the feel of the ship would have been that of a tomb.

But it was quite otherwise when another ship-day began with the taped
sounds of morning activities as faint as echoes but nevertheless
establishing an atmosphere of their own.

Calhoun examined the plastic block and its contents. He read the
instruments which had cared for it while he slept. He put the
block--no longer frosted--in the culture microscope and saw its
enclosed, infinitesimal particles of life in the process of
multiplying on the food that had been frozen with them when they were
reduced to the spore condition. He beamed. He replaced the block in
the incubation oven and faced the day cheerfully.

Maril greeted him with great reserve. They breakfasted, with
Murgatroyd eating from his own platter on the floor, a tiny cup of
coffee alongside.

"I've been thinking," said Maril evenly. "I think I can get you a
hearing for whatever ideas you may have to help Dara."

"Kind of you," murmured Calhoun.

In theory, a Med Service man had all the authority needed for this or
any other emergency. The power to declare a planet in quarantine, so
cutting it off from all interstellar commerce, should be enough to
force cooperation from any world's government. But in practice Calhoun
had exactly as much power as he could exercise.

And Weald could not think straight where blueskins were concerned, and
certainly the authorities on Dara could not be expected to be
levelheaded. They had a history of isolation and outlawry, and long
experience of being regarded as less than human. In cold fact, Calhoun
had no power at all.

"May I ask whose influence you'll exert?" asked Calhoun.

"There's a man," said Maril reservedly, "who thinks a great deal of
me. I don't know his present official position, but he was certain to
become prominent. I'll tell him how you've acted up to now, and your
attitude, and of course that you're Med Service. He'll be glad to help
you, I'm sure."

"Splendid!" said Calhoun, nodding. "That will be Korvan."

She started. "How did you know?"

"Intuition," said Calhoun dryly. "All right. I'll count on him."

But he did not. He worked in the tiny biological lab all that ship-day
and all the next. The girl was very quiet. Murgatroyd tried to enter
into pretended conversation with her, but she was not able to match
his pretense.

On the ship-day after, the time for breakout approached. While the
ship was practically a world all by itself, it wa