That'll be paras. They're better organized thanwe thought, if they picked up your landing request! There's anemergency, all right! It's the devil of an emergency--it looks likedevils! But this is the spaceport. Will you come in?_"
"Naturally," said Calhoun. "What's the emergency?"
"_You'll find out...._" That was the professional voice. The othersnapped angrily, "_Cut your signal!_" The professional voice again:"_... you land. It's not...._" "_Cut your signal, you fool! Cutit...._" The other voice again.
There was confusion. The two voices spoke together. Each was on atight beam, while Calhoun's call was broadcast. The voices could nothear each other, but each could hear Calhoun.
"_Don't listen to them! There's...._" "_to understand, but...._""_Don't listen! Don't...._" "_... When you land._"
Then the voice from the spaceport stopped, and Calhoun cut down thevolume of the other. It continued to shout, though muffled. Itbellowed, as if rattled. It mouthed commands as if they were argumentsor reasons. Calhoun listened for fully five minutes. Then he saidcarefully into his microphone:
"Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ calling spaceport. I will arrive at givenco-ordinates at the time given. I suggest that you take precautions ifnecessary against interference with my landing. Message ends."
He swung the ship around and aimed for the destination with which he'dbeen supplied--a place in emptiness five diameters out, with thecenter of the sun's disk bearing so-and-so and the center of theplanet's disk bearing so-and-thus. He turned the communicator volumedown still lower. The miniature voice shouted and threatened in thestillness of the Med Ship's control room. After a time Calhoun saidreflectively:
"I don't like this, Murgatroyd! An unidentified voice is tellingus--and we're Med Ship personnel, Murgatroyd!--who we should speak toand what we should do. Our duty is plainly to ignore such orders. Butwith dignity, Murgatroyd! We must uphold the dignity of the MedService!"
Murgatroyd said skeptically:
"_Chee_?"
"I don't like your attitude," said Calhoun, "but I'll bear in mindthat you're often right."
Murgatroyd found a soft place to curl up in. He draped his tail acrosshis nose and lay there, blinking at Calhoun above the furry half-mask.
* * * * *
The little skip drove on. The disk of the planet grew large. Presentlyit was below. It turned as the skip moved, and from a crescent itbecame a half-circle and then a gibbous near-oval shape. In the restof the solar system nothing in particular happened. Small and heavyinner planets swam deliberately in their short orbits around the sun.Outer, gas-giant planets floated even more deliberately in largerpaths. There were comets of telescopic size, and there weremeteorites, and the sun Tallien sent up monstrous flares, and stormsof improbable snow swept about in the methane atmosphere of thegreater gas giant of this particular celestial family of this sun andits satellites. But the cosmos in general paid no attention to humanactivities or usually undesirable intentions. Calhoun listened,frowning, to the agitated, commanding voice. He still didn't like it.
Suddenly, it cut off. The Med Ship approached the planet to which ithad been ordered by Sector Headquarters now some months ago. Calhounexamined the nearing world via electron telescope. On the hemisphererolling to a position under the Med Ship he saw a city of some size,and he could trace highways, and there were lesser human settlementshere and there. At full magnification he could see where forests hadbeen cut away in wedges and half-squares, with clear spaces betweenthem. This indicated cultivated ground, cleared for human use in theinvincibly tidy-minded manner of men.
Presently he saw the landing grid near the biggest city--thathalf-mile-high, cagelike wall of intricately braced steel girders. Ittapped the planet's ionosphere for all the power that this world'sinhabitants could use, and applied the same power to lift up and letdown the ships of space by which communication with the rest ofhumanity was maintained. From this distance, though, even with anelectron telescope, Calhoun could see no movement of any sort. Therewas no smoke, because electricity from the grid provided all theplanet's power and heat, and there were no chimneys. The city lookedlike a colored map, with infinite detail but nothing which stirred.
A tiny voice spoke. It was the voice of the spaceport.
"_Calling Med Ship. Grid locking on. Right?_"
"Go ahead," said Calhoun. He turned up the communicator.
The voice from the ground said carefully:
"_Better stand by your controls. If anything happens down here you mayneed to take emergency action._"
Calhoun raised his eyebrows. But he said:
"All set."
He felt the cushiony, fumbling motions as force fields from thelanding grid groped for the Med Ship and centered it in their complexpattern. Then there came the sudden solid feeling when the grid lockedon. The Med Ship began to settle, at first slowly but with increasingspeed, toward the ground below.
It was all very familiar. The shape of the continents below him werestrange, but such unfamiliarity was commonplace. The voice from theground said matter-of-factly:
"_We think everything's under control, but it's hard to tell withthese paras. They got away with some weather rockets last week and mayhave managed to mount war heads on them. They might use them on thegrid, here, or try for you._"
Calhoun said:
"What are paras?"
"_You'll be briefed when you land_," said the voice. It added:"_Everything's all right so far, though._"
* * * * *
The _Esclipus Twenty_ went down and down and down. The grid had lockedon at forty thousand miles. It was a long time before the little shipwas down to thirty thousand and another long time before it was attwenty. Then more time to reach ten, and then five, and one thousand,and five hundred. When solid ground was only a hundred miles belowand the curve of the horizon had to be looked for to be seen, thevoice from the ground said:
"_The last hundred miles is the tricky part, and the last five will bewhere it's tight. If anything does happen, it'll be there._"
Calhoun watched through the electron telescope. He could seeindividual buildings now, when he used full magnification. He sawinfinitesimal motes which would be ground cars on the highways. Atseventy miles he cut down the magnification to keep his field ofvision wide. He cut the magnification again at fifty and at thirty andat ten.
Then he saw the first sign of motion. It was an extending thread ofwhite which could only be smoke. It began well outside the city andleaped up and curved, evidently aiming at the descending Med Ship.Calhoun said curtly:
"There's a rocket coming up. Aiming at me."
The voice from the ground said:
"_It's spotted. I'm giving you free motion if you want to use it._"
The feel of the ship changed. It no longer descended. The landing-gridoperator was holding it aloft, but Calhoun could move it in evasiveaction if he wished. He approved the liberty given him. He could usehis emergency rockets to dodge. A second thread of smoke camestreaking upward.
Then other threads of white began just outside the landing grid. Theyrushed after the first. The original rockets seemed to dodge. Otherscame up. There was an intricate pattern formed by the smoke trails ofrockets rising and other rockets following, and some trails dodgingand others closing in. Calhoun carefully reminded himself that it wasnot likely that there'd be atomic war heads. The last planetary warshad been fought with fusion weapons, and only the crews of singleships survived. The planetary populations didn't. But atomic energywasn't much used aground, these days. Power for planetary use could behad more easily from the upper, ionized limits of atmospheres.
A pursuing rocket closed in. There was a huge ball of smoke and aflash of light, but it was not brighter than the sun. It wasn't atomicflame. Calhoun relaxed. He watched as every one of the first-ascendedrockets was tracked down and destroyed by another. The last, at that,was three-quarters of the way up.
The Med Ship quivered a little as the force fields
tightened again. Itdescended swiftly. It came to ground. Figures came to meet Calhoun as,with Murgatroyd, he went out of the air lock. Some were uniformed. Allwore the grim expression and harried look of men under long-continuedstrain.
The landing-grid operator shook hands first.
"Nice going! It could be lucky that you arrived. We normals need someluck!"
He introduced a man in civilian clothes as the planetary Minister forHealth. A man in uniform was head of the planetary police. The othersweren't introduced.
"We worked fast after your call came!" said the grid operator. "Thingsare lined up for you, but they're bad!"
"I've been wondering," admitted Calhoun dryly,