d."

The statement was hopelessly inaccurate.

* * * * *

3

There was no answer from the ground when breakout came and Calhoun
drove the Med Ship to a favourable position for a call. He patiently
repeated, over and over again, that the Med Ship _Aesclipus Twenty_
notified its arrival and requested coordinates for landing. He added
that its mass was fifty standard tons and that the purpose of its
visit was a planetary health inspection.

But there was no reply. There should have been a crisp description of
the direction from the planet's center at which, a certain time so
many hours or minutes later, the force-fields of the grid would find
it convenient to lock onto and lower the Med Ship. But the
communicator remained silent.

"There is a landing-grid," said Calhoun, frowning, "and if they're
using it to load fresh meat for Dara, from the herds I'm told about,
it should be manned. But they don't seem to intend to answer. Maybe
they think that if they pretend I'm not here I'll go away."

He reflected, and his frown deepened.

"If I didn't know what I know, I might. So if I land on emergency
rockets the blueskins down below may decide that I come from Weald.
And in that case it would be reasonable to blast me before I could
land and unload some fighting men. On the other hand, no ship from
Weald would conceivably land without impassioned assurance that it
was safe. It would drop bombs." He turned to the girl. "How many
Darians down below?"

She shook her head.

"You don't know," said Calhoun, "or won't tell, yet. But they ought to
be told about the arrival of that ship at Weald, and what Weald thinks
about it! My guess is that you came to tell them. It isn't likely that
Dara gets news directly from Weald. Where were you put ashore from
Dara, when you set out to be a spy?"

Her lips parted to speak, but she compressed them tightly. She shook
her head again.

"It must have been plenty far away," said Calhoun restlessly. "Your
people would have built a ship, and made fine forged papers for it,
and they'd travel so far from this part of space that when they landed
nobody would think of Dara. They'd use make-up to cover the blue
spots, but maybe it was so far away that blueskins had never been
heard of!"

Her face looked pinched, but she did not reply.

"Then they'd land half a dozen of you, with a supply of make-up for
the blue patches. And you'd separate, and take s