Too late now for anything," said the driver, "whatever Med Service may
be! They're talking about cutting down our population so there'll be
food enough for some to live. There are two questions about it: who's to
be kept alive and why."

The ground-car aimed now for a cluster of faintly brighter lights on the
far side of the great open space. They enlarged as they grew nearer.
Maril said hesitantly;

"There was someone--Korvan--" Calhoun didn't catch the rest of the name,
Maril said hesitantly; "He was working on food-plants. I--thought he
might accomplish something ..."

The driver said caustically;

"Sure! Everybody's heard about him! He came up with a wonderful thing!
He and his outfit worked out a way to process weeds so they can be
eaten. And they can. You can fill your belly and not feel hungry, but
it's like eating hay. You starve just the same. He's still working. Head
of a government division."

The ground-car passed through a gate. It stopped before a lighted door.
The armed men hanging to its outside dropped off. They watched Calhoun
closely as he stepped out with Murgatroyd riding on his shoulder.

Minutes later they faced a hastily-summoned group of officials of the
Darian government. For a ship to land on Dara was so remarkable an event
that it called practically for a cabinet meeting. And Calhoun noted that
they were no better fed than the guards at the space-port.

They regarded Calhoun and Maril with oddly burning eyes. It was, of
course, because the two of them showed no signs of hunger. They
obviously had not been on short rations.

"My name is Calhoun," said Calhoun briskly. "I've the usual Med Service
credentials. Now ..."

He did not wait to be questioned. He told them of the appalling state of
things in the Twelfth Sector of the Med Service, so that men had been
borrowed from other sectors to remedy the intolerable, and he was one of
them. He told of his arrival at Weald and what had happened there, from
the excessively cautious insistence that he prove he was not a Darian,
to the arrival of the death-ship from Orede. He was giving them the news
affecting them, as they had not heard it before.

He went on to tell of his stop at Orede and his purpose, and his
encounter with the men he found there. When he finished there was
silence. He broke it.

"Now," he said, "Maril's an agent of yours. She can add to what I've
told you. I'm Med Service. I have a job to do here to repair what wasn't