II
On the way back to the Med Ship, Calhoun stopped at another placewhere, on a grass-growing planet, there would have been green sward.There were Earth-type trees, and some native ones, and between themthere should have been a lawn. The trees were thriving, but theground-cover plants were collapsed and rotting.
Calhoun picked up a bit of the semi-slime and smelled it. It wasfaintly sour, astringent, the same smell he'd noticed when he openedthe airlock door. He threw the stuff away and brushed off his hands.Something had killed the ground-cover plants which had the habit ofkilling Earth-type grass when planted here.
He listened. Everywhere that humans live, there are insects and birdsand other tiny creatures which are essential parts of the ecologicalsystem to which the human race is adjusted. They have to be carried toand established upon every new world that mankind hopes to occupy. Butthere was no sound of such living creatures here.
It was probable that the bellowing roar of the Med Ship's emergencyrockets was the only real noise the city had heard since its peoplewent away.
The stillness bothered Murgatroyd. He said, ”_Chee!_” in a subduedtone and stayed close to Calhoun. Calhoun shook his head. Then he saidabruptly:
”Come along, Murgatroyd!”
He went back to the building housing the grid controls. He didn't lookat the spaceport log this time. He went to the instruments recordingthe second function of a landing-grid. In addition to lifting up andletting down ships of space, a landing-grid drew down power from theions of the upper atmosphere and broadcast it. It provided all theenergy that humans on a world could need. It was solar power, in a way,absorbed and stored by a layer of ions miles high, which then could bedrawn on and distributed by the grid. During his descent Calhoun hadnoted that broadcast power was still available. Now he looked at whatthe instruments said.
The needle on the dial showing power-drain moved slowly back and forth.It was a rhythmic movement, going from maximum to minimum power-use,and then back again. Approximately six million kilowatts was beingtaken out of the broadcast every two seconds for half of one second.Then the drain cut off for a second and a half, and went on again forhalf a second.
Frowning, Calhoun raised his eyes to a very fine color photograph onthe wall above the power dials. It was a picture of the human-occupiedpart of Maya, taken four thousand miles out in space. It had beenenlarged to four feet by six, and Maya City could be seen as anirregular group of squares and triangles measuring a little more thanhalf an inch by three-quarters. The detail was perfect. It was possibleto see perfectly straight, infinitely thin lines moving out from thecity. They were multiple-lane highways, mathematically straight fromone city to another, and then mathematically straight--though at a newangle--until the next. Calhoun stared thoughtfully at them.
”The people left the city in a hurry,” he told Murgatroyd, ”and therewas little confusion, if any. So they knew in advance that they mighthave to go. They were ready for it. If they took anything, they had itready packed in their cars. But they hadn't been sure they'd have to gobecause they were going about their businesses as usual. All the shopswere open and people were eating in restaurants, and so on.”
Murgatroyd said, ”_Chee!_” as if in full agreement.
”Now,” demanded Calhoun, ”where did they go? The question's reallywhere could they go! There were about eight hundred thousand people inthis city. There'd be cars for everyone, of course, and two hundredthousand cars would take everybody. But that's a lot of ground-cars!Put 'em two hundred feet apart on a highway, and that's twenty-sixcars to the mile on each lane. Run them at a hundred miles an hour ona twelve-lane road--using all lanes one way--and that's twenty-sixhundred cars per lane per hour, and that's thirty-one thousand ... twohighways make sixty-two ... three highways.... With two highways theycould empty the city in under three hours, and with three highwaysclose to two. Since there's no sign of panic, that's what they musthave done. Must have worked it out in advance, too. Maybe they'd doneit before it happened ... whatever it was that happened.”
* * * * *
He searched the photograph which was so much more detailed than a map.There were mountains to the north of Maya City, but only one highwayled north. There were more mountains to the west. One highway went intothem, but not through. To the south there was sea, which curved aroundsome three hundred miles from Maya City and put the human colony onMaya on a peninsula.
”They went east,” said Calhoun presently. He traced lines with hisfinger. ”Three highways go east; that's the only way they could goquickly. They hadn't been sure they'd have to go but they knew where togo when they did. So when they got their warning, they left. On threehighways, to the east. And we'll follow them and ask what the hell theyran away from. Nothing's visible here!”
He went back to the Med Ship, Murgatroyd skipping with him.
As the airlock door closed behind them, he heard a click from theoutside-microphone speakers. He listened. It was a doubled clicking,as of something turned on and almost at once turned off again. Therewas a two-second cycle, the same as that of the power drain. Somethingdrawing six million kilowatts went on and immediately off again everytwo seconds. It made a sound in speakers linked to outside microphones,but it didn't make a noise in the air. The microphone clicks wereinduction; pick-up; like cross-talk on defective telephone cables.
Calhoun shrugged his shoulders almost up to his ears. He went to thecommunicator.
”Calling _Candida_--” he began, and the answer almost leaped down histhroat.
”_Candida_ to Med Ship. Come in! Come in! What's happened down there?”
”The city's deserted without any sign of panic,” said Calhoun, ”andthere's power and nothing seems to be broken down. But it's as ifsomebody had said, 'Everybody clear out' and they did. That doesn'thappen on a whim! What's your next port of call?”
The _Candida's_ voice told him, hopefully.
”Take a report,” commanded Calhoun. ”Deliver it to the public healthoffice immediately you land. They'll get it to Med Service sectorheadquarters. I'm going to stay here and find out what's been going on.”
He dictated, growing irritated as he did so because he couldn't explainwhat he reported. Something serious had taken place, but there was noclue as to what it was. Strictly speaking, it wasn't certainly a publichealth affair. But any emergency the size of this one involved publichealth factors.
”I'm remaining aground to investigate,” finished Calhoun. ”I willreport further when or if it is possible. Message ends.”
”What about our passenger?”
”To the devil with your passenger!” said Calhoun peevishly. ”Do as youplease!”
* * * * *
He cut off the communicator and prepared for activity outside the ship.Presently he and Murgatroyd went to look for transportation. The MedShip couldn't be used for a search operation; it didn't carry enoughrocket fuel. They'd have to use a ground vehicle.
It was again shocking to note that nothing had moved but sun shadows.Again it seemed that everybody had simply walked out of some door orother and failed to come back. Calhoun saw the windows of jewelers'shops. Treasures lay unguarded in plain view. He saw a florist's shop.Here there were Earth-type flowers apparently thriving, and somestrange beautiful flowers with olive-green foliage which throve as wellas the Earth-plants. There was a cage in which a plant had grown, andthat plant was wilting and about to rot. But a plant that had to begrown in a cage....
He found a ground-car agency, perhaps for imported cars, perhaps forthose built on Maya. He went in and from the cars on display he choseone, an elaborate sports car. He turned its key and it hummed. He droveit carefully out into the empty street, Murgatroyd sitting interestedlybeside him.
”This is luxury, Murgatroyd,” said Calhoun. ”Also it's grand theft. Wemedical characters can't usually afford such things. Or have an excuseto steal them. But these are parlous times, so we take a chance.”
”_Chee!_” s
aid Murgatroyd.
”We want to find a fugitive population and ask what they ran away from.As of the moment, it seems that they ran away from nothing. They may bepleased to know they can come back.”
Murgatroyd again said, ”_Chee!_”
Calhoun drove through vacant ways. It was somehow nerve-racking. Hefelt as if someone should pop out and say ”Boo!” at any instant. Hediscovered an elevated highway and a ramp leading up to it. At acloverleaf he drove eastward, watching sharply for any sign of life.There was none.
He was nearly out of the city when he felt the chest impact of a sonicboom, and then heard a trailing away growling sound which seemed tocome from farther away as it died out. It was the result of somethingtraveling faster than sound, so that the noise it made far away had tocatch up with the sound it emitted nearby.
He stared up. He saw a parachute blossom as a bare speck against theblue. Then he heard the even deeper-toned roaring of a supersonic craftclimbing skyward. It could be a spaceliner's lifeboat, descended intoatmosphere and going out again.
It was. It had left a parachute behind, and now went back to space torendezvous with its parent ship.
”That,” said Calhoun impatiently, ”will be the _Candida's_ passenger.He was insistent enough.”
He scowled. The _Candida's_ voice had said its passenger demanded tobe landed for business reasons. And Calhoun had a prejudice againstsome kinds of business men who would think their own affairs moreimportant than anything else. Two standard years before, he'd made aplanetary health inspection on Texia II, in another galactic sector. Itwas a llano planet and a single giant business enterprise. Illimitableprairies had been sown with an Earth-type grass which destroyedthe native ground-cover--the reverse of the ground-cover situationhere--and the entire planet was a monstrous range for beef cattle.Dotted about were gigantic slaughterhouses, and cattle in masses oftens of thousands were shifted here and there by ground-inductionfields which acted as fences. Ultimately the cattle were driven bythese same induction fences to the slaughter houses and actually intothe chutes where their throats were slit. Every imaginable fraction ofa credit of profit was extracted from their carcasses, and Calhoun hadfound it appalling.
He was not sentimental about cattle, but the complete cold-bloodednessof the entire operation sickened him. The same cold-bloodedness waspractised toward the human employees who ran the place. Their livingquarters were sub-marginal. The air stank of cattle murder. Men workedfor the Texia Company or they did not work. If they did not workthey did not eat. If they worked and ate,--Calhoun could see nothingsatisfying in being alive on a world like that! His report to MedService had been biting. He'd been prejudiced against businessmen eversince.