The Hate Disease

THE HATE DISEASE.

by MURRAY LEINSTER.

I.

The Med Ship Esclipus Twenty rode in overdrive while her ship"s company drank coffee. Calhoun sipped at a full cup of strong brew, while Murgatroyd the tormal drank from the tiny mug suited to his small, furry paws. The astrogation unit showed the percentage of this overdrive hop covered up to now, and the needle was almost around to the stop pin.

There"d been a warning gong an hour ago, notifying that the end of overdrive journeying approached. Hence the coffee. When breakout came, the overdrive field must collapse and the Duhanne cells down near the small ship"s keel absorb the energy which maintained it. Then Esclipus Twenty would appear in the normal universe of suns and stars with the abruptness of an explosion. She should be somewhere near the sun Tallien. She should then swim toward that sol-type sun and approach Tallien"s third planet out at the less-than-light-speed rate necessary for solar-system travel. And presently she should signal down to ground and Calhoun set about the purpose of his three-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 one to three weeks of overdrive travel between each pair. When he left Tallien Three he"d head back to Sector Headquarters for more orders about the work of the Interstellar Medical Service.

Murgatroyd zestfully licked his empty cup to get the last least drop of coffee. He said hopefully: "Chee?" He wanted more.

"I"m afraid," said Calhoun, "that you"re a sybarite, Murgatroyd. This impa.s.sioned desire of yours for coffee disturbs me."

"Chee!" said Murgatroyd, with decision.

"It"s become a habit," Calhoun told him severely. "You should taper off. Remember, when anything in your environment becomes a normal part of your environment, it becomes a necessity. Coffee should be a luxury, to be savored as such, instead of something you expect and resent being deprived of."

Murgatroyd said impatiently: "Chee-chee!"

"All right, then," said Calhoun, "if you"re going to be emotional about it! Pa.s.s your cup."

He reached out and Murgatroyd put the tiny object in his hand. He refilled it and pa.s.sed 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 been neglected. There"s been no Med Service inspection for years. There could be misunderstandings."

Murgatroyd said, "Chee!" and squatted down to drink.

Calhoun looked at a clock and opened his mouth to speak again, when a taped voice said abruptly: "When the gong sounds, breakout will be five seconds off."

There was a steady, monotonous tick, tock, tick, tock, like a metronome. Calhoun got up and made a casual examination of the ship"s instruments. He turned on the vision screens. They were useless in overdrive, of course, Now they were ready to inform him about the normal cosmos as soon as the ship returned to it. He put away the coffee things. Murgatroyd was reluctant to give up his mug until the last possible lick. Then he sat back and elaborately cleaned his whiskers.

Calhoun sat down in the control chair and waited.

"Bong!" said the loud-speaker, and Murgatroyd scuttled under a chair. He held 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 inside out, and Calhoun"s stomach tried to follow its example. He gulped, and the feeling ended, and the vision screens came alight. Then there were ten thousand myriads of stars, and a sun flaming balefully ahead, and certain very bright objects nearby. They would be planets, and one of them showed as a crescent.

Calhoun checked the solar spectrum as a matter of course. This was the sun Tallien. He checked the brighter specks in view. Three were planets and one a remote brilliant star. The crescent was Tallien Three, third out from its sun and the Med Ship"s immediate destination. It was a very good breakout; too good to be anything but luck. Calhoun swung the ship for the crescent planet. He matter-of-factly checked the usual items. He was going in at a high angle to the ecliptic, so meteors and bits of stray celestial trash weren"t likely to be bothersome. He made other notes, to kill time.

He reread the data sheets on the planet. It had been colonized three hundred years before. There"d been trouble establishing a human-use ecological system on the planet because the native plants and animals were totally useless to humankind. Native timber could be used in building, but only after drying-out for a period of months. When growing or green it was as much water-saturated as a sponge. There had never been a forest fire here, not even caused by lightning!

There were other oddities. The aboriginal microorganisms here did not attack wastes of introduced terrestrial types. It had been necessary to introduce scavenger organisms from elsewhere. This and other difficulties made it true that only one of the world"s five continents were human-occupied. Most of the land surface was strictly as it had been before the landing of men--impenetrable jungles of spongelike flora, dwelt in by a largely unknown useless fauna. Calhoun read on. Population ... government ... health statistics.... He went through the list.

He had time to kill, so he rechecked his course and speed relative to the planet. He and Murgatroyd had dinner. Then he waited until the ship was near enough to report in.

"Med Ship Esclipas Twenty calling ground," he said when the time came. He taped his own voice as he made the call. "Requesting co-ordinates for landing. Our ma.s.s is fifty tons. Repeat, five-oh tons. Purpose of landing, planetary health inspection."

He waited while his taped voice repeated and re-repeated the call. An incoming voice said sharply: "Calling Med Ship! Cut your signal! Do not acknowledge this call! Cut your signal! Instructions will follow. But cut your signal!"

Calhoun blinked. Of all possible responses to a landing call, orders to stop signaling would be least likely. But after an instant he reached over and stopped the transmission of his voice. It happened to end halfway through a syllable.

Silence. Not quite silence, of course, because there was the taped record of background noise which went on all the time the Med Ship was in s.p.a.ce. 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!--acknowledge this call or respond to any call from anyone else! There is a drastic situation aground. You must not--repeat, must not--fall into the hands of the people now occupying Government Center. Go into orbit. We will try to seize the s.p.a.ceport so you can be landed. But do not acknowledge this call or respond to any answer from anyone else! Don"t do it! Don"t do it!"

There was a click, and somehow the silence was clamorous. Calhoun rubbed his nose reflectively with his finger. Murgatroyd, bright-eyed, immediately rubbed his nose with a tiny dark digit. Like all tormals, he gloried in imitating human actions, as parrots and parakeets 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! s.p.a.ceport Tallien Three calling Med Ship Esclipus Twenty! For landing, repair to co-ordinates--"

The voice briskly gave specific instructions. It was a strictly professional voice. It repeated the instructions with precision.

Out of sheer habit, Calhoun said, "Acknowledge." Then he added sharply: "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? That"ll be paras. They"re better organized than we thought, if they picked up your landing request! There"s an emergency, all right! It"s the devil of an emergency--it looks like devils! But this is the s.p.a.ceport. Will you come in?"

"Naturally," said Calhoun. "What"s the emergency?"

"You"ll find out...." That was the professional voice. The other snapped angrily, "Cut your signal!" The professional voice again: "... you land. It"s not...." "Cut your signal, you fool! Cut it...." The other voice again.

There was confusion. The two voices spoke together. Each was on a tight beam, while Calhoun"s call was broadcast. The voices could not hear each other, but each could hear Calhoun.

"Don"t listen to them! There"s...." "to understand, but...." "Don"t listen! Don"t...." "... When you land."

Then the voice from the s.p.a.ceport stopped, and Calhoun cut down the volume of the other. It continued to shout, though m.u.f.fled. It bellowed, as if rattled. It mouthed commands as if they were arguments or reasons. Calhoun listened for fully five minutes. Then he said carefully into his microphone: "Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling s.p.a.ceport. I will arrive at given co-ordinates at the time given. I suggest that you take precautions if necessary against interference with my landing. Message ends."

He swung the ship around and aimed for the destination with which he"d been supplied--a place in emptiness five diameters out, with the center of the sun"s disk bearing so-and-so and the center of the planet"s disk bearing so-and-thus. He turned the communicator volume down still lower. The miniature voice shouted and threatened in the stillness of the Med Ship"s control room. After a time Calhoun said reflectively: "I don"t like this, Murgatroyd! An unidentified voice is telling us--and we"re Med Ship personnel, Murgatroyd!--who we should speak to and what we should do. Our duty is plainly to ignore such orders. But with dignity, Murgatroyd! We must uphold the dignity of the Med Service!"

Murgatroyd said skeptically: "Chee?"

"I don"t like your att.i.tude," said Calhoun, "but I"ll bear in mind that you"re often right."

Murgatroyd found a soft place to curl up in. He draped his tail across his nose and lay there, blinking at Calhoun above the furry half-mask.

The little skip drove on. The disk of the planet grew large. Presently it was below. It turned as the skip moved, and from a crescent it became a half-circle and then a gibbous near-oval shape. In the rest of the solar system nothing in particular happened. Small and heavy inner planets swam deliberately in their short orbits around the sun. Outer, gas-giant planets floated even more deliberately in larger paths. There were comets of telescopic size, and there were meteorites, and the sun Tallien sent up monstrous flares, and storms of improbable snow swept about in the methane atmosphere of the greater gas giant of this particular celestial family of this sun and its satellites. But the cosmos in general paid no attention to human activities or usually undesirable intentions. Calhoun listened, frowning, to the agitated, commanding voice. He still didn"t like it.

Suddenly, it cut off. The Med Ship approached the planet to which it had been ordered by Sector Headquarters now some months ago. Calhoun examined the nearing world via electron telescope. On the hemisphere rolling to a position under the Med Ship he saw a city of some size, and he could trace highways, and there were lesser human settlements here and there. At full magnification he could see where forests had been cut away in wedges and half-squares, with clear s.p.a.ces between them. This indicated cultivated ground, cleared for human use in the invincibly tidy-minded manner of men.

Presently he saw the landing grid near the biggest city--that half-mile-high, cagelike wall of intricately braced steel girders. It tapped the planet"s ionosphere for all the power that this world"s inhabitants could use, and applied the same power to lift up and let down the ships of s.p.a.ce by which communication with the rest of humanity was maintained. From this distance, though, even with an electron telescope, Calhoun could see no movement of any sort. There was no smoke, because electricity from the grid provided all the planet"s power and heat, and there were no chimneys. The city looked like a colored map, with infinite detail but nothing which stirred.

A tiny voice spoke. It was the voice of the s.p.a.ceport.

"Calling Med Ship. Grid locking on. Right?"

"Go ahead," said Calhoun. He turned up the communicator.

The voice from the ground said carefully: "Better stand by your controls. If anything happens down here you may need to take emergency action."

Calhoun raised his eyebrows. But he said: "All set."

He felt the cushiony, fumbling motions as force fields from the landing grid groped for the Med Ship and centered it in their complex pattern. Then there came the sudden solid feeling when the grid locked on. The Med Ship began to settle, at first slowly but with increasing speed, toward the ground below.

It was all very familiar. The shape of the continents below him were strange, but such unfamiliarity was commonplace. The voice from the ground said matter-of-factly: "We think everything"s under control, but it"s hard to tell with these paras. They got away with some weather rockets last week and may have managed to mount war heads on them. They might use them on the grid, here, or try for you."

Calhoun said: "What are paras?"

"You"ll be briefed when you land," said the voice. It added: "Everything"s all right so far, though."

The Esclipus Twenty went down and down and down. The grid had locked on at forty thousand miles. It was a long time before the little ship was down to thirty thousand and another long time before it was at twenty. Then more time to reach ten, and then five, and one thousand, and five hundred. When solid ground was only a hundred miles below and the curve of the horizon had to be looked for to be seen, the voice from the ground said: "The last hundred miles is the tricky part, and the last five will be where it"s tight. If anything does happen, it"ll be there."

Calhoun watched through the electron telescope. He could see individual buildings now, when he used full magnification. He saw infinitesimal motes which would be ground cars on the highways. At seventy miles he cut down the magnification to keep his field of vision wide. He cut the magnification again at fifty and at thirty and at ten.

Then he saw the first sign of motion. It was an extending thread of white which could only be smoke. It began well outside the city and leaped up and curved, evidently aiming at the descending Med Ship. Calhoun said curtly: "There"s a rocket coming up. Aiming at me."

The voice from the ground said: "It"s spotted. I"m giving you free motion if you want to use it."

The feel of the ship changed. It no longer descended. The landing-grid operator was holding it aloft, but Calhoun could move it in evasive action if he wished. He approved the liberty given him. He could use his emergency rockets to dodge. A second thread of smoke came streaking upward.

Then other threads of white began just outside the landing grid. They rushed after the first. The original rockets seemed to dodge. Others came up. There was an intricate pattern formed by the smoke trails of rockets rising and other rockets following, and some trails dodging and others closing in. Calhoun carefully reminded himself that it was not likely that there"d be atomic war heads. The last planetary wars had been fought with fusion weapons, and only the crews of single ships survived. The planetary populations didn"t. But atomic energy wasn"t much used aground, these days. Power for planetary use could be had more easily from the upper, ionized limits of atmospheres.

A pursuing rocket closed in. There was a huge ball of smoke and a flash of light, but it was not brighter than the sun. It wasn"t atomic flame. Calhoun relaxed. He watched as every one of the first-ascended rockets was tracked down and destroyed by another. The last, at that, was three-quarters of the way up.

The Med Ship quivered a little as the force fields tightened again. It descended swiftly. It came to ground. Figures came to meet Calhoun as, with Murgatroyd, he went out of the air lock. Some were uniformed. All wore the grim expression and harried look of men under long-continued strain.

The landing-grid operator shook hands first.

"Nice going! It could be lucky that you arrived. We normals need some luck!"

He introduced a man in civilian clothes as the planetary Minister for Health. A man in uniform was head of the planetary police. The others weren"t introduced.

"We worked fast after your call came!" said the grid operator. "Things are lined up for you, but they"re bad!"

"I"ve been wondering," admitted Calhoun dryly, "if all incoming ships are greeted with rockets."

"That"s the paras," said the police head, grimly. "They"d rather not have a Med Service man here."

A ground car sped across the s.p.a.ceport. It came at a headlong pace toward the group just outside the Med Ship. There was a sudden howl of a siren by the s.p.a.ceport gate. A second car leaped as if to intercept the first. Its siren screamed again. Then bright sparks appeared near the first car"s windows. Blasters rasped. Incredulously, Calhoun saw the blue-white of blaster bolts darting toward him. The men about him clawed for weapons. The grid operator said sharply: "Get in your ship! We"ll take care of this! It"s paras!"

But Calhoun stood still. It was instinct not to show alarm. Actually, he didn"t feel it. This was too preposterous! He tried to grasp the situation and fearfulness does not help at such a time.

A bolt crackled against the Med Ship"s hull just beyond him. Blasters rasped from beside him. A bolt exploded almost at Calhoun"s feet. There were two men in the first-moving ground car, and now that another car moved to head them off, one fired desperately and the other tried to steer and fire at the same time. The siren-sounding car send a stream of bolts at them. But both cars jounced and bounced. There could be no marksmanship under such conditions.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

But a bolt did hit. The two-man car dipped suddenly to one side. Its fore part touched ground. It slued around, and its rear part lifted. It flung out its two pa.s.sengers and with an effect of great deliberation it rolled over end for end and came to a stop upside down. Of its pa.s.sengers, one lay still. The other struggled to his feet and began to run--toward Calhoun. He fired desperately, again and again---- Bolts from the pursuing car struck all round him. Then one struck him. He collapsed.

Calhoun"s hands clenched. Automatically, he moved toward the other still figure, to act as a medical man does when somebody is hurt. The grid operator seized his arm. As Calhoun jerked to get free, that second man stirred His blaster lifted and rasped. The little pellet of ball-lightning grazed Calhoun"s side, burning away his uniform down to the skin, just as there was a grating roar of blaster fire. The second man died.

"Are you crazy?" demanded the grid operator angrily. "He was a para! He was here to try to kill you!"

The police head snapped: "Get that car sprayed! See if it had equipment to spread contagion! Spray everything it went near! And hurry!"

There was silence as men came from the s.p.a.ceport building. They pushed a tank on wheels before them. It had a hose and a nozzle attached to it. They began to use the hose to make a thick, foglike, heavy mist which clung to the ground and lingered there. The spray had the biting smell of phenol.

"What"s going on here?" demanded Calhoun angrily. "d.a.m.nation! What"s going on here?"

The Minister for Health said unhappily: "Why ... we"ve a public-health situation we haven"t been able to meet. It appears to be an epidemic of ... of ... we"re not sure what, but it looks like demoniac possession."

II.

"I"d like," said Calhoun, "a definition. Just what do you mean by a para?"

Murgatroyd echoed his tone in an indignant, "Chee-chee!"

This was twenty minutes later. Calhoun had gone back into the Med Ship and treated the blaster burn on his side. He"d changed his clothing from the scorched uniform to civilian garb. It would not look eccentric here. Men"s ordinary garments were extremely similar all over the galaxy. Women"s clothes were something else.

Now he and Murgatroyd rode in a ground car with four armed men of the planetary police, plus the civilian who"d been introduced as the Minister for Health for the planet. The car sped briskly toward the s.p.a.ceport gate. Ma.s.ses of thick gray fog still clung to the ground where the would-be a.s.sa.s.sins" car lay on its back and where the bodies of the two dead men remained. The mist was being spread everywhere--everywhere the men had touched ground or where their car had run.

Calhoun had some experience with epidemics and emergency measures for destroying contagion. He had more confidence in the primitive sanitary value of fire. It worked, no matter how ancient the process of burning things might be. But very many human beings, these days, never saw a naked flame unless in a science cla.s.s at school, where it might be shown as a spectacularly rapid reaction of oxidation. But people used electricity for heat and light and power. Mankind had moved out of the age of fire. So here on Tallien it seemed inevitable that infective material should be sprayed with antiseptics instead of simply set ablaze.

"What," repeated Calhoun doggedly, "is a para?"

The Health Minister said unhappily: "Paras are ... beings that once were sane men. They aren"t sane any longer. Perhaps they aren"t men any longer. Something has happened to them. If you"d landed a day or two later, you couldn"t have landed at all. We normals had planned to blow up the landing grid so no other ship could land and be lifted off again to spread the ... contagion to other worlds. If it is a contagion."

"Smashing the landing grid," said Calhoun practically, "may be all right as a last resort. But surely there are other things to be tried first!"