is about to end! And to hasten the timewhen every person on the planet will have the vaccine in the requireddosage and at the required intervals, Dr. Lett has been given completeemergency authority. He is empowered to call upon every citizen forany labor, any sum, any sacrifice that will restore our afflictedfellow-citizens to normality, and to protect the rest against fallinga victim to this intolerable disease. I repeat: a vaccine has beenfound which absolutely prevents anyone from becoming a para, and whichcures those who are paras now. And Dr. Lett has absolute authority toissue any orders he feels necessary to hasten the end of the epidemicand to prevent its return. But the end is sure!_"
The speaker clicked off. Calhoun said wryly:
"Unfortunately, I know what that means. The President has announcedthe government's abdication in favor of Dr. Lett, and that thepunishment for disobeying Lett is--madness."
He drew a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders.
"Come along! Let's get to work!"
IV
As it happened, the timing was critical, though Calhoun hadn'trealized it. There were moving lights on the highway to the city atthe moment Calhoun and the grid operator went into the Med Ship andclosed the air-lock door behind them. The lights drew nearer. Theyraced. Then ground cars came rushing through the gate of the spaceportand flung themselves toward the wholly peaceful little Med Ship whereit stood seeming to yearn toward the sky. In seconds they had itringed about, and armed men were trying to get inside. But Med Shipsland on very many planets, with very many degrees of respect for theInterstellar Medical Service. On some worlds there is great integritydisplayed by spaceport personnel and visitors. On others there ispilfering, or worse. So Med Ships are not easily broken into.
They spent long minutes fumbling unskillfully at the outer air-lockdoor. Then they gave it up. Two car loads of men went over to thecontrol building, which now was dark and silent. Its door was notlocked. They went in.
There was consternation. The interior of the control building reekedof antiseptic spray--the spray used when a para was discovered. Insome cases, the spray a para used when he discovered himself. But itwas not reassuring to the men just arrived from Government Center.Instead of certifying to their safety, it told of horrifying danger.Because despite a broadcast by the planetary president, terror ofparas was too well-established to be cured by an official statement.
The men who'd entered the building stumbled out and stammered of whatthey'd smelled inside the building. Their companions drew back,frightened by even so indirect a contact with supposed contagion. Theystayed outside, while a man who hadn't entered used the police-carcommunicator to report to the headquarters of the planetary police.
The attempt to enter the ship was known inside, of course. But Calhounpaid no attention. He emptied the pockets of the garments he'd worninto the city. There were the usual trivia a man carries with him. Butthere was also a blaster--set for lower-power bolts--and a smallthick-glass phial of a singular grayish fluid, and a plasticcontainer.
He was changing to other clothing when he heard the muttering report,picked up by a ship-receiver tuned to planetary police wave length. Itreported affrightedly that the Med Ship could not be entered, and thegrid's control building was dark and empty and sprayed as if todestroy contagion. The operator was gone.
Another voice snapped orders in reply. The highest authority had giveninstructions that the Med Ship man now somewhere in the capital citymust be captured, and his escape from the planet must be prevented atall costs. So if the ship itself could not be entered and disabled,get the grid working and throw it away. Throw it out to space! Whetherthere was contagion in the control building or not, the ship must bemade unusable to the Med Ship man!
"They think well of me," said Calhoun. "I hope I'm as dangerous as Dr.Lett now believes." Then he said crisply: "You say you're a para. Iwant the symptoms: how you feel and where. Then I want to know yourlast contact with scavengers."
* * * * *
The intentions of the police outside could be ignored. It wouldn'tmatter if the Med Ship were heaved out to space and abandoned. He wasin it. But it couldn't happen. The grid operator had brought awaycertain essential small parts of the grid control system. Of coursethe ship could be blown up. But he'd have warning of that. He was safeexcept for one thing. He'd been exposed to whatever it was that made aman a para. The condition would develop. But he did have a thick-glasscontainer of grayish fluid, and he had a plastic biological-specimencontainer. One came from Dr. Lett's safest pocket. It would bevaccine. The other came from the culture oven in the doctor'slaboratory.
The thick-glass phial was simply that. Calhoun removed the cover fromthe other. It contained small and horrible squirming organisms,writhing in what was probably a nutrient fluid to which they couldreduce human refuse. They swarm jerkily in it so that the liquidseemed to seethe. It smelled. Like skunk.
The grid operator clenched his hands.
"Put it away!" he commanded fiercely. "Out of sight! Away!"
Calhoun nodded. He locked it in a small chest. As he put down thecover he said in an indescribable tone:
"It doesn't smell as bad to me as it did."
But his hands were steady as he drew a sample of a few drops from thevaccine bottle. He lowered a wall panel and behind it there was aminute but astonishingly complete biological laboratory. It wasdesigned for microanalysis--the quantitative and qualitative analysisof tiny quantities of matter. He swung out a miniaturized Challisfractionator. He inserted half a droplet of the supposed vaccine andplugged in the fractionator's power cable. It began to hum.
The grid operator ground his teeth.
"This is a fractionator," said Calhoun. "It spins a biological samplethrough a chromatograph gele."
The small device hummed more shrilly. The sound rose in pitch until itwas a whine, and then a whistle, and then went up above the highestpitch to which human ears are sensitive. Murgatroyd scratched at hisears and complained:
"_Chee! Chee! Chee!_"
"It won't be long," Calhoun assured him. He looked once at the gridoperator and then looked away. There was sweat on the man's forehead.Calhoun said casually: "The substance that makes the vaccine do whatit does do is in the vaccine, obviously. So the fractionator isseparating the different substances that are mixed together." Headded, "It doesn't look much like chromatography, but the principle'sthe same. It's an old, old trick!"
It was, of course. That different dissolved substances can beseparated by their different rates of diffusion through wetted powdersand geles had been known since the early twentieth century, but waslargely forgotten because not often needed. But the Med Service didnot abandon processes solely because they were not new.
Calhoun took another droplet of the vaccine and put it between twoplates of glass, to spread out. He separated them and put them in avacuum drier.
"I'm not going to try an analysis," he observed. "It would be silly totry to do anything so complicated if I only need to identifysomething. Which I hope is all I do need!"
He brought out an extremely small vacuum device. He cleaned thegarments he'd just removed, drawing every particle of dust from them.The dust appeared in a transparent tube which was part of the machine.
"I was sprayed with something I suspect the worst of," he added. "Thespray left dust behind. I _think_ it made sure that anybody who leftGovernment Center would surely be a para. It's another reason forhaste."
The grid operator ground his teeth again. He did not really hearCalhoun. He was deep in a private hell of shame and horror.
The inside of the ship was quiet, but it was not tranquil. Calhounworked calmly enough, but there were times when his inwards seemed toknot and cramp him, which was not the result of any infection orcontagion or demoniac possession, but was reaction to thoughts of theimprisoned para in the laboratory. That man had gobbled theunspeakable because he could not help himself, but he was mad withrage and shame over what he had become. Calhoun could become likethat--
&n
bsp; * * * * *
The loud-speaker tuned to outside frequencies muttered again. Calhounturned up its volume.
"_Calling Headquarters_!" panted a voice. "_There's a mob of parasforming in the streets in the Mooreton quarter! They're raging! Theyheard the President's speech and they swear they'll kill him! Theywon't stand for a cure! Everybody's got to turn para! They won't havenormals on the planet! Everybody's got to turn para or be killed!_"
The grid operator looked up at the speaker. The ultimate of bitternessappeared on his face. He saw Calhoun's eyes on him and said savagely:
"That's where I belong!"
Murgatroyd headed straight for his cubbyhole and crawled into it.