Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE HATE DISEASE
The Med Service people hit strange problems as routine: if they weren't weirdos, they weren't tough enough to merit Med Service attention. Now the essence of a weird problem is that it involves a factor nobody ever thought of before ... or the absence of one nobody ever missed ...
by MURRAY LEINSTER
ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR
* * * * *
I
The Med Ship _Esclipus Twenty_ rode in overdrive while her ship'scompany drank coffee. Calhoun sipped at a full cup of strong brew,while Murgatroyd the _tormal_ drank from the tiny mug suited to hissmall, furry paws. The astrogation unit showed the percentage of thisoverdrive hop covered up to now, and the needle was almost around tothe stop pin.
There'd been a warning gong an hour ago, notifying that the end ofoverdrive journeying approached. Hence the coffee. When breakout came,the overdrive field must collapse and the Duhanne cells down near thesmall ship's keel absorb the energy which maintained it. Then_Esclipus Twenty_ would appear in the normal universe of suns andstars with the abruptness of an explosion. She should be somewherenear the sun Tallien. She should then swim toward that sol-type sunand approach Tallien's third planet out at the less-than-light-speedrate necessary for solar-system travel. And presently she shouldsignal down to ground and Calhoun set about the purpose of histhree-week journey in overdrive.
His purpose was a routine checkup on public health on Tallien Three.Calhoun had lately completed five such planetary visits, with from oneto three weeks of overdrive travel between each pair. When he leftTallien Three he'd head back to Sector Headquarters for more ordersabout the work of the Interstellar Medical Service.
Murgatroyd zestfully licked his empty cup to get the last least dropof coffee. He said hopefully:
"_Chee?_" He wanted more.
"I'm afraid," said Calhoun, "that you're a sybarite, Murgatroyd. Thisimpassioned desire of yours for coffee disturbs me."
"_Chee!_" said Murgatroyd, with decision.
"It's become a habit," Calhoun told him severely. "You should taperoff. Remember, when anything in your environment becomes a normal partof your environment, it becomes a necessity. Coffee should be aluxury, to be savored as such, instead of something you expect andresent being deprived of."
Murgatroyd said impatiently:
"_Chee-chee!_"
"All right, then," said Calhoun, "if you're going to be emotionalabout it! Pass your cup."
He reached out and Murgatroyd put the tiny object in his hand. Herefilled it and passed it back.
"But watch yourself," he advised. "We're landing on Tallien Three.It's just been transferred to us from another sector. It's beenneglected. There's been no Med Service inspection for years. Therecould be misunderstandings."
Murgatroyd said, "_Chee!_" and squatted down to drink.
Calhoun looked at a clock and opened his mouth to speak again, when ataped voice said abruptly:
"_When the gong sounds, breakout will be five seconds off._"
There was a steady, monotonous _tick, tock, tick, tock,_ like ametronome. Calhoun got up and made a casual examination of the ship'sinstruments. He turned on the vision screens. They were useless inoverdrive, of course, Now they were ready to inform him about thenormal cosmos as soon as the ship returned to it. He put away thecoffee things. Murgatroyd was reluctant to give up his mug until thelast possible lick. Then he sat back and elaborately cleaned hiswhiskers.
Calhoun sat down in the control chair and waited.
* * * * *
"_Bong!_" said the loud-speaker, and Murgatroyd scuttled under a chair. Heheld on with all four paws and his furry tail. The speaker said,"_Breakout in five seconds ... four ... three ... two ... one ..._"
There was a sensation as if all the universe had turned itself insideout, and Calhoun's stomach tried to follow its example. He gulped, andthe feeling ended, and the vision screens came alight. Then there wereten thousand myriads of stars, and a sun flaming balefully ahead, andcertain very bright objects nearby. They would be planets, and one ofthem showed as a crescent.
Calhoun checked the solar spectrum as a matter of course. This was thesun Tallien. He checked the brighter specks in view. Three wereplanets and one a remote brilliant star. The crescent was TallienThree, third out from its sun and the Med Ship's immediatedestination. It was a very good breakout; too good to be anything butluck. Calhoun swung the ship for the crescent planet. Hematter-of-factly checked the usual items. He was going in at a highangle to the ecliptic, so meteors and bits of stray celestial trashweren't likely to be bothersome. He made other notes, to kill time.
He reread the data sheets on the planet. It had been colonized threehundred years before. There'd been trouble establishing a human-useecological system on the planet because the native plants and animalswere totally useless to humankind. Native timber could be used inbuilding, but only after drying-out for a period of months. Whengrowing or green it was as much water-saturated as a sponge. There hadnever been a forest fire here, not even caused by lightning!
There were other oddities. The aboriginal microorganisms here did notattack wastes of introduced terrestrial types. It had been necessaryto introduce scavenger organisms from elsewhere. This and otherdifficulties made it true that only one of the world's five continentswere human-occupied. Most of the land surface was strictly as it hadbeen before the landing of men--impenetrable jungles of spongelikeflora, dwelt in by a largely unknown useless fauna. Calhoun read on.Population ... government ... health statistics.... He went throughthe list.
He had time to kill, so he rechecked his course and speed relative tothe planet. He and Murgatroyd had dinner. Then he waited until theship was near enough to report in.
"Med Ship _Esclipas Twenty_ calling ground," he said when the timecame. He taped his own voice as he made the call. "Requestingco-ordinates for landing. Our mass is fifty tons. Repeat, five-ohtons. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection."
He waited while his taped voice repeated and re-repeated the call. Anincoming voice said sharply:
"_Calling Med Ship! Cut your signal! Do not acknowledge this call! Cutyour signal! Instructions will follow. But cut your signal!_"
Calhoun blinked. Of all possible responses to a landing call, ordersto stop signaling would be least likely. But after an instant hereached over and stopped the transmission of his voice. It happened toend halfway through a syllable.
Silence. Not quite silence, of course, because there was the tapedrecord of background noise which went on all the time the Med Ship wasin space. Without it, the utter absence of noise would be sepulchral.
The voice from outside said:
"_You cut off. Good! Now listen! Do not--repeat, do not!--acknowledgethis call or respond to any call from anyone else! There is a drasticsituation aground. You must not--repeat, must not--fall into the handsof the people now occupying Government Center. Go into orbit. We willtry to seize the spaceport so you can be landed. But do notacknowledge this call or respond to any answer from anyone else! Don'tdo it! Don't do it!_"
* * * * *
There was a click, and somehow the silence was clamorous. Calhounrubbed his nose reflectively with his finger. Murgatroyd, bright-eyed,immediately rubbed his n
ose with a tiny dark digit. Like all_tormals_, he gloried in imitating human actions, as parrots andparakeets imitate human speech. But suddenly a second voice called in,with a new and strictly professional tone:
"_Calling Med Ship!_" said this second voice. "_Calling Med Ship!Spaceport Tallien Three calling Med Ship Esclipus Twenty! For landing,repair to co-ordinates--_"
The voice briskly gave specific instructions. It was a strictlyprofessional voice. It repeated the instructions with precision.
Out of sheer habit, Calhoun said, "Acknowledge." Then he addedsharply: "Hold it! I've just had an emergency call--"
The first voice interrupted stridently:
"_Cut your signal, you fool! I told you not to answer any other call!Cut your signal!_"
The strictly professional other voice said coldly:
"_Emergency call, eh?
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