ted from
storage and warmed or chilled, as the case might be, and served at
dialed-for intervals. There was also equipment for preparing food for
oneself, in one's own chosen manner--again an item to help make
solitude not unendurable.

Calhoun deliberately immersed himself in the Galactic Directory,
looking up the planet Orede. He was headed there, but he'd had no
reason to inform himself about it before. Now he read with every
appearance of absorption.

The girl ate daintily. Murgatroyd watched with highly amiable
interest. But she looked acutely uncomfortable.

Calhoun finished with the Directory. He got out the micro-film reels
which contained more information. He was specifically after the Med
Service history of all the planets in this sector. He went through the
filmed record of every inspection ever made on Weald and on Dara.

But Sector Twelve had not been run well. There was no adequate account
of a plague which had wiped out three-quarters of the population of an
inhabited planet! It had happened shortly after one Med Ship visit,
and was over before another Med Ship came by.

There should have been a painstaking investigation, even after the
fact. There should have been a collection of infectious material and a
reasonably complete identification and study of the agent. It hadn't
been made. There was probably some other emergency at the time, and it
slipped by. Calhoun, whose career was not to be spent in this sector,
resolved on a blistering report about this negligence and its
consequences.

He kept himself casually busy, ignoring the girl. A Med Ship man has
resources of study and meditation with which to occupy himself during
overdrive travel from one planet to another. Calhoun made use of those
resources. He acted as if he were completely unconscious of the
stowaway. But Murgatroyd watched her with charmed attention.

Hours after her discovery, she said uneasily, "Please?"

Calhoun looked up.

"Yes?"

"I don't know exactly how things stand."

"You are a stowaway," said Calhoun. "Legally, I have the right to put
you out the airlock. It doesn't seem necessary. There's a cabin. When
you're sleepy, use it. Murgatroyd and I can make out quite well out
here. When you're hungry, you now know how to get something to eat.
When we land on Orede, you'll probably go about whatever business you
have there. That's all."

She stared at him.

"But you don't believe what I've told you!"

"No," agreed Ca