Produced by Greg Weeks, Meredith Bach, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note:
This etext was first published in Amazing Stories, July 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
COMPLETE BOOK-LENGTH NOVEL
PARIAH PLANET
By MURRAY LEINSTER
Illustrated by FINLAY
_When the blue plague appeared on the planet of Dara, fear struck nearby worlds. The fear led to a hate that threatened the lives of millions and endangered the Galactic peace._
CHAPTER I
The little Med Ship came out of overdrive and the stars were strange andthe Milky Way seemed unfamiliar. Which, of course, was because the MilkyWay and the local Cepheid marker-stars were seen from an unaccustomedangle and a not-yet-commonplace pattern of varying magnitudes. ButCalhoun grunted in satisfaction. There was a banded sun off to port,which was good. A breakout at no more than sixty light-hours fromone's destination wasn't bad, in a strange sector of the Galaxy andafter three light-years of journeying blind.
"Arise and shine, Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "Comb your whiskers. Getset to astonish the natives!"
A sleepy, small, shrill voice said;
"_Chee!_"
Murgatroyd the _tormal_ came crawling out of his small cubbyhole. Heblinked at Calhoun.
"We're due to land shortly," Calhoun observed. "You'll impress the localinhabitants. I'll be unpopular. According to the records, there's beenno Med Ship inspection here for twelve standard years. And that waspractically no inspection, to judge by the report."
Murgatroyd said;
"_Chee-chee!_"
He began to make his toilet, first licking his right-hand whiskers andthen his left. Then he stood up and shook himself and lookedinterestedly at Calhoun. _Tormals_ are companionable small animals. Theyare charmed when somebody speaks to them. They find great, deepsatisfaction in imitating the actions of humans, as parrots and mynahsand parrokets imitate human speech. But _tormals_ have certain useful,genetically transmitted talents which make them much more valuable thanmere companions or pets.
Calhoun got a light-reading for the banded sun. It could hardly be anaccurate measure of distance, but it was a guide. He said;
"Hold on to something, Murgatroyd!"
Calhoun threw the overdrive switch and the Med Ship flicked back intothat questionable state of being in which velocities of some hundreds oftimes that of light are possible. The sensation of going into overdrivewas unpleasant. A moment later, the sensation of coming out was no lessso. Calhoun had experienced it often enough, and still didn't like it.
The sun Weald burned huge and terrible in space. It was close, now. Itsdisk covered half a degree of arc.
"Very neat," observed Calhoun. "Weald Three is our port, Murgatroyd. Theplane of the ecliptic would be--Hm...."
He swung the outside electron telescope, picked up a nearby brightobject, enlarged its image to show details, and checked it against thelocal star-pilot. He calculated a moment. The distance was too short foreven the briefest of overdrive hops, but it would take time to get thereon solar-system drive.
He thumbed down the communicator-button and spoke into a microphone.
"Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty reporting arrival and asking coordinates forlanding. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection. Our mass isfifty tons standard. We should arrive at a landing position in somethingunder four hours. Repeat. Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty ..."
He finished the regular second transmission and made coffee for himselfwhile he waited for an answer. Murgatroyd wanted a cup of coffee too.Murgatroyd adored coffee. He held a tiny cup in a furry small paw andsipped gingerly at the hot liquid.
* * * * *
A voice came out of the communicator;
"_Aesclipus Twenty, repeat your identification!_"
Calhoun went to the control-board.
"Aesclipus Twenty," he said patiently, "is a Med Ship, sent by theInterstellar Medical Service to make a planetary health inspection onWeald. Check with your public health authorities. This is the first MedShip visit in twelve standard years, I believe, which is inexcusable.But your health authorities will know all about it. Check with them."
The voice said truculently;
"_What was your last port?_"
Calhoun named it. This was not his home sector, but Sector Twelve hadgotten into a very bad situation. Some of its planets had gone unvisitedfor as long as twenty years, and twelve between inspections was almostcommon-place. Other sectors had been called on to help it catch up.Calhoun was one of the loaned Med Ship men, and because of the emergencyhe'd been given a list of half a dozen planets to be inspected one afteranother, instead of reporting back to sector headquarters after eachvisit. He'd had minor troubles before with landing-grid operators inSector Twelve.
So he was very patient. He named the planet last inspected, the one fromwhich he'd set out for Weald Three. The voice from the communicator saidsharply;
"_What port before that?_"
Calhoun named the one before the last.
"_Don't drive any closer,_" said the voice harshly, "_or you'll bedestroyed!_"
Calhoun said coldly;
"Now you listen to me, friend! I'm from the Interstellar MedicalService! You get in touch with planetary health services immediately!Remind them of the Interstellar Medical Inspection Agreement, signed onTralee two hundred and forty standard years ago. Remind them that ifthey do not cooperate in medical inspection that I can put your planetunder quarantine and your space commerce will be cut off like that! Noship will be cleared for Weald from any other planet in the galaxy untilthere has been a health inspection! Things have pretty well gone to potso far as the Med Service in this sector is concerned, but we're tryingto straighten it out. You have twenty minutes to clear this and then,I'm coming in. If I'm not landed, a quarantine goes on! Tell your healthauthorities that!"
Silence. Calhoun clicked off and poured himself another cup of coffee.Murgatroyd held out his cup for a refill. Calhoun gave it to him.
"I hate to put on an official hat, Murgatroyd," he said annoyedly, "butthere are some people who won't have any other way."
Murgatroyd said "_Chee!_" and sipped at his cup.
* * * * *
Calhoun checked the course of the Med Ship. It bored on through space.There were tiny noises from the communicator. There were whisperings andrustlings and the occasional strange and sometimes beautiful musicalnotes whose origin is yet obscure, but which, since they are carried byelectromagnetic radiation of wildly varying wave-lengths, are not likelyto be the fabled music of the spheres. He waited.
* * * * *
In fifteen minutes a different voice came from the speaker.
"_Med Ship Aesclipus! Med Ship Aesclipus!_"
Calhoun answered and the voice said anxiously;
"_'Sorry about the challenge, but we have the blueskin problem alwayswith us. We have to be extremely careful! Will you come in, please?_"
"I'm on my way," said Calhoun.
"_The planetary health authorities,_" said the voice, more anxiouslystill, "_are very anxious to be cooperative. We need Med Service help!We lose a lot of sleep over the blueskins! Could you tell us the name ofthe last Med Ship to land here, and its inspector, and when thatinspection was made? We want to look up the record of the event to beable to assist you in every possible way._"
"He's lying," Calhoun told Murgatroyd, "but he's more scared thanhostile."
He picked up the order-folio on Weald Three. He gave the informationabout the last Med Ship visit. He clicked off.
"W
hat?" he asked, "is a blueskin?"
He'd read the folio on Weald, of course, but as the ship swam onwardthrough emptiness he went through it again. The last medical inspectionhad been only perfunctory. Twelve years earlier--instead of three--aMed Ship had landed on Weald. There had been official conferences withhealth officials. There was a report on the birth-rate, the death-rate,the anomaly-rate, and a breakdown of all reported communicable diseases.But that was all. There were no special comments and no overall picture.
Presently Calhoun found the word in a Sector dictionary, where words ofonly local usage were to be found.
"Blueskin; Colloquial term for a person recovered from a plague whichleft large patches of blue pigment irregularly distributed over thebody. Especially, inhabitants of Dara. The condition is said to becaused by a chronic, non-fatal form of Dara plague and has been said tobe non-infectious, though this is not certain. The etiology of Daraplague has not fully been worked out. The blueskin condition ishereditary but not a genetic modification, as markings appear innon-Mendellian distributions...."
Calhoun puzzled over it. Nobody could have read the entire Sectordirectory, even with unlimited leisure during travel between solarsystems. Calhoun hadn't tried. But now he went laboriously throughindices and cross-references while the ship continued travel onward. Hefound no other reference to blueskins. He looked up Dara. It was listedas an inhabited planet, some four hundred years colonized, with alanding-grid and at the time the main notice was written out, aflourishing interstellar commerce. But there was a memo, evidently addedto the entry in some change of editions.
"Since plague, special license from Med Service is required forlanding."
That was all. Absolutely all.
The communicator said suavely;
"_Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty! Come in on vision, please!_"
Calhoun went to the control-board and threw on vision.
"Well, what now?" he demanded.
His screen lighted. A bland face looked out at him.
"_We have--ah--verified your statements,_" said the third voice fromWeald. "_Just one more item. Are you alone in your ship?_"
"Of course," said Calhoun, frowning.
"_Quite alone?_" insisted the voice.
"Obviously!" said Calhoun.
"_No other living creature?_" insisted the voice again.
"Of--Oh!" said Calhoun annoyedly. He called over his shoulder."Murgatroyd! Come here!"
Murgatroyd hopped to his lap and gazed interestedly at the screen. Thebland face changed remarkably. The voice changed even more.
"_Very good!_" it said. "_Very, very good! Blueskins do not have_tormals! _You are Med Service! By all means come in. Your coordinateswill be ..._"
Calhoun wrote them down. He clicked off the communicator again andgrowled to Murgatroyd;
"So I might have been a blueskin, eh? And you're my passport, becauseonly Med Ships have members of your tribe aboard! What the hell's thematter, Murgatroyd? They act like they think somebody's trying to getdown on their planet with a load of plague-germs!"
He grumbled to himself for minutes. The life of a Med Ship man is notexactly a sinecure, at best. It means long periods in empty space inoverdrive, which is absolute and deadly tedium. Then two or three daysaground, checking official documents and statistics, and askingquestions to see how many of the newest medical techniques have reachedthis planet or that, and the supplying of information about such as havenot arrived. Then lifting out to space for long periods of tedium, torepeat the process somewhere else. Med Ships carry only one man becausetwo could not stand the close contact without quarreling with eachother. But Med Ships do carry _tormals_, like Murgatroyd, and a _tormal_and a man can get along indefinitely, like a man and a dog. It is ahighly unequal friendship, but it seems to be satisfactory to both.
Calhoun was very much annoyed with the way the Med Service had beenoperated in Sector Twelve. He was one of many men at work to correct theresults of incompetence in directing Med Service in the twelfth sector.But it is always disheartening to have to labor at making up forsomebody else's blundering, when there is so much new work that needs tobe done.
The condition shown by the landing-grid suspicions was a case in point.Blueskins were people who inherited a splotchy skin-pigmentation fromother people who'd survived a plague. Weald plainly maintained aone-planet quarantine against them. But a quarantine is normally anemergency measure. The Med Service should have taken over, wiped out theneed for a quarantine, and then lifted it. It hadn't been done.
Calhoun fumed to himself.
* * * * *
The world of Weald Three grew brighter and brighter and became a disk.The disk had ice-caps and a reasonable proportion of land and watersurface. The Med Ship decelerated, and voices notified observation fromthe surface, and the little craft came to a stop some five planetarydiameters out from solidity. The landing-field force-field locked on toit, and its descent began.
The business of landing was all very familiar, from the blue rim whichappeared at the limb of the planet from one diameter out, to thesingular flowing-apart of the surface features as the ship sank stilllower. There was the circular landing-grid, rearing skyward for nearly amile. It could let down interstellar liners from emptiness and lift themout to emptiness again, with great convenience and economy for everyone.
It landed the Med Ship in its center, and there were officials to greetCalhoun, and he knew in advance the routine part of his visit. Therewould be an interview with the planet's chief executive, by whatevertitle he was called. There would be a banquet. Murgatroyd would bepetted by everybody. There would be painful efforts to impress Calhounwith the splendid conduct of public health matters on Weald. He would betold much scandal. He might find one man, somewhere, who passionatelylabored to advance the welfare of his fellow humans by finding out howto keep them well, or failing that how to make them well when they gotsick. And in two days, or three, Calhoun would be escorted back to thelanding-grid, and lifted out to space, and he'd spend long empty days inoverdrive and land somewhere else to do the whole thing all over again.
It all happened exactly as he expected, with one exception. Every humanbeing he met on Weald wanted to talk about blueskins. Blueskins and theidea of blueskins obsessed everyone. Calhoun listened without askingquestions until he had the picture of what blueskins meant to the peoplewho talked of them. Then he knew there would be no use asking questionsat random. Nobody mentioned ever having seen a blueskin. Nobodymentioned a specific event in which a blueskin had at any named timetaken part. But everybody was afraid of blueskins. It was a patterned,an inculcated, a stage-directed fixed idea. And it found expression inshocked references to the vileness, the depravity, the monstrousness ofthe blueskin inhabitants of Dara, from whom Weald must at all costs beprotected.
It did not make sense. So Calhoun listened politely until he found anundistinguished medical man who wanted some special information aboutgene-selection as practised halfway across the galaxy. He invited thatman to the Med Ship, where he supplied the information not hithertoavailable. He saw his guest's eyes shine a little with that joyous awe aman feels when he finds out something he has wanted long and badly toknow.
"Now," said Calhoun, "tell me something! Why does everybody on thisplanet hate the inhabitants of Dara? It's light-years away. Nobodyclaims to have suffered in person from them. Why make a point of hatingthem?"
The Wealdian doctor grimaced.
"They've blue patches on their skins. They're different from us. So theycan be pictured as a danger and our political parties can make anelection issue out of competing for the privilege of defending us fromthem. They had a plague on Dara, once. They're accused of still havingit ready for export."
"Hm," said Calhoun. "The story is that they want to spread contagionhere, eh? Doesn't anybody"--his tone was sardonic--"doesn't anybody urgethat they be massacred as an act of piety?"
"Yes--s--s--s," admitted the doctor reluctantly. "It's mentioned inp
olitical speeches."
"But how's it rationalized?" demanded Calhoun. "What's the argument tomake pigment-patches involve moral and physical degradation, as I'massured is the case?"
"In the public schools," said the doctor, "the children are taught thatblueskins are now carriers of the disease they survived threegenerations ago! That they hate everybody who isn't a blueskin. Thatthey are constantly scheming to introduce their plague here so most ofus will die and the rest become blueskins. That's beyond rationalizing.It can't be true, but it's not safe to doubt it."
"Bad business," said Calhoun coldly. "That sort of thing usually costslives, in the end. It could lead to massacre!"
"Perhaps it has, in a way," said the doctor unhappily. "One doesn't liketo think about it." He paused, and said; "Twenty years ago there was afamine on Dara. There were crop-failures. The situation must have beenvery bad. They built a space-ship. They've no use for such thingsnormally, because no nearby planet will deal with them or let them land.But they built a space-ship and came here. They went in orbit aroundWeald. They asked to trade for shiploads of food. They offered any pricein heavy metals, gold, platinum, iridium, and so on. They talked fromorbit by vision communicators. They could be seen to be blueskins. Youcan guess what happened!"
"Tell me," said Calhoun.
"We armed ships in a hurry," admitted the doctor, "We chased theirspace-ship back to Dara. We hung in space off the planet. We told themwe'd blast their world from pole to pole if they ever dared take tospace again. We made them destroy their one ship, and we watched onvisionscreens as it was done."
"But you gave them food?"
"No," said the doctor ashamedly. "They were blueskins."
"How bad was the famine?"
"Who knows? Any number may have starved! And we kept a squadron of armedships in their skies for years. To keep them from spreading the plague,we said. And some of us believed it, probably!"
The doctor's tone was purest irony.
"Lately," he said, "there's been a move for economy in our government.Simultaneously, we began to have a series of over-abundant crops. Thegovernment had to buy the excess grain to keep the price up. Retiredpatrol-ships--built to watch over Dara--were available forstorage-space. We filled them up with grain and sent them out intoorbit. They're there now, hundreds of thousands or millions of tons ofgrain!"
"And Dara?"
The Doctor shrugged. He stood up.
"Our hatred of Dara," he said, again ironically, "has produced onething. Roughly halfway between here and Dara there's a two-planet solarsystem, Orede. There's a usable planet there. It was proposed to buildan outpost of Weald there, against blueskins. Cattle were landed to runwild and multiply and make a reason for colonists to settle there. Theydid, but nobody wants to move nearer to blueskins! So Orede stayeduninhabited until a hunting-party shooting wild cattle found anoutcropping of heavy-metal ore. So now there's a mine there. And that'sall. A few hundred men work the mine at fabulous wages. You may be askedto check on their health. But not Dara's!"
"I see," said Calhoun, frowning.
The doctor moved toward the Med Ship's exit-port.
"I answered your questions," he said grimly. "But if I talked to anyoneelse as I've done to you, I'd be lucky only to be driven into exile!"
"I shan't give you away," said Calhoun. He did not smile.
When the doctor had gone, Calhoun said deliberately;
"Murgatroyd, you should be grateful that you're a _tormal_ and not aman. There's nothing about being a _tormal_ to make you ashamed!"
Then he grimly changed his garments for the full-dress uniform of theMed Service. There was to be a banquet at which he would sit next to theplanet's chief executive and hear innumerable speeches about thesplendor of Weald. Calhoun had his own, strictly Med Service opinion ofthe planet's latest and most boasted-of achievement. It was a domed cityin the polar regions, where nobody ever had to go outdoors. He was lessthan professionally enthusiastic about the moving streets, and much lessapproving of the dream-broadcasts which supplied hypnotic,sleep-inducing rhythms to anybody who chose to listen to them. The pricewas that while asleep one would hear high praise of commercial products,and one might believe them when awake.
But it was not Calhoun's function to criticize when it could be avoided.Med Service had been badly managed in Sector Twelve. So at the banquetCalhoun made a brief and diplomatic address in which he temperatelypraised what could be praised, and did not mention anything else.
The chief executive followed him. As head of the government he paid sometribute to the Med Service. But then he reminded his hearers proudly ofthe high culture, splendid health, and remarkable prosperity of theplanet since his political party took office. This, he said, was inspite of the need to be perpetually on guard against the greatest andmost immediate danger to which any world in all the galaxy was exposed.He referred to the blueskins, of course. He did not need to tell thepeople of Weald what vigilance, what constant watchfulness was necessaryagainst that race of depraved and malevolent deviants from the norm ofhumanity. But Weald, he said with emotion, held aloft the torch of allthat humanity held most dear, and defended not alone the lives of itspeople against blueskin contagion, but their noble heritage of idealsagainst Blueskin pollution.
When he sat down, Calhoun said very politely;
"It looks like some day it should be practical politics to urge themassacre of all blueskins. Have you thought of that?"
The chief executive said comfortably;
"The idea's been proposed. It's good politics to urge it, but it wouldbe foolish to carry it out. People vote against blueskins. Wipe themout, and where'd you be?"
Calhoun ground his teeth, quietly.
* * * * *
There were more speeches. Then a messenger, white-faced, arrived with awritten note for the chief executive. He read it and passed it toCalhoun. It was from the Ministry of Health. The space-port reportedthat a ship had just broken out from overdrive within the Wealdiansolar system. Its tape-transmitter had automatically signalled itsarrival from the mining-planet Orede. But, having sent off its automaticsignal, the ship lay dead in space. It did not drive toward Weald. Itdid not respond to signals. It drifted like a derelict upon no course atall. It seemed ominous, and since it came from Orede--the planet nearestto Dara of the blueskins--the health ministry informed the planet'schief executive.
"It'll be blueskins," said that astute person, firmly. "They'renext-door to Orede. That's who's done this. It wouldn't surprise me ifthey'd seeded Orede with their plague, and this ship came from there togive us warning!"
"There's no evidence for anything of the sort," protested Calhoun. "Aship simply came out of overdrive and didn't signal further. That'sall."
"We'll see," said the chief executive ominously. "We'll go directly tothe spaceport."
Calhoun retrieved Murgatroyd who had been visiting with the wives of thehigher-up officials. His small paunch distended with cakes and coffeeand such delicacies as he'd been plied with. He was half comatose fromover-feeding and over-petting, but he was glad to see Calhoun. At thespaceport they discovered the situation remained unchanged.
A ship from Orede had come out of overdrive and lay dead in emptiness.It did not answer calls. It did not move in space. It floated eerily inno orbit around anything, going nowhere; doing nothing. And panic wasthe consequence.
It seemed to Calhoun that the official handling of the matter accountedfor the terror that he could feel building up. The so-far-unexplainedbit of news was on the air all over the planet Weald. There was nobodyawake of all the world's population who did not believe that there was anew danger in the sky. Nobody doubted that it came from blueskins. Thetreatment of the news was precisely calculated to keep alive the hatredof Weald for the inhabitants of the world Dara.
Calhoun put Murgatroyd into the Med Ship and went back to the spaceportoffice. A small space-boat, designed to inspect the circling grain-shipsfrom time, was already aloft. The lan
ding-grid had thrust it swiftly outmost of the way. Now it droned and drove on sturdily toward theenigmatic ship.
Calhoun took no part in the agitated conferences among the officials andnews reporters at the space-port. But he listened to the talk about him.As the investigating small ship drew nearer and nearer to thedeathly-still cargo vessel, the guesses about the meaning of itsbreakout and following silence grew more and more wild. But, singularly,there was not one suggestion that the mystery might not be the work ofblueskins. Blueskins were scapegoats for all the fears and all theuneasiness a perhaps over-civilized world developed.
Presently the investigating space-boat reached the mystery ship andcircled it, beaming queries. No answer. It reported the cargo-ship dark.No lights shone anywhere on or in it. There were no induction-surgesfrom even pulsing, idling engines. Delicately, the messenger-craftmaneuvered until it touched the silent vessel. It reported thatmicrophones detected no motion whatever inside.
"Let a volunteer go aboard," commanded the chief executive. "Have himreport what he finds."
A pause. Then the solemn announcement of an intrepid volunteer's name,from far, far away. Calhoun listened, frowning darkly. This pompousheroism wouldn't be noticed in the Med Service. It would be routinebehavior.
Suspenseful, second-by-second reports. The volunteer had rocketedhimself across the emptiness between the two again-separated ships. Hehad opened the airlock from outside. He'd gone in. He'd closed the outerairlock door. He'd opened the inner. He reported.
The relayed report was almost incoherent, what with horror andincredulity and the feeling of doom that came upon the volunteer. Theship was a bulk-cargo ore-carrier, designed to run between Orede andWeald with cargoes of heavy-metal ores and a crew of no more than fivemen. There was no cargo in her holds now, though. Instead, there weremen. They packed the ship. They filled the corridors. They had crawledinto every cargo and other space where a man could find room to pushhimself. There were hundreds of them. It was insanity. And it had beengreater insanity still for the ship to have taken off with sopreposterous a load of living creatures.
But they weren't living any longer. The air apparatus had been designedfor a crew of five. It could purify the air for possibly twenty or more.But there were hundreds of men in hiding as well as in plain view in thecargo-ship from Orede. There were many, many times more than her airapparatus and reserve tanks could possibly have serviced. They couldn'teven have been fed during the journey from Orede to Weald!
But they hadn't starved. Air-scarcity killed them before the ship cameout of overdrive.
A remarkable thing was that there was no written message in the ship'slog which referred to its take-off. There was no memorandum of thetaking on of such an impossible number of passengers.
"The blueskins did it," said the chief executive of Weald. He was pale.All about Calhoun men looked sick and shocked and terrified. "It was theblueskins! We'll have to teach them a lesson!" Then he turned toCalhoun. "The volunteer who went on that ship ... He'll have to staythere, won't he? He can't be brought back to Weald without bringingcontagion ..."
Calhoun raged at him.