Chapter 3

They came to the turnoff for a town called Tenochitlan, some forty miles from Maya City. Calhoun swung off the highway to go through it.

Whoever had chosen the name Maya for this planet had been interested in the legends of Yucatan, back on Earth. There were many instances of such hobbies in a Med Ship’s list of ports of call. Calhoun touched ground regularly on planets that had been named for countries and towns when men first roamed the stars, and nostalgically christened their discoveries with names suggested by homesickness. There was a Tralee, and a Dorset, and an Eire. Colonists not infrequently took their world’s given name as a pattern and chose related names for seas and peninsulas and mountain chains. On Texia the landing-grid rose near a town called Corral and the principal meat-packing settlement was named Roundup.

Whatever the name Tenochitlan would have suggested, though, was denied by the town itself. It was small, with a pleasing local type of architecture. There were shops and some factories, and many strictly private homes, some clustered close together and others in the middles of considerable gardens. In those gardens also there was wilt and decay among the cannibal plants. There was no grass, because the plants prevented it, but now the motile plants themselves were dead. Except for the one class of killed growing things, however, vegetation was luxuriant.

But the little city was deserted. Its streets were empty, its houses untenanted. Some houses were apparently locked up here, though, and Calhoun saw three or four shops whose stock in trade had been covered over before the owners departed. He guessed that either this town had been warned earlier than the spaceport city, or else they knew they had time to get in motion before the highways were filled with the cars from the west.

Allison looked at the houses with keen, evaluating eyes. He did not seem to notice the absence of people. When Calhoun swung back on the great road beyond the little city, Allison regarded the endless fields of dark-green plants with much the same sort of interest.

“Interesting,” he said abruptly when Tenochitlan fell behind and dwindled to a speck. “Very interesting! I’m interested in land. Real property, that’s my business. I’ve a land-owning corporation on Thanet Three. I’ve some holdings on Dorset, too, and elsewhere. It just occurred to me: what’s all this land and the cities worth, with the people all run away?”

“What,” asked Calhoun, “are the people worth who’ve run?”

Allison paid no attention. He looked shrewd. Thoughtful.

“I came here to buy land,” he said. “I’d arranged to buy some hundreds of square miles. I’d buy more if the price were right. But--as things are, it looks like the price of land ought to go down quite a bit. Quite a bit!”

“It depends,” said Calhoun, “on whether there’s anybody left alive to sell it to you, and what sort of thing has happened.”

Allison looked at him sharply.

“Ridiculous!” he said authoritatively. “There’s no question of their being alive!”

“They thought there might be,” observed Calhoun. “That’s why they ran away. They hoped they’d be safe where they ran to. I hope they are.”

Allison ignored the comment. His eyes remained intent and shrewd. He was not bewildered by the flight of the people of Maya. His mind was busy with contemplation of that flight from the standpoint of a man of business.

The car went racing onward. The endless fields of dark green rushed past to the rear. The highway was deserted, just three strips of surfaced road, mathematically straight, going on to the horizon. They went on by tens and scores of miles, each strip wide enough to allow four ground-cars to run side by side. The highway was intended to allow all the produce of all these fields to be taken to market or a processing plant at the highest possible speed and in any imaginable quantity. The same roads had allowed the cities to be deserted instantly the warning--whatever the warning was--arrived.

Fifty miles beyond Tenochitlan there was a mile-long strip of sheds containing agricultural machinery for crop culture and trucks to carry the crops to market. There was no sign of life about the machinery, nor in a further hour’s run to westward.

Then there was a city visible to the left. But it was not served by this particular highway, but another. There was no sign of any movement in its streets. It moved along the horizon to the left and rear. Presently it disappeared.

Half an hour later still, Murgatroyd said:

“Chee!“

He stirred uneasily. A moment later he said “Chee!“ again.

Calhoun turned his eyes from the road. Murgatroyd looked unhappy. Calhoun ran his hand over the tormal’s furry body. Murgatroyd pressed against him. The car raced on. Murgatroyd whimpered a little. Calhoun’s hand felt the little animal’s muscles tense sharply, and then relax, and after a little tense again. Murgatroyd said almost hysterically:

“Chee-chee-chee-chee!“

Calhoun stopped the car, but Murgatroyd did not seem to be relieved. Allison said impatiently, “What’s the matter?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Calhoun.

He felt Murgatroyd’s pulse. The role of Murgatroyd in the Med Ship Esclipus Twenty was not only that of charming companion in the long, isolated runs in overdrive. Murgatroyd was a part of the Med Service. His tribe had been discovered on a planet in the Deneb sector, and men had made pets of them, to the high satisfaction of the tormals. Presently it was discovered that veterinarians never had tormals for patients. They were invariably in robustuous good health. They contracted no infections from other animals; they shared no infections with anybody else. The Med Service discovered that tormals possessed a dynamic immunity to germ and bacteria-caused diseases. Even viruses injected into their bloodstreams only provoked an immediate, overwhelming development of antibodies, so that tormals couldn’t be given any known disease. Which was of infinite value to the Med Service.

Now every Med Ship that could be supplied with a tormal carried a small, affectionate, whiskered member of the tribe. Men liked them, and they adored men. And when, as sometimes happened, by mutation or the simple enmity of nature, a new kind of infection appeared in human society--why--tormals defeated it. They produced specific antibodies to destroy it. Men analyzed the antibodies and synthesized them, and they were available to all the humans who needed them. So a great many millions of humans stayed alive, because tormals were pleasant little animals with a precious genetic gift of good health.

Calhoun looked at his sweep-second watch, timing the muscular spasms that Murgatroyd displayed. They coincided with irregularities in Murgatroyd’s heartbeat, coming at approximately two-second intervals. The tautening of the muscles lasted just about half a second.

“But I don’t feel it!” said Calhoun.

Murgatroyd whimpered again and said, “Chee-chee!“

“What’s going on?” demanded Allison with the impatience of a very important man indeed. “If the beast’s sick, he’s sick! I’ve got to find--”

Calhoun opened his med kit and went carefully through it until he found what he needed. He put a pill into Murgatroyd’s mouth.

“Swallow it!” he commanded.

Murgatroyd resisted, but the pill went down. Calhoun watched him sharply. Murgatroyd’s digestive system was delicate, but it was dependable. Anything that might be poisonous, Murgatroyd’s stomach rejected instantly and emphatically.

The pill stayed down.

“Look!” said Allison indignantly. “I’ve got business to do! In this attache case I have millions of interstellar credits, in cash, to pay down on purchases of land and factories. I ought to make some damned good deals! And I figure that that’s as important as anything else you can think of! It’s a damned sight more important than a beast with a belly-ache!”

Calhoun looked at him coldly.

“Do you own land on Texia?” he asked.

Allison’s mouth dropped open. Extreme suspicion and unease appeared on his face. As a sign of the unease, his hand went to the side coat pocket in which he’d put a blaster. He didn’t pluck it out. Calhoun’s left fist swung around and landed. He took Allison’s elaborate pocket blaster and threw it away among the monotonous rows of olive-green plants. He returned to absorbed observation of Murgatroyd.

In five minutes the muscular spasms diminished. In ten, Murgatroyd frisked. But he seemed to think that Calhoun had done something remarkable. In the warmest of tones he said:

“Chee!“

“Very good,” said Calhoun. “We’ll go ahead. I suspect you’ll do as well as we do--for a while.”

The car lifted the few inches the air columns sustained it above the ground. It went on, still to the eastward. But Calhoun drove more slowly now.

“Something was giving Murgatroyd rhythmic muscular spasms,” he said coldly. “I gave him medication to stop them. He’s more sensitive than we are, so he reacted to a stimulus we haven’t noticed yet. But I think we’ll notice it presently.”

Allison seemed to be dazed at the affront given him. It appeared to be unthinkable that anybody might lay hands on him.