indices and cross-references while the ship continued travel onward. He
found no other reference to blueskins. He looked up Dara. It was listed
as an inhabited planet, some four hundred years colonized, with a
landing-grid and at the time the main notice was written out, a
flourishing interstellar commerce. But there was a memo, evidently added
to the entry in some change of editions.

"Since plague, special license from Med Service is required for
landing."

That was all. Absolutely all.

The communicator said suavely;

"_Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty! Come in on vision, please!_"

Calhoun went to the control-board and threw on vision.

"Well, what now?" he demanded.

His screen lighted. A bland face looked out at him.

"_We have--ah--verified your statements,_" said the third voice from
Weald. "_Just one more item. Are you alone in your ship?_"

"Of course," said Calhoun, frowning.

"_Quite alone?_" insisted the voice.

"Obviously!" said Calhoun.

"_No other living creature?_" insisted the voice again.

"Of--Oh!" said Calhoun annoyedly. He called over his shoulder.
"Murgatroyd! Come here!"

Murgatroyd hopped to his lap and gazed interestedly at the screen. The
bland face changed remarkably. The voice changed even more.

"_Very good!_" it said. "_Very, very good! Blueskins do not have_
tormals! _You are Med Service! By all means come in. Your coordinates
will be ..._"

Calhoun wrote them down. He clicked off the communicator again and
growled to Murgatroyd;

"So I might have been a blueskin, eh? And you're my passport, because
only Med Ships have members of your tribe aboard! What the hell's the
matter, Murgatroyd? They act like they think somebody's trying to get
down on their planet with a load of plague-germs!"

He grumbled to himself for minutes. The life of a Med Ship man is not
exactly a sinecure, at best. It means long periods in empty space in
overdrive, which is absolute and deadly tedium. Then two or three days
aground, checking official documents and statistics, and asking
questions to see how many of the newest medical techniques have reached
this planet or that, and the supplying of information about such as have
not arrived. Then lifting out to space for long periods of tedium, to
repeat the process somewhere else. Med Ships carry only one man because
two could not stand the close contact without quarreling with each
other. But Med Ships do carry _tormals_, like Murgatroyd, and a _tor