Chapter 1

Calhoun regarded the communicator with something like exasperation as his taped voice repeated a standard approach-call for the twentieth time. But no answer came, which had become irritating a long time ago. This was a new Med Service sector for Calhoun. He’d been assigned to another man’s tour of duty because the other man had been taken down with romance. He’d gotten married, which ruled him out for Med Ship duty. So now Calhoun listened to his own voice endlessly repeating a call that should have been answered immediately.

Murgatroyd the tormal watched with beady, interested eyes. The planet Maya lay off to port of the Med Ship Esclipus Twenty. Its almost circular disk showed full size on a vision screen beside the ship’s control board. The image was absolutely clear and vividly colored. There was an ice cap in view. There were continents. There were seas. The cloud system of a considerable cyclonic disturbance could be noted off at one side, and the continents looked reasonably as they should, and the seas were of that muddy, indescribable tint which indicates deep water.

Calhoun’s own voice, taped an hour earlier, sounded in a speaker as it went again to the communicator and then to the extremely visible world a hundred thousand miles away.

“Calling ground,” said Calhoun’s recorded voice. “Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling ground to report arrival and ask coordinates for landing. Our mass is fifty standard tons. Repeat, five-oh tons. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection.“

The recorded voice stopped. There was silence except for the taped random noises which kept the inside of the ship from feeling like the inside of a tomb.

Murgatroyd said: “Chee?“

Calhoun said ironically, “Undoubtedly, Murgatroyd. Undoubtedly! Whoever’s on duty at the spaceport stepped out for a moment, or dropped dead, or did something equally inconvenient. We have to wait until he gets back or somebody else takes over.”

Murgatroyd said “Chee!“ again and began to lick his whiskers. He knew that when Calhoun called on the communicator, another human voice should reply. Then there should be conversation, and shortly the force-fields of a landing-grid should take hold of the Med Ship and draw it planet-ward. In time it ought to touch ground in a spaceport with a gigantic, silvery landing-grid rising skyward all about it. Then there should be people greeting Calhoun cordially and welcoming Murgatroyd with smiles and petting.

“Calling ground,” said the recorded voice yet again. “Med Ship Esclipus Twenty--”

It went on through the formal notice of arrival. Murgatroyd waited in pleasurable anticipation. When the Med Ship arrived at a port of call humans gave him sweets and cakes, and they thought it charming that he drank coffee just like a human, only with more gusto. Aground, Murgatroyd moved zestfully in society while Calhoun worked. Calhoun’s work was conferences with planetary health officials, politely receiving such information as they thought important, and tactfully telling them about the most recent developments in medical science as known to the Interstellar Medical Service.

“Somebody,” said Calhoun darkly, “is going to catch the devil for this!”

The communicator loudspeaker spoke abruptly.

“Calling Med Ship,” said a voice. “Calling Med Ship Esclipus Twenty! Liner Candida calling. Have you had an answer from ground?”

Calhoun blinked. Then he said curtly:

“Not yet. I’ve been calling all of half an hour, and never a word out of them!”

“We’ve been in orbit twelve hours,” said the voice from emptiness. “Calling all the while. No answer. We don’t like it.”

Calhoun flipped a switch that threw a vision screen into circuit with the ship’s electron telescope. A starfield appeared and shifted wildly. Then a bright dot centered itself. He raised the magnification. The bright dot swelled and became a chubby commercial ship, with the false ports that passengers like to believe they looked through when in space. Two relatively large cargo ports on each side showed that it carried heavy freight in addition to passengers. It was one of those workhorse intra-cluster ships that distributed the freight and passengers the long-haul liners dumped off only at established transshipping ports.

Murgatroyd padded across the Med Ship’s cabin and examined the image with a fine air of wisdom. It did not mean anything to him, but tormals imitate human actions as parrots and parrakeets imitate human speech. He said, “Chee!“ as if making an observation of profound significance, then went back to the cushion and again curled up.

“We don’t see anything wrong aground,” the liner’s voice complained, “but they don’t answer calls! We don’t get any scatter-signals either. We went down to two diameters and couldn’t pick up a thing. And we have a passenger to land. He insists on it!”

By ordinary, communications between different places on a planet’s surface use frequencies the ion-layers of the atmosphere either reflect or refract down past the horizon. But there is usually some small leakage to space, and line-of-sight frequencies are generally abundant. It is one of the annoyances of a ship coming in to port that space near most planets is usually full of local signals.

“I’ll check,” said Calhoun curtly. “Stand by.”

The Candida would have arrived off Maya as the Med Ship had done, and called down as Calhoun had been doing. It was very probably a ship on schedule and the grid operator at the spaceport should have expected it. Space commerce was important to any planet, comparing more or less with the export-import business of an industrial nation in ancient times on Earth. Planets had elaborate traffic-aid systems for the cargo-carriers which moved between solar systems as they’d once moved between continents on Earth. Such traffic aids were very carefully maintained. Certainly for a spaceport landing-grid not to respond to calls for twelve hours running seemed ominous.

“We’ve been wondering,” said the Candida querulously, “if there could be something radically wrong below. Sickness, for example.”

The word “sickness” was a substitute for a more alarming word. But a plague had nearly wiped out the population of Dorset, once upon a time, and the first ships to arrive after it had broken out most incautiously went down to ground, and so carried the plague to their next two ports of call. Nowadays quarantine regulations were enforced very strictly indeed.

“I’ll try to find out what’s the matter,” said Calhoun.

“We’ve got a passenger,” repeated the Candida aggrievedly, “who insists that we land him by space-boat if we don’t make a ship landing. He says he has important business aground.”

Calhoun did not answer. The rights of passengers were extravagantly protected, these days. To fail to deliver a passenger to his destination entitled him to punitive damages which no spaceline could afford. So the Med Ship would seem heaven-sent to the Candida’s skipper. Calhoun could relieve him of responsibility.

The telescope screen winked and showed the surface of the planet a hundred thousand miles away. Calhoun glared at the image on the port screen and guided the telescope to the spaceport city--Maya City. He saw highways and blocks of buildings. He saw the spaceport and its landing-grid. He could see no motion, of course.

He raised the magnification. He raised it again. Still no motion. He upped the magnification until the lattice-pattern of the telescope’s amplifying crystal began to show. But at the ship’s distance from the planet, a ground-car would represent only the fortieth of a second of arc. There was atmosphere, too, with thermals; anything the size of a ground-car simply couldn’t be seen.

But the city showed quite clearly. Nothing massive had happened to it. No large-scale physical disaster had occurred. It simply did not answer calls from space.

Calhoun flipped off the screen.

“I think,” he said irritably into the communicator microphone, “I suspect I’ll have to make an emergency landing. It could be something as trivial as a power failure--” but he knew that was wildly improbable--”or it could be--anything. I’ll land on rockets and tell you what I find.”

The voice from the Candida said hopefully: