent only the fortieth of a second of -arc. There was atmosphere, too, with thermals; anything the size of a -ground-car simply couldn't be seen.</p> - -<p>But the city showed quite clearly. Nothing massive had happened to it. -No large-scale physical disaster had occurred. It simply did not answer -calls from space.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Calhoun flipped off the screen.</p> - -<p>"I think," he said irritably into the communicator microphone, "I -suspect I'll have to make an emergency landing. It could be something -as trivial as a power failure—" but he knew that was wildly -improbable—"or it could be—anything. I'll land on rockets and tell -you what I find."</p> - -<p>The voice from the <i>Candida</i> said hopefully:</p> - -<p>"Can you authorize us to refuse to land our passenger for his own -protection? He's raising the devil! He insists that his business -demands that he be landed."</p> - -<p>A word from Calhoun as a Med Service man would protect the spaceliner -from a claim for damages. But Calhoun didn't like the look of things. -He realized, distastefully, that he might find practically anything -down below. He might find that he had to quarantine the planet and -himself with it. In such a case he'd need the <i>Candida</i> to carry word -of the quarantine to other planets and thus to Med Service sector -headquarters.</p> - -<p>"We've lost a lot of time," insisted the <i>Candida</i>. "Can you authorize -us—"</p> - -<p>"Not yet," said Calhoun. "I'll tell you when I land."</p> - -<p>"But—"</p> - -<p>"I'm signing off for the moment," said Calhoun. "Stand by."</p> - -<p>He headed the little ship downward, and as it gathered velocity he went -over the briefing sheets covering this particular world. He'd never -touched ground here before. His occupation, of course, was seeing to -the dissemination of medical science as it developed under the Med -Service. The Service itself was neither political nor administrative. -But it was important. Every human-occupied world was supposed to have -a Med Ship visit at least once in four years to verify the state of -public health.</p> - -<p>Med Ship men like Calhoun offered advice on public-health problems. -When something out of the ordinary turned up, the Med Service had a -staff of researchers who hadn't been wholly baffled yet. There were -great ships which could carry the ultimate in laboratory equipment and -specialized personnel to any place where they were needed. Not less -than a dozen inhabited worlds in this sector alone owed the survival -of their populations to the Med Service, and the number of those which -couldn't have been colonized without Med Service help was legion.</p> - -<p>Calhoun reread the briefing. Maya was one of four planets in this -general area whose life systems seemed to have had a common origin, -suggesting that the Arrhenius theory of space-traveling spores was true -in some limited sense. A genus of ground-cover plants with motile stems -and leaves and cannibalistic tendencies was considered strong evidence -of common origin.</p> - -<p>The planet had been colonized for two centuries now, and produced -organic compounds of great value from indigenous plants, most of -which were used in textile manufacture. There were no local endemic -infections to which men were susceptible. A number of human-use crops -were grown. Cereals, grasses and grains, however, could not be grown -because of the native ground-cover motile-stem plants. All wheat and -cereal food had to be imported, which fact severely limited Maya's -population. There were about two million people on the planet, settled -on a peninsula in the Yucatan Sea and a small area of mainland. -Public-health surveys had shown a great many things about a great -many subjects ... but there was no mention of anything to account for -the failure of the spaceport to respond to arrival calls from space. -Naturally!</p> - -<p>The Med Ship drove on down, and the planet revolved beneath it.</p> - -<p>As Maya's sunlit hemisphere enlarged, Calhoun kept the telescope's -field wide. He saw cities, and vast areas of cleared land where native -plants were grown as raw materials for the organics' manufacturies. He -saw very little true chlorophyll green, though. Mayan foliage tended to -a dark olive color.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>At fifty miles he was sure that the city streets were empty even -of ground-car traffic. There was no spaceship aground in the -landing-grid. There were no ground-cars in motion on the splendid, -multiple-lane highways.</p> - -<p>At thirty miles altitude there were still no signals in the atmosphere, -though when he tried amplitude-modulation reception he picked up -static. But there was no normally modulated signal on the air at any -frequency. At twenty miles—no. At fifteen miles, broadcast power was -available, which proved that the landing-grid was working as usual, -tapping the upper atmosphere for electric charges to furnish power for -all the planet's needs.</p> - -<p>From ten miles down to ground-touch, Calhoun was busy.</p> - -<p>It is not too difficult to land a ship on rockets, with reasonably -level ground to land on. But landing at a specific spot is something -else. Calhoun juggled the ship to descend inside the grid itself. His -rockets burned out pencil-thin holes through the clay and stone beneath -the tarmac. He cut them off.</p> - -<p>Silence. Stillness. The Med Ship's outside microphones picked up small -noises of wind blowing over the city. There was no other sound at all.</p> - -<p>—No. There was a singularly deliberate clicking sound, not loud and -not fast. Perhaps a click—a double click—every two seconds. That was -all.</p> - -<p>Calhoun went into the airlock, with Murgatroyd frisking a little in -the expectation of great social success among the people of this world. -When Calhoun cracked the outer airlock door he smelled something. It -was a faintly sour, astringent odor that had the quality of decay in -it. But it was no kind of decay he recognized. Again stillness and -silence. No traffic-noise; not even the almost inaudible murmur that -every city has in all its ways at all hours. The buildings looked as -buildings should look at daybreak, except that the doors and windows -were open. It was somehow shocking.</p> - -<p>A ruined city is dramatic. An abandoned city is pathetic. This was -neither. It was something new. It felt as if everybody had walked away, -out of sight, within the past few minutes.</p> - -<p>Calhoun headed for the spaceport building with Murgatroyd ambling -puzzledly at his side. Murgatroyd was disturbed. There should be people -here! They should welcome Calhoun and admire him—Murgatroyd—and he -should be a social lion with all the sweets he could eat and all the -coffee he could put into his expandable belly. But nothing happened! -Nothing at all.</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee?</i>" he asked anxiously.</p> - -<p>"They've gone away," growled Calhoun. "They probably left in -ground-cars. There's not one in sight."</p> - -<p>There wasn't. Calhoun could look out through the grid foundations -and see long, sunlit and absolutely empty streets. He arrived at the -spaceport building. There was—there had been—a green area about the -base of the structure. There was not a living plant left. Leaves were -wilted and limp. The remains had become almost a jelly of collapsed -stems and blossoms of dark olive-green. The plants were dead; but not -long enough to have dried up. They might have wilted two or three days -before.</p> - -<p>Calhoun went in the building. The spaceport log lay open on a desk. It -recorded the arrival of freight to be shipped away—undoubtedly—on the -<i>Candida</i> now uneasily in orbit somewhere aloft. There was no sign of -disorder. It was exactly as if the people here had walked out to look -at something interesting, and hadn't come back.</p> - -<p>Calhoun trudged out of the spaceport and to the streets and buildings -of the city proper. It was incredible! Doors were opened or unlocked. -Merchandise in the shops lay on display, exactly as it had been spread -out to interest customers. There was no sign of confusion anywhere. -Even in a restaurant there were dishes and flatware on the tables. The -food in the plates was stale, as if three days old, but it hadn't yet -begun to spoil. The appearance of everything was as if people at their -meals had simply, at some signal, gotten up and walked out without any -panic or disturbance.</p> - -<p>Calhoun made a wry face. He'd remembered something. Among the tales -that had been carried from Earth to the other worlds of the galaxy -there was a completely unimportant mystery story which people still -sometimes tried to write an ending to. It was the story of an ancient -sailing ship called the <i>Marie Celeste</i>, which was found drifting -aimlessly in the middle of the ocean. There was food on the cabin -table, and the galley stove was still warm. There was no sign of any -trouble, or terror, or disturbance which might cause the ship to be -abandoned. But there was not a living soul on board. Nobody had ever -been able to contrive a believable explanation.</p> - -<p>"Only," said Calhoun to Murgatroyd, "this is on a larger scale. The -people of this city walked out about three days ago, and didn't come -back. Maybe all the people on the planet did the same, since there's -not a communicator in operation anywhere. To make the understatement -of the century, Murgatroyd, I don't like this. I don't like it a bit!"</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">II</p> - -<p>On the way back to the Med Ship, Calhoun stopped at another place -where, on a grass-growing planet, there would have been green sward. -There were Earth-type trees, and some native ones, and between them -there should have been a lawn. The trees were thriving, but the -ground-cover plants were collapsed and rotting.</p> - -<p>Calhoun picked up a bit of the semi-slime and smelled it. It was -faintly sour, astringent, the same smell he'd noticed when he opened -the airlock door. He threw the stuff away and brushed off his hands. -Something had killed the ground-cover plants which had the habit of -killing Earth-type grass when planted here.</p> - -<p>He listened. Everywhere that humans live, there are insects and birds -and other tiny creatures which are essential parts of the ecological -system to which the human race is adjusted. They have to be carried to -and established upon every new world that mankind hopes to occupy. But -there was no sound of such living creatures here.</p> - -<p>It was probable that the bellowing roar of the Med Ship's emergency -rockets was the only real noise the city had heard since its people -went away.</p> - -<p>The stillness bothered Murgatroyd. He said, "<i>Chee!</i>" in a subdued -tone and stayed close to Calhoun. Calhoun shook his head. Then he said -abruptly:</p> - -<p>"Come along, Murgatroyd!"</p> - -<p>He went back to the building housing the grid controls. He didn't look -at the spaceport log this time. He went to the instruments recording -the second function of a landing-grid. In addition to lifting up and -letting down ships of space, a landing-grid drew down power from the -ions of the upper atmosphere and broadcast it. It provided all the -energy that humans on a world could need. It was solar power, in a way, -absorbed and stored by a layer of ions miles high, which then could be -drawn on and distributed by the grid. During his descent Calhoun had -noted that broadcast power was still available. Now he looked at what -the instruments said.</p> - -<p>The needle on the dial showing power-drain moved slowly back and forth. -It was a rhythmic movement, going from maximum to minimum power-use, -and then back again. Approximately six million kilowatts was being -taken out of the broadcast every two seconds for half of one second. -Then the drain cut off for a second and a half, and went on again for -half a second.</p> - -<p>Frowning, Calhoun raised his eyes to a very fine color photograph on -the wall above the power dials. It was a picture of the human-occupied -part of Maya, taken four thousand miles out in space. It had been -enlarged to four feet by six, and Maya City could be seen as an -irregular group of squares and triangles measuring a little more than -half an inch by three-quarters. The detail was perfect. It was possible -to see perfectly straight, infinitely thin lines moving out from the -city. They were multiple-lane highways, mathematically straight from -one city to another, and then mathematically straight—though at a new -angle—until the next. Calhoun stared thoughtfully at them.</p> - -<p>"The people left the city in a hurry," he told Murgatroyd, "and there -was little confusion, if any. So they knew in advance that they might -have to go. They were ready for it. If they took anything, they had it -ready packed in their cars. But they hadn't been sure they'd have to go -because they were going about their businesses as usual. All the shops -were open and people were eating in restaurants, and so on."</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd said, "<i>Chee!</i>" as if in full agreement.</p> - -<p>"Now," demanded Calhoun, "where did they go? The question's really -where could they go! There were about eight hundred thousand people in -this city. There'd be cars for everyone, of course, and two hundred -thousand cars would take everybody. But that's a lot of ground-cars! -Put 'em two hundred feet apart on a highway, and that's twenty-six -cars to the mile on each lane. Run them at a hundred miles an hour on -a twelve-lane road—using all lanes one way—and that's twenty-six -hundred cars per lane per hour, and that's thirty-one thousand ... two -highways make sixty-two ... three highways.... With two highways they -could empty the city in under three hours, and with three highways -close to two. Since there's no sign of panic, that's what they must -have done. Must have worked it out in advance, too. Maybe they'd done -it before it happened ... whatever it was that happened."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He searched the photograph which was so much more detailed than a map. -There were mountains to the north of Maya City, but only one highway -led north. There were more mountains to the west. One highway went into -them, but not through. To the south there was sea, which curved around -some three hundred miles from Maya City and put the human colony on -Maya on a peninsula.</p> - -<p>"They went east," said Calhoun presently. He traced lines with his -finger. "Three highways go east; that's the only way they could go -quickly. They hadn't been sure they'd have to go but they knew where to -go when they did. So when they got their warning, they left. On three -highways, to the east. And we'll follow them and ask what the hell they -ran away from. Nothing's visible here!"</p> - -<p>He went back to the Med Ship, Murgatroyd skipping with him.</p> - -<p>As the airlock door closed behind them, he heard a click from the -outside-microphone speakers. He listened. It was a doubled clicking, -as of something turned on and almost at once turned off again. There -was a two-second cycle, the same as that of the power drain. Something -drawing six million kilowatts went on and immediately off again every -two seconds. It made a sound in speakers linked to outside microphones, -but it didn't make a noise in the air. The microphone clicks were -induction; pick-up; like cross-talk on defective telephone cables.</p> - -<p>Calhoun shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears. He went to the -communicator.</p> - -<p>"Calling <i>Candida</i>—" he began, and the answer almost leaped down his -throat.</p> - -<p>"<i>Candida</i> to Med Ship. Come in! Come in! What's happened down there?"</p> - -<p>"The city's deserted without any sign of panic," said Calhoun, "and -there's power and nothing seems to be broken down. But it's as if -somebody had said, 'Everybody clear out' and they did. That doesn't -happen on a whim! What's your next port of call?"</p> - -<p>The <i>Candida's</i> voice told him, hopefully.</p> - -<p>"Take a report," commanded Calhoun. "Deliver it to the public health -office immediately you land. They'll get it to Med Service sector -headquarters. I'm going to stay here and find out what's been going on."</p> - -<p>He dictated, growing irritated as he did so because he couldn't explain -what he reported. Something serious had taken place, but there was no -clue as to what it was. Strictly speaking, it wasn't certainly a public -health affair. But any emergency the size of this one involved public -health factors.</p> - -<p>"I'm remaining aground to investigate," finished Calhoun. "I will -report further when or if it is possible. Message ends."</p> - -<p>"What about our passenger?"</p> - -<p>"To the devil with your passenger!" said Calhoun peevishly. "Do as you -please!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He cut off the communicator and prepared for activity outside the ship. -Presently he and Murgatroyd went to look for transportation. The Med -Ship couldn't be used for a search operation; it didn't carry enough -rocket fuel. They'd have to use a ground vehicle.</p> - -<p>It was again shocking to note that nothing had moved but sun shadows. -Again it seemed that everybody had simply walked out of some door or -other and failed to come back. Calhoun saw the windows of jewelers' -shops. Treasures lay unguarded in plain view. He saw a florist's shop. -Here there were Earth-type flowers apparently thriving, and some -strange beautiful flowers with olive-green foliage which throve as well -as the Earth-plants. There was a cage in which a plant had grown, and -that plant was wilting and about to rot. But a plant that had to be -grown in a cage....</p> - -<p>He found a ground-car agency, perhaps for imported cars, perhaps for -those built on Maya. He went in and from the cars on display he chose -one, an elaborate sports car. He turned its key and it hummed. He drove -it carefully out into the empty street, Murgatroyd sitting interestedly -beside him.</p> - -<p>"This is luxury, Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "Also it's grand theft. We -medical characters can't usually afford such things. Or have an excuse -to steal them. But these are parlous times, so we take a chance."</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee!</i>" said Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p>"We want to find a fugitive population and ask what they ran away from. -As of the moment, it seems that they ran away from nothing. They may be -pleased to know they can come back."</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd again said, "<i>Chee!</i>"</p> - -<p>Calhoun drove through vacant ways. It was somehow nerve-racking. He -felt as if someone should pop out and say "Boo!" at any instant. He -discovered an elevated highway and a ramp leading up to it. At a -cloverleaf he drove eastward, watching sharply for any sign of life. -There was none.</p> - -<p>He was nearly out of the city when he felt the chest impact of a sonic -boom, and then heard a trailing away growling sound which seemed to -come from farther away as it died out. It was the result of something -traveling faster than sound, so that the noise it made far away had to -catch up with the sound it emitted nearby.</p> - -<p>He stared up. He saw a parachute blossom as a bare speck against the -blue. Then he heard the even deeper-toned roaring of a supersonic craft -climbing skyward. It could be a spaceliner's lifeboat, descended into -atmosphere and going out again.</p> - -<p>It was. It had left a parachute behind, and now went back to space to -rendezvous with its parent ship.</p> - -<p>"That," said Calhoun impatiently, "will be the <i>Candida's</i> passenger. -He was insistent enough."</p> - -<p>He scowled. The <i>Candida's</i> voice had said its passenger demanded to -be landed for business reasons. And Calhoun had a prejudice against -some kinds of business men who would think their own affairs more -important than anything else. Two standard years before, he'd made a -planetary health inspection on Texia II, in another galactic sector. It -was a llano planet and a single giant business enterprise. Illimitable -prairies had been sown with an Earth-type grass which destroyed -the native ground-cover—the reverse of the ground-cover situation -here—and the entire planet was a monstrous range for beef cattle. -Dotted about were gigantic slaughterhouses, and cattle in masses of -tens of thousands were shifted here and there by ground-induction -fields which acted as fences. Ultimately the cattle were driven by -these same induction fences to the slaughter houses and actually into -the chutes where their throats were slit. Every imaginable fraction of -a credit of profit was extracted from their carcasses, and Calhoun had -found it appalling.</p> - -<p>He was not sentimental about cattle, but the complete cold-bloodedness -of the entire operation sickened him. The same cold-bloodedness was -practised toward the human employees who ran the place. Their living -quarters were sub-marginal. The air stank of cattle murder. Men worked -for the Texia Company or they did not work. If they did not work -they did not eat. If they worked and ate,—Calhoun could see nothing -satisfying in being alive on a world like that! His report to Med -Service had been biting. He'd been prejudiced against businessmen ever -since.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But a parachute descended, blowing away from the city. It would land -not too far from the highway he followed. And it didn't occur to -Calhoun not to help the unknown chutist. He saw a small figure dangling -below the chute. He slowed the ground-car as he estimated where the -parachute would land.</p> - -<p>He was off the twelve-lane highway and on a feeder road when the chute -was a hundred feet high. He was racing across a field of olive-green -plants that went all the way to the horizon when the parachute actually -touched ground. There was a considerable wind. The man in the harness -bounced. He didn't know how to spill the air. The chute dragged him.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus2.jpg" width="600" height="379" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Calhoun sped ahead, swerved and ran into the chute. He stopped the car -and the chute stopped with it. He got out.</p> - -<p>The man lay in a hopeless tangle of cordage. He thrust unskilfully at -it. When Calhoun came up he said suspiciously:</p> - -<p>"Have you a knife?"</p> - -<p>Calhoun offered a knife, politely opening its blade. The man slashed -at the cords and freed himself. There was an attache case lashed to -his chute harness. He cut at those cords. The attache case not only -came clear, but opened. It dumped out an incredible mass of brand new, -tightly packed interstellar credit certificates. Calhoun could see that -the denominations were one thousand and ten thousand credits. The man -from the chute reached under his armpit and drew out a blaster.</p> - -<p>It was not a service weapon. It was elaborate, practically a toy. With -a dour glance at Calhoun he put it in a side pocket and gathered up -the scattered money. It was an enormous sum, but he packed it back. He -stood up.</p> - -<p>"My name is Allison," he said in an authoritative voice. "Arthur -Allison. I'm much obliged. Now I'll ask you to take me to Maya City."</p> - -<p>"No," said Calhoun politely. "I just left there. It's deserted. I'm not -going back. There's nobody there."</p> - -<p>"But I've important bus—" The other man stared. "It's deserted? But -that's impossible!"</p> - -<p>"Quite," agreed Calhoun, "but it's true. It's abandoned. Uninhabited. -Everybody's left it. There's no one there at all."</p> - -<p>The man who called himself Allison blinked unbelievingly. He swore. -Then he raged profanely.</p> - -<p>But he was not bewildered by the news. Which, upon consideration, was -itself almost bewildering. But then his eyes grew shrewd. He looked -about him.</p> - -<p>"My name is Allison," he repeated, as if there were some sort of magic -in the word. "Arthur Allison. No matter what's happened, I've some -business to do here. Where have the people gone? I need to find them."</p> - -<p>"I need to find them too," said Calhoun. "I'll take you with me, if you -like."</p> - -<p>"You've heard of me." It was a statement, confidently made.</p> - -<p>"Never," said Calhoun politely. "If you're not hurt, suppose you get in -the car? I'm as anxious as you are to find out what's happened. I'm Med -Service."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Allison moved toward the car.</p> - -<p>"Med Service, eh? I don't think much of the Med Service! You people -try to meddle in things that are none of your business!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun did not answer. The muddy man, clutching the attache case -tightly, waded through the olive-green plants to the car and climbed -in. Murgatroyd said cordially, "<i>Chee-chee!</i>" but Allison viewed him -with distaste.</p> - -<p>"What's this?"</p> - -<p>"He's Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "He's a <i>tormal</i>. He's Med service -personnel."</p> - -<p>"I don't like beasts," said Allison coldly.</p> - -<p>"He's much more important to me than you are," said Calhoun, "if the -matter should come to a test."</p> - -<p>Allison stared at him as if expecting him to cringe. Calhoun did not. -Allison showed every sign of being an important man who expected his -importance to be recognized and catered to. When Calhoun stirred -impatiently he got into the car and growled a little. Calhoun took -his place. The ground-car hummed. It rose on the six columns of air -which took the place of wheels and slid across the field of dark-green -plants, leaving the parachute deflated across a number of rows, and a -trail of crushed-down plants where it had moved.</p> - -<p>It reached the highway again. Calhoun ran the car up on the highway's -shoulder, and then suddenly checked. He'd noticed something.</p> - -<p>He stopped the car and got out. Where the ploughed field ended, and -before the coated surface of the highway began, there was a space where -on another world one would expect to see green grass.</p> - -<p>On this planet grass did not grow; but there would normally be some -sort of self-planted vegetation where there was soil and sunshine and -moisture. There had been such vegetation here, but now there was only a -thin, repellent mass of slimy and decaying foliage. Calhoun bent down -to it.</p> - -<p>It had a sour, faintly astringent smell of decay. These were the -ground-cover plants of Maya of which Calhoun had read. They had motile -stems, leaves and flowers, and they had cannibalistic tendencies. They -were the local weeds which made it impossible to grow grain for human -use upon this world.</p> - -<p>And they were dead.</p> - -<p>Calhoun straightened up and returned to the car. Plants like this were -wilted at the base of the spaceport building, and on another place -where there should have been sward. Calhoun had seen a large dead -member of the genus in a florist's, that had been growing in a cage -before it died. There was a singular coincidence here: humans ran away -from something, and something caused the death of a particular genus -of cannibal weeds.</p> - -<p>It did not exactly add up to anything in particular, and certainly -wasn't evidence for anything at all. But Calhoun drove on in a vaguely -puzzled mood. The germ of a guess was forming in his mind. He couldn't -pretend to himself that it was likely, but it was surely no more -unlikely than most of a million human beings abandoning their homes at -a moment's notice.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">III</p> - -<p>They came to the turnoff for a town called Tenochitlan, some forty -miles from Maya City. Calhoun swung off the highway to go through it.</p> - -<p>Whoever had chosen the name Maya for this planet had been interested -in the legends of Yucatan, back on Earth. There were many instances of -such hobbies in a Med Ship's list of ports of call. Calhoun touched -ground regularly on planets that had been named for countries and towns -when men first roamed the stars, and nostalgically christened their -discoveries with names suggested by homesickness. There was a Tralee, -and a Dorset, and an Eire. Colonists not infrequently took their -world's given name as a pattern and chose related names for seas and -peninsulas and mountain chains. On Texia the landing-grid rose near a -town called Corral and the principal meat-packing settlement was named -Roundup.</p> - -<p>Whatever the name Tenochitlan would have suggested, though, was denied -by the town itself. It was small, with a pleasing local type of -architecture. There were shops and some factories, and many strictly -private homes, some clustered close together and others in the middles -of considerable gardens. In those gardens also there was wilt and decay -among the cannibal plants. There was no grass, because the plants -prevented it, but now the motile plants themselves were dead. Except -for the one class of killed growing things, however, vegetation was -luxuriant.</p> - -<p>But the little city was deserted. Its streets were empty, its houses -untenanted. Some houses were apparently locked up here, though, and -Calhoun saw three or four shops whose stock in trade had been covered -over before the owners departed. He guessed that either this town had -been warned earlier than the spaceport city, or else they knew they had -time to get in motion before the highways were filled with the cars -from the west.</p> - -<p>Allison looked at the houses with keen, evaluating eyes. He did not -seem to notice the absence of people. When Calhoun swung back on the -great road beyond the little city, Allison regarded the endless fields -of dark-green plants with much the same sort of interest.</p> - -<p>"Interesting," he said abruptly when Tenochitlan fell behind and -dwindled to a speck. "Very interesting! I'm interested in land. Real -property, that's my business. I've a land-owning corporation on Thanet -Three. I've some holdings on Dorset, too, and elsewhere. It just -occurred to me: what's all this land and the cities worth, with the -people all run away?"</p> - -<p>"What," asked Calhoun, "are the people worth who've run?"</p> - -<p>Allison paid no attention. He looked shrewd. Thoughtful.</p> - -<p>"I came here to buy land," he said. "I'd arranged to buy some hundreds -of square miles. I'd buy more if the price were right. But—as things -are, it looks like the price of land ought to go down quite a bit. -Quite a bit!"</p> - -<p>"It depends," said Calhoun, "on whether there's anybody left alive to -sell it to you, and what sort of thing has happened."</p> - -<p>Allison looked at him sharply.</p> - -<p>"Ridiculous!" he said authoritatively. "There's no question of their -being alive!"</p> - -<p>"They thought there might be," observed Calhoun. "That's why they ran -away. They hoped they'd be safe where they ran to. I hope they are."</p> - -<p>Allison ignored the comment. His eyes remained intent and shrewd. He -was not bewildered by the flight of the people of Maya. His mind was -busy with contemplation of that flight from the standpoint of a man of -business.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The car went racing onward. The endless fields of dark green rushed -past to the rear. The highway was deserted, just three strips of -surfaced road, mathematically straight, going on to the horizon. They -went on by tens and scores of miles, each strip wide enough to allow -four ground-cars to run side by side. The highway was intended to -allow all the produce of all these fields to be taken to market or a -processing plant at the highest possible speed and in any imaginable -quantity. The same roads had allowed the cities to be deserted -instantly the warning—whatever the warning was—arrived.</p> - -<p>Fifty miles beyond Tenochitlan there was a mile-long strip of sheds -containing agricultural machinery for crop culture and trucks to carry -the crops to market. There was no sign of life about the machinery, nor -in a further hour's run to westward.</p> - -<p>Then there was a city visible to the left. But it was not served -by this particular highway, but another. There was no sign of any -movement in its streets. It moved along the horizon to the left and -rear. Presently it disappeared.</p> - -<p>Half an hour later still, Murgatroyd said:</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee!</i>"</p> - -<p>He stirred uneasily. A moment later he said "<i>Chee!</i>" again.</p> - -<p>Calhoun turned his eyes from the road. Murgatroyd looked unhappy. -Calhoun ran his hand over the <i>tormal's</i> furry body. Murgatroyd pressed -against him. The car raced on. Murgatroyd whimpered a little. Calhoun's -hand felt the little animal's muscles tense sharply, and then relax, -and after a little tense again. Murgatroyd said almost hysterically:</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee-chee-chee-chee!</i>"</p> - -<p>Calhoun stopped the car, but Murgatroyd did not seem to be relieved. -Allison said impatiently, "What's the matter?"</p> - -<p>"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Calhoun.</p> - -<p>He felt Murgatroyd's pulse. The role of Murgatroyd in the Med Ship -<i>Esclipus Twenty</i> was not only that of charming companion in the long, -isolated runs in overdrive. Murgatroyd was a part of the Med Service. -His tribe had been discovered on a planet in the Deneb sector, and -men had made pets of them, to the high satisfaction of the <i>tormals</i>. -Presently it was discovered that veterinarians never had <i>tormals</i> -for patients. They were invariably in robustuous good health. They -contracted no infections from other animals; they shared no infections -with anybody else. The Med Service discovered that <i>tormals</i> possessed -a dynamic immunity to germ and bacteria-caused diseases. Even -viruses injected into their bloodstreams only provoked an immediate, -overwhelming development of antibodies, so that <i>tormals</i> couldn't be -given any known disease. Which was of infinite value to the Med Service.</p> - -<p>Now every Med Ship that could be supplied with a <i>tormal</i> carried a -small, affectionate, whiskered member of the tribe. Men liked them, -and they adored men. And when, as sometimes happened, by mutation or -the simple enmity of nature, a new kind of infection appeared in human -society—why—<i>tormals</i> defeated it. They produced specific antibodies -to destroy it. Men analyzed the antibodies and synthesized them, and -they were available to all the humans who needed them. So a great many -millions of humans stayed alive, because <i>tormals</i> were pleasant little -animals with a precious genetic gift of good health.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Calhoun looked at his sweep-second watch, timing the muscular spasms -that Murgatroyd displayed. They coincided with irregularities in -Murgatroyd's heartbeat, coming at approximately two-second intervals. -The tautening of the muscles lasted just about half a second.</p> - -<p>"But I don't feel it!" said Calhoun.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd whimpered again and said, "<i>Chee-chee!</i>"</p> - -<p>"What's going on?" demanded Allison with the impatience of a very -important man indeed. "If the beast's sick, he's sick! I've got to -find—"</p> - -<p>Calhoun opened his med kit and went carefully through it until he found -what he needed. He put a pill into Murgatroyd's mouth.</p> - -<p>"Swallow it!" he commanded.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd resisted, but the pill went down. Calhoun watched him -sharply. Murgatroyd's digestive system was delicate, but it was -dependable. Anything that might be poisonous, Murgatroyd's stomach -rejected instantly and emphatically.</p> - -<p>The pill stayed down.</p> - -<p>"Look!" said Allison indignantly. "I've got business to do! In this -attache case I have millions of interstellar credits, in cash, to pay -down on purchases of land and factories. I ought to make some damned -good deals! And I figure that that's as important as anything else you -can think of! It's a damned sight more important than a beast with a -belly-ache!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun looked at him coldly.</p> - -<p>"Do you own land on Texia?" he asked.</p> - -<p>Allison's mouth dropped open. Extreme suspicion and unease appeared -on his face. As a sign of the unease, his hand went to the side coat -pocket in which he'd put a blaster. He didn't pluck it out. Calhoun's -left fist swung around and landed. He took Allison's elaborate pocket -blaster and threw it away among the monotonous rows of olive-green -plants. He returned to absorbed observation of Murgatroyd.</p> - -<p>In five minutes the muscular spasms diminished. In ten, Murgatroyd -frisked. But he seemed to think that Calhoun had done something -remarkable. In the warmest of tones he said:</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee!</i>"</p> - -<p>"Very good," said Calhoun. "We'll go ahead. I suspect you'll do as well -as we do—for a while."</p> - -<p>The car lifted the few inches the air columns sustained it above the -ground. It went on, still to the eastward. But Calhoun drove more -slowly now.</p> - -<p>"Something was giving Murgatroyd rhythmic muscular spasms," he said -coldly. "I gave him medication to stop them. He's more sensitive than -we are, so he reacted to a stimulus we haven't noticed yet. But I -think we'll notice it presently."</p> - -<p>Allison seemed to be dazed at the affront given him. It appeared to be -unthinkable that anybody might lay hands on him.</p> - -<p>"What the devil has that to do with me?" he demanded angrily. "And what -did you hit me for? You're going to pay for this!"</p> - -<p>"Until I do," Calhoun told him, "you'll be quiet. And it does have the -devil to do with you. There was a Med Service gadget once—a tricky -little device to produce contraction of chosen muscles. It was useful -for re-starting stopped hearts without the need of an operation. -It regulated the beat of hearts that were too slow or dangerously -irregular. But some businessman had a bright idea and got a tame -researcher to link that gadget to ground induction currents. I suspect -you know that businessman!"</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you're talking about," snapped Allison. But he was -singularly tense.</p> - -<p>"I do," said Calhoun unpleasantly. "I made a public health inspection -on Texia a couple of years ago. The whole planet is a single, gigantic, -cattle-raising enterprise. They don't use metal fences—the herds are -too big to be stopped by such things. They don't use cowboys—they cost -money. On Texia they use ground-induction and the Med Service gadget -linked together to serve as cattle fences. They act like fences, though -they're projected through the ground. Cattle become uncomfortable when -they try to cross them. So they draw back. So men control them. They -move them from place to place by changing the cattle fences, which -are currents induced in the ground. The cattle have to keep moving -or be punished by the moving fence. They're even driven into the -slaughterhouse chutes by ground-induction fields! That's the trick -on Texia, where induction fields herd cattle. I think it's the trick -on Maya, where people are herded like cattle and driven out of their -cities so the value of their fields and factories will drop,—so a land -buyer can find bargains!"</p> - -<p>"You're insane!" snapped Allison. "I just landed on this planet! You -saw me land! I don't know what happened before I got here! How could I?"</p> - -<p>"You might have arranged it," said Calhoun.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Allison assumed an air of offended and superior dignity. Calhoun drove -the car onward at very much less than the head-long pace he'd been -keeping to. Presently he looked down at his hands on the steering -wheel. Now and then the tendons to his fingers seemed to twitch. At -rhythmic intervals, the skin crawled on the back of his hands. He -glanced at Allison. Allison's hands were tightly clenched.</p> - -<p>"There's a ground-induction fence in action, all right," said Calhoun -calmly. "You notice? It's a cattle fence and we're running into it. If -we were cattle, now, we'd turn around and move away."</p> - -<p>"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Allison.</p> - -<p>But his hands stayed clenched. Calhoun slowed the car still more. He -began to feel, all over his body, that every muscle tended to twitch at -the same time. It was a horrible sensation. His heart muscles tended -to contract too, simultaneously with the rest, but one's heart has its -own beat rate. Sometimes the normal beat coincided with the twitch. -Then his heart pounded violently—so violently that it was painful. But -equally often the imposed contraction of the heart muscles came just -after a normal contraction, and then it stayed tightly knotted for half -a second. It missed a beat, and the feeling was agony.</p> - -<p>No animal would have pressed forward in the face of such sensations. It -would have turned back long ago. No animal. Not even Man.</p> - -<p>Calhoun stopped the car. He looked at Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd was -completely himself. He looked inquiringly at Calhoun. Calhoun nodded to -him, but he spoke—with some difficulty—to Allison.</p> - -<p>"We'll see—if this thing—builds up. You know that it's the -Texia—trick. A ground-induction unit set up—here. It drove -people—like cattle. Now we've—run into it.—It's holding people—like -cattle."</p> - -<p>He panted. His chest muscles contracted with the rest, so that his -breathing was interfered with. But Murgatroyd, who'd been made uneasy -and uncomfortable before Calhoun noticed anything wrong, was now -bright and frisky. Medication had desensitized his muscles to outside -stimuli. He would be able to take a considerable electric shock without -responding to it.</p> - -<p>But he could be killed by one that was strong enough.</p> - -<p>A savage anger filled Calhoun. Everything fitted together. Allison -had put his hand convenient to his blaster when Calhoun mentioned -Texia. It meant that Calhoun suspected what Allison knew to be true. -A cattle-fence unit had been set up on Maya, and it was holding—like -cattle—the people it had previously driven—like cattle. Calhoun -could deduce with some precision exactly what had been done. The first -experience of Maya with the cattle fence would have been very mild. -It would have been low-power, causing just enough uneasiness to be -noticed. It would have moved from west to east, slowly, and it would -have reached a certain spot and there faded out. And it would have been -a mystery and an uncomfortable thing, and nobody would understand it -on Maya. In a week it would almost be forgotten. But then there'd come -a stronger disturbance. And it would travel like the first one; down -the length of the peninsula on which the colony lay, but stopping at -the same spot as before, and then fading away to nothingness. And this -also would have seemed mysterious. But nobody would suspect humans of -causing it. There would be theorizing and much questioning, but it -would be considered an unfamiliar natural event.</p> - -<p>Probably the third use of the cattle fence would be most disturbing. -This time it would be acutely painful. But it would move into the -cities and through them and past them, and it would go down the -peninsula to where it had stopped and faded on two previous occasions.</p> - -<p>The people of Maya would be disturbed and scared. But they considered -that they knew it began to the westward of Maya City, and moved toward -the east at such-and-such a speed, and it went so far and no farther. -And they would organize themselves to apply this carefully worked out -information.</p> - -<p>It would not occur to any of them that they had learned how to be -driven like cattle.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Calhoun, of course, could only reason that this must have happened. But -nothing else could have taken place. Perhaps there were more than three -uses of the moving cattle fence to get the people prepared to move past -the known place at which it always faded to nothingness. They might -have been days apart, or weeks apart, or months. There might have been -stronger manifestations followed by weaker ones and then stronger ones -again.</p> - -<p>But there was an inductive cattle fence across the highway here. -Calhoun had driven into it. Every two seconds the muscles of his -body tensed. Sometimes his heart missed a beat at the time that his -breathing stopped, and sometimes it pounded violently. It seemed that -the symptoms became more and more unbearable.</p> - -<p>He got out his med kit, with hands that spasmodically jerked -uncontrollably. He fumbled out the same medication he'd given -Murgatroyd. He took two of the pellets.</p> - -<p>"In reason," he said coldly, "I ought to let you take what this damned -thing would give you. But—here!"</p> - -<p>Allison had panicked. The <i>idea</i> of a cattle fence suggested -discomfort, of course, but it did not imply danger. The <i>experience</i> -of a cattle fence, designed for huge hoofed beasts instead of men, -was terrifying. Allison gasped. He made convulsive movements. Calhoun -himself moved erratically. For one and a half seconds out of two, he -could control his muscles. For half a second at a time, he could not. -But he poked a pill into Allison's mouth.</p> - -<p>"Swallow it!" he commanded. "Swallow!"</p> - -<p>The ground-car rested tranquilly on the highway, which here went on for -a mile and then dipped in a gentle incline and then rose once more. -The totally level fields to right and left came to an end here. Native -trees grew, trailing preposterously with long fronds. Brushwood hid -much of the ground. That looked normal. But the lower, ground-covering -vegetation was wilted and rotting.</p> - -<p>Allison choked upon the pellet. Calhoun forced a second upon him. -Murgatroyd looked inquisitively at first one and then the other of the -two men. He said:</p> - -<p>"<i>Chee? Chee?</i>"</p> - -<p>Calhoun lay back in his seat, breathing carefully to keep alive. But -he couldn't do anything about his heartbeat. The sun shone brightly, -though now it was low, toward the horizon. There were clouds in the -reddened sky. A gentle breeze blew. Everything, to outward appearance, -was peaceful and tranquil and commonplace upon this small world.</p> - -<p>But in the area that human beings had taken over there -were cities which were still and silent and deserted, and -somewhere—somewhere!—the population of the planet waited uneasily for -the latest of a series of increasingly terrifying phenomena to come to -an end. Up to this time the strange, creeping, universal affliction had -begun at one place, and moved slowly to another, and then diminished -and ceased to be. But this was the greatest and worst of the torments. -And it hadn't ended. It hadn't diminished. After three days it -continued at full strength at the place where previously it had stopped -and died away.</p> - -<p>The people of Maya were frightened. They couldn't return to their -homes. They couldn't go anywhere. They hadn't prepared for an emergency -to last for days. They hadn't brought supplies of food.</p> - -<p>It began to look as if they were going to starve.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">IV</p> - -<p>Calhoun was in very bad shape when the sports car came to the end of -the highway.</p> - -<p>First, all the multiple roadways of the route that had brought him here -were joined by triple ribbons of road-surface from the north. For a -space there were twenty-four lanes available to traffic. They flowed -together, and then there were twelve. Here there was evidence of an -enormous traffic concentration at some time now past. Brush and small -trees were crushed and broken where cars had been forced to travel -off the hard-surface roadways and through undergrowth. The twelve -lanes dwindled to six, and the unpaved area on either side showed that -innumerable cars had been forced to travel off the highway altogether. -Then there were three lanes, and then two, and finally only a single -ribbon of pavement where no more than two cars could run side by side. -The devastation on either hand was astounding. All visible vegetation -for half a mile to right and left was crushed and tangled. And then the -narrow surfaced road ceased to be completely straight. It curved around -a hillock—and here the ground was no longer perfectly flat—and came -to an end.</p> - -<p>And Calhoun saw all the ground-cars of the planet gathered and parked -together.</p> - -<p>There were no buildings. There were no streets. There was nothing of -civilization but tens and scores of thousands of ground-cars. They were -extraordinary to look at, stopped at random, their fronts pointed in -all directions, their air-column tubes thrusting into the ground so -that there might be trouble getting them clear again.</p> - -<p>Parked bumper to bumper in closely placed lines, in theory twenty-five -thousand cars could be parked on a square mile of ground. But there -were very many times that number of cars here, and some places were -unsuitable for parking, and there were lanes placed at random and -there'd been no special effort to put the maximum number of cars in -the smallest place. So the surface transportation system of the planet -Maya spread out over some fifty sprawling square miles. Here, cars were -crowded closely. There, there was much room between them. But it seemed -that as far as one could see in the twilight there were glistening -vehicles gathered confusedly, so there was nothing else to be seen but -an occasional large tree rising from among them.</p> - -<p>Calhoun came to the end of the surfaced road. He'd waited for the -pellets he'd taken and given to Allison to have the effect they'd had -on Murgatroyd. That had come about. He'd driven on. But the strength of -the inductor field had increased to the intolerable. When he stopped -the sports car he showed the effects of what he'd been through.</p> - -<p>Figures on foot converged upon him instantly. There were eager calls.</p> - -<p>"It's stopped? You got through? We can go back?"</p> - -<p>Calhoun shook his head. It was just past sunset and many brilliant -colorings showed in the western sky, but they couldn't put color into -Calhoun's face. His cheeks were grayish and his eyes were deep-sunk, -and he looked like someone in the last stages of exhaustion. He said -heavily:</p> - -<p>"It's still there. We came through. I'm Med Service. Have you got a -government here? I need to talk to somebody who can give orders."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>If he'd asked two days earlier there would have been no answer, because -the fugitives were only waiting for a disaster to come to an end. One -day earlier, he might have found men with authority busily trying to -arrange for drinking water for something like two millions of people, -in the entire absence of wells or pumps or ways of making either. -And if he'd been a day later, it is rather likely that he'd have -found savage disorder. But he arrived at sundown three days after the -flight from the cities. There was no food to speak of, and water was -drastically short, and the fugitives were only beginning to suspect -that they would never be able to leave this place—and that they might -die here.</p> - -<p>Men left the growing crowd about the sports car to find individuals -who could give orders. Calhoun stayed in the car, resting from the -unbearable strain he'd undergone. The ground-inductor cattle fence -had been ten miles deep. One mile was not bad. Only Murgatroyd had -noticed it. After two miles Calhoun and Allison suffered; but the -medication strengthened them to take it. But there'd been a long, long -way in the center of the induction-field in which existence was pure -torment. Calhoun's muscles defied him for part of every two-second -cycle, and his heart and lungs seemed constantly about to give up even -the pretense of working. In that part of the cattle-fence field, he'd -hardly dared drive faster than a crawl, in order to keep control of -the car when his own body was uncontrollable. But presently the field -strength lessened and ultimately ended.</p> - -<p>Now Murgatroyd looked cordially at the figures who clustered about -the car. He'd hardly suffered at all. He'd had half as much of the -medication as Calhoun himself, and his body weight was only a tenth -of Calhoun's. He'd made out all right. Now he looked expectantly at -what became a jammed mass of crowding men about the vehicle that had -come through the invisible barrier across the highway. They hoped -desperately for news to produce hope. But Murgatroyd waited zestfully -for somebody to welcome him and offer him cakes and sweets, and -undoubtedly presently a cup of coffee.</p> - -<p>But nobody did.</p> - -<p>It was a long time before there was a stirring at the edge of the -crowd. Night had fully fallen then, and for miles and miles in all -directions lights in the ground cars of Maya's inhabitants glowed -brightly. They drew upon broadcast power, naturally, for their motors -and their lights. Off to one side someone shouted. Calhoun turned on -his headlights for a guide. More shoutings. A knot of men struggled to -get through the crowd. With difficulty, presently, they reached the car.</p> - -<p>"They say you got through," panted a tall man, "but you can't get back. -They say—"</p> - -<p>Calhoun roused himself. Allison, beside him, stirred. The tall man -panted again:</p> - -<p>"I'm the planetary president. What can we do?"</p> - -<p>"First, listen," said Calhoun tiredly.</p> - -<p>He'd had a little rest. Not much, but some. The actual work he'd done -in driving three hundred-odd miles from Maya City was trivial. But -the continuous, and lately violent, spasms of his heart and breathing -muscles had been exhausting. He heard Murgatroyd say ingratiatingly, -"<i>Chee-chee-chee-chee</i>," and put his hand on the little animal to quiet -him.</p> - -<p>"The thing you ran away from," said Calhoun with effort, "is a type of -ground-induction field using broadcast power from the grid. It's used -on Texia to confine cattle to their pastures and to move them where -they're wanted to be. But it was designed for cattle. It's a cattle -fence. It could kill humans."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He went on, his voice gaining strength and steadiness as he spoke. He -explained, precisely, how a ground-induction field was projected in a -line at a right angle to its source. It could be moved by adjustments -of the apparatus by which it was projected.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus3.jpg" width="600" height="425" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>"But—but if it uses broadcast power," the planetary president said -urgently, "then if the power broadcast is cut off it has to stop! -If you got through it coming here, tell us how to get through going -back and we'll cut off the power broadcast ourselves! We've got to -do something immediately. The whole planet's here. There's no food! -There's no water! Something has to be done before we begin to die!"</p> - -<p>"But," said Calhoun, "if you cut off the power you'll die anyway! -You've got a couple of million people here, and you're a hundred miles -from food. Without power you couldn't get to food or bring it here. Cut -the power and you're still stranded here. Without power you'll die as -soon as with it."</p> - -<p>There was a sound from the listening men around. It was partly a growl -and partly a groan.</p> - -<p>"I've just found this out," said Calhoun. "I didn't know until the last -ten miles exactly what the situation was, and I had to come here to be -sure. Now I need some people to help me. It won't be pleasant. I may -have enough medication to get a dozen people back through. It'll be -safer if I take only six. Get a doctor to pick me six men. Good heart -action. Sound lungs. Two should be electronics engineers. The others -should be good shots. If you get them ready, I'll give them the same -stuff that got us through. It's desensitizing medication, but it will -do only so much. And try and find some weapons for them."</p> - -<p>Voices murmured all around. Men hastily explained to other men what -Calhoun had said. The creeping disaster before which they'd all -fled,—it was not a natural catastrophe, but an artificial one! Men -had made it! They'd been herded here and their wives and children were -hungry because of something men had done!</p> - -<p>A low-pitched, buzzing, humming sound came from the crowd about the -sports car. For the moment, nobody asked what could be the motive for -men to do what had been done. Pure fury filled the mob. Calhoun leaned -closer to Allison.</p> - -<p>"I wouldn't get out of the car if I were you," he said in a low tone. -"I certainly wouldn't try to buy any real property at a low price!"</p> - -<p>Allison shivered. There was a vast, vast stirring as the explanation -passed from man to man. Figures moved away in the darkness. Lighted -car windows winked as they moved through the obscurity. The population -of Maya was spread out over very many square miles of what had been -wilderness, and there was no elaborate communication system by which -information could be spread quickly. But long before dawn there'd be -nobody who didn't know that they'd fled from a man-made danger and were -held here like cattle, behind a cattle fence, apparently abandoned to -die.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Allison's teeth chattered. He was a business man and up to now he'd -thought as one. He'd made decisions in offices, with attorneys and -secretaries and clerks to make the decisions practical and safe, -without any concern for any consequences other than financial ones.</p> - -<p>He saw possible consequences to himself, here and now. He'd landed on -Maya because he considered the matter too important to trust to anybody -else. Even riding with Calhoun on the way here, he'd only been elated -and astonished at the success of the intended coup. He'd raised his -aim. For a while he'd believed that he'd end as the sole proprietor -of the colony on Maya, with every plant growing for his profit, and -every factory earning money for him, and every inhabitant his employee. -It had been the most grandiose possible dream. The details and the -maneuvers needed to complete it flowed into his mind.</p> - -<p>But now his teeth chattered. At ten words from Calhoun he would -literally be torn to pieces by the raging men about him. His attache -case with millions of credits in cash—it would be proof of whatever -Calhoun chose to say. Allison knew terror down to the bottom of his -soul. But he dared not move from Calhoun's side, even though a single -sentence in the calmest of voices would destroy him, and he'd never -faced actual, understood, physical danger before.</p> - -<p>Presently men came, one by one, to take orders from Calhoun. They were -able-bodied and grim-faced men. Two were electronics engineers, as he'd -specified. One was a policeman. There were two mechanics and a doctor -who was also amateur tennis champion of the planet. Calhoun doled -out to them the pellets that reduced the sensitiveness of muscles to -externally applied stimuli. He gave instructions. They'd go as far into -the cattle fence as they could reasonably endure. Then they'd swallow -the pellets and let them act. Then they'd go on. His stock of pellets -was limited. He could give three to each man.</p> - -<p>Murgatroyd squirmed disappointedly as this briefing went on. Obviously, -he wasn't to make a social success here. He was annoyed, and he needed -more space. Calhoun tossed Allison's attache case behind the seats. -Allison was too terrified to protest. It still did not increase the -space left on the front seat between Calhoun and Allison.</p> - -<p>Four humming ground cars lifted eight inches off the ground and hovered -there on columns of rushing air. Calhoun took the lead. His headlights -moved down the single-lane road to which two joining twelve-lane -highways had shrunk. Behind him, other headlights moved into line. -Calhoun's car moved away into the darkness. The others followed.</p> - -<p>Brilliant stars shone overhead. A cluster of thousands of suns, a -hundred light-years away, made a center of illumination that gave -Maya's night the quality of a vivid if diffused moonlight. The cars -went on. Presently Calhoun felt the twitchings of minor muscular -spasms. He was riding into the field which had been first devised for -purposes remote from the herding of cattle or humans, but applied to -the first use on the planet Texia, and now applied to the second here.</p> - -<p>The road became two, and then four, and then eight lanes wide. Then -four lanes swirled off to one side, and the remaining four presently -doubled, and then widened again, and it was the twelve-lane turnpike -that had brought Calhoun here from Maya City.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>But the rhythmic interference with his body grew stronger. Allison had -spoken not one single word while Calhoun conferred with the people of -Maya beyond the highway. His teeth chattered as they started back. He -didn't attempt to speak during the beginning of the ride through the -cattle-fence field. His teeth chattered, and stopped, and chattered -again, and at long last he panted despairingly:</p> - -<p>"Are you going to let the thing kill me?"</p> - -<p>Calhoun stopped. The cars behind him stopped. He gave Allison two -pellets and took two himself. With Murgatroyd insistently accompanying -him, he went along the cars which trailed him. He made sure the six men -he'd asked for took their pellets and that they had an adequate effect. -He went back to the sports car.</p> - -<p>Allison whimpered a little when he and Murgatroyd got back in.</p> - -<p>"I thought," said Calhoun conversationally, "that you might try to take -off by yourself, just now. It would solve a problem for me. Of course -it wouldn't solve any for you. But I don't think your problems have any -solution, now."</p> - -<p>He started the car up again. It moved forward. The other cars trailed -dutifully. They went on through the starlit night. Calhoun noted that -the effect of the cattle fence was less than it had been before. The -first desensitizing pellets had not wholly lost their effect when he -added to it. But he kept his speed low until he was certain the other -drivers had endured the anguish of passing through the cattle-fence -field.</p> - -<p>Presently he was confident that the cattle field was past. He sent his -car up to eighty miles an hour. The other cars followed faithfully. To -a hundred. They did not drop behind. The car hummed through the night -at top speed—a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour. -The three other cars' headlights faithfully kept pace with him.</p> - -<p>Allison, said desperately, "Look! I—don't understand what's happened. -You talk as if I'd planned all this. I—did have advance notice of a—a -research project here. But it shouldn't have held the people there for -days! Something went wrong! I only believed that people would want to -leave Maya. I'd only planned to buy as much acreage as I could, and -control of as many factories as possible. That's all! It was business! -Only business!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun did not answer. Allison might be telling the truth. Some -businessmen would think it only intelligent to frighten people into -selling their holdings below true value. Something of the sort happened -every day in stock exchanges. But the people of Maya could have died!</p> - -<p>For that matter, they still might. They couldn't return to their homes -and food so long as broadcast power kept the cattle-fence in existence. -But they could not return to their homes and food supplies if the power -broadcast was cut off, either.</p> - -<p>Over all the night surface of the world of Maya there was light only -on one highway at one spot, and a multitude of smaller, lesser lights -where the people of Maya waited to find out whether they would live or -die.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph3">V</p> - -<p>Calhoun considered coldly. They were beyond what had been the -farthest small city on the multiple highway. They would go on past -now-starlit fields of plants native to Maya, passing many places where -trucks loaded with the plants climbed up to the roadway and headed -for the factories which made use of them. The fields ran for scores -of miles along the highway's length. They reached out beyond the -horizon,—perhaps scores of miles in that direction, too. There were -thousands upon thousands of square miles devoted to the growing of the -dark-green vegetation which supplied the raw materials for Maya's space -exports. Some hundred-odd miles ahead, the small town of Tenochitlan -lay huddled in the light of the distant star-cluster. Beyond that, more -highway and Maya City. Beyond that—</p> - -<p>Calhoun reasoned that the projector to make the induction cattle fence -would be beyond Maya City, somewhere in the mountains the photograph -in the spaceport building showed. A large highway went into those -mountains for a limited distance only.</p> - -<p>A ground-inductor projector field always formed at a right angle to -the projector which was its source. It could be adjusted—the process -was analogous to focusing—to come into actual being at any distance -desired, and the distance could be changed. To drive the people of -Maya City eastward, the projector of a cattle fence—about which -they would know nothing; it would be totally strange and completely -mysterious—the projector of the cattle fence would need to be west of -the people to be driven. Logically, it would belong in the mountains. -Practically, it would be concealed. Drawing on broadcast power to do -its work, there would be no large power source needed to give it the -six million kilowatts it required. It should be quite easy to hide -beyond any quick or easy discovery. Hunting it out might require weeks -of searching.</p> - -<p>But the people beyond the end of the highway couldn't wait. They had -no food, and holes scrabbled down to ground-water by men digging with -their bare hands simply would not be adequate. The cattle fence had -to be cut off immediately—while the broadcast of power had to be -continued.</p> - -<p>Calhoun made an abrupt grunting noise. Phrasing the thing that needed -to be done was practically a blueprint of how to do it. Simple! He'd -need the two electronics engineers, of course. But that would be the -trick....</p> - -<p>He drove on at a hundred thirty miles an hour with his lips set wrily. -The three other cars came behind him. Murgatroyd watched the way ahead. -Mile after mile, half-minute after half-minute, the headlights cast -brilliantly blinding beams before the cars. Murgatroyd grew bored. He -said, "<i>Chee!</i>" in a discontented fashion and tried to curl up between -Allison and Calhoun. There wasn't room. He crawled over the seat-back. -He moved about, back there. There were rustling sounds. He settled -down. Presently there was silence. Undoubtedly he had draped his furry -tail across his nose and gone soundly off to sleep.</p> - -<p>Allison spoke suddenly. He'd had time to think, but he had no practice -in various ways of thinking.</p> - -<p>"How much money have you got?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Not much," said Calhoun. "Why?"</p> - -<p>"I—haven't done anything illegal," said Allison, with an unconvincing -air of confidence, "but I could be put to some inconvenience if you -were to accuse me before others of what you've accused me personally. -You seem to think that I planned a criminal act. That the action I know -of—the research project I'd heard of—that it became—that it got out -of hand is likely. But I am entirely in the clear. I did nothing in -which I did not have the advice of counsel. I am legally unassailable. -My lawyers—"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"That's none of my business," Calhoun told him. "I'm a medical man. -I landed here in the middle of what seemed to be a serious public -health situation. I went to see what had happened. I've found out. I -still haven't the answer,—not the whole answer anyway. But the human -population of Maya is in a state of some privation, not to say danger. -I hope to end it. But I've nothing to do with anybody's guilt or -innocence of crime or criminal intent or anything else."</p> - -<p>Allison swallowed. Then he said with smooth confidence:</p> - -<p>"But you could cause me inconvenience. I would appreciate it if you -would—would—"</p> - -<p>"Cover up what you've done?" asked Calhoun.</p> - -<p>"No! I've done nothing wrong. But you could simply use discretion. I -landed by parachute to complete some business deals I'd arranged months -ago. I will go through with them. I will leave on the next ship. -That's perfectly open and above board. Strictly business. But you could -make a—an unpleasing public image of me. Yet I have done nothing any -other business man wouldn't do! I did happen to know of a research -project—"</p> - -<p>"I think," said Calhoun without heat, "that you sent men here with a -cattle-fence device from Texia to frighten the people on Maya. They -wouldn't know what was going on. They'd be scared; they'd want to get -away. So you'd be able to buy up practically all the colony for the -equivalent of peanuts. I can't prove that," he conceded, "but that's my -opinion. But you want me not to state it. Is that right?"</p> - -<p>"Exactly!" said Allison. He'd been shaken to the core, but he managed -the tone and the air of a dignified man of business discussing an -unpleasant subject with fine candor. "I assure you you are mistaken. -You agree that you can't prove your suspicions. If you can't prove -them, you shouldn't state them. That is simple ethics. You agree to -that!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun looked at him curiously.</p> - -<p>"Are you waiting for me to tell you my price?"</p> - -<p>"I'm waiting," said Allison reprovingly, "for you to agree not to cause -me embarrassment. I won't be ungrateful. After all, I'm a person of -some influence. I could do a great deal to your benefit. I'd be glad—"</p> - -<p>"Are you working around to guess at a price I'll take?" asked Calhoun -with the same air of curiosity.</p> - -<p>He seemed much more curious than indignant, and much more amused -than curious. Allison sweated suddenly. Calhoun didn't appear to be -bribable. But Allison knew desperation.</p> - -<p>"If you want to put it that way—yes," he said harshly. "You can name -your own figure. I mean it!"</p> - -<p>"I won't say a word about you," said Calhoun. "I won't need to. The -characters who're operating your cattle fence will do all the talking -that's necessary. Things all fit together,—except for one item. -They've been dropping into place all the while we've been driving down -this road."</p> - -<p>"I said you can name your own figure!" Allison's voice was shrill. "I -mean it! Any figure! Any!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun shrugged.</p> - -<p>"What would a Med Ship man do with money? Forget it!"</p> - -<p>He drove on. The highway turnoff to Tenochitlan appeared. Calhoun went -steadily past it. The other connection with the road through the town -appeared. He left it behind.</p> - -<p>Allison's teeth chattered again.</p> - -<p>The buildings of Maya City began to appear, some twenty minutes later. -Calhoun slowed and the other cars closed up. He opened a window and -called:</p> - -<p>"We want to go to the landing-grid first. Somebody lead the way!"</p> - -<p>A car went past and guided the rest assuredly to a ramp down from the -now-elevated road, and through utterly dark streets, of which some were -narrow and winding, and came out abruptly where the landing-grid rose -skyward. At the bottom its massive girders looked huge and cyclopean in -the starlight, but the higher courses looked like silver lace against -the stars.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>They went to the control building. Calhoun got out. Murgatroyd hopped -out after him, dust clinging to his fur. He shook himself, and a -ten-thousand-credit interstellar credit certificate fell to the ground. -Murgatroyd had made a soft place for sleeping out of the contents of -Allison's attache case. It was assuredly the most expensive if not the -most comfortable sleeping cushion a <i>tormal</i> ever had. Allison sat -still as if numbed. He did not even pick up the certificate.</p> - -<p>"I need you two electronics men," said Calhoun. Then he said -apologetically to the others, "I only figured out something on the way -here. I'd believed we might have to take some drastic action, come -daybreak. But now I doubt it. I do suggest, though, that you turn off -the car headlights and get set to do some shooting if anybody turns up. -I don't know whether they will or not."</p> - -<p>He led the way inside. He turned on lights. He went to the place where -dials showed the amount of power actually being used of the enormous -amount available. Those dials now showed an extremely small power -drain, considering that the cities of a planet depended on the grid. -But the cities were dark and empty of people. The demand needle wavered -back and forth, rhythmically. Every two seconds the demand for power -went up by six million kilowatts, approximately. The demand lasted for -half a second, and stopped. For a second and a half the power in use -was reduced by six million kilowatts. During this period only automatic -pumps and ventilators and freezing equipment drew on the broadcast -power for energy. Then the six-million-kilowatt demand came again for -half a second.</p> - -<p>"The cattle fence," said Calhoun, "works for half a second out of every -two seconds. It's intermittent or it would simply paralyze animals -that wandered into it. Or people. Being intermittent, it drives them -out instead. There'll be tools and parts for equipment here, in case -something needs repair. I want you to make something new."</p> - -<p>The two electronics technicians asked questions.</p> - -<p>"We need," said Calhoun, "an interruptor that will cut off the power -broadcast for the half-second the ground-induction field is supposed -to be on. Then it should turn on the broadcast power for the second -and a half the cattle fence is supposed to be off. That will stop the -cattle-fence effect, and I think a ground car should be able to work -with power that's available for three half-seconds out of four."</p> - -<p>The electronics men blinked at him. Then they grinned and set to work. -Calhoun went exploring. He found a lunch box in a desk with three very -stale sandwiches in it. He offered them around.</p> - -<p>It appeared that nobody wanted to eat while their families—at the end -of the highway—were still hungry.</p> - -<p>The electronics men called on the two mechanics to help build -something. They explained absorbedly to Calhoun that they were making -a cutoff which would adjust to any sudden six-million-kilowatt demand, -no matter what time interval was involved. A change in the tempo of the -cattle-fence cycle wouldn't bring it back on.</p> - -<p>"That's fine!" said Calhoun. "I wouldn't have thought of that!"</p> - -<p>He bit into a stale sandwich and went outside. Allison sat limply, -despairingly, in his seat in the car.</p> - -<p>"The cattle fence is going off," said Calhoun without triumph. "The -people of the city will probably begin to get here around sunrise."</p> - -<p>"I—I did nothing legally wrong!" said Allison, dry-throated. "Nothing! -They'd have to prove that I knew what the—consequences of the research -project would be. That couldn't be proved! It couldn't! So I've done -nothing legally wrong...."</p> - -<p>Calhoun went inside, observing that the doctor who was also tennis -champion, and the policeman who'd come to help him, were keeping keen -eyes on the city and the foundations of the grid and all other places -from which trouble might come.</p> - -<p>There was a fine atmosphere of achievement in the power-control -room. The power itself did not pass through these instruments, but -relays here controlled buried massive conductors which supplied the -world with power. And one of the relays had been modified. When the -cattle-fence projector closed its circuit, the power went off. When -the ground-inductor went off, the power went on. There was no longer -a barrier across the highways leading to the east. It was more than -probable that ground cars could run on current supplied for one and a -half seconds out of every two. They might run jerkily, but they would -run.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Half an hour later, the amount of power drawn from the broadcast began -to rise smoothly and gradually. It could mean only that cars were -beginning to move.</p> - -<p>Forty-five minutes later still, Calhoun heard stirrings outside. He -went out. The two men on guard gazed off into the city. Something moved -there. It was a ground-car, running slowly and without lights. Calhoun -said undisturbedly:</p> - -<p>"Whoever was running the cattle fence found out their gadget wasn't -working. Their lights flickered, too. They came to see what was the -matter at the landing-grid. But they've seen the lighted windows. Got -your blasters handy?"</p> - -<p>But the unlighted car turned and raced away. Calhoun only shrugged.</p> - -<p>"They haven't a prayer," he said. "We'll take over their apparatus -as soon as it's light. It'll be too big to destroy, and there'll be -fingerprints and such to identify them as the men who ran it. And -they're not natives. When the police start to look for the strangers -who were living where the cattle-fence projector was set up.... They -can go into the jungles where there's nothing to eat, or they can give -themselves up."</p> - -<p>He moved toward the door of the control building once more. Allison -said desperately:</p> - -<p>"They'll have hidden their equipment. You'll never be able to find it!"</p> - -<p>Calhoun shook his head in the starlight.</p> - -<p>"Anything that can fly can spot it in minutes. Even on the ground -one can walk almost straight to it. You see, something happened they -didn't count on. That's why they've left it turned on at full power. -The earlier, teasing uses of the cattle fence were low-power. Annoying, -to start with, and uncomfortable the second time, and maybe somewhat -painful the third. But the last time it was full power."</p> - -<p>He shrugged. He didn't feel like a long oration. But it was obvious. -Something had killed the plants of a certain genus of which small -species were weeds that destroyed Earth-type grasses. The ground-cover -plants—and the larger ones, like the one Calhoun had seen decaying -in a florist's shop which had had to be grown in a cage—the -ground-cover plants had motile stems and leaves and blossoms. They -were cannibals. They could move their stems to reach, and their -leaves to enclose, and their flowers to devour other plants, even -perhaps small animals. The point, though, was that they had some -limited power of motion. Earth-style sensitive vines and flycatcher -plants had primitive muscular tissues. The local ground-cover plants -had them too. And the cattle-fence field made those tissues contract -spasmodically. Powerfully. Violently. Repeatedly. Until they died of -exhaustion. The full-power cattle-fence field had exterminated Mayan -ground-cover plants all the way to the end of the east-bound highway. -And inevitably—and very conveniently—also up to the exact spot where -the cattle-fence field had begun to be projected. There would be an -arrow-shaped narrowing of the wiped-out ground-cover plants where the -cattle-field had been projected. It would narrow to a point which -pointed precisely to the cattle-fence projector.</p> - -<p>"Your friends," said Calhoun, "will probably give themselves up and ask -for mercy. There's not much else they can do."</p> - -<p>Then he said:</p> - -<p>"They might even get it. D'you know, there's an interesting side effect -of the cattle fence. It kills the plants that have kept Earth-type -grasses from growing here. Wheat can be grown here now, whenever and -as much as the people please. It should make this a pretty prosperous -planet, not having to import all its bread."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The ground cars of the inhabitants of Maya City did begin to arrive at -sunrise. Within an hour after daybreak, very savagely intent persons -found the projector and turned it off.</p> - -<p>By noon there was still some anger on the faces of the people of Maya, -but there'd been little or no damage, and life took up its normal -course again. Murgatroyd appreciated the fact that things went back to -normal. For him it was normal to be welcomed and petted when the Med -Ship <i>Esclipus Twenty</i> touched ground. It was normal for him to move -zestfully in admiring human society, and to drink coffee with great -gusto.</p> - -<p>And while Murgatroyd moved in human society, enjoying himself hugely, -Calhoun went about his business. Which, of course, was conferences with -planetary health officials, politely receiving such information as they -thought important, and tactfully telling them about the most recent -developments in medical science.</p> - -<p>What else was a Med Ship man for?</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Med Ship Man, by Murray Leinster - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MED SHIP MAN *** - -***** This file should be named 50999-h.htm or 50999-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/9/9/50999/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Med Ship Man - -Author: Murray Leinster - -Release Date: January 22, 2016 [EBook #50999] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MED SHIP MAN *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - - MED SHIP MAN - - By MURRAY LEINSTER - - Illustrated by ENSH - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Galaxy Magazine October 1963. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - - - His work was healing the sick--but - this planet was already dead! - - -I - -Calhoun regarded the communicator with something like exasperation as -his taped voice repeated a standard approach-call for the twentieth -time. But no answer came, which had become irritating a long time ago. -This was a new Med Service sector for Calhoun. He'd been assigned to -another man's tour of duty because the other man had been taken down -with romance. He'd gotten married, which ruled him out for Med Ship -duty. So now Calhoun listened to his own voice endlessly repeating a -call that should have been answered immediately. - -Murgatroyd the _tormal_ watched with beady, interested eyes. The planet -Maya lay off to port of the Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_. Its almost -circular disk showed full size on a vision screen beside the ship's -control board. The image was absolutely clear and vividly colored. -There was an ice cap in view. There were continents. There were seas. -The cloud system of a considerable cyclonic disturbance could be noted -off at one side, and the continents looked reasonably as they should, -and the seas were of that muddy, indescribable tint which indicates -deep water. - -Calhoun's own voice, taped an hour earlier, sounded in a speaker as it -went again to the communicator and then to the extremely visible world -a hundred thousand miles away. - -"_Calling ground_," said Calhoun's recorded voice. "_Med Ship_ Esclipus -Twenty _calling ground to report arrival and ask coordinates for -landing. Our mass is fifty standard tons. Repeat, five-oh tons. Purpose -of landing, planetary health inspection._" - - * * * * * - -The recorded voice stopped. There was silence except for the taped -random noises which kept the inside of the ship from feeling like the -inside of a tomb. - -Murgatroyd said: "_Chee?_" - -Calhoun said ironically, "Undoubtedly, Murgatroyd. Undoubtedly! -Whoever's on duty at the spaceport stepped out for a moment, or dropped -dead, or did something equally inconvenient. We have to wait until he -gets back or somebody else takes over." - -Murgatroyd said "_Chee!_" again and began to lick his whiskers. He -knew that when Calhoun called on the communicator, another human voice -should reply. Then there should be conversation, and shortly the -force-fields of a landing-grid should take hold of the Med Ship and -draw it planet-ward. In time it ought to touch ground in a spaceport -with a gigantic, silvery landing-grid rising skyward all about it. -Then there should be people greeting Calhoun cordially and welcoming -Murgatroyd with smiles and petting. - -"_Calling ground_," said the recorded voice yet again. "_Med Ship_ -Esclipus Twenty--" - -It went on through the formal notice of arrival. Murgatroyd waited -in pleasurable anticipation. When the Med Ship arrived at a port of -call humans gave him sweets and cakes, and they thought it charming -that he drank coffee just like a human, only with more gusto. Aground, -Murgatroyd moved zestfully in society while Calhoun worked. Calhoun's -work was conferences with planetary health officials, politely -receiving such information as they thought important, and tactfully -telling them about the most recent developments in medical science as -known to the Interstellar Medical Service. - -"Somebody," said Calhoun darkly, "is going to catch the devil for this!" - -The communicator loudspeaker spoke abruptly. - -"Calling Med Ship," said a voice. "Calling Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_! -Liner _Candida_ calling. Have you had an answer from ground?" - -Calhoun blinked. Then he said curtly: - -"Not yet. I've been calling all of half an hour, and never a word out -of them!" - -"We've been in orbit twelve hours," said the voice from emptiness. -"Calling all the while. No answer. We don't like it." - -Calhoun flipped a switch that threw a vision screen into circuit -with the ship's electron telescope. A starfield appeared and shifted -wildly. Then a bright dot centered itself. He raised the magnification. -The bright dot swelled and became a chubby commercial ship, with -the false ports that passengers like to believe they looked through -when in space. Two relatively large cargo ports on each side showed -that it carried heavy freight in addition to passengers. It was one -of those workhorse intra-cluster ships that distributed the freight -and passengers the long-haul liners dumped off only at established -transshipping ports. - -Murgatroyd padded across the Med Ship's cabin and examined the image -with a fine air of wisdom. It did not mean anything to him, but -_tormals_ imitate human actions as parrots and parrakeets imitate human -speech. He said, "_Chee!_" as if making an observation of profound -significance, then went back to the cushion and again curled up. - -"We don't see anything wrong aground," the liner's voice complained, -"but they don't answer calls! We don't get any scatter-signals either. -We went down to two diameters and couldn't pick up a thing. And we have -a passenger to land. He insists on it!" - - * * * * * - -By ordinary, communications between different places on a planet's -surface use frequencies the ion-layers of the atmosphere either reflect -or refract down past the horizon. But there is usually some small -leakage to space, and line-of-sight frequencies are generally abundant. -It is one of the annoyances of a ship coming in to port that space near -most planets is usually full of local signals. - -"I'll check," said Calhoun curtly. "Stand by." - -The _Candida_ would have arrived off Maya as the Med Ship had done, and -called down as Calhoun had been doing. It was very probably a ship on -schedule and the grid operator at the spaceport should have expected -it. Space commerce was important to any planet, comparing more or less -with the export-import business of an industrial nation in ancient -times on Earth. Planets had elaborate traffic-aid systems for the -cargo-carriers which moved between solar systems as they'd once moved -between continents on Earth. Such traffic aids were very carefully -maintained. Certainly for a spaceport landing-grid not to respond to -calls for twelve hours running seemed ominous. - -"We've been wondering," said the _Candida_ querulously, "if there could -be something radically wrong below. Sickness, for example." - -The word "sickness" was a substitute for a more alarming word. But a -plague had nearly wiped out the population of Dorset, once upon a time, -and the first ships to arrive after it had broken out most incautiously -went down to ground, and so carried the plague to their next two ports -of call. Nowadays quarantine regulations were enforced very strictly -indeed. - -"I'll try to find out what's the matter," said Calhoun. - -"We've got a passenger," repeated the _Candida_ aggrievedly, "who -insists that we land him by space-boat if we don't make a ship landing. -He says he has important business aground." - -Calhoun did not answer. The rights of passengers were extravagantly -protected, these days. To fail to deliver a passenger to his -destination entitled him to punitive damages which no spaceline could -afford. So the Med Ship would seem heaven-sent to the _Candida's_ -skipper. Calhoun could relieve him of responsibility. - -The telescope screen winked and showed the surface of the planet a -hundred thousand miles away. Calhoun glared at the image on the port -screen and guided the telescope to the spaceport city--Maya City. He -saw highways and blocks of buildings. He saw the spaceport and its -landing-grid. He could see no motion, of course. - -He raised the magnification. He raised it again. Still no motion. He -upped the magnification until the lattice-pattern of the telescope's -amplifying crystal began to show. But at the ship's distance from the -planet, a ground-car would represent only the fortieth of a second of -arc. There was atmosphere, too, with thermals; anything the size of a -ground-car simply couldn't be seen. - -But the city showed quite clearly. Nothing massive had happened to it. -No large-scale physical disaster had occurred. It simply did not answer -calls from space. - - * * * * * - -Calhoun flipped off the screen. - -"I think," he said irritably into the communicator microphone, "I -suspect I'll have to make an emergency landing. It could be something -as trivial as a power failure--" but he knew that was wildly -improbable--"or it could be--anything. I'll land on rockets and tell -you what I find." - -The voice from the _Candida_ said hopefully: - -"Can you authorize us to refuse to land our passenger for his own -protection? He's raising the devil! He insists that his business -demands that he be landed." - -A word from Calhoun as a Med Service man would protect the spaceliner -from a claim for damages. But Calhoun didn't like the look of things. -He realized, distastefully, that he might find practically anything -down below. He might find that he had to quarantine the planet and -himself with it. In such a case he'd need the _Candida_ to carry word -of the quarantine to other planets and thus to Med Service sector -headquarters. - -"We've lost a lot of time," insisted the _Candida_. "Can you authorize -us--" - -"Not yet," said Calhoun. "I'll tell you when I land." - -"But--" - -"I'm signing off for the moment," said Calhoun. "Stand by." - -He headed the little ship downward, and as it gathered velocity he went -over the briefing sheets covering this particular world. He'd never -touched ground here before. His occupation, of course, was seeing to -the dissemination of medical science as it developed under the Med -Service. The Service itself was neither political nor administrative. -But it was important. Every human-occupied world was supposed to have -a Med Ship visit at least once in four years to verify the state of -public health. - -Med Ship men like Calhoun offered advice on public-health problems. -When something out of the ordinary turned up, the Med Service had a -staff of researchers who hadn't been wholly baffled yet. There were -great ships which could carry the ultimate in laboratory equipment and -specialized personnel to any place where they were needed. Not less -than a dozen inhabited worlds in this sector alone owed the survival -of their populations to the Med Service, and the number of those which -couldn't have been colonized without Med Service help was legion. - -Calhoun reread the briefing. Maya was one of four planets in this -general area whose life systems seemed to have had a common origin, -suggesting that the Arrhenius theory of space-traveling spores was true -in some limited sense. A genus of ground-cover plants with motile stems -and leaves and cannibalistic tendencies was considered strong evidence -of common origin. - -The planet had been colonized for two centuries now, and produced -organic compounds of great value from indigenous plants, most of -which were used in textile manufacture. There were no local endemic -infections to which men were susceptible. A number of human-use crops -were grown. Cereals, grasses and grains, however, could not be grown -because of the native ground-cover motile-stem plants. All wheat and -cereal food had to be imported, which fact severely limited Maya's -population. There were about two million people on the planet, settled -on a peninsula in the Yucatan Sea and a small area of mainland. -Public-health surveys had shown a great many things about a great -many subjects ... but there was no mention of anything to account for -the failure of the spaceport to respond to arrival calls from space. -Naturally! - -The Med Ship drove on down, and the planet revolved beneath it. - -As Maya's sunlit hemisphere enlarged, Calhoun kept the telescope's -field wide. He saw cities, and vast areas of cleared land where native -plants were grown as raw materials for the organics' manufacturies. He -saw very little true chlorophyll green, though. Mayan foliage tended to -a dark olive color. - - * * * * * - -At fifty miles he was sure that the city streets were empty even -of ground-car traffic. There was no spaceship aground in the -landing-grid. There were no ground-cars in motion on the splendid, -multiple-lane highways. - -At thirty miles altitude there were still no signals in the atmosphere, -though when he tried amplitude-modulation reception he picked up -static. But there was no normally modulated signal on the air at any -frequency. At twenty miles--no. At fifteen miles, broadcast power was -available, which proved that the landing-grid was working as usual, -tapping the upper atmosphere for electric charges to furnish power for -all the planet's needs. - -From ten miles down to ground-touch, Calhoun was busy. - -It is not too difficult to land a ship on rockets, with reasonably -level ground to land on. But landing at a specific spot is something -else. Calhoun juggled the ship to descend inside the grid itself. His -rockets burned out pencil-thin holes through the clay and stone beneath -the tarmac. He cut them off. - -Silence. Stillness. The Med Ship's outside microphones picked up small -noises of wind blowing over the city. There was no other sound at all. - ---No. There was a singularly deliberate clicking sound, not loud and -not fast. Perhaps a click--a double click--every two seconds. That was -all. - -Calhoun went into the airlock, with Murgatroyd frisking a little in -the expectation of great social success among the people of this world. -When Calhoun cracked the outer airlock door he smelled something. It -was a faintly sour, astringent odor that had the quality of decay in -it. But it was no kind of decay he recognized. Again stillness and -silence. No traffic-noise; not even the almost inaudible murmur that -every city has in all its ways at all hours. The buildings looked as -buildings should look at daybreak, except that the doors and windows -were open. It was somehow shocking. - -A ruined city is dramatic. An abandoned city is pathetic. This was -neither. It was something new. It felt as if everybody had walked away, -out of sight, within the past few minutes. - -Calhoun headed for the spaceport building with Murgatroyd ambling -puzzledly at his side. Murgatroyd was disturbed. There should be people -here! They should welcome Calhoun and admire him--Murgatroyd--and he -should be a social lion with all the sweets he could eat and all the -coffee he could put into his expandable belly. But nothing happened! -Nothing at all. - -"_Chee?_" he asked anxiously. - -"They've gone away," growled Calhoun. "They probably left in -ground-cars. There's not one in sight." - -There wasn't. Calhoun could look out through the grid foundations -and see long, sunlit and absolutely empty streets. He arrived at the -spaceport building. There was--there had been--a green area about the -base of the structure. There was not a living plant left. Leaves were -wilted and limp. The remains had become almost a jelly of collapsed -stems and blossoms of dark olive-green. The plants were dead; but not -long enough to have dried up. They might have wilted two or three days -before. - -Calhoun went in the building. The spaceport log lay open on a desk. It -recorded the arrival of freight to be shipped away--undoubtedly--on the -_Candida_ now uneasily in orbit somewhere aloft. There was no sign of -disorder. It was exactly as if the people here had walked out to look -at something interesting, and hadn't come back. - -Calhoun trudged out of the spaceport and to the streets and buildings -of the city proper. It was incredible! Doors were opened or unlocked. -Merchandise in the shops lay on display, exactly as it had been spread -out to interest customers. There was no sign of confusion anywhere. -Even in a restaurant there were dishes and flatware on the tables. The -food in the plates was stale, as if three days old, but it hadn't yet -begun to spoil. The appearance of everything was as if people at their -meals had simply, at some signal, gotten up and walked out without any -panic or disturbance. - -Calhoun made a wry face. He'd remembered something. Among the tales -that had been carried from Earth to the other worlds of the galaxy -there was a completely unimportant mystery story which people still -sometimes tried to write an ending to. It was the story of an ancient -sailing ship called the _Marie Celeste_, which was found drifting -aimlessly in the middle of the ocean. There was food on the cabin -table, and the galley stove was still warm. There was no sign of any -trouble, or terror, or disturbance which might cause the ship to be -abandoned. But there was not a living soul on board. Nobody had ever -been able to contrive a believable explanation. - -"Only," said Calhoun to Murgatroyd, "this is on a larger scale. The -people of this city walked out about three days ago, and didn't come -back. Maybe all the people on the planet did the same, since there's -not a communicator in operation anywhere. To make the understatement -of the century, Murgatroyd, I don't like this. I don't like it a bit!" - - -II - -On the way back to the Med Ship, Calhoun stopped at another place -where, on a grass-growing planet, there would have been green sward. -There were Earth-type trees, and some native ones, and between them -there should have been a lawn. The trees were thriving, but the -ground-cover plants were collapsed and rotting. - -Calhoun picked up a bit of the semi-slime and smelled it. It was -faintly sour, astringent, the same smell he'd noticed when he opened -the airlock door. He threw the stuff away and brushed off his hands. -Something had killed the ground-cover plants which had the habit of -killing Earth-type grass when planted here. - -He listened. Everywhere that humans live, there are insects and birds -and other tiny creatures which are essential parts of the ecological -system to which the human race is adjusted. They have to be carried to -and established upon every new world that mankind hopes to occupy. But -there was no sound of such living creatures here. - -It was probable that the bellowing roar of the Med Ship's emergency -rockets was the only real noise the city had heard since its people -went away. - -The stillness bothered Murgatroyd. He said, "_Chee!_" in a subdued -tone and stayed close to Calhoun. Calhoun shook his head. Then he said -abruptly: - -"Come along, Murgatroyd!" - -He went back to the building housing the grid controls. He didn't look -at the spaceport log this time. He went to the instruments recording -the second function of a landing-grid. In addition to lifting up and -letting down ships of space, a landing-grid drew down power from the -ions of the upper atmosphere and broadcast it. It provided all the -energy that humans on a world could need. It was solar power, in a way, -absorbed and stored by a layer of ions miles high, which then could be -drawn on and distributed by the grid. During his descent Calhoun had -noted that broadcast power was still available. Now he looked at what -the instruments said. - -The needle on the dial showing power-drain moved slowly back and forth. -It was a rhythmic movement, going from maximum to minimum power-use, -and then back again. Approximately six million kilowatts was being -taken out of the broadcast every two seconds for half of one second. -Then the drain cut off for a second and a half, and went on again for -half a second. - -Frowning, Calhoun raised his eyes to a very fine color photograph on -the wall above the power dials. It was a picture of the human-occupied -part of Maya, taken four thousand miles out in space. It had been -enlarged to four feet by six, and Maya City could be seen as an -irregular group of squares and triangles measuring a little more than -half an inch by three-quarters. The detail was perfect. It was possible -to see perfectly straight, infinitely thin lines moving out from the -city. They were multiple-lane highways, mathematically straight from -one city to another, and then mathematically straight--though at a new -angle--until the next. Calhoun stared thoughtfully at them. - -"The people left the city in a hurry," he told Murgatroyd, "and there -was little confusion, if any. So they knew in advance that they might -have to go. They were ready for it. If they took anything, they had it -ready packed in their cars. But they hadn't been sure they'd have to go -because they were going about their businesses as usual. All the shops -were open and people were eating in restaurants, and so on." - -Murgatroyd said, "_Chee!_" as if in full agreement. - -"Now," demanded Calhoun, "where did they go? The question's really -where could they go! There were about eight hundred thousand people in -this city. There'd be cars for everyone, of course, and two hundred -thousand cars would take everybody. But that's a lot of ground-cars! -Put 'em two hundred feet apart on a highway, and that's twenty-six -cars to the mile on each lane. Run them at a hundred miles an hour on -a twelve-lane road--using all lanes one way--and that's twenty-six -hundred cars per lane per hour, and that's thirty-one thousand ... two -highways make sixty-two ... three highways.... With two highways they -could empty the city in under three hours, and with three highways -close to two. Since there's no sign of panic, that's what they must -have done. Must have worked it out in advance, too. Maybe they'd done -it before it happened ... whatever it was that happened." - - * * * * * - -He searched the photograph which was so much more detailed than a map. -There were mountains to the north of Maya City, but only one highway -led north. There were more mountains to the west. One highway went into -them, but not through. To the south there was sea, which curved around -some three hundred miles from Maya City and put the human colony on -Maya on a peninsula. - -"They went east," said Calhoun presently. He traced lines with his -finger. "Three highways go east; that's the only way they could go -quickly. They hadn't been sure they'd have to go but they knew where to -go when they did. So when they got their warning, they left. On three -highways, to the east. And we'll follow them and ask what the hell they -ran away from. Nothing's visible here!" - -He went back to the Med Ship, Murgatroyd skipping with him. - -As the airlock door closed behind them, he heard a click from the -outside-microphone speakers. He listened. It was a doubled clicking, -as of something turned on and almost at once turned off again. There -was a two-second cycle, the same as that of the power drain. Something -drawing six million kilowatts went on and immediately off again every -two seconds. It made a sound in speakers linked to outside microphones, -but it didn't make a noise in the air. The microphone clicks were -induction; pick-up; like cross-talk on defective telephone cables. - -Calhoun shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears. He went to the -communicator. - -"Calling _Candida_--" he began, and the answer almost leaped down his -throat. - -"_Candida_ to Med Ship. Come in! Come in! What's happened down there?" - -"The city's deserted without any sign of panic," said Calhoun, "and -there's power and nothing seems to be broken down. But it's as if -somebody had said, 'Everybody clear out' and they did. That doesn't -happen on a whim! What's your next port of call?" - -The _Candida's_ voice told him, hopefully. - -"Take a report," commanded Calhoun. "Deliver it to the public health -office immediately you land. They'll get it to Med Service sector -headquarters. I'm going to stay here and find out what's been going on." - -He dictated, growing irritated as he did so because he couldn't explain -what he reported. Something serious had taken place, but there was no -clue as to what it was. Strictly speaking, it wasn't certainly a public -health affair. But any emergency the size of this one involved public -health factors. - -"I'm remaining aground to investigate," finished Calhoun. "I will -report further when or if it is possible. Message ends." - -"What about our passenger?" - -"To the devil with your passenger!" said Calhoun peevishly. "Do as you -please!" - - * * * * * - -He cut off the communicator and prepared for activity outside the ship. -Presently he and Murgatroyd went to look for transportation. The Med -Ship couldn't be used for a search operation; it didn't carry enough -rocket fuel. They'd have to use a ground vehicle. - -It was again shocking to note that nothing had moved but sun shadows. -Again it seemed that everybody had simply walked out of some door or -other and failed to come back. Calhoun saw the windows of jewelers' -shops. Treasures lay unguarded in plain view. He saw a florist's shop. -Here there were Earth-type flowers apparently thriving, and some -strange beautiful flowers with olive-green foliage which throve as well -as the Earth-plants. There was a cage in which a plant had grown, and -that plant was wilting and about to rot. But a plant that had to be -grown in a cage.... - -He found a ground-car agency, perhaps for imported cars, perhaps for -those built on Maya. He went in and from the cars on display he chose -one, an elaborate sports car. He turned its key and it hummed. He drove -it carefully out into the empty street, Murgatroyd sitting interestedly -beside him. - -"This is luxury, Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "Also it's grand theft. We -medical characters can't usually afford such things. Or have an excuse -to steal them. But these are parlous times, so we take a chance." - -"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd. - -"We want to find a fugitive population and ask what they ran away from. -As of the moment, it seems that they ran away from nothing. They may be -pleased to know they can come back." - -Murgatroyd again said, "_Chee!_" - -Calhoun drove through vacant ways. It was somehow nerve-racking. He -felt as if someone should pop out and say "Boo!" at any instant. He -discovered an elevated highway and a ramp leading up to it. At a -cloverleaf he drove eastward, watching sharply for any sign of life. -There was none. - -He was nearly out of the city when he felt the chest impact of a sonic -boom, and then heard a trailing away growling sound which seemed to -come from farther away as it died out. It was the result of something -traveling faster than sound, so that the noise it made far away had to -catch up with the sound it emitted nearby. - -He stared up. He saw a parachute blossom as a bare speck against the -blue. Then he heard the even deeper-toned roaring of a supersonic craft -climbing skyward. It could be a spaceliner's lifeboat, descended into -atmosphere and going out again. - -It was. It had left a parachute behind, and now went back to space to -rendezvous with its parent ship. - -"That," said Calhoun impatiently, "will be the _Candida's_ passenger. -He was insistent enough." - -He scowled. The _Candida's_ voice had said its passenger demanded to -be landed for business reasons. And Calhoun had a prejudice against -some kinds of business men who would think their own affairs more -important than anything else. Two standard years before, he'd made a -planetary health inspection on Texia II, in another galactic sector. It -was a llano planet and a single giant business enterprise. Illimitable -prairies had been sown with an Earth-type grass which destroyed -the native ground-cover--the reverse of the ground-cover situation -here--and the entire planet was a monstrous range for beef cattle. -Dotted about were gigantic slaughterhouses, and cattle in masses of -tens of thousands were shifted here and there by ground-induction -fields which acted as fences. Ultimately the cattle were driven by -these same induction fences to the slaughter houses and actually into -the chutes where their throats were slit. Every imaginable fraction of -a credit of profit was extracted from their carcasses, and Calhoun had -found it appalling. - -He was not sentimental about cattle, but the complete cold-bloodedness -of the entire operation sickened him. The same cold-bloodedness was -practised toward the human employees who ran the place. Their living -quarters were sub-marginal. The air stank of cattle murder. Men worked -for the Texia Company or they did not work. If they did not work -they did not eat. If they worked and ate,--Calhoun could see nothing -satisfying in being alive on a world like that! His report to Med -Service had been biting. He'd been prejudiced against businessmen ever -since. - - * * * * * - -But a parachute descended, blowing away from the city. It would land -not too far from the highway he followed. And it didn't occur to -Calhoun not to help the unknown chutist. He saw a small figure dangling -below the chute. He slowed the ground-car as he estimated where the -parachute would land. - -He was off the twelve-lane highway and on a feeder road when the chute -was a hundred feet high. He was racing across a field of olive-green -plants that went all the way to the horizon when the parachute actually -touched ground. There was a considerable wind. The man in the harness -bounced. He didn't know how to spill the air. The chute dragged him. - -Calhoun sped ahead, swerved and ran into the chute. He stopped the car -and the chute stopped with it. He got out. - -The man lay in a hopeless tangle of cordage. He thrust unskilfully at -it. When Calhoun came up he said suspiciously: - -"Have you a knife?" - -Calhoun offered a knife, politely opening its blade. The man slashed -at the cords and freed himself. There was an attache case lashed to -his chute harness. He cut at those cords. The attache case not only -came clear, but opened. It dumped out an incredible mass of brand new, -tightly packed interstellar credit certificates. Calhoun could see that -the denominations were one thousand and ten thousand credits. The man -from the chute reached under his armpit and drew out a blaster. - -It was not a service weapon. It was elaborate, practically a toy. With -a dour glance at Calhoun he put it in a side pocket and gathered up -the scattered money. It was an enormous sum, but he packed it back. He -stood up. - -"My name is Allison," he said in an authoritative voice. "Arthur -Allison. I'm much obliged. Now I'll ask you to take me to Maya City." - -"No," said Calhoun politely. "I just left there. It's deserted. I'm not -going back. There's nobody there." - -"But I've important bus--" The other man stared. "It's deserted? But -that's impossible!" - -"Quite," agreed Calhoun, "but it's true. It's abandoned. Uninhabited. -Everybody's left it. There's no one there at all." - -The man who called himself Allison blinked unbelievingly. He swore. -Then he raged profanely. - -But he was not bewildered by the news. Which, upon consideration, was -itself almost bewildering. But then his eyes grew shrewd. He looked -about him. - -"My name is Allison," he repeated, as if there were some sort of magic -in the word. "Arthur Allison. No matter what's happened, I've some -business to do here. Where have the people gone? I need to find them." - -"I need to find them too," said Calhoun. "I'll take you with me, if you -like." - -"You've heard of me." It was a statement, confidently made. - -"Never," said Calhoun politely. "If you're not hurt, suppose you get in -the car? I'm as anxious as you are to find out what's happened. I'm Med -Service." - - * * * * * - -Allison moved toward the car. - -"Med Service, eh? I don't think much of the Med Service! You people -try to meddle in things that are none of your business!" - -Calhoun did not answer. The muddy man, clutching the attache case -tightly, waded through the olive-green plants to the car and climbed -in. Murgatroyd said cordially, "_Chee-chee!_" but Allison viewed him -with distaste. - -"What's this?" - -"He's Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "He's a _tormal_. He's Med service -personnel." - -"I don't like beasts," said Allison coldly. - -"He's much more important to me than you are," said Calhoun, "if the -matter should come to a test." - -Allison stared at him as if expecting him to cringe. Calhoun did not. -Allison showed every sign of being an important man who expected his -importance to be recognized and catered to. When Calhoun stirred -impatiently he got into the car and growled a little. Calhoun took -his place. The ground-car hummed. It rose on the six columns of air -which took the place of wheels and slid across the field of dark-green -plants, leaving the parachute deflated across a number of rows, and a -trail of crushed-down plants where it had moved. - -It reached the highway again. Calhoun ran the car up on the highway's -shoulder, and then suddenly checked. He'd noticed something. - -He stopped the car and got out. Where the ploughed field ended, and -before the coated surface of the highway began, there was a space where -on another world one would expect to see green grass. - -On this planet grass did not grow; but there would normally be some -sort of self-planted vegetation where there was soil and sunshine and -moisture. There had been such vegetation here, but now there was only a -thin, repellent mass of slimy and decaying foliage. Calhoun bent down -to it. - -It had a sour, faintly astringent smell of decay. These were the -ground-cover plants of Maya of which Calhoun had read. They had motile -stems, leaves and flowers, and they had cannibalistic tendencies. They -were the local weeds which made it impossible to grow grain for human -use upon this world. - -And they were dead. - -Calhoun straightened up and returned to the car. Plants like this were -wilted at the base of the spaceport building, and on another place -where there should have been sward. Calhoun had seen a large dead -member of the genus in a florist's, that had been growing in a cage -before it died. There was a singular coincidence here: humans ran away -from something, and something caused the death of a particular genus -of cannibal weeds. - -It did not exactly add up to anything in particular, and certainly -wasn't evidence for anything at all. But Calhoun drove on in a vaguely -puzzled mood. The germ of a guess was forming in his mind. He couldn't -pretend to himself that it was likely, but it was surely no more -unlikely than most of a million human beings abandoning their homes at -a moment's notice. - - -III - -They came to the turnoff for a town called Tenochitlan, some forty -miles from Maya City. Calhoun swung off the highway to go through it. - -Whoever had chosen the name Maya for this planet had been interested -in the legends of Yucatan, back on Earth. There were many instances of -such hobbies in a Med Ship's list of ports of call. Calhoun touched -ground regularly on planets that had been named for countries and towns -when men first roamed the stars, and nostalgically christened their -discoveries with names suggested by homesickness. There was a Tralee, -and a Dorset, and an Eire. Colonists not infrequently took their -world's given name as a pattern and chose related names for seas and -peninsulas and mountain chains. On Texia the landing-grid rose near a -town called Corral and the principal meat-packing settlement was named -Roundup. - -Whatever the name Tenochitlan would have suggested, though, was denied -by the town itself. It was small, with a pleasing local type of -architecture. There were shops and some factories, and many strictly -private homes, some clustered close together and others in the middles -of considerable gardens. In those gardens also there was wilt and decay -among the cannibal plants. There was no grass, because the plants -prevented it, but now the motile plants themselves were dead. Except -for the one class of killed growing things, however, vegetation was -luxuriant. - -But the little city was deserted. Its streets were empty, its houses -untenanted. Some houses were apparently locked up here, though, and -Calhoun saw three or four shops whose stock in trade had been covered -over before the owners departed. He guessed that either this town had -been warned earlier than the spaceport city, or else they knew they had -time to get in motion before the highways were filled with the cars -from the west. - -Allison looked at the houses with keen, evaluating eyes. He did not -seem to notice the absence of people. When Calhoun swung back on the -great road beyond the little city, Allison regarded the endless fields -of dark-green plants with much the same sort of interest. - -"Interesting," he said abruptly when Tenochitlan fell behind and -dwindled to a speck. "Very interesting! I'm interested in land. Real -property, that's my business. I've a land-owning corporation on Thanet -Three. I've some holdings on Dorset, too, and elsewhere. It just -occurred to me: what's all this land and the cities worth, with the -people all run away?" - -"What," asked Calhoun, "are the people worth who've run?" - -Allison paid no attention. He looked shrewd. Thoughtful. - -"I came here to buy land," he said. "I'd arranged to buy some hundreds -of square miles. I'd buy more if the price were right. But--as things -are, it looks like the price of land ought to go down quite a bit. -Quite a bit!" - -"It depends," said Calhoun, "on whether there's anybody left alive to -sell it to you, and what sort of thing has happened." - -Allison looked at him sharply. - -"Ridiculous!" he said authoritatively. "There's no question of their -being alive!" - -"They thought there might be," observed Calhoun. "That's why they ran -away. They hoped they'd be safe where they ran to. I hope they are." - -Allison ignored the comment. His eyes remained intent and shrewd. He -was not bewildered by the flight of the people of Maya. His mind was -busy with contemplation of that flight from the standpoint of a man of -business. - - * * * * * - -The car went racing onward. The endless fields of dark green rushed -past to the rear. The highway was deserted, just three strips of -surfaced road, mathematically straight, going on to the horizon. They -went on by tens and scores of miles, each strip wide enough to allow -four ground-cars to run side by side. The highway was intended to -allow all the produce of all these fields to be taken to market or a -processing plant at the highest possible speed and in any imaginable -quantity. The same roads had allowed the cities to be deserted -instantly the warning--whatever the warning was--arrived. - -Fifty miles beyond Tenochitlan there was a mile-long strip of sheds -containing agricultural machinery for crop culture and trucks to carry -the crops to market. There was no sign of life about the machinery, nor -in a further hour's run to westward. - -Then there was a city visible to the left. But it was not served -by this particular highway, but another. There was no sign of any -movement in its streets. It moved along the horizon to the left and -rear. Presently it disappeared. - -Half an hour later still, Murgatroyd said: - -"_Chee!_" - -He stirred uneasily. A moment later he said "_Chee!_" again. - -Calhoun turned his eyes from the road. Murgatroyd looked unhappy. -Calhoun ran his hand over the _tormal's_ furry body. Murgatroyd pressed -against him. The car raced on. Murgatroyd whimpered a little. Calhoun's -hand felt the little animal's muscles tense sharply, and then relax, -and after a little tense again. Murgatroyd said almost hysterically: - -"_Chee-chee-chee-chee!_" - -Calhoun stopped the car, but Murgatroyd did not seem to be relieved. -Allison said impatiently, "What's the matter?" - -"That's what I'm trying to find out," said Calhoun. - -He felt Murgatroyd's pulse. The role of Murgatroyd in the Med Ship -_Esclipus Twenty_ was not only that of charming companion in the long, -isolated runs in overdrive. Murgatroyd was a part of the Med Service. -His tribe had been discovered on a planet in the Deneb sector, and -men had made pets of them, to the high satisfaction of the _tormals_. -Presently it was discovered that veterinarians never had _tormals_ -for patients. They were invariably in robustuous good health. They -contracted no infections from other animals; they shared no infections -with anybody else. The Med Service discovered that _tormals_ possessed -a dynamic immunity to germ and bacteria-caused diseases. Even -viruses injected into their bloodstreams only provoked an immediate, -overwhelming development of antibodies, so that _tormals_ couldn't be -given any known disease. Which was of infinite value to the Med Service. - -Now every Med Ship that could be supplied with a _tormal_ carried a -small, affectionate, whiskered member of the tribe. Men liked them, -and they adored men. And when, as sometimes happened, by mutation or -the simple enmity of nature, a new kind of infection appeared in human -society--why--_tormals_ defeated it. They produced specific antibodies -to destroy it. Men analyzed the antibodies and synthesized them, and -they were available to all the humans who needed them. So a great many -millions of humans stayed alive, because _tormals_ were pleasant little -animals with a precious genetic gift of good health. - - * * * * * - -Calhoun looked at his sweep-second watch, timing the muscular spasms -that Murgatroyd displayed. They coincided with irregularities in -Murgatroyd's heartbeat, coming at approximately two-second intervals. -The tautening of the muscles lasted just about half a second. - -"But I don't feel it!" said Calhoun. - -Murgatroyd whimpered again and said, "_Chee-chee!_" - -"What's going on?" demanded Allison with the impatience of a very -important man indeed. "If the beast's sick, he's sick! I've got to -find--" - -Calhoun opened his med kit and went carefully through it until he found -what he needed. He put a pill into Murgatroyd's mouth. - -"Swallow it!" he commanded. - -Murgatroyd resisted, but the pill went down. Calhoun watched him -sharply. Murgatroyd's digestive system was delicate, but it was -dependable. Anything that might be poisonous, Murgatroyd's stomach -rejected instantly and emphatically. - -The pill stayed down. - -"Look!" said Allison indignantly. "I've got business to do! In this -attache case I have millions of interstellar credits, in cash, to pay -down on purchases of land and factories. I ought to make some damned -good deals! And I figure that that's as important as anything else you -can think of! It's a damned sight more important than a beast with a -belly-ache!" - -Calhoun looked at him coldly. - -"Do you own land on Texia?" he asked. - -Allison's mouth dropped open. Extreme suspicion and unease appeared -on his face. As a sign of the unease, his hand went to the side coat -pocket in which he'd put a blaster. He didn't pluck it out. Calhoun's -left fist swung around and landed. He took Allison's elaborate pocket -blaster and threw it away among the monotonous rows of olive-green -plants. He returned to absorbed observation of Murgatroyd. - -In five minutes the muscular spasms diminished. In ten, Murgatroyd -frisked. But he seemed to think that Calhoun had done something -remarkable. In the warmest of tones he said: - -"_Chee!_" - -"Very good," said Calhoun. "We'll go ahead. I suspect you'll do as well -as we do--for a while." - -The car lifted the few inches the air columns sustained it above the -ground. It went on, still to the eastward. But Calhoun drove more -slowly now. - -"Something was giving Murgatroyd rhythmic muscular spasms," he said -coldly. "I gave him medication to stop them. He's more sensitive than -we are, so he reacted to a stimulus we haven't noticed yet. But I -think we'll notice it presently." - -Allison seemed to be dazed at the affront given him. It appeared to be -unthinkable that anybody might lay hands on him. - -"What the devil has that to do with me?" he demanded angrily. "And what -did you hit me for? You're going to pay for this!" - -"Until I do," Calhoun told him, "you'll be quiet. And it does have the -devil to do with you. There was a Med Service gadget once--a tricky -little device to produce contraction of chosen muscles. It was useful -for re-starting stopped hearts without the need of an operation. -It regulated the beat of hearts that were too slow or dangerously -irregular. But some businessman had a bright idea and got a tame -researcher to link that gadget to ground induction currents. I suspect -you know that businessman!" - -"I don't know what you're talking about," snapped Allison. But he was -singularly tense. - -"I do," said Calhoun unpleasantly. "I made a public health inspection -on Texia a couple of years ago. The whole planet is a single, gigantic, -cattle-raising enterprise. They don't use metal fences--the herds are -too big to be stopped by such things. They don't use cowboys--they cost -money. On Texia they use ground-induction and the Med Service gadget -linked together to serve as cattle fences. They act like fences, though -they're projected through the ground. Cattle become uncomfortable when -they try to cross them. So they draw back. So men control them. They -move them from place to place by changing the cattle fences, which -are currents induced in the ground. The cattle have to keep moving -or be punished by the moving fence. They're even driven into the -slaughterhouse chutes by ground-induction fields! That's the trick -on Texia, where induction fields herd cattle. I think it's the trick -on Maya, where people are herded like cattle and driven out of their -cities so the value of their fields and factories will drop,--so a land -buyer can find bargains!" - -"You're insane!" snapped Allison. "I just landed on this planet! You -saw me land! I don't know what happened before I got here! How could I?" - -"You might have arranged it," said Calhoun. - - * * * * * - -Allison assumed an air of offended and superior dignity. Calhoun drove -the car onward at very much less than the head-long pace he'd been -keeping to. Presently he looked down at his hands on the steering -wheel. Now and then the tendons to his fingers seemed to twitch. At -rhythmic intervals, the skin crawled on the back of his hands. He -glanced at Allison. Allison's hands were tightly clenched. - -"There's a ground-induction fence in action, all right," said Calhoun -calmly. "You notice? It's a cattle fence and we're running into it. If -we were cattle, now, we'd turn around and move away." - -"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Allison. - -But his hands stayed clenched. Calhoun slowed the car still more. He -began to feel, all over his body, that every muscle tended to twitch at -the same time. It was a horrible sensation. His heart muscles tended -to contract too, simultaneously with the rest, but one's heart has its -own beat rate. Sometimes the normal beat coincided with the twitch. -Then his heart pounded violently--so violently that it was painful. But -equally often the imposed contraction of the heart muscles came just -after a normal contraction, and then it stayed tightly knotted for half -a second. It missed a beat, and the feeling was agony. - -No animal would have pressed forward in the face of such sensations. It -would have turned back long ago. No animal. Not even Man. - -Calhoun stopped the car. He looked at Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd was -completely himself. He looked inquiringly at Calhoun. Calhoun nodded to -him, but he spoke--with some difficulty--to Allison. - -"We'll see--if this thing--builds up. You know that it's the -Texia--trick. A ground-induction unit set up--here. It drove -people--like cattle. Now we've--run into it.--It's holding people--like -cattle." - -He panted. His chest muscles contracted with the rest, so that his -breathing was interfered with. But Murgatroyd, who'd been made uneasy -and uncomfortable before Calhoun noticed anything wrong, was now -bright and frisky. Medication had desensitized his muscles to outside -stimuli. He would be able to take a considerable electric shock without -responding to it. - -But he could be killed by one that was strong enough. - -A savage anger filled Calhoun. Everything fitted together. Allison -had put his hand convenient to his blaster when Calhoun mentioned -Texia. It meant that Calhoun suspected what Allison knew to be true. -A cattle-fence unit had been set up on Maya, and it was holding--like -cattle--the people it had previously driven--like cattle. Calhoun -could deduce with some precision exactly what had been done. The first -experience of Maya with the cattle fence would have been very mild. -It would have been low-power, causing just enough uneasiness to be -noticed. It would have moved from west to east, slowly, and it would -have reached a certain spot and there faded out. And it would have been -a mystery and an uncomfortable thing, and nobody would understand it -on Maya. In a week it would almost be forgotten. But then there'd come -a stronger disturbance. And it would travel like the first one; down -the length of the peninsula on which the colony lay, but stopping at -the same spot as before, and then fading away to nothingness. And this -also would have seemed mysterious. But nobody would suspect humans of -causing it. There would be theorizing and much questioning, but it -would be considered an unfamiliar natural event. - -Probably the third use of the cattle fence would be most disturbing. -This time it would be acutely painful. But it would move into the -cities and through them and past them, and it would go down the -peninsula to where it had stopped and faded on two previous occasions. - -The people of Maya would be disturbed and scared. But they considered -that they knew it began to the westward of Maya City, and moved toward -the east at such-and-such a speed, and it went so far and no farther. -And they would organize themselves to apply this carefully worked out -information. - -It would not occur to any of them that they had learned how to be -driven like cattle. - - * * * * * - -Calhoun, of course, could only reason that this must have happened. But -nothing else could have taken place. Perhaps there were more than three -uses of the moving cattle fence to get the people prepared to move past -the known place at which it always faded to nothingness. They might -have been days apart, or weeks apart, or months. There might have been -stronger manifestations followed by weaker ones and then stronger ones -again. - -But there was an inductive cattle fence across the highway here. -Calhoun had driven into it. Every two seconds the muscles of his -body tensed. Sometimes his heart missed a beat at the time that his -breathing stopped, and sometimes it pounded violently. It seemed that -the symptoms became more and more unbearable. - -He got out his med kit, with hands that spasmodically jerked -uncontrollably. He fumbled out the same medication he'd given -Murgatroyd. He took two of the pellets. - -"In reason," he said coldly, "I ought to let you take what this damned -thing would give you. But--here!" - -Allison had panicked. The _idea_ of a cattle fence suggested -discomfort, of course, but it did not imply danger. The _experience_ -of a cattle fence, designed for huge hoofed beasts instead of men, -was terrifying. Allison gasped. He made convulsive movements. Calhoun -himself moved erratically. For one and a half seconds out of two, he -could control his muscles. For half a second at a time, he could not. -But he poked a pill into Allison's mouth. - -"Swallow it!" he commanded. "Swallow!" - -The ground-car rested tranquilly on the highway, which here went on for -a mile and then dipped in a gentle incline and then rose once more. -The totally level fields to right and left came to an end here. Native -trees grew, trailing preposterously with long fronds. Brushwood hid -much of the ground. That looked normal. But the lower, ground-covering -vegetation was wilted and rotting. - -Allison choked upon the pellet. Calhoun forced a second upon him. -Murgatroyd looked inquisitively at first one and then the other of the -two men. He said: - -"_Chee? Chee?_" - -Calhoun lay back in his seat, breathing carefully to keep alive. But -he couldn't do anything about his heartbeat. The sun shone brightly, -though now it was low, toward the horizon. There were clouds in the -reddened sky. A gentle breeze blew. Everything, to outward appearance, -was peaceful and tranquil and commonplace upon this small world. - -But in the area that human beings had taken over there -were cities which were still and silent and deserted, and -somewhere--somewhere!--the population of the planet waited uneasily for -the latest of a series of increasingly terrifying phenomena to come to -an end. Up to this time the strange, creeping, universal affliction had -begun at one place, and moved slowly to another, and then diminished -and ceased to be. But this was the greatest and worst of the torments. -And it hadn't ended. It hadn't diminished. After three days it -continued at full strength at the place where previously it had stopped -and died away. - -The people of Maya were frightened. They couldn't return to their -homes. They couldn't go anywhere. They hadn't prepared for an emergency -to last for days. They hadn't brought supplies of food. - -It began to look as if they were going to starve. - - -IV - -Calhoun was in very bad shape when the sports car came to the end of -the highway. - -First, all the multiple roadways of the route that had brought him here -were joined by triple ribbons of road-surface from the north. For a -space there were twenty-four lanes available to traffic. They flowed -together, and then there were twelve. Here there was evidence of an -enormous traffic concentration at some time now past. Brush and small -trees were crushed and broken where cars had been forced to travel -off the hard-surface roadways and through undergrowth. The twelve -lanes dwindled to six, and the unpaved area on either side showed that -innumerable cars had been forced to travel off the highway altogether. -Then there were three lanes, and then two, and finally only a single -ribbon of pavement where no more than two cars could run side by side. -The devastation on either hand was astounding. All visible vegetation -for half a mile to right and left was crushed and tangled. And then the -narrow surfaced road ceased to be completely straight. It curved around -a hillock--and here the ground was no longer perfectly flat--and came -to an end. - -And Calhoun saw all the ground-cars of the planet gathered and parked -together. - -There were no buildings. There were no streets. There was nothing of -civilization but tens and scores of thousands of ground-cars. They were -extraordinary to look at, stopped at random, their fronts pointed in -all directions, their air-column tubes thrusting into the ground so -that there might be trouble getting them clear again. - -Parked bumper to bumper in closely placed lines, in theory twenty-five -thousand cars could be parked on a square mile of ground. But there -were very many times that number of cars here, and some places were -unsuitable for parking, and there were lanes placed at random and -there'd been no special effort to put the maximum number of cars in -the smallest place. So the surface transportation system of the planet -Maya spread out over some fifty sprawling square miles. Here, cars were -crowded closely. There, there was much room between them. But it seemed -that as far as one could see in the twilight there were glistening -vehicles gathered confusedly, so there was nothing else to be seen but -an occasional large tree rising from among them. - -Calhoun came to the end of the surfaced road. He'd waited for the -pellets he'd taken and given to Allison to have the effect they'd had -on Murgatroyd. That had come about. He'd driven on. But the strength of -the inductor field had increased to the intolerable. When he stopped -the sports car he showed the effects of what he'd been through. - -Figures on foot converged upon him instantly. There were eager calls. - -"It's stopped? You got through? We can go back?" - -Calhoun shook his head. It was just past sunset and many brilliant -colorings showed in the western sky, but they couldn't put color into -Calhoun's face. His cheeks were grayish and his eyes were deep-sunk, -and he looked like someone in the last stages of exhaustion. He said -heavily: - -"It's still there. We came through. I'm Med Service. Have you got a -government here? I need to talk to somebody who can give orders." - - * * * * * - -If he'd asked two days earlier there would have been no answer, because -the fugitives were only waiting for a disaster to come to an end. One -day earlier, he might have found men with authority busily trying to -arrange for drinking water for something like two millions of people, -in the entire absence of wells or pumps or ways of making either. -And if he'd been a day later, it is rather likely that he'd have -found savage disorder. But he arrived at sundown three days after the -flight from the cities. There was no food to speak of, and water was -drastically short, and the fugitives were only beginning to suspect -that they would never be able to leave this place--and that they might -die here. - -Men left the growing crowd about the sports car to find individuals -who could give orders. Calhoun stayed in the car, resting from the -unbearable strain he'd undergone. The ground-inductor cattle fence -had been ten miles deep. One mile was not bad. Only Murgatroyd had -noticed it. After two miles Calhoun and Allison suffered; but the -medication strengthened them to take it. But there'd been a long, long -way in the center of the induction-field in which existence was pure -torment. Calhoun's muscles defied him for part of every two-second -cycle, and his heart and lungs seemed constantly about to give up even -the pretense of working. In that part of the cattle-fence field, he'd -hardly dared drive faster than a crawl, in order to keep control of -the car when his own body was uncontrollable. But presently the field -strength lessened and ultimately ended. - -Now Murgatroyd looked cordially at the figures who clustered about -the car. He'd hardly suffered at all. He'd had half as much of the -medication as Calhoun himself, and his body weight was only a tenth -of Calhoun's. He'd made out all right. Now he looked expectantly at -what became a jammed mass of crowding men about the vehicle that had -come through the invisible barrier across the highway. They hoped -desperately for news to produce hope. But Murgatroyd waited zestfully -for somebody to welcome him and offer him cakes and sweets, and -undoubtedly presently a cup of coffee. - -But nobody did. - -It was a long time before there was a stirring at the edge of the -crowd. Night had fully fallen then, and for miles and miles in all -directions lights in the ground cars of Maya's inhabitants glowed -brightly. They drew upon broadcast power, naturally, for their motors -and their lights. Off to one side someone shouted. Calhoun turned on -his headlights for a guide. More shoutings. A knot of men struggled to -get through the crowd. With difficulty, presently, they reached the car. - -"They say you got through," panted a tall man, "but you can't get back. -They say--" - -Calhoun roused himself. Allison, beside him, stirred. The tall man -panted again: - -"I'm the planetary president. What can we do?" - -"First, listen," said Calhoun tiredly. - -He'd had a little rest. Not much, but some. The actual work he'd done -in driving three hundred-odd miles from Maya City was trivial. But -the continuous, and lately violent, spasms of his heart and breathing -muscles had been exhausting. He heard Murgatroyd say ingratiatingly, -"_Chee-chee-chee-chee_," and put his hand on the little animal to quiet -him. - -"The thing you ran away from," said Calhoun with effort, "is a type of -ground-induction field using broadcast power from the grid. It's used -on Texia to confine cattle to their pastures and to move them where -they're wanted to be. But it was designed for cattle. It's a cattle -fence. It could kill humans." - - * * * * * - -He went on, his voice gaining strength and steadiness as he spoke. He -explained, precisely, how a ground-induction field was projected in a -line at a right angle to its source. It could be moved by adjustments -of the apparatus by which it was projected. - -"But--but if it uses broadcast power," the planetary president said -urgently, "then if the power broadcast is cut off it has to stop! -If you got through it coming here, tell us how to get through going -back and we'll cut off the power broadcast ourselves! We've got to -do something immediately. The whole planet's here. There's no food! -There's no water! Something has to be done before we begin to die!" - -"But," said Calhoun, "if you cut off the power you'll die anyway! -You've got a couple of million people here, and you're a hundred miles -from food. Without power you couldn't get to food or bring it here. Cut -the power and you're still stranded here. Without power you'll die as -soon as with it." - -There was a sound from the listening men around. It was partly a growl -and partly a groan. - -"I've just found this out," said Calhoun. "I didn't know until the last -ten miles exactly what the situation was, and I had to come here to be -sure. Now I need some people to help me. It won't be pleasant. I may -have enough medication to get a dozen people back through. It'll be -safer if I take only six. Get a doctor to pick me six men. Good heart -action. Sound lungs. Two should be electronics engineers. The others -should be good shots. If you get them ready, I'll give them the same -stuff that got us through. It's desensitizing medication, but it will -do only so much. And try and find some weapons for them." - -Voices murmured all around. Men hastily explained to other men what -Calhoun had said. The creeping disaster before which they'd all -fled,--it was not a natural catastrophe, but an artificial one! Men -had made it! They'd been herded here and their wives and children were -hungry because of something men had done! - -A low-pitched, buzzing, humming sound came from the crowd about the -sports car. For the moment, nobody asked what could be the motive for -men to do what had been done. Pure fury filled the mob. Calhoun leaned -closer to Allison. - -"I wouldn't get out of the car if I were you," he said in a low tone. -"I certainly wouldn't try to buy any real property at a low price!" - -Allison shivered. There was a vast, vast stirring as the explanation -passed from man to man. Figures moved away in the darkness. Lighted -car windows winked as they moved through the obscurity. The population -of Maya was spread out over very many square miles of what had been -wilderness, and there was no elaborate communication system by which -information could be spread quickly. But long before dawn there'd be -nobody who didn't know that they'd fled from a man-made danger and were -held here like cattle, behind a cattle fence, apparently abandoned to -die. - - * * * * * - -Allison's teeth chattered. He was a business man and up to now he'd -thought as one. He'd made decisions in offices, with attorneys and -secretaries and clerks to make the decisions practical and safe, -without any concern for any consequences other than financial ones. - -He saw possible consequences to himself, here and now. He'd landed on -Maya because he considered the matter too important to trust to anybody -else. Even riding with Calhoun on the way here, he'd only been elated -and astonished at the success of the intended coup. He'd raised his -aim. For a while he'd believed that he'd end as the sole proprietor -of the colony on Maya, with every plant growing for his profit, and -every factory earning money for him, and every inhabitant his employee. -It had been the most grandiose possible dream. The details and the -maneuvers needed to complete it flowed into his mind. - -But now his teeth chattered. At ten words from Calhoun he would -literally be torn to pieces by the raging men about him. His attache -case with millions of credits in cash--it would be proof of whatever -Calhoun chose to say. Allison knew terror down to the bottom of his -soul. But he dared not move from Calhoun's side, even though a single -sentence in the calmest of voices would destroy him, and he'd never -faced actual, understood, physical danger before. - -Presently men came, one by one, to take orders from Calhoun. They were -able-bodied and grim-faced men. Two were electronics engineers, as he'd -specified. One was a policeman. There were two mechanics and a doctor -who was also amateur tennis champion of the planet. Calhoun doled -out to them the pellets that reduced the sensitiveness of muscles to -externally applied stimuli. He gave instructions. They'd go as far into -the cattle fence as they could reasonably endure. Then they'd swallow -the pellets and let them act. Then they'd go on. His stock of pellets -was limited. He could give three to each man. - -Murgatroyd squirmed disappointedly as this briefing went on. Obviously, -he wasn't to make a social success here. He was annoyed, and he needed -more space. Calhoun tossed Allison's attache case behind the seats. -Allison was too terrified to protest. It still did not increase the -space left on the front seat between Calhoun and Allison. - -Four humming ground cars lifted eight inches off the ground and hovered -there on columns of rushing air. Calhoun took the lead. His headlights -moved down the single-lane road to which two joining twelve-lane -highways had shrunk. Behind him, other headlights moved into line. -Calhoun's car moved away into the darkness. The others followed. - -Brilliant stars shone overhead. A cluster of thousands of suns, a -hundred light-years away, made a center of illumination that gave -Maya's night the quality of a vivid if diffused moonlight. The cars -went on. Presently Calhoun felt the twitchings of minor muscular -spasms. He was riding into the field which had been first devised for -purposes remote from the herding of cattle or humans, but applied to -the first use on the planet Texia, and now applied to the second here. - -The road became two, and then four, and then eight lanes wide. Then -four lanes swirled off to one side, and the remaining four presently -doubled, and then widened again, and it was the twelve-lane turnpike -that had brought Calhoun here from Maya City. - - * * * * * - -But the rhythmic interference with his body grew stronger. Allison had -spoken not one single word while Calhoun conferred with the people of -Maya beyond the highway. His teeth chattered as they started back. He -didn't attempt to speak during the beginning of the ride through the -cattle-fence field. His teeth chattered, and stopped, and chattered -again, and at long last he panted despairingly: - -"Are you going to let the thing kill me?" - -Calhoun stopped. The cars behind him stopped. He gave Allison two -pellets and took two himself. With Murgatroyd insistently accompanying -him, he went along the cars which trailed him. He made sure the six men -he'd asked for took their pellets and that they had an adequate effect. -He went back to the sports car. - -Allison whimpered a little when he and Murgatroyd got back in. - -"I thought," said Calhoun conversationally, "that you might try to take -off by yourself, just now. It would solve a problem for me. Of course -it wouldn't solve any for you. But I don't think your problems have any -solution, now." - -He started the car up again. It moved forward. The other cars trailed -dutifully. They went on through the starlit night. Calhoun noted that -the effect of the cattle fence was less than it had been before. The -first desensitizing pellets had not wholly lost their effect when he -added to it. But he kept his speed low until he was certain the other -drivers had endured the anguish of passing through the cattle-fence -field. - -Presently he was confident that the cattle field was past. He sent his -car up to eighty miles an hour. The other cars followed faithfully. To -a hundred. They did not drop behind. The car hummed through the night -at top speed--a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty miles an hour. -The three other cars' headlights faithfully kept pace with him. - -Allison, said desperately, "Look! I--don't understand what's happened. -You talk as if I'd planned all this. I--did have advance notice of a--a -research project here. But it shouldn't have held the people there for -days! Something went wrong! I only believed that people would want to -leave Maya. I'd only planned to buy as much acreage as I could, and -control of as many factories as possible. That's all! It was business! -Only business!" - -Calhoun did not answer. Allison might be telling the truth. Some -businessmen would think it only intelligent to frighten people into -selling their holdings below true value. Something of the sort happened -every day in stock exchanges. But the people of Maya could have died! - -For that matter, they still might. They couldn't return to their homes -and food so long as broadcast power kept the cattle-fence in existence. -But they could not return to their homes and food supplies if the power -broadcast was cut off, either. - -Over all the night surface of the world of Maya there was light only -on one highway at one spot, and a multitude of smaller, lesser lights -where the people of Maya waited to find out whether they would live or -die. - - -V - -Calhoun considered coldly. They were beyond what had been the -farthest small city on the multiple highway. They would go on past -now-starlit fields of plants native to Maya, passing many places where -trucks loaded with the plants climbed up to the roadway and headed -for the factories which made use of them. The fields ran for scores -of miles along the highway's length. They reached out beyond the -horizon,--perhaps scores of miles in that direction, too. There were -thousands upon thousands of square miles devoted to the growing of the -dark-green vegetation which supplied the raw materials for Maya's space -exports. Some hundred-odd miles ahead, the small town of Tenochitlan -lay huddled in the light of the distant star-cluster. Beyond that, more -highway and Maya City. Beyond that-- - -Calhoun reasoned that the projector to make the induction cattle fence -would be beyond Maya City, somewhere in the mountains the photograph -in the spaceport building showed. A large highway went into those -mountains for a limited distance only. - -A ground-inductor projector field always formed at a right angle to -the projector which was its source. It could be adjusted--the process -was analogous to focusing--to come into actual being at any distance -desired, and the distance could be changed. To drive the people of -Maya City eastward, the projector of a cattle fence--about which -they would know nothing; it would be totally strange and completely -mysterious--the projector of the cattle fence would need to be west of -the people to be driven. Logically, it would belong in the mountains. -Practically, it would be concealed. Drawing on broadcast power to do -its work, there would be no large power source needed to give it the -six million kilowatts it required. It should be quite easy to hide -beyond any quick or easy discovery. Hunting it out might require weeks -of searching. - -But the people beyond the end of the highway couldn't wait. They had -no food, and holes scrabbled down to ground-water by men digging with -their bare hands simply would not be adequate. The cattle fence had -to be cut off immediately--while the broadcast of power had to be -continued. - -Calhoun made an abrupt grunting noise. Phrasing the thing that needed -to be done was practically a blueprint of how to do it. Simple! He'd -need the two electronics engineers, of course. But that would be the -trick.... - -He drove on at a hundred thirty miles an hour with his lips set wrily. -The three other cars came behind him. Murgatroyd watched the way ahead. -Mile after mile, half-minute after half-minute, the headlights cast -brilliantly blinding beams before the cars. Murgatroyd grew bored. He -said, "_Chee!_" in a discontented fashion and tried to curl up between -Allison and Calhoun. There wasn't room. He crawled over the seat-back. -He moved about, back there. There were rustling sounds. He settled -down. Presently there was silence. Undoubtedly he had draped his furry -tail across his nose and gone soundly off to sleep. - -Allison spoke suddenly. He'd had time to think, but he had no practice -in various ways of thinking. - -"How much money have you got?" he asked. - -"Not much," said Calhoun. "Why?" - -"I--haven't done anything illegal," said Allison, with an unconvincing -air of confidence, "but I could be put to some inconvenience if you -were to accuse me before others of what you've accused me personally. -You seem to think that I planned a criminal act. That the action I know -of--the research project I'd heard of--that it became--that it got out -of hand is likely. But I am entirely in the clear. I did nothing in -which I did not have the advice of counsel. I am legally unassailable. -My lawyers--" - - * * * * * - -"That's none of my business," Calhoun told him. "I'm a medical man. -I landed here in the middle of what seemed to be a serious public -health situation. I went to see what had happened. I've found out. I -still haven't the answer,--not the whole answer anyway. But the human -population of Maya is in a state of some privation, not to say danger. -I hope to end it. But I've nothing to do with anybody's guilt or -innocence of crime or criminal intent or anything else." - -Allison swallowed. Then he said with smooth confidence: - -"But you could cause me inconvenience. I would appreciate it if you -would--would--" - -"Cover up what you've done?" asked Calhoun. - -"No! I've done nothing wrong. But you could simply use discretion. I -landed by parachute to complete some business deals I'd arranged months -ago. I will go through with them. I will leave on the next ship. -That's perfectly open and above board. Strictly business. But you could -make a--an unpleasing public image of me. Yet I have done nothing any -other business man wouldn't do! I did happen to know of a research -project--" - -"I think," said Calhoun without heat, "that you sent men here with a -cattle-fence device from Texia to frighten the people on Maya. They -wouldn't know what was going on. They'd be scared; they'd want to get -away. So you'd be able to buy up practically all the colony for the -equivalent of peanuts. I can't prove that," he conceded, "but that's my -opinion. But you want me not to state it. Is that right?" - -"Exactly!" said Allison. He'd been shaken to the core, but he managed -the tone and the air of a dignified man of business discussing an -unpleasant subject with fine candor. "I assure you you are mistaken. -You agree that you can't prove your suspicions. If you can't prove -them, you shouldn't state them. That is simple ethics. You agree to -that!" - -Calhoun looked at him curiously. - -"Are you waiting for me to tell you my price?" - -"I'm waiting," said Allison reprovingly, "for you to agree not to cause -me embarrassment. I won't be ungrateful. After all, I'm a person of -some influence. I could do a great deal to your benefit. I'd be glad--" - -"Are you working around to guess at a price I'll take?" asked Calhoun -with the same air of curiosity. - -He seemed much more curious than indignant, and much more amused -than curious. Allison sweated suddenly. Calhoun didn't appear to be -bribable. But Allison knew desperation. - -"If you want to put it that way--yes," he said harshly. "You can name -your own figure. I mean it!" - -"I won't say a word about you," said Calhoun. "I won't need to. The -characters who're operating your cattle fence will do all the talking -that's necessary. Things all fit together,--except for one item. -They've been dropping into place all the while we've been driving down -this road." - -"I said you can name your own figure!" Allison's voice was shrill. "I -mean it! Any figure! Any!" - -Calhoun shrugged. - -"What would a Med Ship man do with money? Forget it!" - -He drove on. The highway turnoff to Tenochitlan appeared. Calhoun went -steadily past it. The other connection with the road through the town -appeared. He left it behind. - -Allison's teeth chattered again. - -The buildings of Maya City began to appear, some twenty minutes later. -Calhoun slowed and the other cars closed up. He opened a window and -called: - -"We want to go to the landing-grid first. Somebody lead the way!" - -A car went past and guided the rest assuredly to a ramp down from the -now-elevated road, and through utterly dark streets, of which some were -narrow and winding, and came out abruptly where the landing-grid rose -skyward. At the bottom its massive girders looked huge and cyclopean in -the starlight, but the higher courses looked like silver lace against -the stars. - - * * * * * - -They went to the control building. Calhoun got out. Murgatroyd hopped -out after him, dust clinging to his fur. He shook himself, and a -ten-thousand-credit interstellar credit certificate fell to the ground. -Murgatroyd had made a soft place for sleeping out of the contents of -Allison's attache case. It was assuredly the most expensive if not the -most comfortable sleeping cushion a _tormal_ ever had. Allison sat -still as if numbed. He did not even pick up the certificate. - -"I need you two electronics men," said Calhoun. Then he said -apologetically to the others, "I only figured out something on the way -here. I'd believed we might have to take some drastic action, come -daybreak. But now I doubt it. I do suggest, though, that you turn off -the car headlights and get set to do some shooting if anybody turns up. -I don't know whether they will or not." - -He led the way inside. He turned on lights. He went to the place where -dials showed the amount of power actually being used of the enormous -amount available. Those dials now showed an extremely small power -drain, considering that the cities of a planet depended on the grid. -But the cities were dark and empty of people. The demand needle wavered -back and forth, rhythmically. Every two seconds the demand for power -went up by six million kilowatts, approximately. The demand lasted for -half a second, and stopped. For a second and a half the power in use -was reduced by six million kilowatts. During this period only automatic -pumps and ventilators and freezing equipment drew on the broadcast -power for energy. Then the six-million-kilowatt demand came again for -half a second. - -"The cattle fence," said Calhoun, "works for half a second out of every -two seconds. It's intermittent or it would simply paralyze animals -that wandered into it. Or people. Being intermittent, it drives them -out instead. There'll be tools and parts for equipment here, in case -something needs repair. I want you to make something new." - -The two electronics technicians asked questions. - -"We need," said Calhoun, "an interruptor that will cut off the power -broadcast for the half-second the ground-induction field is supposed -to be on. Then it should turn on the broadcast power for the second -and a half the cattle fence is supposed to be off. That will stop the -cattle-fence effect, and I think a ground car should be able to work -with power that's available for three half-seconds out of four." - -The electronics men blinked at him. Then they grinned and set to work. -Calhoun went exploring. He found a lunch box in a desk with three very -stale sandwiches in it. He offered them around. - -It appeared that nobody wanted to eat while their families--at the end -of the highway--were still hungry. - -The electronics men called on the two mechanics to help build -something. They explained absorbedly to Calhoun that they were making -a cutoff which would adjust to any sudden six-million-kilowatt demand, -no matter what time interval was involved. A change in the tempo of the -cattle-fence cycle wouldn't bring it back on. - -"That's fine!" said Calhoun. "I wouldn't have thought of that!" - -He bit into a stale sandwich and went outside. Allison sat limply, -despairingly, in his seat in the car. - -"The cattle fence is going off," said Calhoun without triumph. "The -people of the city will probably begin to get here around sunrise." - -"I--I did nothing legally wrong!" said Allison, dry-throated. "Nothing! -They'd have to prove that I knew what the--consequences of the research -project would be. That couldn't be proved! It couldn't! So I've done -nothing legally wrong...." - -Calhoun went inside, observing that the doctor who was also tennis -champion, and the policeman who'd come to help him, were keeping keen -eyes on the city and the foundations of the grid and all other places -from which trouble might come. - -There was a fine atmosphere of achievement in the power-control -room. The power itself did not pass through these instruments, but -relays here controlled buried massive conductors which supplied the -world with power. And one of the relays had been modified. When the -cattle-fence projector closed its circuit, the power went off. When -the ground-inductor went off, the power went on. There was no longer -a barrier across the highways leading to the east. It was more than -probable that ground cars could run on current supplied for one and a -half seconds out of every two. They might run jerkily, but they would -run. - - * * * * * - -Half an hour later, the amount of power drawn from the broadcast began -to rise smoothly and gradually. It could mean only that cars were -beginning to move. - -Forty-five minutes later still, Calhoun heard stirrings outside. He -went out. The two men on guard gazed off into the city. Something moved -there. It was a ground-car, running slowly and without lights. Calhoun -said undisturbedly: - -"Whoever was running the cattle fence found out their gadget wasn't -working. Their lights flickered, too. They came to see what was the -matter at the landing-grid. But they've seen the lighted windows. Got -your blasters handy?" - -But the unlighted car turned and raced away. Calhoun only shrugged. - -"They haven't a prayer," he said. "We'll take over their apparatus -as soon as it's light. It'll be too big to destroy, and there'll be -fingerprints and such to identify them as the men who ran it. And -they're not natives. When the police start to look for the strangers -who were living where the cattle-fence projector was set up.... They -can go into the jungles where there's nothing to eat, or they can give -themselves up." - -He moved toward the door of the control building once more. Allison -said desperately: - -"They'll have hidden their equipment. You'll never be able to find it!" - -Calhoun shook his head in the starlight. - -"Anything that can fly can spot it in minutes. Even on the ground -one can walk almost straight to it. You see, something happened they -didn't count on. That's why they've left it turned on at full power. -The earlier, teasing uses of the cattle fence were low-power. Annoying, -to start with, and uncomfortable the second time, and maybe somewhat -painful the third. But the last time it was full power." - -He shrugged. He didn't feel like a long oration. But it was obvious. -Something had killed the plants of a certain genus of which small -species were weeds that destroyed Earth-type grasses. The ground-cover -plants--and the larger ones, like the one Calhoun had seen decaying -in a florist's shop which had had to be grown in a cage--the -ground-cover plants had motile stems and leaves and blossoms. They -were cannibals. They could move their stems to reach, and their -leaves to enclose, and their flowers to devour other plants, even -perhaps small animals. The point, though, was that they had some -limited power of motion. Earth-style sensitive vines and flycatcher -plants had primitive muscular tissues. The local ground-cover plants -had them too. And the cattle-fence field made those tissues contract -spasmodically. Powerfully. Violently. Repeatedly. Until they died of -exhaustion. The full-power cattle-fence field had exterminated Mayan -ground-cover plants all the way to the end of the east-bound highway. -And inevitably--and very conveniently--also up to the exact spot where -the cattle-fence field had begun to be projected. There would be an -arrow-shaped narrowing of the wiped-out ground-cover plants where the -cattle-field had been projected. It would narrow to a point which -pointed precisely to the cattle-fence projector. - -"Your friends," said Calhoun, "will probably give themselves up and ask -for mercy. There's not much else they can do." - -Then he said: - -"They might even get it. D'you know, there's an interesting side effect -of the cattle fence. It kills the plants that have kept Earth-type -grasses from growing here. Wheat can be grown here now, whenever and -as much as the people please. It should make this a pretty prosperous -planet, not having to import all its bread." - - * * * * * - -The ground cars of the inhabitants of Maya City did begin to arrive at -sunrise. Within an hour after daybreak, very savagely intent persons -found the projector and turned it off. - -By noon there was still some anger on the faces of the people of Maya, -but there'd been little or no damage, and life took up its normal -course again. Murgatroyd appreciated the fact that things went back to -normal. For him it was normal to be welcomed and petted when the Med -Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ touched ground. It was normal for him to move -zestfully in admiring human society, and to drink coffee with great -gusto. - -And while Murgatroyd moved in human society, enjoying himself hugely, -Calhoun went about his business. Which, of course, was conferences with -planetary health officials, politely receiving such information as they -thought important, and tactfully telling them about the most recent -developments in medical science. - -What else was a Med Ship man for? - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Med Ship Man, by Murray Leinster - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MED SHIP MAN *** - -***** This file should be named 50999.txt or 50999.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/9/9/50999/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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