to do it, but he found a virus in
the blue patches which matched the type discovered on Tralee. The Tralee
viruses had effects which were passed on from mother to child, and
heredity had been charged with the observed results of quasi-living
viral particles. And then Calhoun very, very carefully introduced into a
virus culture the material he had been growing in a plastic cube. He
watched what happened.

He was satisfied, so much so that immediately afterward he barely
managed to stagger off to bed.

That night the ship from Orede came in, packed with frozen bloody
carcasses of cattle. Calhoun knew nothing of it. But next morning Maril
came back. There were shadows under her eyes and her expression was of
someone who has lost everything that had meaning in her life.

"I'm all right," she insisted, when Calhoun commented. "I've been
visiting my family. I've seen--Korvan. I'm quite all right."

"You haven't eaten any better than I have," Calhoun observed.

"I--couldn't!" admitted Maril. "My sisters--my little sisters--so
thin.... There's rationing for everybody and it's all efficiently
arranged. They even had rations for me. But I couldn't eat! I--gave most
of my food to my sisters and they--squabbled over it!"

Calhoun said nothing. There was nothing to say. Then she said in a no
less desolate tone;

"Korvan said I was foolish to come back."

"He could be right," said Calhoun.

"But I had to!" protested Maril. "Because I--I've been eating all I
wanted to, on Weald and in the ship, and I'm ashamed because they're
half-starved and I'm not. And when you see what hunger does to them ...
It's terrible to be half-starved and not able to think of anything but
food!"

"I hope," said Calhoun, "to do something about that. If I can get hold
of an astrogator or two."

"The--ship that was on Orede came in during the night," Maril told him
shakily. "It was loaded with frozen meat, but one ship-load's not enough
to make a difference on a whole planet! And if Weald hunts for us on
Orede, we daren't go back for more meat."

She said abruptly;

"There are some prisoners. They were miners. They were crowded out of
the ship. The Darians who'd stampeded the cattle took them prisoners.
They had to!"

"True," said Calhoun. "It wouldn't have been wise to leave Wealdians
around on Orede with their throats cut. Or living, either, to tell about
a rumor of blueskins. Even if their throats will be cut now. Is that the
program?"