ncy?"

"_You'll find out...._" That was the professional voice. The other
snapped angrily, "_Cut your signal!_" The professional voice again:
"_... you land. It's not...._" "_Cut your signal, you fool! Cut
it...._" The other voice again.

There was confusion. The two voices spoke together. Each was on a
tight beam, while Calhoun's call was broadcast. The voices could not
hear each other, but each could hear Calhoun.

"_Don't listen to them! There's...._" "_to understand, but...._"
"_Don't listen! Don't...._" "_... When you land._"

Then the voice from the spaceport stopped, and Calhoun cut down the
volume of the other. It continued to shout, though muffled. It
bellowed, as if rattled. It mouthed commands as if they were arguments
or reasons. Calhoun listened for fully five minutes. Then he said
carefully into his microphone:

"Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ calling spaceport. I will arrive at given
co-ordinates at the time given. I suggest that you take precautions if
necessary against interference with my landing. Message ends."

He swung the ship around and aimed for the destination with which he'd
been supplied--a place in emptiness five diameters out, with the
center of the sun's disk bearing so-and-so and the center of the
planet's disk bearing so-and-thus. He turned the communicator volume
down still lower. The miniature voice shouted and threatened in the
stillness of the Med Ship's control room. After a time Calhoun said
reflectively:

"I don't like this, Murgatroyd! An unidentified voice is telling
us--and we're Med Ship personnel, Murgatroyd!--who we should speak to
and what we should do. Our duty is plainly to ignore such orders. But
with dignity, Murgatroyd! We must uphold the dignity of the Med
Service!"

Murgatroyd said skeptically:

"_Chee_?"

"I don't like your attitude," said Calhoun, "but I'll bear in mind
that you're often right."

Murgatroyd found a soft place to curl up in. He draped his tail across
his nose and lay there, blinking at Calhoun above the furry half-mask.

* * * * *

The little skip drove on. The disk of the planet grew large. Presently
it was below. It turned as the skip moved, and from a crescent it
became a half-circle and then a gibbous near-oval shape. In the rest
of the solar system nothing in particular happened. Small and heavy
inner planets swam deliberately in their short orbits around the sun.
Outer, gas-giant planets floated even