Project Gutenberg's The Hate Disease, by William Fitzgerald Jenkins

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Title: The Hate Disease

Author: William Fitzgerald Jenkins

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release Date: December 31, 2009 [EBook #30815]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

THE HATE DISEASE

The Med Service people hit strange problems as routine: if
they weren't weirdos, they weren't tough enough to merit Med
Service attention. Now the essence of a weird problem is
that it involves a factor nobody ever thought of before ...
or the absence of one nobody ever missed ...

by MURRAY LEINSTER

ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR

* * * * *

I

The Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ rode in overdrive while her ship's
company drank coffee. Calhoun sipped at a full cup of strong brew,
while Murgatroyd the _tormal_ drank from the tiny mug suited to his
small, furry paws. The astrogation unit showed the percentage of this
overdrive hop covered up to now, and the needle was almost around to
the stop pin.

There'd been a warning gong an hour ago, notifying that the end of
overdrive journeying approached. Hence the coffee. When breakout came,
the overdrive field must collapse and the Duhanne cells down near the
small ship's keel absorb the energy which maintained it. Then
_Esclipus Twenty_ would appear in the normal universe of suns and
stars with the abruptness of an explosion. She should be somewhere
near the sun Tallien. She should then swim toward that sol-type sun
and approach Tallien's third planet out at the less-than-light-speed
rate necessary for solar-system travel. And presently she should
signal down to ground and Calhoun