Ole Doc said: "I ion-beamed New Earth of Spica." He pulled out his message log. "The Star of s.p.a.ce was trying out delphi particles. She took her original weight in them.
She"d have an excess of five hundred light-years above her normal reserve. She could go anywhere this side of the hub. And when she gets where she is going, she is going to try to hide her plight. Why hasn"t a general galactic alarm gone out?"
This was news to the Council. The Star of s.p.a.ce should have been completely out of fuel. Two or three nervous coughs sounded and here and there beads of perspiration began to grow.
Garth was silent. He was thinking.
"You"ll have to act!" said Ole Doc. "I demand you throw out a net to intercept her, that you alert all navies to comb s.p.a.ce, that you alarm any place she might try to land and that, in conclusion, you hold her at bay until I or another U.M.S. soldier can get there and take charge."
Seventeen heads nodded quick a.s.sent and then all atten- tion went to Garth. Control and communication were naval functions.
Garth took out a cigar. He inspected it. He threw the frayed one away and replaced it with the fresh one. He bit the end, spat, tilted the cheroot up and looked contemp- tuously at Ole Doc.
"The warning will be heeded and you probably deserve some thanks for calling this to my attention. It is now in
naval hands. With the permission of the Council I shall give my orders."
They gave it quickly enough.
Garth rose, shrugged into a s.p.a.cecoat and started to leave.
"May I ask," said Ole Doc, "just what orders you are going to give?"
"All s.p.a.ce navies will be ordered to an emergency standing. Patrols will search their sectors. All navy bases will be alerted. And wherever found or whenever seen, the Star of s.p.a.ce is to be blown out of existence with some well placed shots. Good day."
The door closed behind him.
Ole Doc got up slowly.
"You abide by this?" he demanded of the Council.
They were uncomfortable.
"You do not see that if this ship is disintegrated we will have lost all possible chance of locating the source, type, course and treatment of that plague?"
They saw that but they were still uncomfortable.
"You," said Ole Doc, "are a pack of fools!" And when he had slammed the door behind him and strode off down the hall, Hippocrates was positive now about that adren- alin. Ole Doc was mad!
The first contact came when the Morgue was off the Carmack System and was announced as being within the Smith Empire on a planet called Skinner"s Folly.
Ole Doc had guessed five years wrong and he muttered about it as the Morgue skimmed along under gyro con- trol.
"We"ll never make it," said Ole Doc. "That confounded System Police will get there and wreck everything. I know the Smith Empire!"
Hippocrates served soup in the lovely salon. The murals had been very specially constructed by an Old Seattle artist named Boyd who had been extremely grateful for having his life saved one afternoon when Ole Doc walked by a Venusian grog shop. The murals showed a tree of life growing all around the four walls of the room depicting the evolution of man and there were many trillionaires and kings who would have paid a planet"s ransom for a duplicate. n.o.body but a Soldier of light could have kept Boyd sober that long, however.
"Monkey stage," said Ole Doc, glaring at a gibbon who
was gibbering in a lifelike manner, three-dimensional and moving, it seemed, in a tree. "Few of them ever get beyond the monkey stage. Give "em fleas to pick and they"re convinced they"re solving all the problems of the world."
"Too much adrenalin. This afternoon when I fix," said Hippocrates, testing the coffee for temperature before he served it, "I cut down adrenalin."
"You"ll cut down nothing, you gypsum freak! I feel fine.
I haven"t felt this mad in a hundred years. It does a man good to feel good and mad at something once in a while.
It"s therapy, that"s what it is."
"I cut down adrenalin," said Hippocrates. "You got bad habits. You fall in love with women and sometimes you get mad. You drink, too," he added, spitefully setting out the muscatel.
"I"ll fall in love and I"ll get drunk-"
" "Love is the ambition of the failed man," " primly quoted Hippocrates. " There is nothing,"" he continued, phonograph-recordwise, " "so nauseous under all the suns and stars as a gusty-sighing lover, painted like a clown, exchanging spittle with a predatory female under the delu- sion that he is mostly n.o.bly discharging the highest injunc- tions of a divine-""
"You heathen!" said Ole Doc. "That gibbon has more sense."
"He cant make chicken soup," wisely countered Hippoc- rates. "That is enough wine. At four-fifteen you be ready for treatment. Not so much adrenalin."
Ole Doc rose and looked at the tell-tale instruments in the cabin bulkhead. He wrote a few figures on his cuff which told him that they would be landing at Skinner"s Folly by six. He went forward and tried to connect with an ion beam which would permit him to communicate with the Smith Empire. The Smith Dynasty, however, had been a very economical one and kept few beams going, depending more upon its staff of inventors than upon what was already practical and in use elsewhere.
At four-fifteen he suffered himself to be stripped and placed before a battery of ray rods, impatiently submitting to the critical ministrations of his slave. From some uncal- culable system not yet discovered, Hippocrates was about as much affected by these powerful rays as a piece of lead.
The little slave found a tiny scar and that had to be fixed.
He saw an off-colour hair and the whole follicle system had to be treated. He fussed and clucked over a metabolism meter until he had what he thought was just right and then he shut off the rays.
"You skimped the adrenalin!" said Ole Doc, and be- fore Hippocrates could interfere, he shot on the rheostat which blazed out with adrenal catalyst and flashed it off again. Self-righteously, he began to haul on his clothes.
Hippocrates began to quote long sections of "The Anat- omy And The Gland" in a defeated tone of voice.
"Get back there and get to work!" said Ole Doc.
Hippocrates went. But he didn"t go to work. He took down a tome from the library and read a long chapter on "The Reduction Of Adrenal Secretion," paying particular attention to the section, "Foods Which Inhibit Adrenal Fluid." He read the lists, thus memorizing them at a glance, and made a note of what to add to his stores when they reached Skinner"s Folly.
But they did not arrive in time. When Ole Doc came to Garciaville, the capital city of the planet, the System Police had been there about six hours before.
From a c.o.c.ky young reporter who was almost humble talking to a Soldier of Light, Ole Doc learned that the System Police, acting under advices from the Emperor Smith III, had undertaken and accomplished an unsavory mission.
At the bleak little town of Placer, the Star of s.p.a.ce had put in, landing at the Tri-System emergency field. The once great liner had made no pretence of its state but had appealed to the mayor of Placer. There was no quarantine there since no intra-galaxy traffic ever dignified the place.
But the mayor had known his dangers and he had immedi- ately ordered the liner on.
The speakers of the great ship were not functioning and a communication had been wrapped around the handle of a wrench and thrown out of the vessel. This the mayor had read. His pity had been greatly aroused and he had communicated hurriedly with Emperor Smith III without permitting the remaining people or the sick to disembark.
Smith had answered abruptly and to the point. He had advices from the Galactic Admiral of this eventuality.
It had taken two days for a runner to come from Placer to the outside. And it had taken two days to get back; due to the fifty-thousand-foot peaks around the
village, no atmosphere craft cared to brave the currents.
A System Police s.p.a.cecraft had gone in and for four days had examined the situation, carefully keeping a cordon around the Star of s.p.a.ce.