the police to use panic-gas in case of public tumult. But it's
too dangerous. Nobody knows what one man will do in a panic. Take a
hundred or two or three and panic them all, and there's no limit to
their craziness! The whole thing was handled wrong!"

"But you don't blame them?"

"For being stupid, yes," said Calhoun fretfully. "But if I'd been in
their place, perhaps ..."

"Where were you born?" asked Maril suddenly.

Calhoun jerked his head around. He said;

"No! Not where you're guessing--or hoping. Not on Dara. Just because I
act as if Darians were human doesn't mean I have to be one! I'm a Med
Service man, and I'm acting as I think I should." His tone became
exasperated. "Dammit, I'm supposed to deal with health situations,
actual and possible causes of human deaths! And if Weald thinks it finds
proof that blueskins are in space again and caused the death of
Wealdians it won't be healthy! They're halfway set anyhow to drop
fusion-bombs on Dara to wipe it out!"

Maril said fiercely;

"They might as well drop bombs. It'll be quicker than starvation, at
least!"

Calhoun looked at her more exasperatedly than before.

"It is a crop failure again?" he demanded. When she nodded he said
bitterly; "Famine conditions already?" When she nodded again he said
drearily; "And of course famine is the great-grandfather of health
problems! And that's right in my lap with all the rest!"

He stood up. Then he sat down again.

"I'm tired!" he said flatly. "I'd like to get some sleep."

Maril understood. She picked up a book and went into the other cabin.

* * * * *

Alone in the control compartment, he tried to relax, but it was not
possible. He flung himself into a comfortable chair and considered the
situation of the people of the planet Dara. Those people were marked by
patches of blue pigment as an inherited consequence of a plague of three
generations past. Dara was a planet of pariahs, excluded from the human
race by those who had been conditioned to fear them.

And now there was famine on Dara for the second time, and they were of
no mind to starve quietly. There was food on the planet Orede, monstrous
herds of cattle without owners. It was natural enough for Darians to
build a ship or ships and try to bring food back to its starving people.
But that desperately necessary enterprise had now roused Weald to a
frenzy of apprehension. Weald was if possible more hysterically afraid