d with no signs whatever of blueskins as responsible
for its cargo of corpses. It was certain that a starving Dara would tend
to desperate and fatal measures against hereditary enemies.

Calhoun sat down at the control-board and watched the clock.

"I've got things lined up," he told Maril wrily, "if only they work out.
_If_ I can make somebody on Dara listen and follow my advice and _if_
Weald doesn't get ideas and isn't doing what I suspect it is, maybe
something can be done."

"I'm sure you'll do your best," said Maril politely.

Calhoun managed to grin. He watched the ship-clock. There was no
sensation attached to overdrive travel except at the beginning and the
end. It was now time for the end. He might find that absolutely anything
had happened while he made plans which would immediately be seen to be
hopeless. Weald could have sent ships to Dara, or Dara might be in such
a state of desperation that ...

As it turned out, Dara was desperate. The Med Ship came out nearly a
light-month from the sun about which the planet Dara revolved. Calhoun
went into a short hop toward it. Then Dara was on the other side of the
blazing yellow star. It took time to reach it. He called down,
identifying himself and the ship and asking for coordinates so his ship
could be brought to ground. There was confusion, as if the request were
so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the
planet's night side. Presently the ship was locked onto by the grid's
force-fields. It went downward without incident.

Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each
other, until the ship actually touched ground.

Then he opened the exit-port, and faced armed men in the darkness, with
blast-rifles trained on him. There was a portable cannon trained on the
Med Ship itself.

"Come out!" rasped a voice. "If you try anything you get blasted! Your
ship and its contents are seized by the planetary government!"

CHAPTER 5

It seemed that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men were
cadaverous. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon the
ground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung loosely
upon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks were
hollow. They were emaciated. And there were the splotches of pigment of
which Calhoun had heard. The leader of the truculent group was blue,
except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination see