look repulsive, they'll be thought of as evil.... Tell me about those
patches. They're different-sized and different-shaped and they appear in
different places. You've none on your face or hands, anyhow."

"I haven't any at all," said the girl reservedly.

"I thought--"

"Not everybody," she said defensively. "Nearly, yes. But not all. Some
people don't have them. Some people are born with bluish splotches on
their skin, but they fade out while they're children. When they grow up
they're just like--the people of Weald or any other world. And their
children never have them."

Calhoun stared.

"You couldn't possibly be proved to be a Darian, then?"

She shook her head. Calhoun remembered, and started the coffee-maker.

"When you left Dara," he said, "You were carried a long, long way, to
some planet where they'd practically never heard of Dara, and where the
name meant nothing. You could have settled there, or anywhere else and
forgotten about Dara. But you didn't. Why not, since you're not a
blueskin?"

"But I am!" she said fiercely. "My parents, my brothers and sisters, and
Korvan--."

Then she bit her lip. Calhoun took note but did not comment on the name
that she had mentioned.

"Then your parents had the splotches fade, so you never had them," he
said absorbedly. "Something like that happened on Tralee, once! There's
a virus--a whole group of virus particles! Normally we humans are immune
to them. One has to be in terrifically bad physical condition for them
to take hold and produce whatever effects they do. But once they're
established they're passed on from mother to child.... And when they die
out it's during childhood, too!"

He poured coffee for the two of them. As usual, Murgatroyd swung down to
the floor and said impatiently;

"_Chee! Chee! Chee!_"

Calhoun absently filled Murgatroyd's tiny cup and handed it to him.

"But this is marvellous!" he said exuberantly. "The blue patches
appeared after the plague, didn't they? After people recovered--when
they recovered?"

* * * * *

Maril stared at him. His mind was filled with strictly professional
considerations. He was not talking to her as a person. She was purely a
source of information.

"So I'm told," said Maril reservedly. "Are there any more humiliating
questions you want to ask?"

He gaped at her. Then he said ruefully;

"I'm stupid, Maril, but you're touchy. There's nothing personal."

"There is