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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Badge of Infamy, by Lester del Rey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Badge of Infamy
+
+Author: Lester del Rey
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #19471]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BADGE OF INFAMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Susan Skinner, Greg Weeks and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                     Transcriber's Note:
+
+This etext was produced from an Ace Books paperback, 1973. Extensive
+research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BADGE OF INFAMY
+
+LESTER DEL REY
+
+EARTHMEN BECOMING MARTIANS]
+
+
+     The computer seemed to work as it should. The speed was
+     within acceptable limits. He gave up trying to see the
+     ground and was forced to trust the machinery designed
+     for amateur pilots. The flare bloomed, and he yanked
+     down on the little lever.
+
+     It could have been worse. They hit the ground, bounced
+     twice, and turned over. The ship was a mess when
+     Feldman freed himself from the elastic straps of the
+     seat. Chris had shrieked as they hit, but she was
+     unbuckling herself now.
+
+     He threw her her spacesuit and one of the emergency
+     bottles of oxygen from the rack. "Hurry up with that.
+     We've sprung a leak and the pressure's dropping."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Turn this book over for a second complete novel.
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+The second novel is not present in this etext.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BADGE OF INFAMY
+
+By LESTER DEL REY
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ace books
+A Division of Charter Communications Inc.
+1120 Avenue of the Americas
+New York, N.Y. 10036
+
+
+
+
+BADGE OF INFAMY
+
+Copyright (C) 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
+Copyright (C) 1957 by Renown Publications, Inc.
+
+A shorter and earlier version of this story appeared in _Satellite
+Science Fiction_ for June, 1957.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_First Ace printing: January, 1973_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE SKY IS FALLING
+Copyright (C) 1954, 1963 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Printed in U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Pariah
+
+
+The air of the city's cheapest flophouse was thick with the smells of
+harsh antiseptic and unwashed bodies. The early Christmas snowstorm had
+driven in every bum who could steal or beg the price of admission, and
+the long rows of cots were filled with fully clothed figures. Those who
+could afford the extra dime were huddled under thin, grimy blankets.
+
+The pariah who had been Dr. Daniel Feldman enjoyed no such luxury. He
+tossed fitfully on a bare cot, bringing his face into the dim light. It
+had been a handsome face, but now the black stubble of beard lay over
+gaunt features and sunken cheeks. He looked ten years older than his
+scant thirty-two, and there were the beginnings of a snarl at the
+corners of his mouth. Clothes that had once been expensive were wrinkled
+and covered with grime that no amount of cleaning could remove. His
+tall, thin body was awkwardly curled up in a vain effort to conserve
+heat and one of his hands instinctively clutched at his tiny bag of
+possessions.
+
+He stirred again, and suddenly jerked upright with a protest already
+forming on his lips. The ugly surroundings registered on his eyes, and
+he stared suspiciously at the other cots. But there was no sign that
+anyone had been trying to rob him of his bindle or the precious bag of
+cheap tobacco.
+
+He started to relax back onto the couch when a sound caught his
+attention, even over the snoring of the others. It was a low wail, the
+sound of a man who can no longer control himself.
+
+Feldman swung to the cot on his left as the moan hacked off. The man
+there was well fed and clean-shaven, but his face was gray with
+sickness. He was writhing and clutching his stomach, arching his back
+against the misery inside him.
+
+"Space-stomach?" Feldman diagnosed.
+
+He had no need of the weak answering nod. He'd treated such cases
+several times in the past. The disease was usually caused by the absence
+of gravity out in space, but it could be brought on later from abuse of
+the weakened internal organs, such as the intake of too much bad liquor.
+The man must have been frequenting the wrong space-front bars.
+
+Now he was obviously dying. Violent peristaltic contractions seemed to
+be tearing the intestines out of him, and the paroxysms were coming
+faster. His eyes darted to Feldman's tobacco sack and there was animal
+appeal in them.
+
+Feldman hesitated, then reluctantly rolled a smoke. He held the
+cigarette while the spaceman took a long, gasping drag on it. He smoked
+the remainder himself, letting the harsh tobacco burn against his lungs
+and sicken his empty stomach. Then he shrugged and threaded his way
+through the narrow aisles toward the attendant.
+
+"Better get a doctor," he said bitterly, when the young punk looked up
+at him. "You've got a man dying of space-stomach on 214."
+
+The sneer on the kid's face deepened. "Yeah? We don't pay for doctors
+every time some wino wants to throw up. Forget it and get back where you
+belong, bo."
+
+"You'll have a corpse on your hands in an hour," Feldman insisted. "I
+know space-stomach, damn it."
+
+The kid turned back to his lottery sheet. "Go treat yourself if you
+wanta play doctor. Go on, scram--before I toss you out in the snow!"
+
+One of Feldman's white-knuckled hands reached for the attendant. Then he
+caught himself. He started to turn back, hesitated, and finally faced
+the kid again. "I'm not fooling. And I _was_ a doctor," he stated. "My
+name is Daniel Feldman."
+
+The attendant nodded absently, until the words finally penetrated. He
+looked up, studied Feldman with surprised curiosity and growing
+contempt, and reached for the phone. "Gimme Medical Directory," he
+muttered.
+
+Feldman felt the kid's eyes on his back as he stumbled through the
+aisles to his cot again. He slumped down, rolling another cigarette in
+hands that shook. The sick man was approaching delirium now, and the
+moans were mixed with weak whining sounds of fear. Other men had wakened
+and were watching, but nobody made a move to help.
+
+The retching and writhing of the sick man had begun to weaken, but it
+was still not too late to save him. Hot water and skillful massage could
+interrupt the paroxysms. In fifteen minutes, Feldman could have stopped
+the attack completely.
+
+He found his feet on the floor and his hands already reaching out.
+Savagely he pulled himself back. Sure, he could save the man--and wind
+up in the gas chamber! There'd be no mercy for his second offense
+against Lobby laws. If the spaceman lived, Feldman might get off with a
+flogging--that was standard punishment for a pariah who stepped out of
+line. But with his luck, there would be a heart arrest and another juicy
+story for the papers.
+
+Idealism! The Medical Lobby made a lot out of the word. But it wasn't
+for him. A pariah had no business thinking of others.
+
+As Feldman sat there staring, the spaceman grew quieter. Sometimes, even
+at this stage, massage could help. It was harder without liberal
+supplies of hot water, but the massage was the really important
+treatment. It was the trembling of Feldman's hands that stopped him. He
+no longer had the strength or the certainty to make the massage
+effective.
+
+He was glaring at his hands in self-disgust when the legal doctor
+arrived. The man was old and tired. Probably he had been another
+idealist who had wound up defeated, content to leave things up to the
+established procedures of the Medical Lobby. He looked it as he bent
+over the dying man.
+
+The doctor turned back at last to the attendant. "Too late. The best I
+can do is ease his pain. The call should have been made half an hour
+earlier."
+
+He had obviously never handled space-stomach before. He administered a
+hypo that probably held narconal. Feldman watched, his guts tightening
+sympathetically for the shock that would be to the sick man. But at
+least it would shorten his sufferings. The final seizure lasted only a
+minute or so.
+
+"Hopeless," the doctor said. His eyes were clouded for a moment, and
+then he shrugged. "Well, I'll make out a death certificate. Anyone here
+know his name?"
+
+His eyes swung about the cots until they came to rest on Feldman. He
+frowned, and a twisted smile curved his lips.
+
+"Feldman, isn't it? You still look something like your pictures. Do you
+know the deceased?"
+
+Feldman shook his head bitterly. "No. I don't know his name. I don't
+even know why he wasn't cyanotic at the end, _if_ it was space-stomach.
+Do you, doctor?"
+
+The old man threw a startled glance at the corpse. Then he shrugged and
+nodded to the attendant. "Well, go through his things. If he still has a
+space ticket, I can get his name from that."
+
+The kid began pawing through the bag that had fallen from the cot. He
+dragged out a pair of shoes, half a bottle of cheap rum, a wallet and a
+bronze space ticket. He wasn't quick enough with the wallet, and the
+doctor took it from him.
+
+"Medical Lobby authorization. If he has any money, it covers my fee and
+the rest goes to his own Lobby." There were several bills, all of large
+denominations. He turned the ticket over and began filling in the death
+certificate. "Arthur Billings. Space Lobby. Crewman. Cause of death,
+idiopathic gastroenteritis _and_ delirium tremens."
+
+There had been no evidence of delirium tremens, but apparently the
+doctor felt he had scored a point. He tossed the space ticket toward the
+shoes, closed his bag, and prepared to leave.
+
+"Hey, doc!" The attendant's voice was indignant. "Hey, what about my
+reporting fee?"
+
+The doctor stopped. He glanced at the kid, then toward Feldman, his face
+a mixture of speculation and dislike. He took a dollar bill from the
+wallet. "That's right," he admitted. "The fee for reporting a solvent
+case. Medical Lobby rules apply--even to a man who breaks them."
+
+The kid's hand was out, but the doctor dropped the dollar onto Feldman's
+cot. "There's your fee, pariah." He left, forcing the protesting
+attendant to precede him.
+
+Feldman reached for the bill. It was blood money for letting a man
+die--but it meant cigarettes and food--or shelter for another night, if
+he could get a mission meal. He no longer could afford pride. Grimly, he
+pocketed the bill, staring at the face of the dead man. It looked back
+sightlessly, now showing a faint speckling of tiny dots. They caught
+Feldman's eyes, and he bent closer. There should be no black dots on the
+skin of a man who died of space-stomach. And there should have been
+cyanosis....
+
+He swore and bent down to find the wrecks of his shoes. He couldn't
+worry about anything now but getting away from here before the attendant
+made trouble. His eyes rested on the shoes of the dead man--sturdy boots
+that would last for another year. They could do the corpse no good;
+someone else would steal them if he didn't. But he hesitated, cursing
+himself.
+
+The right boot fitted better than he could have expected, but something
+got in the way as he tried to put the left one on. His fingers found the
+bronze ticket. He turned it over, considering it. He wasn't ready to
+fraud his identity for what he'd heard of life on the spaceships, yet.
+But he shoved it into his pocket and finished lacing the boots.
+
+Outside, the snow was still falling, but it had turned to slush, and the
+sidewalk was soggy underfoot. There was going to be no work shoveling
+snow, he realized. This would melt before the day was over. Feldman
+hunched the suitcoat up, shivering as the cold bit into him. The boots
+felt good, though; if he'd had socks, they would have been completely
+comfortable.
+
+He passed a cheap restaurant, and the smell of the synthetics set his
+stomach churning. It had been two days since his last real meal, and the
+dollar burned in his pocket. But he had to wait. There was a fair
+chance this early that he could scavenge something edible.
+
+He shuffled on. After a while, the cold bothered him less, and he passed
+through the hunger spell. He rolled another smoke and sucked at it,
+hardly thinking. It was better that way.
+
+It was much later when the big caduceus set into the sidewalk snapped
+him back to awareness of where he'd traveled. His undirected feet had
+led him much too far uptown, following old habits. This was the Medical
+Lobby building, where he'd spent more than enough time, including three
+weeks in custody before they stripped him of all rank and status.
+
+His eyes wandered to the ornate entrance where he'd first emerged as a
+pariah. He'd meant to walk down those steps as if he were still a man.
+But each step had drained his resolution, until he'd finally covered his
+face and slunk off, knowing himself for what the world had branded him.
+
+He stood there now, staring at the smug young medical politicians and
+the tired old general practitioners filing in and out. One of the latter
+halted, fumbled in his pocket and drew out a quarter.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" he said dully.
+
+Feldman fingered the coin. Then he saw a gray Medical policeman watching
+him, and he knew it was time to move on. Sooner or later, someone would
+recognize him here.
+
+He clutched the quarter and turned to look for a coffee shop that sold
+the synthetics to which his metabolism had been switched. No shop would
+serve him here, but he could buy coffee and a piece of cake to take out.
+
+A flurry of motion registered from the corner of his eye, and he glanced
+back.
+
+"Taxi! Taxi!"
+
+The girl rushing down the steps had a clear soprano voice, cultured and
+commanding. The gray Medical uniform seemed molded to her shapely figure
+and her red hair glistened in the lights of the street. Her snub nose
+and determined mouth weren't the current fashion, but nobody stopped to
+think of fashions when they saw her. She didn't have to be the daughter
+of the president of Medical Lobby to rule.
+
+It was Chris--Chris Feldman once, and now Chris Ryan again.
+
+Feldman swung toward a cab. For a moment, his attitude was automatic and
+assured, and the cab stopped before the driver noticed his clothes. He
+picked up the bag Chris dropped and swung it onto the front seat. She
+was fumbling in her change purse as he turned back to shut the door.
+
+"Thank you, my good man," she said. She could be gracious, even to a
+pariah, when his homage suited her. She dropped two quarters into his
+hand, raising her eyes.
+
+Recognition flowed into them, followed by icy shock. She yanked the cab
+door shut and shouted something to the driver. The cab took off with a
+rush that left Feldman in a backwash of slush and mud.
+
+He glanced down at the coins in his hand. It was his lucky day, he
+thought bitterly.
+
+He moved across the street and away, not bothering about the squeal of
+brakes and the honking horns. He looked back only once, toward the
+glowing sign that topped the building. _Your health is our business!_
+Then the great symbol of the health business faded behind him, and he
+stumbled on, sucking incessantly at the cigarettes he rolled. One hand
+clutched the bronze badge belonging to the dead man and his stolen
+boots drove onward through the melting snow.
+
+It was Christmas in the year 2100 on the protectorate of Earth.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Lobby
+
+
+Feldman had set his legs the problem of heading for the great spaceport
+and escape from Earth, and he let them take him without further
+guidance. His mind was wrapped up in a whirl of the past--his past and
+that of the whole planet. Both pasts had in common the growth and sudden
+ruin of idealism.
+
+Idealism! Throughout history, some men had sought the ideal, and most
+had called it freedom. Only fools expected absolute freedom, but wise
+men dreamed up many systems of relative freedom, including democracy.
+They had tried that in America, as the last fling of the dream. It had
+been a good attempt, too.
+
+The men who drew the Constitution had been pretty practical dreamers.
+They came to their task after a bitter war and a worse period of wild
+chaos, and they had learned where idealism stopped and idiocy began.
+They set up a republic with all the elements of democracy that they
+considered safe. It had worked well enough to make America the number
+one power of the world. But the men who followed the framers of the new
+plan were a different sort, without the knowledge of practical limits.
+
+The privileges their ancestors had earned in blood and care became
+automatic rights. Practical men tried to explain that there were no such
+rights--that each generation had to pay for its rights with
+responsibility. That kind of talk didn't get far. People wanted to hear
+about rights, not about duties.
+
+They took the phrase that all men were created equal and left out the
+implied kicker that equality was in the sight of God and before the law.
+They wanted an equality with the greatest men without giving up their
+drive toward mediocrity, and they meant to have it. In a way, they got
+it.
+
+They got the vote extended to everyone. The man on subsidy or public
+dole could vote to demand more. The man who read of nothing beyond sex
+crimes could vote on the great political issues of the world. No ability
+was needed for his vote. In fact, he was assured that voting alone was
+enough to make him a fine and noble citizen. He loved that, if he
+bothered to vote at all that year. He became a great man by listing his
+unthought, hungry desire for someone to take care of him without
+responsibility. So he went out and voted for the man who promised him
+most, or who looked most like what his limited dreams felt to be a
+father image or son image or hero image. He never bothered later to see
+how the men he'd elected had handled the jobs he had given them.
+
+Someone had to look, of course, and someone did. Organized special
+interests stepped in where the mob had failed. Lobbies grew up. There
+had always been pressure groups, but now they developed into a third arm
+of the government.
+
+The old Farm Lobby was unbeatable. The big farmers shaped the laws they
+wanted. They convinced the little farmers it was for the good of all,
+and they made the story stick well enough to swing the farm vote. They
+made the laws when it came to food and crops.
+
+The last of the great lobbies was Space, probably. It was an accident
+that grew up so fast it never even knew it wasn't a real part of the
+government. It developed during a period of chaos when another country
+called Russia got the first hunk of metal above the atmosphere and when
+the representatives who had been picked for everything but their grasp
+of science and government went into panic over a myth of national
+prestige.
+
+The space effort was turned over to the aircraft industry, which had
+never been able to manage itself successfully except under the stimulus
+of war or a threat of war. The failing airplane industry became the
+space combine overnight, and nobody kept track of how big it was, except
+a few sharp operators.
+
+They worked out a system of subcontracts that spread the profits so wide
+that hardly a company of any size in the country wasn't getting a share.
+Thus a lot of patriotic, noble voters got their pay from companies in
+the lobby block and could be panicked by the lobby at the first mention
+of recession.
+
+So Space Lobby took over completely in its own field. It developed
+enough pressure to get whatever appropriations it wanted, even over
+Presidential veto. It created the only space experts, which meant that
+the men placed in government agencies to regulate it came from its own
+ranks.
+
+The other lobbies learned a lot from Space.
+
+There had been a medical lobby long before, but it had been a
+conservative group, mostly concerned with protecting medical autonomy
+and ethics. It also tried to prevent government control of treatment and
+payment, feeling that it couldn't trust the people to know where to
+stop. But its history was a long series of retreats.
+
+It fought what it called socialized medicine. But the people wanted
+their troubles handled free--which meant by government spending, since
+that could be added to the national debt, and thus didn't seem to cost
+anything. It lost, and eventually the government paid most medical
+costs, with doctors working on a fixed fee. Then quantity of treatment
+paid, rather than quality. Competence no longer mattered so much. The
+Lobby lost, but didn't know it--because the lowered standards of
+competence in the profession lowered the caliber of men running the
+political aspects of that profession as exemplified by the Lobby.
+
+It took a world-wide plague to turn the tide. The plague began in old
+China; anything could start there, with more than a billion people
+huddled in one area and a few madmen planning to conquer the world. It
+might have been a laboratory mutation, but nobody could ever prove it.
+
+It wiped out two billion people, depopulated Africa and most of Asia,
+and wrecked Europe, leaving only America comparatively safe to take
+over. An obscure scientist in one of the laboratories run by the Medical
+Lobby found a cure before the first waves of the epidemic hit America.
+Rutherford Ryan, then head of the Lobby, made sure that Medical Lobby
+got all the credit.
+
+By the time the world recovered, America ran it and the Medical Lobby
+was untouchable. Ryan made a deal with Space Lobby, and the two
+effectively ran the world. None of the smaller lobbies could buck them,
+and neither could the government.
+
+There was still a president and a congress, as there had been a Senate
+under the Roman Caesars. But the two Lobbies ran themselves as they
+chose. The real government had become a kind of oligarchy, as it always
+did after too much false democracy ruined the ideals of real and
+practical self-rule. A man belonged to his Lobby, just as a serf had
+belonged to his feudal landlord.
+
+It was a safe world now. Maybe progress had been halted at about the
+level of 1980, but so long as the citizens didn't break the rules of
+their lobbies, they had very little to worry about. For that, for
+security and the right not to think, most people were willing to leave
+well enough alone.
+
+Some rules seemed harsh, of course, such as the law that all operations
+had to be performed in Lobby hospitals. But that could be justified; it
+was the only safe kind of surgery and the only way to make sure there
+was no unsupervised experimentation, such as that which supposedly
+caused the plague. The rule was now an absolute ethic of medicine. It
+also made for better fees.
+
+Feldman's father had stuck by the rule but had questioned it. Feldman
+learned not to question in medical school. He scored second in Medical
+Ethics only to Christina Ryan.
+
+He had never figured why she singled him out for her attentions, but he
+gloried in both those attentions and the results. He became
+automatically a rising young man, the favorite of the daughter of the
+Lobby president. He went through internship without a sign of trouble.
+Chris humored him in his desire to spend three years of practice in a
+poor section loaded with disease, and her father approved; such selfless
+dedication was the perfect image projection for a future son-in-law. In
+return, he agreed to follow that period by becoming an administrator. A
+doctor's doctor, as they put it.
+
+They were married in April and his office was ready in May, complete
+with a staff of eighty. The publicity releases had gone out, and the
+Public Relations Lobby that handled news and education was paid to begin
+the greatest build-up any young genius ever had.
+
+They celebrated that, with a little party of some four hundred people
+and reporters at Ryan's lodge in Canada. It was to be a gala weekend.
+
+It was then that Baxter shot himself.
+
+Baxter had been Feldman's closest friend in the Lobby. He'd come along
+to handle press relations and had gotten romantic about the countryside,
+never having been out of a city before. He hired a guide and went
+hunting, eighty miles beyond the last outpost of civilization. Somehow,
+he got his hand on a gun, though only guides were supposed to touch
+them, managed to overcome its safety devices, and then pulled the
+trigger with the gun pointed the wrong way.
+
+Chris, Feldman and Harnett from Public Relations had accompanied him on
+the trip. They were sitting in a nearby car while Feldman enjoyed the
+scenery, Chris made further plans, and Harnett gathered material. There
+was also a photographer and writer, but they hadn't been introduced by
+name.
+
+Feldman reached Baxter first. The man was moaning and scared, and he was
+bleeding profusely. Only a miracle had saved him from instant death. The
+bullet had struck a rib, been deflected and robbed of some of its
+energy, and had barely reached the heart. But it had pierced the
+pericardium, as best Feldman could guess, and it could be fatal at any
+moment.
+
+He'd reached for a probe without thinking. Chris knocked his hand aside.
+
+She was right, of course. He couldn't operate outside a hospital. But
+they had no phone in the lodge where the guide lived and no way to
+summon an ambulance. They'd have to drive Baxter back in the car, which
+would almost certainly result in his death.
+
+When Feldman seemed uncertain, Harnett had given his warning in a low
+but vehement voice. "You touch him, Dan, and I'll spread it in every one
+of our media. I'll have to. It's the only way to retain public
+confidence. There'd be a leak, with all the guides and others here, and
+we can't afford that. I like you--you have color. But touch that wound
+and I'll crucify you."
+
+Chris added her own threats. She'd spent years making him the outlet for
+all her ambitions, denied because women were still only second-rate
+members of Medical Lobby. She couldn't let it go now. And she was
+probably genuinely shocked.
+
+Baxter groaned again and started to bleed more profusely.
+
+There wasn't much equipment. Feldman operated with a pocketknife
+sterilized in a bottle of expensive Scotch and only anodyne tablets in
+place of anesthesia. He got the bullet out and sewed up the wound with a
+bit of surgical thread he'd been using to tie up a torn good-luck
+emblem. The photographer and writer recorded the whole thing. Chris
+swore harshly and beat her fists against the bole of a tree. But Baxter
+lived. He recovered completely, and was shocked at the heinous thing
+that had been done to him.
+
+They crucified Feldman.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Spaceman
+
+
+Most crewmen lived rough, ugly lives--and usually, short ones.
+Passengers and officers on the big tubs were given the equivalent of
+gravity in spinning compartments, but the crews rode "free". The lucky
+crewmen lived through their accidents, got space-stomach now and then,
+and recovered. Nobody cared about the others.
+
+Feldman's ticket was work-stamped for the _Navaho_, and nobody
+questioned his identity. He suffered through the agony of acceleration
+on the shuttle up to the orbital station, then was sick as acceleration
+stopped. But he was able to control himself enough to follow other
+crewmen down a hall of the station toward the _Navaho_. The big ships
+never touched a planet, always docking at the stations.
+
+A checker met the crew and reached for their badges. He barely glanced
+at them, punched a mark for each on his checkoff sheet, and handed them
+back. "Deckmen forward, tubemen to the rear," he ordered. "_Navaho_
+blasts in fifteen minutes. Hey, you! You're tubes."
+
+Feldman grunted. He should have expected it. Tubemen had the lowest lot
+of all the crew. Between the killing work, the heat of the tubes, and
+occasional doses of radiation, their lives weren't worth the metal value
+of their tickets.
+
+He began pulling himself clumsily along a shaft, dodging freight the
+loaders were tossing from hand to hand. A bag hit his head, drawing
+blood, and another caught him in the groin.
+
+"Watch it, bo," a loader yelled at him. "You dent that bag and they'll
+brig you. Cantcha see it's got a special courtesy stripe?"
+
+It had a brilliant green stripe, he saw. It also had a name, printed in
+block letters that shouted their identity before he could read the
+words. _Dr. Christina Ryan, Southport, Mars._
+
+And he'd had to choose this time to leave Earth!
+
+Suddenly he was glad he was assigned to the tubes. It was the one place
+on the ship where he'd be least likely to run into her. As a doctor and
+a courtesy passenger, she'd have complete run of the ship, but she'd
+hardly bother with the dangerous and unpleasant tube section.
+
+He dragged his way back, beginning to sweat with the effort. The
+_Navaho_ was an old ship. A lot of the handholds were missing, and he
+had to throw himself along by erratic leaps. He was gaining proficiency,
+but not enough to handle himself if the ship blasted off. Time was
+growing short when he reached the aft bunkroom where the other tubemen
+were waiting.
+
+"Ben," one husky introduced himself. "Tube chief. Know how to work
+this?"
+
+Feldman could see that they were assembling a small still. He'd heard of
+the phenomenal quantities of beer spacemen drank, and now he realized
+what really happened to it. Hard liquor was supposed to be forbidden,
+but they made their own. "I can work it," he decided. "I'm--uh--Dan."
+
+"Okay, Dan." Ben glanced at the clock. "Hit the sacks, boys."
+
+By the time Feldman could settle into the sacklike hammock, the
+_Navaho_ began to shake faintly, and weight piled up. It was mild
+compared to that on the shuttle, since the big ships couldn't take high
+acceleration. Space had been conquered for more than a century, but the
+ships were still flimsy tubs that took months to reach Mars, using
+immense amounts of fuel. Only the valuable plant hormones from Mars made
+commerce possible at the ridiculously high freight rate.
+
+Three hours later he began to find out why spacemen didn't seem to fear
+dying or turning pariah. The tube quarters had grown insufferably hot
+during the long blast, but the main tube-room was blistering as Ben led
+the men into it. The chief handed out spacesuits and motioned for Dan.
+
+"Greenhorn, aincha? Okay, I'll take you with me. We go out in the tubes
+and pull the lining. I pry up the stuff, you carry it back here and
+stack it."
+
+They sealed off the tube-room, pumped out the air, and went into the
+steaming, mildly radioactive tubes, just big enough for a man on hands
+and knees. Beyond the tube mouth was empty space, waiting for the man
+who slipped. Ben began ripping out the eroded blocks with a special
+tool. Feldman carried them back and stacked them along with others. A
+plasma furnace melted them down into new blocks. The work grew
+progressively worse as the distance to the tube-room increased. The tube
+mouth yawned closer and closer. There were no handholds there--only the
+friction of a man's body in the tube.
+
+Life settled into a dull routine of labor, sleep, and the brief relief
+of the crude white mule from the still.
+
+They were six weeks out and almost finished with the tube cleaning when
+Number Two tube blew. Bits of the remaining radioactive fuel must have
+collected slowly until they reached blow-point. Feldman in Number One
+would have gone sailing out into space, but Ben reacted at once. As the
+ship leaped slightly, Feldman brought up sharply against the chief's
+braced body. For a second their fate hung in the balance. Then it was
+over, and Ben shoved him back, grinning faintly.
+
+He jerked his thumb and touched helmets briefly. "There they go, Dan."
+
+The two men who had been working in Number Two were charred lumps,
+drifting out into space.
+
+No further comment was made on it, except that they'd have to work
+harder from now on, since they were shorthanded.
+
+That rest period Feldman came down with a mild attack of
+space-stomach--which meant no more drinking for him--and was off work
+for a day. Then the pace picked up. The tubes were cleared and they
+began laying the new lining for the landing blasts. There was no time
+for thought after that. Mars' orbital station lay close when the work
+was finished.
+
+Ben slapped Feldman on the back. "Ya ain't bad for a greenie, Dan. We
+all get six-day passes on Mars. Hit the sack now so you won't waste time
+sleeping then. We'll hear it when the ship berths."
+
+Feldman didn't hear it, but the others did. He felt Ben shaking his
+shoulder, trying to drag him out of the sack. "Grab your junk, Dan."
+
+Ben picked up Feldman's nearly empty bag and tossed it toward him,
+before his eyes were fully open. He grabbed for it and missed. He
+grabbed again, with Ben's laughter in his ears. The bag hit the wall and
+fell open, spilling its contents.
+
+Feldman began gathering it up, but the chief was no longer laughing. A
+big hand grabbed up the space ticket suddenly, and there was no
+friendliness now on Ben's face.
+
+"Art Billing's card!" Ben told the other tubemen. "Five trips I made
+with Art. He was saving his money, going to buy a farm on Mars. Five
+trips and one more to go before he had enough. Now you show up with his
+ticket!"
+
+The tubemen moved forward toward Feldman. There was no indecision. To
+them, apparently, trial had been held and sentence passed.
+
+"Wait a minute," Feldman began. "Billings died of--"
+
+A fist snaked past his raised hand and connected with his jaw. He
+bounced off a wall. A wrench sailed toward him, glanced off his arm, and
+ripped at his muscles. Another heavy fist struck.
+
+Abruptly, Ben's voice cut through their yells. "Hold it!" He shoved
+through the group, tossing men backwards. "Stow it! We can take care of
+him later. Right now, this is captain's business. You fools want to lose
+your leave?" He indicated two of the others. "You two bring him
+along--and keep him quiet!"
+
+The two grabbed Feldman's arms and dragged him along as the chief began
+pulling his way forward through the tubes up towards the control section
+of the ship. Feldman took a quick glance at their faces and made no
+effort to resist; they obviously would have enjoyed any chance to subdue
+him.
+
+They were stopped twice by minor officers, then sent on. They finally
+found the captain near the exit lock, apparently assisting the
+passengers to leave. Most of them went on into the shuttle, but Chris
+Ryan remained behind as the captain listened to Ben's report and
+inspected the false ticket.
+
+Finally the captain turned to Feldman. "You. What's your name?"
+
+Chris' eyes were squarely on Feldman, cold and furious. "He _was_ Doctor
+Daniel Feldman, Captain Marker," she stated.
+
+Feldman stood paralyzed. He'd been unwilling to face Chris. He wanted to
+avoid all the past. But the idea that she would denounce him had never
+entered his head. There was no Medical rule involved. She knew that as a
+pariah he was forbidden to board a passenger ship, of course. But she'd
+been his wife once!
+
+Marker bowed slightly to her. "Thank you, Dr. Ryan. I should take this
+criminal back to Earth in chains, I suppose. But he's hardly worth the
+freightage. You men. Want to take him down to Mars and ground him
+there?"
+
+Ben grinned and touched his forelock. "Thank you, sir. We'd enjoy that."
+
+"Good. His pay reverts to the ship's fund. That's all, men."
+
+Feldman started to protest, but a fist lashed savagely against his
+mouth.
+
+He made no other protests as they dragged him into the crew shuttle that
+took off for Southport. He avoided their eyes and sat hunched over. It
+was Ben who finally broke the silence.
+
+"What happened to Art's money? He had a pile on him."
+
+"Go to hell!"
+
+"Give, I said!" Ben twisted his arm back toward his shoulder, applying
+increasing pressure.
+
+"A doctor took it for his fee when Billings died of space-stomach. Damn
+you, I couldn't help him!"
+
+Ben looked at the others. "Med Lobby fee, eh? All the market will take.
+Umm. It could be, maybe." He shrugged. "Okay, reasonable doubt. We
+won't kill you, bo. Not quite, we won't."
+
+The shuttle landed and Ben handed out the little helmets and aspirators
+that made life possible in Mars' thin air. Outside, the tubemen took
+turns holding Feldman and beating him while the passengers disembarked
+from their shuttle. As he slumped into unconsciousness, he had a picture
+of Chris Ryan's frozen face as she moved steadily toward the port
+station.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+Martian
+
+
+It was night when Feldman came to, and the temperature was dropping
+rapidly. He struggled to sit up through a fog of pain. Somewhere in his
+bag, he should have an anodyne tablet that would kill any ache. He
+finally found the pill and swallowed it, fumbling with the aspirator lip
+opening.
+
+The aspirator meant life to him now, he suddenly realized. He twisted to
+stare at the tiny charge-indicator for the battery. It showed
+half-charge. Then he saw that someone had attached another battery
+beside it. He puzzled briefly over it, but his immediate concern was for
+shelter.
+
+Apparently he was still where he had been knocked out. There was a light
+coming from the little station, and he headed toward that, fumbling for
+the few quarters that represented his entire fortune.
+
+Maybe it would have been better if the tubemen had killed him. Batteries
+were an absolute necessity here, food and shelter would be expensive,
+and he had no skills to earn his way. At most, he had only a day or so
+left. But meantime, he had to find warmth before the cold killed him.
+
+The tiny restaurant in the station was still open, and the air was warm
+inside. He pulled off the aspirator, shutting off the battery.
+
+The counterman didn't even glance up as he entered. Feldman gazed at the
+printed menu and flinched.
+
+"Soup," he ordered. It was the cheapest item he could find.
+
+The counterman stared at him, obviously spotting his Earth origin. "You
+adjusted to synthetics?"
+
+Feldman nodded. Earth operated on a mixed diet, with synthetics for all
+who couldn't afford the natural foods there. But Mars was all synthetic.
+Many of the chemicals in food could exist in either of two forms, or
+isomers; they were chemically alike, but differently crystallized.
+Sometimes either form was digestible, but frequently the body could use
+only the isomer to which it was adjusted.
+
+Martian plants produced different isomers from those on Earth. Since the
+synthetic foods turned out to be Mars-normal, that was probably the more
+natural form. Research designed to let the early colonists live off
+native food here had turned up an enzyme that enabled the body to handle
+either isomer. In a few weeks of eating Martian or synthetic food, the
+body adapted; without more enzyme, it lost its power to handle
+Earth-normal food.
+
+The cheapness of synthetics and the discovery that many diseases common
+to Earth would not attack Mars-normal bodies led to the wide use of
+synthetics on Earth. No pariah could have been expected to afford
+Earth-normal.
+
+Feldman finished the soup, and found a cigarette that was smokable. "Any
+objections if I sit in the waiting room?"
+
+He'd expected a rejection, but the counterman only shrugged. The waiting
+room was almost dark and the air was chilly, but there was normal
+pressure. He found a bench and slumped onto it, lighting his cigarette.
+He'd miss the smokes--but probably not for long. He finished the
+cigarette reluctantly and sat huddled on the bench, waiting for morning.
+
+The airlock opened later, and feet sounded on the boards of the
+waiting-room floor, but he didn't look up until a thin beam of light hit
+him. Then he sighed and nodded. The shoes, made of some odd fiber,
+didn't look like those of a cop, but this was Mars. He could see only a
+hulking shadow behind the light.
+
+"You the man who was a medical doctor?" The voice was dry and old.
+
+"Yeah," Feldman answered. "Once."
+
+"Good. Thought that space crewman was just lying drunk at first. Come
+along, Doc."
+
+"Why?" It didn't matter, but if they wanted him to move on, they'd have
+to push a little harder.
+
+The light swung up to show the other. He was the shade of old leather
+with a bleached patch of sandy hair and the deepest gray eyes Feldman
+had ever seen. It was a face that could have belonged to a country
+storekeeper in New England, with the same hint of dry humor. The man was
+dressed in padded levis and a leather jacket of unguessable age. His
+aspirator seemed worn and patched, and one big hand fumbled with it.
+
+"Because we're friends, Doc," the voice drawled at him. "Because you
+might as well come with us as sit here. Maybe we have a job for you."
+
+Feldman shrugged and stood up. If the man was a Lobby policeman, he was
+different from the usual kind. Nothing could be worse than the present
+prospects.
+
+They went out through the doors of the waiting room toward a rattletrap
+vehicle. It looked something like a cross between a schoolboy's jalopy
+and a scaled-down army tank of former times. The treads were caterpillar
+style, and the stubby body was completely enclosed. A tiny airlock
+stuck out from the rear.
+
+Two men were inside, both bearded. The old man grinned at them. "Mark,
+Lou, meet Doc Feldman. Sit, Doc. I'm Jake Mullens, and you might say we
+were farmers."
+
+The motor started with a wheeze. The tractor swung about and began
+heading away from Southport toward the desert dunes. It shook and
+rattled, but it seemed to make good time.
+
+"I don't know anything about farming," Feldman protested.
+
+Jake shrugged. "No, of course not. Couple of our friends heard about you
+where a spaceman was getting drunk and tipped us off. We know who you
+are. Here, try a bracky?"
+
+Feldman took what seemed to be a cigarette and studied it doubtfully. It
+was coarse and fibrous inside, with a thin, hard shell that seemed to be
+a natural growth, as if it had been chopped from some vine. He lighted
+it, not knowing what to expect. Then he coughed as the bitter, rancid
+smoke burned at his throat. He started to throw it down, and hesitated.
+Jake was smoking one, and it had killed the craving for tobacco almost
+instantly.
+
+"Some like 'em, most don't," Jake said. "They won't hurt you. Look--see
+that? Old Martian ruins. Built by some race a million years ago. Only
+half a dozen on Mars."
+
+It was only a clump of weathered stone buildings in the light from the
+tractor, and Feldman had seen better in the stereo shots. It was
+interesting only because it connected with the legendary Martian race,
+like the canals that showed from space but could not be seen on the
+surface of the planet.
+
+Feldman waited for the other to go on, but Jake was silent. Finally, he
+ground out the butt of the weed. "Okay, Jake. What do you want with me?"
+
+"Consultation, maybe. Ever hear of herb doctors? I'm one of them."
+
+Feldman knew that the Lobby permitted some leniency here, due to the
+scarcity of real medical help. There was only one decent hospital at
+Northport, on the opposite side of the planet.
+
+Jake sighed and reached for another bracky weed. "Yeah, I'm pretty good
+with herbs. But I got a sick village on my hands and I can't handle it.
+We can't all mortgage our work to pay for a trip to Northport.
+Southport's all messed up while the new she-doctor gets her metabolism
+changed. Maybe the old guy there would have helped, but he died a couple
+months ago. So it looks like you're our only hope."
+
+"Then you have no hope," Feldman told him sickly. "I'm a pariah, Jake. I
+can't do a thing for you."
+
+"We heard about your argument with the Lobby. News reaches Mars. But
+these are mighty sick people, Doc."
+
+Feldman shook his head. "Better take me back. I'm not allowed to
+practice medicine. The charge would be first-degree murder if anything
+happened."
+
+Lou leaned forward. "Shall I talk to him, Jake?"
+
+The old man grimaced. "Time enough. Let him see what we got first."
+
+Sand howled against the windshield and the tractor bumped and surged
+along. Feldman took another of the weeds and tried to estimate their
+course. But he had no idea where they were when the tractor finally
+stopped. There was a village of small huts that seemed to be merely
+entrances to living quarters dug under the surface. They led him into
+one and through a tunnel into a large room filled with simple cots and
+the unhappy sounds of sick people.
+
+Two women were disconsolately trying to attend to the half-dozen
+sick--four children and two adults. Their faces brightened as they saw
+Jake, then fell. "Eb and Tilda died," they reported.
+
+Feldman looked at the two figures under the sheets and whistled. The
+same black specks he had seen on the face of Billings covered the skins
+of the two old people who had died.
+
+"Funny," Jake said slowly. "They didn't quite act like the others and
+they sure died mighty fast. Darn it, I had it figured for that stuff in
+the book. Infantile paralysis. How about it, Doc? Sort of like a cold,
+stiff sore neck."
+
+It was clearly polio--one of the diseases that could attack Mars-normal
+flesh. Feldman nodded at the symptoms, staring at the sick kids. He
+shrugged, finally. "There's a cure for it, but I don't have the serum.
+Neither do you, or you wouldn't have brought me here. I couldn't help if
+I wanted to."
+
+"That old book didn't list a cure," Jake told him. "But it said the kids
+didn't have to be crippled. There was something about a Kenny treatment.
+Doc, does the stuff really cripple for life?"
+
+Feldman saw one of the boys flinch. He dropped his eyes, remembering the
+Lobby's efficient spy service on Earth and wondering what it was like
+here. But he knew the outcome.
+
+"Damn you, Jake!"
+
+Jake chuckled. "Thought you would. We sure appreciate it. Just tell us
+what to do, Doc."
+
+Feldman began writing down his requirements, trying to remember the
+details of the treatment. Exercise, hot compresses, massage. It was
+coming back to him. He'd have to do it himself, of course, to get the
+feel of it. He couldn't explain it well enough. But he couldn't turn his
+back on the kids, either.
+
+"Maybe I can help," he said doubtfully as he moved toward a cot.
+
+"No, Doc." Jake's voice wasn't amused any longer, and he held the
+younger man back. "You're doing us a favor, and I'll be darned if I'll
+let you stick your neck out too far. You can't treat 'em yourself. Mars
+is tougher than Earth. You should live under Space Lobby _and_ Medical
+Lobby here a while. Oh, maybe they don't mind a few fools like me being
+herb doctors, but they'd sure hate to have a man who can do real
+medicine outside their hands. You let me do it, or get in the tractor
+and I'll have Lou drive you back. Once you start in here, there'll be no
+stopping. Believe me."
+
+Feldman looked at him, seeing the colonials around him for the first
+time as people. It had been a long time since he'd been treated as a
+fellow human by anyone.
+
+Jake was right, he knew. Once he put his hand to the bandage, eventually
+there'd be no turning back from the scalpel. These people needed medical
+help too desperately. Eventually, the news would spread, and the Lobby
+police would come for him. Chris couldn't afford to shield him. In fact,
+he was sure now that she'd hunt him night and day.
+
+"Don't be a fool, Jake," he ordered brusquely. He handed his list to one
+of the women. "You'll have to learn to do what I do," he told the people
+there. "You'll have to work like fools for weeks. But there won't be
+many crippled children. I can promise that much!"
+
+He blinked sharply at the sudden hope in their eyes. But his mind went
+on wondering how long it would be before the inevitable would catch up
+with him. With luck, maybe a few months. But he hadn't been blessed with
+any superabundance of luck. It would probably be less time than he
+thought.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Surgery
+
+
+Doc Feldman's luck was better than he had expected. For an Earth year,
+he was a doctor again, moving about from village to village as he was
+needed and doing what he could.
+
+The village had been isolated during the early colonization when Mars
+made a feeble attempt to break free of Space Lobby. Their supplies had
+been cut off and they had been forced to do for themselves. Now they
+were largely self-sufficient. They grew native plants and extracted
+hormones in crude little chemical plants. The hormones were traded to
+the big chemical plants for a pittance to buy what had to come from
+Earth. Other jury-rigged affairs synthesized much of their food. But
+mostly they learned to get along on what Mars provided.
+
+Doc Feldman learned from them. Money was no longer part of his life. He
+ate with whatever family needed him and slipped into the life around
+him.
+
+He was learning Martian medicine and finding that his Earth courses were
+mostly useless. No wonder the villagers distrusted Lobby doctors. Doc
+had his own little laboratory where he had managed to start making
+Mars-normal penicillin--a primitive antibiotic, but better than nothing.
+
+Jake had come to remind him that it was his first anniversary, and now
+they were smoking bracky together.
+
+"Sheer luck, Jake," Doc repeated. "You Martians are tough. But some day
+someone is going to die under my care, with the little equipment I have.
+Then--"
+
+Jake nodded slowly. "Maybe, Doc. And maybe some day Mars will break free
+of the Lobbies. You'd better pray for that."
+
+"I've been--" Doc stopped, realizing what he'd started to say. The old
+man chuckled.
+
+"You've been talking rebellion for months, Doc. I hear rumors. Whenever
+you get mad, you want us to secede. But you don't really mean it yet.
+You can't picture any government but the one you're used to."
+
+Doc grinned. Jake had a point, but it was not as strong as it would have
+been a few months before. The towns under the Lobby were cheap
+imitations of Earth, but here, divorced to a large extent from the
+lobbies, the villages were making Mars their own. Their ways might be
+strange; but they worked.
+
+Jake shifted his body in the weak sunlight. "Newton village forgot to
+report a death on time. I hear Ryan is sweating them out, trying to
+prove it was your fault."
+
+There was no evidence against him yet, Doc was sure. But Chris was out
+to prove something, and to get a reputation as a top-flight
+administrator. It must have hurt when they shipped her here as head of
+the lesser hemisphere of Mars. She'd expected to use Feldman as a front
+while she became the actual ruler of the whole Lobby. Now she wanted to
+strike back.
+
+"She's using blackmail," he said, and some of his old bitterness was in
+his voice. "Anyone taking treatment from an herb doctor in this section
+is cut off from Medical Lobby service. Damn it, Jake, that could mean
+letting people die!"
+
+"Yeah." Jake sighed softly. "It could mean letting people begin to
+think about getting rid of the Lobby, too. Well, I gotta help harvest
+the bracky. Take it easy on operating for a while, will you, Doc?"
+
+"All right, Jake. But stop keeping the serious cases a secret. Two men
+died last month because you wouldn't call me for surgery. I've broken
+all my oaths already. It doesn't matter anymore."
+
+"It matters, boy. We've been lucky, but some day one case will go to the
+hospital and they'll find your former work. Then they'll really be after
+you. The less you do the better."
+
+Doc watched Jake slump off, then turned down into the little root cellar
+and back toward the room concealed behind it, where his crude laboratory
+lay. For the moment, he was free to work on the mystery of the black
+spots.
+
+He kept running into them--always on the body of someone who died of
+something that seemed like a normal disease. Without a microscope, he
+was almost helpless, but he had taken specimens and tried to culture
+them. Some of his cultures had grown, though they might be nothing but
+unknown Martian fungi or bacteria. Mars was dry and almost devoid of
+air, but plants and a few smaller insects had survived and adapted. It
+wasn't by any means lifeless.
+
+Without a microscope, he could do little but depend on his files of
+cases. But today there was new evidence. A villager had filched an Earth
+_Medical Journal_ from the tractor driven by Chris Ryan and forwarded it
+to him. He found the black specks mentioned in a single paragraph, under
+skin diseases. Investigation of the diet was being made, since all cases
+were among people eating synthetics.
+
+There was another article on aberrant cases--a few strange little
+misbehaviors in classical syndromes. He studied that, wondering. It had
+to be the same thing. Diet didn't account for the fact that the specks
+appeared only when the patient was near death.
+
+Nor did it account for the hard lump at the base of the neck which he
+found in every case he could check. That might be coincidence, but he
+doubted it.
+
+Whatever it was, it aggravated any other disease the patient had and
+made seemingly simple diseases turn out to be completely and rapidly
+fatal. Once syphilis had been called "The Great Imitator". This gave
+promise of being worse.
+
+He shook his head, cursing his lack of equipment. Each month more people
+were dying with these specks--and he was helpless.
+
+The concealed door broke open suddenly and a boy thrust his head in.
+"Doc, there's a man here from Einstein. Says his wife's dying."
+
+The man was already coming into the room.
+
+"She's powerful sick, Doc. Had a bellyache, fever, began throwing up.
+Pains under her belly, like she's had before. But this time it's awful."
+
+Doc shot a few questions at him, frowning at what he heard. Then he
+began packing the few things that might help. There should be no
+appendicitis on Mars. The bugs responsible for that shouldn't have
+adapted to Mars-normal. But more and more infections found ways to cross
+the border. Gangrene had been able to get by without change, it seemed.
+So far, none of the contagious infections except polio and the common
+cold had made the jump.
+
+This sounded like an advanced case, perhaps already involving
+peritonitis.
+
+So far, he'd been lucky with penicillin, but each time he used it with
+grave doubts of its action on the Mars-adapted patients. If the appendix
+had burst, however, it was the only possible treatment.
+
+He riffled through his stores; There was ether enough, fortunately. The
+villagers had made that for him out of Martian plants, using their
+complicated fermentation processes. He yelled for Jake, and the boy
+brought the old man back a moment later.
+
+"Jake, I'll need more of that narcotic stuff. I don't want the woman
+writhing and tearing her stitches after the ether wears off."
+
+"Can't get it, Doc." Jake's eyes seemed to cloud as he said it.
+"Distilling plant broke down. Doc, I don't like this case. That woman's
+been to the hospital three times. I hear she just got out recently. This
+might be a plant, or they figure they can't help her."
+
+"They're afraid to try anything on Mars-normal flesh. They can't be
+proved wrong if they do nothing." Doc finished packing his bag and got
+ready to go out. "Jake, either I'm a doctor or I'm not. I can't worry
+when a woman may be dying."
+
+For a second, Jake's expression was stubborn. Then the little crow's
+feet around his eyes deepened and the dry chuckle was back in his voice.
+"Right, Dr. Feldman." He flipped up his thumb and went off at a
+shuffling run toward the tractor. Lou and the man from Einstein followed
+Doc into the machine.
+
+It was a silent ride, except for Doc's questions about the sick woman.
+Her husband, George Lynn, was evasive and probably ignorant. He admitted
+that Harriet had been to the dispensary and small infirmary that
+Southport called a hospital.
+
+It was the only place in the entire Southern hemisphere where an
+operation could be performed legally. Most cases had to go to
+Northport, but Chris had been trying to expand. Apparently, she was
+determined to make Southport into another major center before she was
+called back to Earth.
+
+Doc wondered why the villagers went there. They had no medical insurance
+with the Lobby; they couldn't afford it. Most villagers didn't have the
+cash, either. They were forced to mortgage their future work and that of
+their families to the drug plants that were run by the Lobby.
+
+"And they just turned your wife away?" Doc asked. He couldn't quite
+believe that of Chris.
+
+"Well, I dunno. She wouldn't talk much. Twice she went and they gave her
+something. Cost every cent I could borrow. Then this last time, they
+kept her a couple days before they let me come and get her. But now
+she's a lot worse."
+
+Jake spun about, suddenly tense. "How'd you pay them last time, George?"
+
+"Why, they didn't ask. I told her she could put up six months from me
+and the kids, but nobody said nothing about it. Just gave her back to
+me." He frowned slowly, his dull voice uncertain. "They told me they'd
+done all they could, not to bring her back. That's why she was so strong
+on getting Doc."
+
+"I don't like it," Jake said flatly. "It stinks. They always charge.
+George, did they suggest she get in touch with Doc here?"
+
+"Maybe they did, maybe not. Harriet did all the talking with them. I
+just do what she tells me, and she said to get Doc."
+
+Jake swore. "It smells like a trap. Are you sure she's sick, George?"
+
+"I felt her head and she sure had a fever." George Lynn was torn
+between his loyalties. "You know me, Doc. You fixed me up that time I
+had the red pip. I wouldn't pull nothing on you."
+
+Doc had a feeling that Jake was probably right, but he vetoed the
+suggestion that they stop to look for spies. He had no time for that. If
+the woman was really sick, he had to get to her at once, and even that
+might be too late.
+
+He remembered the woman, sickly from other treatment. He'd been forced
+to remove her inflamed tonsils a few months before. She'd whined and
+complained because he couldn't spend all his time attending her. She was
+a nag, a shrew, and a totally selfish woman. But that was her husband's
+worry, not his.
+
+He dashed into the little house when they reached Einstein, and his
+first glance confirmed what George Lynn had said. The woman was sick,
+all right. She was running a high fever. Much too high.
+
+She began whining and protesting at his having taken so long, but the
+pain soon forced her to stop.
+
+"There may still be a chance," Doc told her husband brusquely. He threw
+the cleanest sheet onto a table and shoved it under the single light.
+"Keep out of the way--in the other room, if you can all pile in there.
+This isn't exactly aseptic, anyhow. You can boil a lot of water, if you
+want to help."
+
+It would give them something to do and he could use the water to clean
+up. There was no time to wait for it, however. He had to sterilize with
+alcohol and carbolic acid, and hope. He bent over the woman, ripping her
+thin gown across to make room for the operation.
+
+Then he swore.
+
+Across her abdomen was the unhealed wound of a previous operation.
+They'd worked on her at Southport. They must have removed the appendix
+and then been shocked by the signs of infection. They weren't supposed
+to release a sick patient, but there was an easy out for them; they
+could remove her from the danger of spreading an unknown infection. Some
+doctors must have doped her up on sedatives and painkillers and sent her
+home, knowing that she would call him. For that matter, they might have
+noticed her unrecorded tonsillectomy and considered her fair bait.
+
+He grabbed the ether and slapped a cone over her nose. She tried to
+protest; she never cooperated in anything. But the fumes of the ether he
+dipped onto the packing of the cone soon overcame that.
+
+It was peritonitis, of course. The only thing to do was to go in and
+scrape and clean as best he could. It was a rotten job to have to do,
+and he should have had help. But he gritted his teeth and began. He
+couldn't trust anyone else to hold the instruments, even.
+
+He cleaned the infection as best he could, knowing there was almost no
+chance. He used all the penicillin he dared. Then he began sewing up the
+incision. It was all he could do, except for dressing the wound with a
+sterile bandage. He reached for one, and stopped.
+
+While he'd been working, the woman had died, far more quietly than she
+had ever lived.
+
+It was probably the only gracious act of her life. But it was damning to
+Doc. They couldn't hide her death, and any investigation would show that
+someone had worked on her. To the Lobby, he would be the one who had
+murdered her.
+
+Jake was waiting in the tractor. He took one look at Doc's face and made
+no inquiries.
+
+They were more than a mile away when Jake pointed back. Small in the
+distance, but distinct against the sands, a gray Medical Corps tractor
+was coming. Either they'd had a spy in the village or they'd guessed the
+rate of her infection very closely. They must have hoped to catch Doc in
+the act, and they'd barely missed.
+
+It wouldn't matter. Their pictures and what testimony they could force
+from the village should be enough to hang Doc.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Research
+
+
+There had been a council the night following the death of Harriet Lynn.
+Somehow the word had spread through the villages and the chiefs had
+assembled in Jake's village. But they had brought no solution, and in
+the long run had been forced to accept Doc's decision.
+
+"I'm not going to retire and hide," he'd told them, surprised at his own
+decision, but grimly determined. "You need me and I need you. I'll move
+every day in hopes the Lobby police won't find me, but I won't quit."
+
+Now he was packing the things he most needed and getting ready to move.
+The small bottles in which he was trying to grow his cultures would need
+warmth. He shoved them into an inner pocket, and began surveying what
+must be left.
+
+He was heading for his tractor when another battered machine drove up.
+It had a girl of about fourteen, with tears streaming down her face. She
+held out a pleading hand, and her voice was scared. "It's--it's mama!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Leibnitz."
+
+Leibnitz was near enough. Doc started his tractor, motioning for the
+girl to lead the way. The little dwelling she led him to was at the edge
+of the village, looking more poverty-stricken than most.
+
+Chris Ryan, and three of the Medical Lobby police were inside, waiting.
+The girl's mother was tied to the bed, with a collection of medical
+instruments laid out, but apparently the threat had been enough. No
+actual injury had been inflicted. Probably none had been intended
+seriously.
+
+"I knew you'd answer that kind of call," Chris said coldly.
+
+He grinned sickly. They'd wasted no time. "I hear it's more than you'll
+do, Chris. Congratulations! My patient died. You're lucky."
+
+"She was certainly dead when my men took her picture. The print shows
+the death grimace clearly."
+
+"Pretty. Frame it and keep it to comfort you when you feel lonely," he
+snapped.
+
+She struck him across the mouth with the handle of her gun. Then she
+twisted out through the door quickly, heading for the tractor that had
+been camouflaged to look like those used by the villagers. The three
+police led him behind her.
+
+A shout went up, and people began to rush onto the village street. But
+they were too late. By the time they reached Southport, Doc could see a
+trail of battered tractors behind, but there was nothing more the people
+could do. Chris had her evidence and her prisoner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Judge Ben Wilson might have been Jake's brother. He was older and
+grayer, but the same expression lay on his face. He must have been the
+family black sheep, since his father had been president of Space Lobby.
+Instead of inheriting the position, Wilson had remained on Mars, safely
+out of the family's way.
+
+He dropped the paper he was reading to frown at Chris. "This the
+fellow?"
+
+She began formal charges, but he cut them off. "Your lawyer already had
+all that drawn up. I've been expecting you, Doctor. Doctor! Hnnf! You'd
+do a lot better home somewhere raising a flock of babies. Well, young
+fellow--so you're Feldman. Okay, your trial comes up day after tomorrow.
+Be a shame to lock you in Southport jail, a man of your importance.
+We'll just keep you here in the pending-trial room. It's a lot more
+comfortable."
+
+Chris had been boiling slowly, and now she seemed to blow her safety
+valve. "Judge Wilson, your methods are your own business in local
+affairs. But this involves Earth Medical Lobby. I demand--"
+
+"Tch, _tch_!" The judge stared at her reprovingly. "Young woman, you
+don't demand anything. This is Mars. If Space Lobby can stand me, I
+guess our friends over at Medical will have to. Or should I hold trial
+right now and find Feldman innocent for lack of evidence?"
+
+"You wouldn't!" Chris cried. Then her face sobered suddenly. "I
+apologize. Medical is pleased to leave things in your hands, of course."
+
+Wilson smiled. "Court's closed for today. Doc, I'll show you your cell.
+It's right next to my study, so I'm heading there anyhow."
+
+He began shucking his robe while Chris went out with the police, her
+voice sharp and continual.
+
+The cell was both reasonably escape-proof and comfortable, Doc saw, and
+he tried to thank the judge.
+
+But the old man waved it aside. "Forget it. I just like to see that
+little termagant taken down. But don't count on my being soft. My
+methods may be a bit unusual--I always did like the courtroom scenes in
+the old books by that fellow Smith--but Space Lobby never had any
+reason to reverse my decisions. Anything you need?"
+
+"Sure," Doc told him, grinning in spite of his bitterness. "A good
+biology lab and an electron microscope."
+
+"Umm. How about a good optical mike and some stains? Just got them in on
+the last shipment. Figure they were meant for you anyhow, since Jake
+Mullens asked me to order them."
+
+He went out and came back with the box almost at once. He snorted at
+Doc's incredulous thanks and moved off, his bedroom slippers slapping
+against the hard floor.
+
+Doc stared after him. If he were a friend of Jake, willing to invent
+some excuse to get a microscope here ... but it didn't matter. Friend or
+foe, his death sentence would be equally fatal. And there were other
+things to be thought of now. The little microscope was an excellent one,
+though only a monocular.
+
+Doc's hands trembled as he drew his cultures out and began making up a
+slide. The sun offered the best source of light near the window, and he
+adjusted the instrument. Something began to come into view, but too
+faintly to be really visible.
+
+He remembered the stains, trying to recall his biology courses. More by
+luck than skill, his fourth try gave him results.
+
+Under two thousand powers, he could just see details. There were dozens
+of cells in his impure culture, but only one seemed unfamiliar. It was a
+long, worm-like thing, sharpened at both ends, with the three separate
+nuclei that were typical of Martian life forms. Nearby were a host of
+little rodlike squiggles just too small to see clearly.
+
+Martian life! No Martian bug had ever proved harmful to men. Yet this
+was no mutated cell or virus from Earth; it was a new disease,
+completely different from all others. It was one where all Earth's
+centuries of experience with bacteria would be valueless--the first
+Martian disease. Unless this was simply some accidental contamination of
+his culture, not common to the other samples. He worked on until the
+light was too faint before putting the microscope aside.
+
+By the time the trial commenced, however, he was sure of the cause of
+the disease. It _was_ Martian. Crude as his cultures were, they had
+proved that.
+
+The little courtroom was filled, mostly from the villages. Lou was
+there, along with others he had come to know. Then the sight of Jake
+caught Doc's eyes. The darned fool had no business there; he could get
+too closely mixed into the whole mess.
+
+"Court's in session," Wilson announced. "Doc, you represented by
+counsel?"
+
+Jake's voice answered. "Your Honor, I represent the defendant. I think
+you'll find my credentials in order."
+
+Chris started to protest, but Wilson grinned. "Never lost your standing
+in spite of that little fracas thirty years ago, so far as I know. But
+the police thought you were a witness when you came walking in. Figured
+you were giving up."
+
+"I never said so," Jake answered.
+
+Chris was squirming angrily, but the florid man acting as counsel for
+Medical Lobby shook his head, bending over to whisper in her ear. He
+straightened. "No objection to counsel for the defense. We recognize his
+credentials."
+
+"You're a fool, Matthews," the judge told him. "Jake was smarter than
+half the rest of Legal Lobby before he went native. Still can tie your
+tail to a can. Okay, let's start things. I'm too old to dawdle."
+
+Doc lost track of most of what happened. This was totally unlike
+anything on Earth, though it might have been in keeping with the general
+casualness of the villages. Maybe the ritualistic routine of the Lobbies
+was driving those who could resist to the opposite extreme.
+
+Chris was the final witness. Matthews drew comment of Feldman's former
+crime from her, and Jake made no protest, though Wilson seemed to expect
+one. Then she began sewing his shroud. There wasn't a fact that managed
+to emerge without slanting, though technically correct. Jake sat
+quietly, smiling faintly, and making no protests.
+
+He got up lazily to cross-examine Chris. "Dr. Ryan, when Daniel Feldman
+was examined by the Captain of the _Navaho_ after arriving at Mars
+station, did you identify him then as having been Dr. Daniel Feldman?"
+
+She glanced at Matthews, who seemed puzzled but unconcerned. "That's
+correct," she admitted. "But--"
+
+"And you later saw him delivered to the surface of Mars. Is that also
+correct?" When she assented, Jake hesitated. Then he frowned. "What did
+you do then? Did you report him or send anyone to look after him or
+anything like that?"
+
+"Certainly not," she answered. "He was no--"
+
+"You did absolutely nothing about him after you identified him and saw
+him delivered here? You're quite sure of that?"
+
+"I did nothing."
+
+Jake stood quietly for a moment, then shrugged. "No more questions."
+
+Matthews finished things in a plea for the salvation of all humanity
+from the danger of such men as Daniel Feldman. He was looking smug, as
+was Chris.
+
+Wilson turned to Jake. "Has the defense anything to say?"
+
+"A few things, Your Honor." Jake stood up, suddenly looking certain and
+pleased. "We are happy to admit everything factual the Lobby had
+testified. Daniel Feldman performed a surgical operation on Harriet Lynn
+in the village of Einstein. But when has it been illegal for a member of
+the Medical profession to perform an operation, even with small chance
+of success, within an accepted area for such operation? There has been
+no evidence adduced that any crime or act of even unethical conduct was
+committed."
+
+That brought Chris and Matthews to their feet. Wilson was relaxed again,
+looking as if he'd swallowed a whole cage of canaries. He banged his
+gavel down.
+
+Jake picked up two ragged and dog-eared volumes from his table. "Case of
+Harding vs. Southport, 2043, establishes that a Lobby is responsible for
+any member on Mars. It is also responsible for informing the authorities
+of any criminal conduct on the part of its members or any former member
+known to it. Failure to report shall be considered an admission that the
+Lobby recognizes the member as one in good standing and accepts
+responsibility for that member's conduct.
+
+"At the time Daniel Feldman arrived, Dr. Christina Ryan was the highest
+appointed representative of Medical Lobby in Southport, with full
+authority. She identified Feldman as having been a doctor, without
+stipulating any change in status. She made no further report to any
+authority concerning Daniel Feldman's presence here. It seems obvious
+that Medical Lobby at Southport thereby accepted Daniel Feldman as a
+doctor in good standing for whose conduct the Lobby accepted full
+responsibility."
+
+Wilson studied the book Jake held out, and nodded. "Seems pretty
+clear-cut to me," he agreed, passing the book on to Matthews. "There's
+still the charge that Dr. Feldman operated outside a hospital."
+
+"No reason he shouldn't," Jake said. He handed over the other volume.
+"This is the charter for Medical Lobby on Mars. Medical Lobby agrees to
+perform all necessary surgical and medical services for the planet,
+though at the signing of this charter there was no hospital on Mars.
+Necessarily, Medical Lobby agreed to perform surgery outside of any
+hospital, then. But to make it plainer, there's a later paragraph--page
+181--that defines each hospital zone as extending not less than three
+nor more than one hundred miles. Einstein is about one hundred and ten
+miles from the nearest hospital at Southport, so Einstein comes under
+the original charter provisions. Dr. Feldman was forced by charter
+provisions to protect the good name of his Lobby by undertaking any
+necessary surgery in Einstein."
+
+He waited until Matthews had scanned that book, then took it back and
+began packing a big bag. Doc saw that his possessions and the microscope
+were already in the bag. The old man paid no attention to the arguments
+of Matthews before the bench.
+
+Abruptly Wilson pounded his gavel. "This court finds that Dr. Daniel
+Feldman is qualified to practice all the arts and skills of the medical
+profession on Mars and that he acted ethically in the performance of his
+duties in the case of the deceased Harriet Lynn," he ruled. "The costs
+of the case shall be billed to Medical Lobby of Southport."
+
+He took off his robe and moved rapidly toward his private quarters.
+Court was closed.
+
+Doc got up shakily, not daring to believe fully what he had heard. He
+started toward Jake, trying to avoid bumping into Chris. But she would
+not be avoided. She stood in front of him, screaming accusations and
+threats that reminded him of the only fight they'd ever had during their
+brief marriage.
+
+When she ran down, he finally met her eyes. "You're a helluva doctor,"
+he told her harshly. "You spend all your time fighting me when there's a
+plague out there that may be worse than any disease we've ever known.
+Take a look at what lies under the black specks on your corpses. You'll
+find the first Martian disease. And maybe if you begin working on that
+now, you can learn to be a real doctor in time to do something about it.
+But I doubt it."
+
+She fell back from him then. "Research! You've been doing unauthorized
+research!"
+
+"Prove it," he suggested. "But you'd be a lot smarter to try some
+yourself, and to hell with your precious rules."
+
+He followed Jake out to the tractor.
+
+Surprisingly, the old man was sweating now. He shook his head at Doc's
+look, and his grin was uncertain.
+
+"Matthews is an incompetent," he said. "They could have had you, Doc.
+That charter is so sloppy a man can prove anything by it, and building a
+hospital here did bring in Earth rules. Wilson went out on a limb in
+letting you go. But I guess we got away with it. Let's get out of here."
+
+Doc climbed into the tractor more soberly. They had escaped this time.
+But there would be another time, and he was pretty sure that would be
+Chris' round. He had no intention of giving up his research.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Plague
+
+
+Dr. Feldman leaned back from his microscope and lighted another bracky
+weed. He glanced about the room and sighed wearily. Maybe he'd been
+better off when he had no friends and couldn't risk the safety of others
+in an effort to do research that was the highest crime on two worlds.
+
+The evidence of his work was hidden thirty feet beyond his former
+laboratory in Jake's village, with a tunnel that led from another
+root-cellar. The theory was the old one that the best place to avoid
+discovery was where you had already been discovered. If their spies had
+identified his former hangout, they'd never expect to have him set up
+research nearby. It was a nice theory, but he wasn't sure of it.
+
+Jake looked up from a cot where he'd been watching the improvised
+culture incubator. "Stop tearing yourself to bits, Doc. We know the
+danger and we're still darned glad to have you here working on this."
+
+"I'm trying to put myself together into a whole man," Doc told him. "But
+I seem to come out wholly a fool."
+
+"Yeah, sure. Sometimes it takes a fool to get things done; wise men wait
+too long for the right time. How's the bug hunt?"
+
+Doc grunted in disgust and swung back to the microscope. Then he gave up
+as his tired eyes refused to focus. "Why don't you people revolt?"
+
+"They tried it twice. But they were just a bunch of pariahs shipped here
+to live in peonage. They couldn't do much. The first time Earth cut off
+shipments and starved them. Next time the villages had the answer to
+that but the cities had to fight for Earth or starve, so they whipped
+us. And there's always the threat that Earth could send over unmanned
+war rockets loaded with fissionables."
+
+"So it's hopeless?"
+
+"So nothing! The Lobbies are poisoning themselves, like cutting off
+Medical service until they cut themselves out of a job. It's just a
+matter of time. Go back to the bugs, Doc."
+
+Doc sighed and reached for his notes. "I wish I knew more Martian
+history. I've been wondering whether this bug may not have been what
+killed off the old Martians. Something had to do it, the way they
+disappeared. I wish I knew enough to make an investigation of those
+ruins out there."
+
+"Durwood!" Jake had propped himself on an elbow, staring at Doc in
+surprise.
+
+Doc scowled. "Clive Durwood, you mean? The archeologist who dug up what
+little we know about the ruins?"
+
+"Yeah, before he went back to Earth and started living off his lectures.
+He came here again three years ago and dropped dead in Edison on the way
+to some other ruins. Heart failure, they called it, though it was more
+like the two old farmers who ran themselves to death last month. I saw
+him when they buried him. His face looked funny, and I think he had
+those little specks, though I may remember wrong." He grimaced. "Mars is
+tough, Doc; it has to be. Some of the plant seeds Durwood found in the
+ruins grew! Maybe your bugs waited a million years till we came along."
+
+"What about the farmers? Did they meet Durwood?"
+
+Jake nodded. "Must have. He lived in their village most of the time."
+
+Doc went through his notes. He'd asked for reports on all deaths, and he
+finally found the account. The two old men had been nervous and fidgety
+for weeks. They were twins, living by themselves, and nobody paid much
+attention. Then one morning both were seen running wildly in circles.
+The village managed to tie them up, but they died of exhaustion shortly
+after.
+
+It wasn't a pretty picture. The disease might have an incubation period
+of nearly fifteen years, judging by the length of time it had taken to
+hit Durwood. It must spread from person to person during an early
+contagious stage, leaving widening circles behind Durwood and those
+first infected. When matured, any other sickness would set it off, with
+few symptoms of its own. But without help, it still killed its victims,
+apparently driving them madly toward frenzied physical effort.
+
+He studied the culture on a slide again. He'd tried Koch's method to get
+a pure strain, splattering the bugs onto a native starchy root and
+plucking off individual colonies. About twenty specimens had been
+treated with every chemical he could find. So far he'd found a few
+things that seemed to stop their growth, but nothing that killed them,
+except stuff far too harsh to use in living tissue.
+
+He had nearly forty cases of deaths that showed symptoms now, and he
+went back over them, looking for anything in common that went back ten
+to twenty years before death. There were no rashes nor blisters. A few
+had had apparent colds, but such were too common to mean anything.
+
+Only one thing appeared, about fourteen years before their deaths. The
+people interviewed about the victims might be vague about most things,
+but they remembered the time when "Jim had the jumping headache."
+
+"Jake," Doc called, "what's jumping headache? Most people seem to have
+it some time or other, but I haven't run across a case of it."
+
+"Sure you have, Doc. Mamie Brander's little girl a few weeks ago. Feels
+like your pulse is going to rip your skull off, right here. Can't eat
+because chewing drives you crazy. Back of your head, neck and shoulders
+swell up for about a week. Then it goes away."
+
+Then it goes away--for fourteen years, until it comes back to kill!
+
+Doc stared at his charts in sudden horror. It was a new disease--thought
+to be some virus, but not considered dangerous. Selznik's migraine,
+according to medical usage; you treated it with hot pads and anodyne,
+and it went away easily enough.
+
+He'd seen hundreds of such cases on Earth. There must be millions who
+had been hit by it. The patent-medicine branch of the Lobby had even
+brought out something called Nograine to use for self-treatment.
+
+"Something important?" Jake wanted to know.
+
+Feldman nodded. "How much weight do you swing in other villages, Jake?"
+
+"People sort of do me favors when I ask," Jake admitted. "Like swiping
+those medical journals from Northport for you, or like Molly Badger
+getting that job as maid to spy on Chris Ryan. Name it and I'll do my
+best."
+
+Doc had a vague idea of village politics, but he had more important
+things to think of. Most of his foul mood had disappeared with the clue
+he'd stumbled on, and his chief worry now was to clinch the facts.
+
+Feldman considered the problem. "I want a report on every case of
+jumping headache in every village--who had it, when, and how old they
+were. This place first, but every village you can reach. And I'll want
+someone to take a letter to Chris Ryan."
+
+Jake frowned at that, but went out to issue instructions. Doc sat down
+at a battered old typewriter. Writing Chris might do no good, but some
+warning had to be gotten through to Earth, where the vast resources of
+Medical Lobby could be thrown into the task of finding the cause and
+cure of the disease. The connection with Selznik's migraine had to be
+reported. If something could blast the Lobby into action, it wouldn't
+matter quite so much what they did to him. He wasn't foolish enough to
+expect gratitude from them, but he was getting used to the idea that his
+days were numbered. The plague was more important than what happened to
+him.
+
+The letter had been dispatched by the time Jake returned. "Here's the
+dope for this village. Everybody accounted for except you."
+
+"Never had it, Jake." Feldman went down the list. "Most of it fourteen
+years ago. That fits. About the only exceptions are the kids who seem to
+get it between the ages of two and three. Eighty-seven out of
+ninety-one!"
+
+He stared at the figures sickly. Most of the village not only had the
+plague but must be near the end of the incubation period. It looked as
+if most of the village would be dead before another year passed.
+
+"Bad?" Jake asked.
+
+"The first symptom of Martian fever."
+
+The old man whistled, the lines around his eyes tightening. "Must be
+me," he decided. "I'm the guy who must have brought it here, then. I
+used to spend a lot of time with Durwood at his diggings!"
+
+There was a constant commotion all that day and the next as runners went
+out to the villages and came back with reports. The variation from
+village to village was only slight. Most of Mars seemed to have advanced
+cases of Martian fever.
+
+Without animals for investigation and study, real research was
+difficult. Doc also needed an electron microscope. He was reasonably
+sure that the disease must travel through the nerves, but he had found
+no proof beyond the hard lump at the base of the neck. There it was a
+fair-sized organism. Elsewhere he could find nothing, until the black
+specks developed.
+
+His eyes ached from trying to see more than was visible in the
+microscope. The tantalizing suggestions of filaments around the nuclei
+might be the form of plague that was contagious. They might even be the
+true form of the bug, with the bigger cell only a transition stage.
+There were a number of diseases that involved complicated changes in the
+organisms that caused them. But he couldn't be sure.
+
+He finally buried his head in his hands, trying to do by pure thought
+what he couldn't do in any other way. And even there, he lacked
+training. He was a doctor, not a xenobiologist. Research training had
+been taboo in school, except for a favored few.
+
+The reports continued to come in, confirming the danger. They seemed to
+have the worst plague on their hands in all human history; and nobody
+who could do anything about it even knew of it.
+
+"Molly reports that your letter got some results," Jake reported. "Chris
+Ryan brought home one of the electron microscopes and a bunch of
+equipment from the hospital pathology room. Think she'll get anywhere?"
+
+Doc doubted it. Damn it, he hadn't meant for her to try it, though she
+might have authority for routine experiments. But it was like her to
+refuse to pass on the word without trying to prove her own suspicion of
+him first.
+
+He tried to comfort himself with the fact that some men were immune, or
+seemed so; about three out of a hundred showed no signs. If that
+immunity was hereditary, it might save the race. If not....
+
+Jake came in at twilight with a grim face. "More news from Molly. The
+Lobby is starting out to comb every village with a fault-finder,
+starting here. And this hole will show up like a sore thumb. Better
+start packing. We gotta be out of here in less than an hour!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Fool
+
+
+Three days later, Doc saw his first runner.
+
+The tractor was churning through the sand just before sundown, heading
+toward another one-night stand at a new village. Lou was driving, while
+Doc and Jake brooded silently in the back, paying no attention to the
+colors that were blazoned over the dunes. The cat-and-mouse game was
+getting to Doc. There was no real assurance that the village they were
+approaching might not be the target the Lobby had chosen for the next
+investigation.
+
+Lou braked the tractor to a sudden halt, and pointed.
+
+A figure was running frantically over one of the low dunes with the
+little red sun behind him. He seemed headed toward them, but as he drew
+nearer they could see that he had no definite direction. He simply ran,
+pumping his legs frantically as if all the devils of hell were after
+him. His body swayed from side to side in exhaustion, but his arms and
+legs pumped on.
+
+"Stop him!" Jake ordered, and Lou swung the tractor. It halted squarely
+in the runner's path, and the figure struck against it and toppled.
+
+The legs went on pumping, digging into the dirt and gravel, but the man
+was too far gone to rise. Jake and Lou shoved him through the doors into
+the tractor and Doc yanked off his aspirator.
+
+The man was giving vent to a kind of ululating cry, weakened now almost
+to a whine that rose and fell with the motion of his legs. Sweat had
+once streaked his haggard face, but it was dry and blanched to a pasty
+gray.
+
+Doc injected enough narcotic to quiet a maddened bull. It had no effect,
+except to upset the rhythm of the arms and legs. It took five more
+minutes for the man to die.
+
+The specks were larger this time--the size of periods in twelve-point
+type. The lump at the base of the skull was as big as a small hen's egg.
+
+"From Edison, like the others so far. Jack Kooley," Jake answered Doc's
+question. "Durwood spent a lot of time here on his first expedition, so
+it's getting the worst of it."
+
+Doc pulled the aspirator mask back over the man's face and they carried
+him out and laid him on a low dune. They couldn't risk returning the
+corpse to its people.
+
+This was only the primary circle of infection, direct from Durwood. The
+second circle could be ten times as large, as the infection spread from
+one to a few to many. So far it was localized. But it wouldn't stay that
+way.
+
+Doc climbed slowly out of the tractor, lugging his small supplies of
+equipment, while Jake made arrangements for them to spend the night in a
+deserted house. But the figure of the runner and his own failures to
+find more about the disease kept haunting Doc. He began setting up his
+equipment grimly.
+
+"Better get some sleep," Jake suggested. "You're a mite more tired than
+you think. Anyhow, I thought you told me you couldn't do any more with
+what you've got."
+
+Feldman looked at the supplies he had spread out, and shook his head
+wearily. He'd been over every chemical and combination a dozen times,
+without results that showed in the limited magnification of the optical
+mike.
+
+He snapped the case shut and hit the rude table with the heel of his
+hand. "There are other supplies. Jake, do you have any signal to get in
+touch with Molly at the Ryan house?"
+
+"Three raps on the rear left window. I'll get Lou."
+
+"No!" Doc came to his feet, reaching for his jacket. "They're looking
+for three men now. It's safer if I go alone--and I'm the only one who
+knows what supplies are needed. With luck, I may even get the electron
+mike. Got a gun I can borrow?"
+
+Jake found one somewhere, an old revolver with a few loads. He began
+protesting, but Doc overruled him sharply. Three men could no more fight
+off the police than one, if they were spotted. He swung toward the
+tractor.
+
+"You'd better start spreading the word on everything we know. If people
+realize they're already safe or doomed it'll be better than having them
+going crazy to avoid contagion."
+
+"Most of the villages know already," Jake told him. "And damn it, get
+back here, Doc. If you can't make it, turn tail quick, and we'll think
+of something else."
+
+Southport seemed normal enough as Doc drove through its streets. The
+stereo house was open, and the little shops were brightly lighted. He
+stopped once to pull a copy of Southport's little newspaper from a
+dispenser. All was quiet on its front page, too.
+
+As usual, though, the facts were buried inside. The editorial was
+pouring too much oil on the waters in its lauding of the role of
+Medical Lobby on Mars for no apparent reason. The death notices no
+longer listed the cause of death. Medical knew something was up, at
+least, and was worried.
+
+He parked the tractor behind Chris' house and slipped to the proper
+window. Everything was seemingly quiet there. At his knock, the shade
+was drawn back, and he caught a brief glimpse of Molly looking out. A
+moment later she opened the rear lock to let him into the kitchen.
+
+"Shh. She's still up, I think. What can I do, Doc?"
+
+He tried to smile at her. "Hide me until it's safe to get into her
+laboratory. I've got to--"
+
+The inner kitchen was kicked open and Chris stood beyond it, holding a
+cocked gun in her hand.
+
+"It took longer than I expected, Dan," she said quietly. "But after your
+letter, I knew you'd swallow the bait. You bloody fool! Did you really
+believe I'd start doing research here just because of your imaginings?"
+
+He slumped slowly back against the sink. "So this is a fool's errand,
+then? There never was any equipment here?"
+
+"The equipment's here--in my office. I guessed your spies would report
+it, so it had to be here. But it won't help you now, pariah Feldman!"
+
+He came from his braced position against the sink like a spring
+uncoiling. He expected her to shoot, but hoped the surprise would ruin
+her aim. Then it was too late, and his boot hit the gun savagely,
+knocking it from her hand. Life in the villages had hardened him
+surprisingly. She was comparatively helpless in his hands. A few minutes
+later, he had her bound securely with surgical tape Molly brought him.
+She raged furiously in the chair where he'd dumped her, then gave up.
+
+"They'll get you, Daniel Feldman!" Surprisingly, there was no rage in
+her voice now. "You won't get away from us. The planet isn't big
+enough."
+
+"I got away from your trial," he reminded her. "And I got away and lived
+when you left me without a chance on the ground of the spaceport."
+
+She laughed harshly. "_You_ got away then? You fool, who do you think
+gave you the extra battery so you could live long enough to be helped at
+the spaceport? Who hired a fool like Matthews so you wouldn't get the
+death sentence you deserved? Who let you get away as an herb doctor for
+months before you set yourself up as God and a traitor to mankind
+again?"
+
+It shook him, as it was probably intended to do. How had she known about
+the extra battery? He'd always assumed that Ben had returned to give it
+to him. But in that case, Chris couldn't know of it. Then he hardened
+himself again. In the old days, she'd always had one trump card he
+couldn't beat and hadn't expected. But too much was involved for games
+now.
+
+"Any police around, Molly?" he asked.
+
+Molly came back a minute later to report that everything looked clear
+and to show him where the equipment had been set up in Chris' office. It
+was all there, including the electron mike--a beautiful little portable
+model. There was even a small incubator with its own heat source into
+which he immediately transferred the little bottles he'd been keeping
+warm against his skin. Most of the equipment had never been unpacked,
+which made loading it onto his tractor ridiculously easy.
+
+"Better come with me now, Molly," he suggested at last. Then he turned
+to Chris, who was watching him with almost no expression. "You can
+wriggle your chair to the phone in half an hour, I guess. Knock the
+phone off and yell for help. It's better than you deserve, unless you
+really did leave me that battery."
+
+"You won't get away with it," she told him again, calmly this time.
+
+"No," he admitted. "Probably not. But maybe the human race will, if I
+have time to find an answer to the plague you won't see under your nose.
+But you won't get away with it, either. In the long run, your kind never
+do."
+
+Molly was sniffling as they drove away. It had probably been the best
+life she'd known, Doc supposed. Chris could be kind to menials. But now
+Molly's work was done, and she'd have to disappear into the villages. He
+let her off at the first village and drove on alone. He was itching to
+get to the microscope now, hardly able to wait through the long journey
+back to Jake. His impatience grew with each mile.
+
+Finally he gave up. He swung the tractor into a small gulley between
+sand dunes, left the motor idling and pulled down the shades the
+villagers used for blackout traveling. There was power enough for the
+mike here, and the cab was big enough for what he had to do.
+
+He mounted the mike on the tractor seat and began laying out the
+collection of smears and cultures he had brought. It had been years
+since he'd made a film for the electron mike, but he found it all came
+back to him as he worked.
+
+His hands were sweating with tension as he inserted the first film into
+the chamber. He had the magnetic "lenses" set for twenty thousand power,
+but a quick glance showed it was too weak. He raised the power to fifty
+thousand.
+
+The filaments were there, clear and distinct.
+
+He turned on the little tape recorder that had been part of Chris'
+equipment and set the microphone where he could dictate into it without
+stopping to make clumsy notes. He readjusted the focus carefully,
+carrying on a running commentary.
+
+Then he gasped. Each of the little filaments carried three tiny darker
+sections; each was a cell, complete in itself, with the typical Martian
+triple nucleus.
+
+He put a film with a tiny section of the nerve tissue from a corpse into
+the chamber next, and again a quick glance at the screen was enough. The
+filaments were there, thickly crowded among nerve cells. They _did_
+travel along the nerves to reach the base of the brain before the larger
+lump could form.
+
+A specimen from one of the black specks was even more interesting. The
+filaments were there, but some were changed or changing into tiny, round
+cells, also with the triple dark spots of nuclei. Those must be the
+final form that was released to infect others. Probably at first these
+multiplied directly in epithelial tissue, so that there was a rapid
+contagion of infection. Eventually, they must form the filaments that
+invaded the nerves and caused the brief bodily reaction that was
+Selznik's migraine. Then the body adapted to them and they began to
+incubate slowly, developing into the large cells he had first seen. When
+"ripe", the big cells broke apart into millions of the tiny round ones
+that went back to the nerve endings, causing the black spots and killing
+the host.
+
+He knew his enemy now, at least.
+
+He reached for the controls, increasing the magnification. He would lose
+resolution, but he might find something more at the extreme limits of
+the mike.
+
+Something wet and cold gushed into his face. He jerked back, trying to
+wipe it off, but it was already evaporating, and there was a thick,
+acrid odor in the cab. He grabbed for his aspirator, then tried to reach
+the airlock. But paralysis was already spreading through him, and he
+toppled to the floor before he could escape.
+
+When he came to, it was morning outside, and Chris was waiting inside
+the cab with two big Lobby policemen. A hypo in her hand must have been
+what revived him.
+
+She touched the electron microscope with something like affection. "The
+Lobby technicians did a good job on this, don't you think, Dan? I warned
+you, but you wouldn't listen. And now we've even got your own taped
+words to prove you were doing forbidden research. Fool!"
+
+She shook her head pityingly as the tractor began moving with two others
+toward Southport.
+
+"You and your phony diseases. A little skin disorder, Selznik's
+migraine, and a few cases of psychosis to make a new disease. Do you
+think Medical Lobby can't check on such simple things? Or didn't you
+expect us to hear of your open talk of revolt and realize you were
+planning to create some new germ to wipe out the Earth forces. Maybe
+those runners of yours were real, mass murderer!"
+
+She drew out another hypo and shoved the needle into his arm.
+Necrosynth--enough to keep him unconscious for twenty-four hours. He
+started to curse her, but the drug acted before he could complete the
+thought.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Judgment
+
+
+Doc woke to see sunlight shining through a heavily barred window that
+must be in the official Southport jail. He waited a few minutes for his
+head to clear and then sat up; necrosynth left no hangover, at least.
+
+The sound of steps outside was followed by the squeak of a key in the
+lock. "Fifteen minutes, Judge Wilson," a voice said.
+
+"Thank you, officer." Wilson came into the cell, carrying a tray of
+breakfast and a copy of the Northport _Gazette_. He began unloading
+bracky weeds from his pocket while Doc attacked the breakfast.
+
+"They tossed the book at you, Doc," he said. "You haven't got a chance,
+and there's nothing the villages can do. Trial's set for tomorrow at
+Northport, and it's in closed session. We can't get you off this time."
+
+Doc nodded. "Thanks for coming, even if there's nothing you can do. I've
+been living on borrowed time for a year, anyhow, so I have no right to
+kick. But who's 'we'?"
+
+"The villages. I've been part of their organization for years." The old
+man sighed heavily. "You might say a revolution has been going on since
+I can remember, though most villagers don't know it. We've just been
+waiting our time. Now we've stopped waiting and the rifles will be
+coming out--rifles made in village shops. The villages are going to
+rebel, even if we're all dead of plague in a month."
+
+Doc Feldman nodded and reached for the bracky. He knew that this was
+their way of trying to make him feel his work hadn't been for nothing,
+and he was grateful for Wilson's visit. "It was a good year for me.
+Damned good. But time's running short. I'd better brief you on the
+latest on the plague."
+
+Wilson began making notes until Doc was finished. Finally he got up as
+steps sounded from the hall. "Anything else?"
+
+"Just a guess. A lot of Earth germs can't live in Mars-normal flesh;
+maybe this can't live in Earth-normal. Tell them so long for me."
+
+"So long, Doc." He shook hands briefly and was waiting at the door when
+the guard opened it.
+
+An hour later, the Lobby police took Feldman to the Northport shuttle
+rocket. They had some trouble on the way; a runner cut down the street,
+with the crowds frantically rushing out of his way. Terror was reaching
+the cities already.
+
+Doc flashed a look at Chris. "Mob hysteria. Like flying saucers and
+wriggly tops, I suppose?" he asked, before the guard could stop him.
+
+They locked his legs, but left his hands free in the rocket. He unfolded
+the paper Wilson had brought and buried his face in it. Then he swore.
+They _were_ explaining the runners as a case of mob hysteria!
+
+Northport was calmer. Apparently they had yet to have first-hand
+experience with the plague. But now nothing seemed quite real to Doc,
+even when they locked him into the big Northport jail. The whole ritual
+of the Lobbies seemed like a fantasy after the villages.
+
+It snapped back into focus, however, when they led him into the trial
+room of the Medical Lobby building. It was a smaller version of his
+trial on Earth. Fear washed in by association. The complete lack of
+humanity in the procedure was something from a half-remembered and
+horrible past.
+
+The presiding officer asked the routine question: "Is the prisoner
+represented by counsel?"
+
+Blane, the dapper little prosecutor, arose quickly. "The prisoner is a
+pariah, Sir Magistrate."
+
+"Very well. The court will accept the protective function for the
+prisoner. You may proceed."
+
+_I'll be judge, I'll be jury._ And prosecution and defense. It made for
+a lot less trouble. Of course, if Space Lobby had asserted interest, it
+would have gone to a supposedly neutral court. But as usual, Space was
+happy to leave it in the hands of Medical.
+
+The tape was played as evidence. Doc frowned. The words were his, but
+there had been a lot of editing that subtly changed the import of his
+notes.
+
+"I protest," he challenged. "It's not an accurate version."
+
+The Lobby magistrate turned a wooden face to him. "Does the prisoner
+have a different version to introduce?"
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"The evidence is accepted. One of the prisoner's six protests will be
+charged against him."
+
+Blane smiled smoothly and held up a small package. "We wish to introduce
+this drug as evidence that the prisoner is a confirmed addict, morally
+irresponsible under addiction. This is a package of so-called bracky
+weed, a vile and noxious substance found in his possession."
+
+"It has alkaloids no more harmful than nicotine," Feldman stated
+sharply.
+
+"Do you contend that you find the taste pleasing?" Blane asked.
+
+"It's bitter, but I've gotten used to it."
+
+"I've tasted it," the magistrate said. "Evidence accepted. Two
+deductions, one for irregularity of presentation."
+
+Doc shrugged and sat back. He'd tested his rights and found what he
+expected. It was hard to see now how he had ever accepted such
+procedure. Jake must be right; they'd been in power too long, and were
+making the mistake of taking the velvet glove off the iron fist and
+flailing about for the sheer pleasure of power.
+
+It dragged on, while he became a greater and greater monster on the
+record. But finally it was over, and the magistrate turned to Feldman.
+"You may present your defense."
+
+"I ask complete freedom of expression," Doc said formally.
+
+The magistrate nodded. "This is a closed court. Permission granted. The
+recording will be scrambled."
+
+The last bit ruined most of the purpose Doc had in mind. But it was too
+late to change. He could only hope that some one of the Medical men
+present would remember something of what he said.
+
+"I have nothing to say for myself," he began. "It would be useless. But
+I had to do what I did. There's a plague outside. I've studied that
+plague, and I have knowledge which must be used against it...."
+
+He sat down in three minutes. It had been useless.
+
+Blane arose, with a smile still plastered on his face. "We, of course,
+recognize the existence of a new contagion, but I believe we have
+established that this is one disseminated by the prisoner himself, and
+probably not directly contagious. There have been many cases of fanatics
+ready to destroy humanity to eliminate those they hate. Now, surely, the
+prisoner has himself left no question of his attitude. He asserts he has
+knowledge and skill greater than the entire Medical Research staff. He
+has attempted to intimidate us by threats. He is clearly psychopathic,
+and dangerously so. The prosecution rests."
+
+The guards took Doc into the anteroom, where he was supposed to hear
+nothing that went on. But their curiosity was stronger than their
+discretion, and the door remained a trifle ajar.
+
+The magistrate began the discussion. "The case seems firm enough. It's
+fortunate Dr. Ryan acted so quickly, with some of the people getting
+nervous. Perhaps it might be wise to publicize our verdict."
+
+"My thought exactly," Blane agreed. "If we show Feldman is responsible
+and that Medical is eliminating the source of the infection, it may have
+a stabilizing effect."
+
+"Let's hope so. The sentence will have to be death, of course. We can't
+let such a rebellious psychopath live. But this needs something more, it
+seems. You've prepared a recommendation, I suppose."
+
+"There was the case of Albrecht Delier," Blane suggested. "Something
+like that should have good publicity impact."
+
+It struck Doc that they sounded as if they believed themselves--as the
+witch-burners had believed in witches. He was sweating when the guards
+led him before the bench.
+
+The magistrate rolled a pen slowly across his fingers as his eyes raked
+Feldman. "Pariah Daniel Feldman, you have been found guilty on all
+counts. Furthermore, your guilt must be shared by that entire section of
+Mars known as the villages. Therefore the entire section shall be banned
+and forbidden any and all services of the Medical Lobby for a period of
+one year."
+
+"Sir Magistrate!" One of the members of Southport Hospital staff was on
+his feet. "Sir Magistrate, we can't cut them off completely."
+
+"We must, Dr. Harkness. I appreciate the fine humanitarian tradition of
+our Lobby which lies behind your protest, but at such a time as this the
+good of the body politic requires drastic measures. Why not see me after
+court, and we can discuss it then?"
+
+He turned back to Feldman, and his face was severe.
+
+"The same education which has produced such fine young men as Dr.
+Harkness was wasted on you and perverted to endanger the whole race. No
+punishment can equal your crimes, but there is one previously invoked
+for a particularly horrible case, and it seems fitting that you should
+be the fourth so sentenced.
+
+"Daniel Feldman, you are sentenced to be taken in to space beyond
+planetary limits, together with all material used by you in the
+furtherance of your criminal acts. There you shall be placed into a
+spacesuit containing sufficient oxygen for one hour of life, and no
+more. You and your contaminated possessions shall then be released into
+space, to drift there through all eternity as a warning to other men.
+
+"This sentence shall be executed at the earliest possible moment, and
+Dr. Christina Ryan is hereby commissioned to observe such execution. And
+may God have mercy on your soul!"
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Execution
+
+
+The hours of waiting were blurred for Doc. There were periods when fear
+clogged his throat and left him gasping with the need to scream and beat
+his cell walls. There were also times when it didn't seem to matter, and
+when his only thoughts were for the villages and the plague.
+
+They brought him the papers, where he was painted as a monster beside
+whom Jack the Ripper and Albrecht Delier were gentle amateurs. They were
+trying to focus all fear and resentment on him. Maybe it was working.
+There were screaming crowds outside the jail, and the noise of their
+hatred was strong enough to carry through even the atmosphere of Mars.
+But there were also signs that the Lobby was worried, as if afraid that
+some attempt might still be made to rescue him.
+
+He'd looked forward to the trip to the airport as a way of judging
+public reaction. But apparently the Lobby had no desire to test that.
+The guards led him up to the roof of the jail, where a rocket was
+waiting. The landing space was too small for one of the station
+shuttles, but a little Northport-Southport shuttle was parked there
+after what must have been a difficult set-down. The guards tested Doc's
+manacles and forced him into the shuttle.
+
+Inside, Chris was waiting, carrying an official automatic. There was
+also a young pilot, looking nervous and unhappy. He was muttering under
+his breath as the guards locked Doc's legs to a seat and left.
+
+"All right," Chris ordered. "Up ship!"
+
+"I tell you we're overweight with you. I wasn't counting on three for
+the trip," the pilot protested. "The only thing that will get this into
+orbit with the station is faith. I'm loaded with every drop of fuel
+she'll hold and it still isn't enough."
+
+"That's your problem," Chris told him firmly. "You've got your orders,
+and so have I. Up ship!"
+
+If she had her own worries about the shuttle, she didn't show it. Chris
+had never been afraid to do what she felt she should. The pilot stared
+at her doubtfully and finally turned back to his controls, still
+muttering.
+
+The shuttle lifted sluggishly, but there was no great difficulty. Doc
+could see that there was even some fuel remaining when they slipped into
+the tube at the orbital station. Chris went out, and other guards came
+in to free him.
+
+"So long, Dr. Feldman," the pilot called softly as they led him out.
+Then the guards shoved him through the airlock into the station. Fifteen
+minutes later he was locked into one of the cabins of the _Iroquois_,
+with all his possessions stacked beside him.
+
+He grinned wryly. As an honest worker on the _Navaho_ he'd been treated
+like an animal. Now, as a human fiend, he was installed in a luxury
+cabin of the finest ship of the fleet, with constant spin to give a
+feeling of weight and more room than the entire tube crew had known.
+
+He roamed the cabin until he found a little collapsible table. He set
+the electron microscope up on that and plugged it in. It seemed a shame
+that good equipment should be wasted along with his life. He wondered
+if they would really throw it out into space with him. Probably they
+would.
+
+He pushed a button on the call board over the table and asked for the
+steward. There was a long wait, as if the procedure were being checked
+with some authority, but finally he received a surly acknowledgement.
+"Steward. Whatcha want?"
+
+"How's the chance of getting some food?"
+
+"You're on first-class."
+
+They could afford it, Doc decided. He wouldn't cost them much,
+considering the distance he was going. "Bring me two complete
+dinners--one Earth-normal and one Mars-normal."
+
+"Okay, Feldman. But if you think you can suicide that way, you're wrong.
+You may be sick, but you'll be alive when they dump you."
+
+A sharp click interrupted him. "That's enough, Steward. Captain Everts
+speaking. Dr. Feldman, you have my apologies. Until you reach your
+destination, you are my passenger and entitled to every consideration of
+any other passenger except freedom of movement through the ship. I am
+always available for legitimate complaints."
+
+Feldman shook his head. He'd heard of such men. But he'd thought the
+species extinct.
+
+The steward brought his food in a thoroughly chastened manner. He
+managed to find space for it and came to attention. "Is that all--sir?"
+
+For a moment, as the smell of real steak reached him, Doc regretted the
+fact that his metabolism had been switched. Then he shrugged. A little
+wouldn't hurt him, though there was no proper nourishment in it. He
+squeezed some of the gravy and bits of meat into one of his bottles,
+sticking to his purpose; then he fell to on the rest. But after a few
+bites, it was queerly unsatisfactory. The seemingly unappealing
+Mars-normal ragout suited his current tastes better, after all.
+
+Once the steward had cleared away the dishes, Doc went to work. It was
+better than wasting his time in dread. He might even be able to leave
+some notes behind.
+
+A gong sounded, and a red light warned him that acceleration was due. He
+finished with his bottles, put them into the incubator, and piled into
+his bunk, swallowing one of the tablets of morphetal the ship furnished.
+
+Acceleration had ended, and a simple breakfast was waiting when he
+awoke. There was also a red flashing light over the call board. He
+flipped the switch while reaching for the coffee.
+
+"Captain Everts," the speaker said. "May I join you in your cabin?"
+
+"Come ahead," Feldman invited. He cut off the switch and glanced at the
+clock on the wall. There were less than eleven hours left to him.
+
+Everts was a trim man of forty, erect but not rigid. There was neither
+friendliness nor hostility in his glance. His words were courteous as
+Doc motioned toward the tray of breakfast. "I've already eaten, thank
+you."
+
+He accepted a chair. His voice was apologetic when he began. "This is a
+personal matter which I perhaps have no right to bring up. But my wife
+is greatly worried about this plague. I violate no confidence in telling
+you there is considerable unease, even on Earth, according to messages I
+have received. The ship physician believes Mrs. Everts may have the
+plague, but isn't sure of the symptoms. I understand you are quite
+expert."
+
+Doc wondered about the physician. Apparently there was another man who
+placed his patients above anything else, though he was probably
+meticulous about obeying all actual rules. There was no law against
+listening to a pariah, at least.
+
+"When did she have Selznik's migraine?" he asked.
+
+"About thirteen years ago. We went through it together, shortly after
+having our metabolism switched during the food shortage of '88."
+
+Doc felt carefully at the base of the Captain's skull; the swelling was
+there. He asked a few questions, but there could be no doubt.
+
+"Both of you must have it, Captain, though it won't mature for another
+year. I'm sorry."
+
+"There's no hope, then?"
+
+Doc studied the man. But Everts wasn't the sort to dicker even for his
+life. "Nothing that I've found, Captain. I have a clue, but I'm still
+working on it. Perhaps if I could leave a few notes for your
+physician--"
+
+It was Everts' turn to shake his head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Feldman. I have
+orders to burn out your cabin when you leave. But thank you." He got to
+his feet and left as quietly and erectly as he had entered.
+
+Doc tore up his notes bitterly. He paced his cabin slowly, reading out
+the hours while his eyes lingered on the little bottle of cultures. At
+times the fear grew in him, but he mastered it. There was half an hour
+left when he began opening the little bottles and making his films.
+
+He was still not finished when steps echoed down the hall, but he was
+reasonably sure of his results. The bug could not grow in Earth-normal
+tissue.
+
+Three men entered the room. One of them, dressed in a spacesuit, held
+out another suit to him. The other two began gathering up everything in
+the cabin and stowing it neatly into a sack designed to protect freight
+for a limited time in a vacuum.
+
+Doc forced his hands to steadiness with foolish pride and began climbing
+into the suit. He reached for the helmet, but the man shook his head,
+pointing to the oxygen gauge. There would be exactly one hour's supply
+of oxygen when he was thrown out and it still lacked five minutes of the
+deadline.
+
+They marched him down the hallway, to meet Everts coming toward them.
+There were still three minutes left when they reached the airlock, with
+its inner door already open. The spacesuited man climbed into it and
+began strapping down so that the rush of air would not sweep him outward
+when the other seal was released.
+
+Doc had saved one bracky weed. Now he raised it to his lips, fumbling
+for a light.
+
+Everts stepped forward and flipped a lighter. Doc inhaled deeply. Fear
+was thick in every muscle, and he needed the smoke desperately. Then he
+caught himself.
+
+"Better change your metabolism back to Earth-normal, Captain Everts," he
+said, and his voice was so normal that he hardly recognized it.
+
+Everts' eyes widened briefly. The man bowed faintly. "Thank you, Dr.
+Feldman."
+
+It was ridiculous, impossible, and yet there was a curious relief at the
+formality of it. It was like something from a play, too unreal to affect
+his life.
+
+Everts nodded to the man holding the helmet. Doc dropped his bracky weed
+and felt the helmet snap down. A hiss of oxygen reached him and the suit
+ballooned out. There was no gravity; the two men handed him up easily to
+the one in the airlock while the inner seal began to close.
+
+There was still ten seconds to go, according to the big chronometer that
+had been installed in the lock. The spaceman used it in tying the sack
+of possessions firmly to Doc's suit.
+
+A red light went on. The man caught Doc and held him against the outer
+seal. The red light blinked. Four seconds ... three ... two....
+
+There was a sudden heavy thudding sound, and the _Iroquois_ seemed to
+jerk sideways slightly. The spaceman's face swung around in surprise.
+
+The red light blinked and stayed on. Zero!
+
+The outer seal snapped open and the spaceman heaved. Air exploded
+outwards, and Doc went with it. He was alone in space, gliding away from
+the ship, with oxygen hissing softly through the valve and ticking away
+his life.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+Convert
+
+
+Feldman fought for control of himself, forced himself to think, to hold
+onto his sanity. It was sheer stupidity, since nothing could have been
+more merciful than to lose this reality. But the will to be himself was
+stronger than logic. And bit by bit, he forced the fear and horror away
+from him until he could examine his situation.
+
+He was spinning slowly, so that stars ahead of him seemed to crawl
+across his view. The ship was retreating from him already hundreds of
+yards away. Mars was a shrunken pill far away.
+
+Then something blinked to one side. He turned his head to stare.
+
+A little ship was less than three hundred yards away. He recognized it
+as a life raft. Now his spin brought him around to face it, and he saw
+it was parallelling his course. The ejection of the life raft must have
+caused the thump he'd heard before he was cast adrift.
+
+It meant someone was trying to save him. It meant _life_!
+
+He flailed his arms and beat his legs together, senselessly trying to
+force himself closer, while trying to guess who could have taken the
+chance. No one he could think of could have booked passage on the
+_Iroquois_. There wasn't that much free money in the villages.
+
+Something flashed a hot blue, and the little ship leaped forward.
+Whoever was handling it knew nothing about piloting. It picked up too
+much speed at too great an angle.
+
+Again blue spurts came, but this time matters were even worse. Then
+there was a long wait before a third try was made. He estimated the
+course. It would miss him by a good hundred feet, but it was probably
+the best the amateur pilot could do. The ship drifted closer, but to one
+side. It would soon pass him completely.
+
+A spacesuited figure suddenly appeared in the tiny airlock, holding a
+coil of rope. The rope shot out, well thrown. But it was too short. It
+would pass within ten feet--and might as well have been ten miles for
+all the good it would do him.
+
+Every film he had seen on space seemed to form a mad jumble in his mind,
+but he seized on the first idea he could remember. He inhaled deeply and
+yanked the oxygen tank free. An automatic seal on the suit cut off the
+connection. He aimed the hissing bottle, fumbling for the manual valve.
+
+It almost worked. It kicked him toward the rope slightly, but most of
+the energy was wasted in setting him into a wilder spin. He blinked,
+trying to spot the rope. It was within five feet now.
+
+Again he waited, until he seemed to be in position. This time he threw
+the bottle away from it. It added spin to his vertical axis, but the
+rope came into view within arm's reach.
+
+He grasped it, just as his lungs seemed about to burst. He couldn't hold
+on long enough to tie the rope....
+
+His lungs gave up suddenly, collapsing and then sucking in greedily.
+Clean air rushed in, letting his head clear. He'd forgotten that the
+inflated suit held enough oxygen for several minutes.
+
+His body struck the edge of the airlock and a hand jerked him inside.
+The outer seal was slammed shut and locked, and there was a hiss of air
+entering.
+
+He threw back his helmet just as Chris Ryan jerked hers off.
+
+Her voice shook almost hysterically. "Thank God. Dan, I almost gave up!"
+
+"I liked the air out there better," he told her bitterly. "If you'll
+open the lock again, I'll leave. Or am I supposed to believe this is
+rescue and that you came along just to save me?"
+
+"I came along to see you killed, as you know very well. Saving you
+wasn't in my orders."
+
+He grunted and reached for the handle that would release the outer lock.
+"Better get back inside if you don't want to blow out with me."
+
+"It's up to you, Dan," she told him, and there was all the sincerity in
+the world in her blue eyes. "I'm on your side now."
+
+He began counting on his fingers. "Let's see. The spare battery, the
+delay in arresting me, the choice of Matthews--"
+
+"It was all true." Anger began to grow in her eyes. "Dan Feldman, you
+get inside this raft! If you don't care about me, you might consider the
+people dying of the plague who need you!"
+
+She'd played her trump, and it took the round. He followed her.
+
+"All right," he said grudgingly. "Spill your story."
+
+She held out a copy of a space radiogram, addressed to Mrs. D. E.
+Everts, and signed by one of the best doctors on the Lobby Board of
+Directors.
+
+     Regret confirm diagnosis. Topsecret. Repeat topsecret.
+     Martian fever incubates fourteen years, believed highly
+     fatal. No cure, research beginning immediately. Penalty
+     violation topsecret, death all concerned.
+
+"Mrs. Everts rates a topsecret break?" Doc commented dryly. "Come off
+it, Chris!"
+
+"She's the daughter of Elmers of Space Lobby!" Chris answered. She
+pointed to the message, underlining words with her finger. "_Fourteen
+years._ You couldn't have caused it. _Highly fatal._ And people are
+being told it's only a skin disease. _Research beginning._ But you've
+already done most of the research. I can see that now. I can see a lot
+of things."
+
+"You've got me beat then," he said. "I can't see how such a reformed
+young noblewoman calmly walked over and stole a life raft. I can't see
+how your brilliant mind concocted this whole scheme in almost no time.
+And to be honest, I can't even see why Medical Lobby decided to save me
+at the last minute and sent you to do the job. You didn't have to spy
+out knowledge from me. I've been trying all along to get it to your
+Research division."
+
+She sighed and dropped onto a little seat.
+
+"I can't prove my motives. You'll just have to believe me. But it wasn't
+hard to do what I've done. That shuttle pilot was found in a routine
+check, stowed away on the life raft. I was with Captain Everts when he
+was found, so I discovered how to get into the raft. And I heard his
+whole confession. He wasn't the real pilot. He'd come from the villages
+to save you. The whole scheme was his. I just used it, hoping I could
+reach you."
+
+As always her story had a convincing element she shouldn't have known.
+The pilot's farewell, addressing him as Dr. Feldman, had been too low
+for her to hear, but it was something that fitted her story. It was
+probably a deliberate clue to give him hope, to assure him the villages
+were still trying. It shook his confidence.
+
+"And your motive--your real motive?" he insisted.
+
+She swore at him, then began ripping off the spacesuit. She turned her
+back, pulling a thin blouse down from her neck. He stared, then reached
+out to touch the lump there.
+
+"So you've had Selznik's migraine and know you're carrying plague. And
+you've decided your precious Lobby won't save you?"
+
+She dropped her eyes, then raised them to meet his defiantly. "I'm not
+just scared and selfish. Dad caught it, too, and it must be close to the
+time for him. He switched to Mars-normal when he was a liaison agent and
+never changed back. Dan, are we all going to have to die? Can't you save
+him?"
+
+Feldman was out of his suit and at the control panel. There was a manual
+lever, which Chris must have used before. It might work out here where
+there was room to maneuver and nothing to hit. But trying to make a
+landing was going to be different.
+
+"Dan?" she repeated.
+
+He shrugged. "I don't know. They've started research too late and
+they'll be under so much pressure that the real brains won't have a
+chance. The topsecret stuff looks bad for research. Maybe there's a
+cure. It works in culture bottles, but it may fail in person. When I'm
+convinced I'm safe with you, I may tell you about it."
+
+"Oh." Her voice was low. Then she sighed. "I suppose I can understand
+why you hate me, Dan."
+
+"I don't hate you. I'm too mixed up. Tomorrow maybe, but not now. Shut
+up and let me see if I can figure out how to land this thing."
+
+He found that the fuel tanks were nearly full, but that still didn't
+leave much margin. Mars must have been notified by Everts and be ready
+to pick the raft up. He had to reach the wastelands away from any of the
+shuttle ports. They had no aspirators, however, and they couldn't cover
+much territory in the spacesuits they would have to use. It meant he'd
+have to land close to a village where he was known.
+
+He jockeyed the ship around by trial and error, studying the manual that
+was lying prominently on the control panel. According to the booklet,
+the ship was simple to operate. It was self-leveling in an atmosphere,
+and automatic flare computers were supposed to make it possible for an
+amateur to judge the rate of descent near the surface. It looked
+reassuring--and was probably written with that in mind.
+
+Finally he reached for the control, hoping he'd figured his landing
+orbit reasonably well by simple logic. He smoothed it out in the
+following hours as he watched the markings on Mars. When they were near
+turnover point, he began cranking the little gyroscope to swing the
+ship. It saved fuel to turn without power, and he wasn't sure he could
+have turned accurately by blasting.
+
+He was gaining some proficiency, however, he felt. But now he had to
+waste fuel and ruin his orbit again. There was no way to practice
+maneuvering without actually doing so.
+
+In the end, he compromised, leaving a small margin for a bad landing
+that would require a second attempt, but with less practice than he
+wanted.
+
+He had located Jake's village through the little telescope when he
+finally reached for the main blast control. The thin haze of Mars'
+atmosphere came rushing up, while the blast lashed out. Then they were
+in the outer fringes of the sky and the blast was beginning to show a
+corona that ruined visibility.
+
+He turned to the flare computer and back to what he could see through
+the quartz viewport. He was going to land about half a mile from the
+village, as nearly as he could judge.
+
+The computer seemed to work as it should. The speed was within
+acceptable limits. He gave up trying to see the ground and was forced to
+trust the machinery designed for amateur pilots. The flare bloomed, and
+he yanked down on the little lever.
+
+It could have been worse. They hit the ground, bounced twice, and turned
+over. The ship was a mess when Feldman freed himself from the elastic
+straps of the seat. Chris had shrieked as they hit, but she was
+unbuckling herself now.
+
+He threw her her spacesuit and one of the emergency bottles of oxygen
+from the rack. "Hurry up with that. We've sprung a leak and the
+pressure's dropping."
+
+They were halfway to the village when a dozen tractors came racing up
+and Jake piled out of the lead one to drag the two in with him.
+
+"Heard about it from the broadcasts and figured you might land around
+here. Good to see you, Doc." He started the tractor off at full speed,
+back to the wastelands, while Doc stared at the armed men who were
+riding the tractors.
+
+Jake caught his look and nodded. "You're in enemy territory, Doc.
+There's a war going on!"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+War
+
+
+Sometimes it seemed to Doc that war was nothing but an endurance race to
+see how many times they could run before they were bombed. He was just
+beginning to drop off to sleep after a long trip for the sixth
+consecutive day when the little alarm shrilled. He sighed and shook
+Chris awake.
+
+"Again?" she protested. But she got up and began helping him pack.
+
+Jake came in, his eyes weary, pulling on the old jacket with the big
+star on its sleeve. Doc hadn't been too surprised to learn that Jake was
+the actual leader of the rebels. "Shuttles spotted taking off this way.
+And I still can't find where the leak is. They haven't missed our
+location once this week. Here, give me that."
+
+He took the electron mike that had been among Doc's' possessions, but
+Chris recaptured it. "I can manage," she told him, and headed out for
+the tractor where Lou was waiting.
+
+Doc scowled after her. He and Jake had been watching her. She was too
+useful to Doc's research to be turned away, but they didn't trust her
+yet. So far, however, they had found nothing wrong with her conduct.
+Still....
+
+He swung suddenly into Jake's tractor. "Just remembered something. How'd
+they find me that time I stopped in the tractor to use the mike? I was
+pretty well hidden, and no tracks last in the sand long enough for them
+to have followed. But they were there when I came to. Somehow, they must
+have put a radio tracer on me."
+
+Jake waited while they lighted up, his eyes suddenly bright. "You mean
+something you got from her house was bugged? It figures."
+
+"And I've still got all the stuff. Now they find wherever we set up
+headquarters, though they've always managed to miss my laboratory, even
+when they've hit the troops around us. Jake, I think it's the
+microscope." Doc managed to push enough junk off one of the seats to
+make a cramped bed, and stretched out. "Sure, we figured they sent her
+because they want to keep tabs on what I discover. They've finally
+gotten scared of the plague, and she's the perfect Judas goat. But they
+have to have some way to get in touch with her. I'll bet there's a
+tracer in the mike and a switch so she can modulate it or key it to send
+out Morse."
+
+"Yeah," Jake nodded. "Well, she does her own dirty work. I might get to
+like her if she was on our side. Okay, Doc. If they've put things into
+the mike, I've got a boy who'll find and fix it so she won't guess it's
+been touched."
+
+Doc relaxed. For the moment, there would be no power in the instrument,
+nor any excuse for her to use it. But she must have handled some secret
+arrangement during the work periods. She used the mike more than he did.
+The switch could be camouflaged easily enough. If anyone detected the
+signal, they'd probably only think it was some leak in the electrical
+circuit.
+
+Far away, the shuttle rockets had appeared as tiny dots in the sky. They
+were standing on their tails a second later, just off the ground,
+letting the full force of their blasts bake the area where headquarters
+had been.
+
+Jake watched grimly, driving by something close to instinct. Then he
+looked back. "Know anything about a Dr. Harkness?"
+
+"Not much, except that he protested sealing off the villages. Why?"
+
+"He and five other doctors were picked up, trying to get through to us.
+Claimed they wanted to give us medical help. We can use them, God knows.
+I guess I'll have to chance it."
+
+They stopped at a halfway village and hid the tractors before looking
+for a place to rest. Doc found Chris curled up asleep against the
+microscope. He had a hard time getting her to leave it in the tractor,
+but she was too genuinely tired to put up any real argument.
+
+Jake reported in the morning before they set out again. "You were right,
+Doc. It was a nice job of work. Must have taken the best guys in
+Southport to hide the circuit so well. But it's safe now. It just makes
+a kind of meaningless static nobody can trace. Maybe we can get you a
+permanent lab now."
+
+Doc debated again having Chris left behind and decided against it. The
+Lobby was determined to let him find a cure for them if he could. That
+meant Chris would work herself to exhaustion trying to help. Let her
+think she was doing it for the Lobby! It was time she was on the
+receiving end of a double cross.
+
+"It's a stinking way to run a war," he decided.
+
+Jake chuckled without much humor. "It's the war you wanted, remember?
+They forced our hand, but it had to come sometime. Right now the Lobby's
+fighting to get their hands on your work before we can use it; they're
+just using holding tactics, which helps our side. And we're hoping you
+get the cure so we can win. With that, maybe we'll whip them."
+
+It was a crazy war, with each side killing more of its own men than of
+the enemy. The runners were increasing, and Jake's army was learning to
+shoot the poor devils mercifully and go on. They knew, at least, that
+there was no current danger of infection. In the Lobby towns, more were
+dying of panic in their efforts to escape the runners.
+
+Desert towns had joined the villages, reluctantly but inevitably, to
+give the rebels nearly three-quarters of the total population. But the
+Lobby forces and the few cities held most of the real fighting equipment
+and they were ready to wait until Earth could send out unmanned rockets,
+loaded with atomics, which could cut through space at ten times normal
+speed.
+
+There were vague lines of battle, but time was the vital factor. The
+Lobbies waited to steal a cure for the plague and the villages waited
+until they could announce it and demand surrender as its price.
+
+It looked as if both sides were doomed to disappointment, however. He
+and Chris had put in every spare minute between moving and the minimum
+of sleep in searching for something that would check the disease. It
+couldn't grow in an Earth-normal body, but it didn't die, either. And
+there wasn't enough normal food available to permit the switch-over for
+more than a handful of people. Even Earth was out of luck, since eighty
+percent of her population ate synthetics. There were ways to synthesize
+Earth-normal food, but they were still hopelessly inefficient.
+
+Jake had ordered one of the villages to rebuild their plant for such a
+purpose, while another was producing the enzyme that would permit
+switching. But it looked hopeless for more than a few of the most
+valuable men.
+
+"No progress?" Jake asked for the hundredth time.
+
+Doc grinned wryly. "A lot, but no help. We've found a fine accelerator
+for the bug. We can speed up its incubation or even make someone already
+infected catch it all over again. But we can't slow it down or stop it."
+
+The new laboratory was still being fitted when they arrived. It had been
+dug into one of the few real cliffs in this section of Mars. The power
+plant had been installed, complete with a steam plant that would operate
+off sunlight in the daytime through a series of heat valves that took in
+a lot of warm air and produced smaller amounts hot enough to boil water.
+
+"I'll see you whenever I can," Jake said. "But mostly, you're going to
+be somewhat isolated so they won't trace you. Let them think they goofed
+with the shuttles and hit you and Chris. Anything you need?"
+
+"Guinea pigs," Doc told him sarcastically. It was meant as a joke,
+though a highly bitter one. Jake nodded and left them.
+
+Doc opened the cots as Chris came in, not bothering to unpack the
+equipment. "Hit the sack, Chris," he told her.
+
+She looked at him doubtfully. "You almost said that the way you'd
+address a human being, Dan. You're slipping. One of these days you'll
+like me again."
+
+"Maybe." He was too tired to argue. "I doubt it, though. Forget it and
+get some sleep."
+
+She watched him silently until he got up to turn out the light. Then she
+sighed heavily. "Dan?"
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"I never got a divorce. The publicity would have been bad. But anyway,
+we're still married."
+
+"That's nice." He swung to face her briefly. "And they found the radio
+in the microscope. Better get to sleep, Chris."
+
+"Oh." It was a quiet exclamation, barely audible. There was a sound that
+might have been a sniffle if it had come from anyone else. Then she
+rolled over. "All right, Dan. I still want to help you."
+
+He cursed himself for a stupid fool for telling her. Fatigue was ruining
+what judgment he had. From now on, he'd have to watch her every minute.
+Or had she really seen the value of the research by now? She wasn't a
+fool. It should have registered on even her stubborn mind. But he was
+too sleepy to think about it.
+
+She had breakfast ready in the morning. She made no comment on what had
+been said during the night. Instead, she began discussing a way to keep
+one of the organic antibiotics from splitting into simpler compounds
+when they tried to switch it over to Mars-normal. They were both
+hopelessly bad chemists and biologists, but there was no one else to do
+the work.
+
+Chris worked harder than ever during the day.
+
+Just after sundown, Jake came in with a heavy box. He dropped it onto
+the floor. "Mice!"
+
+Doc ripped off the cover, exposing fine screening. There were at least
+six dozen mice inside!
+
+"Harkness found them," Jake explained. "A hormone extraction plant used
+them for testing some of the products. Had them sent by regular
+shipments from Earth. Getting them cost a couple of men, but Harkness
+claims it's worth it. He's a good man on a raid. Here!"
+
+He'd gone to the doorway again and came back with another box, this one
+crammed with bottles and boxes. "They had quite a laboratory, and
+Harkness picked out whatever he thought you could use."
+
+Chris and Doc were going through it. The labels were engineering ones,
+but the chemical formulae were identification enough. There were dozens
+of chemicals they hadn't hoped to get.
+
+"Anything else?" Doc finally asked as they began arranging the supplies.
+
+"More runners. A lot more. We're still holding things down, but it's
+reaching a limit. Panic will start in the camps if this keeps on. But
+that's my worry. You stick to yours."
+
+Several of the new chemicals showed promise in the tubes. But two of
+them proved fatal to the mice and the others were completely innocuous
+in the little animal's bodies, both to mouse and to germ. The plague was
+much hardier in contact with living cells than in the artificial
+environment of the culture jars.
+
+They lost seven mice in two days, but that seemed unimportant; the
+females were already living up to their reputations, nearly all
+pregnant. Doc didn't know the gestation period, but he remembered that
+it was short.
+
+"Funny they all started at the same time," he commented. "Must have been
+shipped out separately or else been kept apart while they were switched
+over to Mars-normal. Something interrupted their habits, anyhow."
+
+A few nights later they learned what it was. There was a horrible
+squealing that woke him out of the depths of his sleep. Chris was
+already at the light switch. As light came on, they turned to the mouse
+box.
+
+All the animals were charging about in their limited space, their little
+legs driving madly and their mouths open. What they lacked in size they
+made up in numbers, and the din was terrific.
+
+But it didn't last. One by one, the mice began dropping to the floor of
+the cage. In fifteen minutes, they were all dead!
+
+It was obviously the plague, contracted after having their metabolism
+switched. Women were sterile for some time after Selznik's migraine
+struck, and the same must have been true of the mice. They must have
+contracted the plague at about the same time and reached fertility
+together. Somehow, the plague incubation period had been shortened to
+fit their life span; the disease was nothing if not adaptive.
+
+Chris prepared a slide in dull silence. The familiar cell was there when
+Doc looked through the microscope. He picked up one of the little
+creatures and cut it open, removing one of the foetuses.
+
+"Make a film of that," he suggested.
+
+She worked rapidly, scraping out the almost microscopic brain,
+dissolving out the fatty substance, and transferring the result to a
+film. This time, even at full magnification, there was no sign of the
+filaments that were always present in diseased flesh. The results were
+the same for the other samples they made.
+
+"Something about the very young animal or a secretion from the mother's
+organs keeps the bug from working." Doc reached for a bracky weed and
+accepted a light from Chris without thinking of it. "Every kid I've
+heard about contracted the plague between the second and third year.
+None are born with it, none get it earlier. I've suspected this, but now
+here's confirmation."
+
+Chris began preparing specimens, while Doc got busy with tubes of the
+culture. They'd have to test various fluids from the tiny bodies, but
+there were enough cultures prepared. Then, if the substance only
+inhibited growth, there would be a long, slow test; if it killed the
+bugs, they might know more quickly.
+
+Jake came in before the final tests, but waited on them. Doc was
+studying a film in the microscope. He suddenly motioned excitedly for
+Chris.
+
+"See the filaments? They're completely disintegrated. And there's one of
+the big cells broken open. We've got it! It's in the blood of the
+foetus. And it must be in the blood of newborn children, too!"
+
+Jake looked at the slide, but his face was doubtful.
+
+"Maybe you've got something, Doc. I hope so. And I hope you can use it."
+He shook his head wearily. "We need good news right now. A couple of big
+rockets just reached the station and they've been sending shuttles back
+and forth a mile a minute. Nobody can figure how they got here so fast
+or what they're for. But it doesn't look good for us!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Susceptibility
+
+
+Doc could feel the tension in the village where GHQ was temporarily
+located long before they were close enough for details to register. The
+people were gathered in clusters, staring at the sky where the station
+must be. A few were pacing up and down, gesticulating with tight sweeps
+of their arms.
+
+One woman suddenly went into even more violent action. She leaped into
+the air and then took off at a rapid trot, then a run. Her hands were
+tearing at her clothes and her mouth seemed to be working violently. She
+was halfway to the top of the nearest dune before a rifle cracked. She
+dropped, to twitch once and lie still.
+
+Almost with her death, another figure leaped from one of the houses, his
+face bare of the necessary aspirator. He took off at a violent run, but
+he was falling from lack of air before the bullet ended his struggles.
+
+The people suddenly began to move apart, as if trying to get away from
+each other. For weeks they had faced the horror with courage; now it was
+finally too much for them.
+
+Tension mounted as no news came from the cities. Doc noticed that it
+seemed to aggravate or speed up the disease. He saw three men shot in
+the next half-hour.
+
+He was trying to calm them with word of a possible cure for the plague,
+but their reactions were as curiously dull as those of Jake had been. As
+he spoke, they faced him with set expressions. At his mention of the
+need for the blood of young children, they turned from him, sullenly
+silent.
+
+Jake came over, nodding unhappily. "It's what I was afraid might happen,
+Doc. George Lynn! Tell Doc what's wrong."
+
+Lynn was reluctant, but he finally stumbled out his explanation. "It
+ain't like you, Doc. Comes from that Lobby woman you got. It's her dirty
+idea. We've seen the Lobby doctors cutting open our kids, poisoning
+their blood, and bleeding them dry. That ain't gonna happen again, Doc.
+You tell her it ain't!"
+
+Doc swore as he realized their ignorance. An unexplained vaccination
+looked like poisoning of the blood. But he couldn't understand the
+bleeding part until Jake filled him in.
+
+"Northport infant's wing. Each department has its own blood bank and
+donation is compulsory. Southport started it a couple months ago, too."
+
+The long arm of the Lobby had reached out again. Now if he ever got them
+to try the treatment, it would be only after long sessions of preparing
+them with the facts, and there was hardly enough time for the crucial
+work!
+
+By afternoon, Judge Ben Wilson reached them. His voice shook with
+fatigue as he climbed up to address the crowd through a power megaphone.
+"Southport's going crazy." He had to pause for breath between each
+sentence. "Earth's pulling back all the important people. They're
+packing them into the ships. They're leaving only colonials with no
+Earth rights. Those ships left when they decided the plague was coming
+from here. They won't let anybody back until the plague is licked. There
+won't be an Earth technician on Mars tomorrow."
+
+"No bombs?" someone called.
+
+"No bombs. The ships must have started before you rebelled, maybe meant
+honestly to save their own kind. But now it's a military action, and
+don't think it won't mean trouble. The poor devils in the city bet on
+the wrong horse. Now they can't run their food factories or anything
+else for long. Not without technicians. They've got to whip you now. Up
+to this time, they've been fighting for the Lobbies. Now they'll fight
+you for their own bellies to get your supplies. And they've still got
+shuttle rockets and fuel for them. Now beat it. I gotta confer with
+Jake."
+
+Doc started after the judge, but Dr. Harkness caught his arm and drew
+him aside. Chris followed.
+
+"I've found another epidemic," Harkness told them. "Over at Marconi.
+It's kept me on the run all night, and now half the village is down with
+it. Starts like a common cold, runs a fair fever, and the skin breaks
+out all over with bright red dots...."
+
+He went on describing it. Chris began asking him about what medical
+supplies he had brought with him, pilfered from Northport hospital. She
+seemed to know what it was, but refused to say until she saw the cases.
+Doc also preferred to wait. Sometimes things weren't as bad as they
+seemed, though usually they were worse.
+
+Marconi was dead to all outward appearances, with nobody on the streets.
+It had been a village of great hopes a week before, since this was where
+they had decided to experiment with switching the people back to
+Earth-normal. They'd had the best chance of survival of anyone on Mars
+until this came up.
+
+Three people lay on the beds in the first house Harkness led them to.
+The room was darkened, and a man was stumbling around, trying to tend
+the others, though the little spots showed on his skin. He grinned
+weakly. "Hi, Doc. I guess we're making a lot of trouble, ain't we?"
+
+Chris gave Doc no chance to answer. "Just as I thought. Measles! Plain
+old-fashioned measles."
+
+"Figured so," the sick man said. "Like my brother back on Earth."
+
+The others looked doubtful, but Doc reassured them. Chris should know;
+she'd worked in a swanky hospital where the patients were mostly
+Earth-normal. Measles was one of the diseases which was foiled by the
+metabolism switch. Well, at least they wouldn't have to be quarantined
+here.
+
+Chris finished treating the family with impersonal efficiency,
+discussing the symptoms loudly with Harkness. "It's a good thing it
+isn't serious!"
+
+"No," Harkness answered bitterly. "Not serious. It's only killed five
+children and three adults so far!"
+
+"It would, here," Doc agreed unhappily. He led Chris out of the room on
+the pretext of washing his hands. "It's serious enough to force us to
+abandon the whole idea of going back to Earth-normal. Measles today,
+smallpox, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and everything else tomorrow.
+These people have lived Mars-normal so long their natural immunity has
+been destroyed. On Earth where the disease was everywhere, kids used to
+pick up some immunity with constant exposure, even without what might be
+called a case of the disease. Here, the blood has no reason to build
+antibodies. They can be killed by things people used to laugh at. How
+the disease got here, I don't know. But it's here. So we'll have to
+give up the idea of switching back to Earth-normal."
+
+He gathered up one of the kits and started toward the other houses. "And
+Lord knows how long it will take to get the blood for the other
+treatment, even if it works."
+
+They worked as a team for a while, with Harkness frowning as he watched
+Chris. Finally the young doctor stopped Chris outside the fifth house.
+"These are my patients, Dr. Ryan. I left the Lobby because I didn't
+believe colonials were mere livestock. I still feel the same. I
+appreciate your help in diagnosis and methods of treatment. But I can't
+let you handle my patients this way."
+
+"Dan!" She swung around with eyes glazing. "Dan, are you going to stand
+for that?"
+
+"I think you'd better wait in the tractor, Chris."
+
+He was lucky enough to catch the kit she threw at him before its
+precious contents spilled. But it wasn't luck that guided his hand to
+the back of her skirt hard enough to leave it stinging.
+
+Her face froze and she stormed out. A moment later they heard the
+tractor start off.
+
+But Doc had no time to think of her. He and Harkness split up and began
+covering the streets, house by house, while he passed on the word to
+abandon the metabolism switch and go back to Mars-normal.
+
+Jake sent two other doctors to relieve them late in the evening. Things
+were somewhat quieter at GHQ as Doc reported the events at Marconi.
+
+"Where's Dr. Ryan?" Jake asked at last.
+
+Doc exchanged glances with Harkness. "She isn't in the lab?"
+
+"Wasn't there an hour ago."
+
+Doc cursed himself for letting her go. With the knowledge that the radio
+in the mike was disabled, she'd obviously grabbed the first chance to
+report back. And with her had gone news of the only cure they had found.
+
+Jake took it as philosophically as he could, though it was a heavy blow
+to his hopes. They spent half the night looking for her tractor, on the
+chance that she might have gotten lost or broken down, but there was no
+sign of it.
+
+She was waiting in the laboratory when he returned at dawn. Her face was
+dirty and her uniform was a mess. But she was smiling. She got up to
+greet him, holding out two large bottles.
+
+"Infant plasma--straight from Southport. And if you think I had it easy
+lying my way in and out of the hospital, you're a fool, Dan Feldman. If
+the man who took my place there hadn't been a native idiot, I never
+would have gotten away with it."
+
+The things he had suspected could still be right, he realized. She could
+have reported everything to the Lobby. It was a better explanation than
+her vague account of bullying her way in and out. But she'd had a rough
+drive, and he wanted the plasma. Curiously, he was glad to have her back
+with him. He reached out a hand for the bottles.
+
+She put the bottle on the table and grabbed up a short-bladed knife.
+"Not so fast," she cried. Her eyes were blazing now. "Dan Feldman, if
+you touch those bottles until you've crawled across the floor on your
+face and apologized for the way you treated me the last few days, I'll
+cut your damned heart out."
+
+He shook his head, chuckling at the picture she made. There were times
+when he could almost see why he'd married her.
+
+"All right, Chris," he gave in. "I'll be darned if I'll crawl, but
+you've earned an apology. Okay?"
+
+She sighed uncertainly. Then she nodded and began changing for work.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+Immunity
+
+
+They worked through the day in what seemed to be armed truce. There was
+no coffee waiting for him when he awoke next, as he'd come to expect,
+but he didn't comment. He went to where she was already working,
+checking on the results of the plasma on the cultures.
+
+The response had been slower than with the mouse blood, but now the bugs
+seemed to be dead. The filaments were destroyed, and there were no signs
+of the big cells. It seemed to be a cure, at least in the culture
+bottles.
+
+"We'll need volunteers," he decided. "There should be animals, but we
+don't have any. At least this stuff isn't toxic. We need a natural
+immune and someone infected. Two of each, so one can be treated and the
+other used for a control. Makes four. Not enough to be sure, but it will
+have to do."
+
+"Two," Chris corrected. "You're not infected, I am."
+
+"Two others," he agreed. "I'll get them from Jake."
+
+Most of GHQ was out on the street, but Doc found Jake inside the big
+schoolroom where he enjoyed his early morning bracky and coffee. The
+chief listened and agreed at once, turning to the others in the room.
+
+"Who's had the jumping headache? Okay, Swanee. Who never had it?" He
+blinked in surprise as three men nodded out of the eight present. "I
+guess you go, Tom."
+
+The two men stood up, tamping out their weeds, and went out with Doc.
+
+Chris had everything set up. They matched coins to decide who would be
+treated. Doc noticed that Chris would get no plasma, while he was
+scheduled for everything. He watched her prepare the culture and add the
+accelerator that would speed development and make certain he and Tom
+were infected, then let her inject it.
+
+That was all, except for the waiting. To keep conditions more closely
+alike, they were to stay there until the tests were finished, not even
+eating for fear of upsetting the conditions. Swanee dug out a pack of
+worn cards and began to deal while Doc dug out some large pills to use
+as chips.
+
+It was an hour later when the pain began. Doc had just won the pot of
+fifty pills and opened his mouth for the expected gloating. He yelled as
+an explosion seemed to go off inside his head. Even closing his mouth
+was agony.
+
+A moment later, Tom began to sweat. It got worse, spreading to the whole
+area of the back of the head and neck. Doc lay on the cot, envying Chris
+and Swanee who had already been infected naturally. He longed
+desperately for bracky, and had to keep reminding himself that no drugs
+must upset the tests. It was the longest day he had ever spent, and he
+began to doubt that he could get through it. He watched the little clock
+move from one minute to nine over to half a minute and hung breathless
+until it hit the nine. There was no question about whether the infection
+had taken. Now they could dull the agony.
+
+Chris had the anodyne tablets already dissolved in water, and Swanee was
+passing out three lighted bracky weeds. It took a few minutes for the
+relief of the anodyne, and even that couldn't kill all the pain. But it
+didn't matter by comparison. He sucked the weed, mashed it out and began
+dealing the cards again.
+
+They had a plentiful supply of the anodyne and used it liberally during
+the night. The test was a speeded-up simulation of the natural course of
+the disease, where painkiller would take time to get for most people
+here, but would then be used generously.
+
+Precisely at nine in the morning, Chris began to inject Swanee and Doc
+with plasma.
+
+Now there was no thought of cards. They waited, trying to talk, but with
+most of their attention on the clock. Doc had estimated that an hour
+should be enough to show results, but it was hard to remember that an
+hour was the guess as to the minimum time.
+
+He winced as Chris took a tiny bit of flesh from his neck. She went to
+the other men, and then submitted to his work on herself. Then she began
+preparing the slides.
+
+"Feldman," she read the name of the slide as she inserted it into the
+microscope. Then her breath caught sharply. "Only dead cells!"
+
+It was the same for Swanee and Tom. Each had to look at his own slide
+and have it explained before the results could be believed. But at last
+Chris bent over her own slide. A minute later she glanced up, nodding.
+"What it should be. It checks."
+
+Tom whooped and went out the door to notify Jake. There was only plasma
+for some two hundred injections, but that should yield sufficient proof.
+Once salvation was offered, there should be no trouble convincing the
+people that blood donations from their children were worthwhile.
+
+Later, when the last of the plasma had been used, they could finally
+relax. Chris slipped off her smock and dropped onto the cot. A tired
+smile came onto her lips. "You're forgiven, Dan," she said. A moment
+later she was obviously asleep. Doc meant to join her, but it was too
+much effort. He leaned his head forward onto his arms, vaguely wondering
+why she was calling off the feud.
+
+It was night outside when he awoke, and he was lying on the cot, though
+he still felt cramped and strained. He stirred, groaning, and finally
+realized that a hand was on his shoulder shaking him. He looked up to
+see Jake above him. Chris was busy with the coffee maker.
+
+Jake slumped onto the cot beside Doc. "We took Southport," he announced.
+
+That knocked the sleep out of Doc's system. "You what?"
+
+"We took it, lock, stock and barrel. I figured the news of your cure
+would put guts into the men, and it did. But we'd probably have taken it
+anyhow. There wasn't anything to fight for there after Earth pulled out
+and the plague really hit. Wilson mistook last-minute panic for fighting
+spirit. The poor devils didn't have anything to fight about, once the
+Lobby stopped goading them."
+
+Doc tried to assimilate the news. But once the surprise was gone, he
+found it meant very little. Maybe his revolutionary zeal had cooled,
+once the Lobby men had pulled out. "We'll need a lot more plasma than
+there is in Southport," he said.
+
+"Not so much, maybe," Jake denied. "Doc, three of the men you injected
+were shot down as runners. Your plasma's no good."
+
+"It takes time to work, Jake. I told you there might be a case or two
+that would be too close to the edge. Three is more than I expected; but
+it's not impossible."
+
+"There was plenty of time. They blew after we got back from Southport."
+Jack dropped his hand on Doc's shoulder, and his face softened.
+"Harkness tested every man you injected. He finished half an hour ago.
+Five showed dead bugs. The rest of them weren't helped at all."
+
+Doc fumbled for a weed, trying to think. But his thoughts refused to
+focus. "Five!"
+
+"Five out of two hundred. That's about average. And what about Tom? He
+was jumping around after the test last night, telling how you'd cured
+him, how he'd seen the dead bugs; but he never had the jumping headache,
+and you never gave him the plasma! He's got dead bugs, though. Harkness
+tested him."
+
+Doc let his realization of his own idiocy sink in until he could believe
+it. Jake was right. Tom had never been treated, yet Chris had reported
+dead bugs. They'd all been so ready to believe in miracles that no one
+had been able to think straight after the long wait.
+
+"There was a bump on his neck--a small one," he said slowly. "Jake, he
+must have caught it, even if he seemed immune. If he was taking anodyne
+anyway for something--or unconscious--"
+
+"He was up in Northport six years ago for a kidney operation," Jake
+admitted doubtfully. "We had to chip in to pay for it. But you still
+didn't treat him, and he's cured. Face it, Doc, that plasma is no good
+inside the body."
+
+His hand tightened on Doc's shoulder again. "We're not blaming you. We
+don't judge a man here except by what he is. Maybe the stuff helps a
+little. We'll go on using it when we get it; tell everybody you were a
+mite optimistic, so they'll figure it's a gamble, but have a little hope
+left. And you keep trying. Something cured it in Tom. Now you find out
+what."
+
+Doc watched him go out numbly, and turned to Chris.
+
+"It can't be right," she said shakily. "You and Swanee were cured. Maybe
+it was the accelerator. It had to be something."
+
+"You didn't have the accelerator," he accused.
+
+"No, and I've still got live bugs. I was never supposed to be cured, so
+I expected to see just what I saw. How I missed the fact that Tom should
+have been like me, I don't know. Damn it, oh, damn it!"
+
+He's never seen her cry before, except in fury. But she mastered it
+almost at once, shaking tears out of her eyes. "All right. Plasma works
+in a bottle but not in an adult body. Maybe something works in the body
+but not in a bottle."
+
+"Maybe. And maybe some people are just naturally immune after it reaches
+a certain stage. Maybe we ran into coincidence."
+
+But he didn't believe that, any more than she did. The answer had to be
+in the room. He'd taken a massive dose of the disease and been cured in
+a few hours.
+
+Outside the room, the war went on, drawing toward a close. The supposed
+partial cure was good propaganda, if nothing else, and Jake was widening
+his territory steadily. There was only token resistance against him. He
+had the Southport shuttles now to cover huge areas in a hurry. But
+inside the room, the battle was less successful. It wasn't the
+accelerator. It wasn't the tablets of anodyne. They even tried sweeping
+the floor and using the dust without results.
+
+Then another test in the room, made with four volunteers Jake selected,
+yielded complete cures after injections with plain salt water in place
+of plasma.
+
+The plague speeded up again. About four people out of a hundred now
+seemed to have caught the disease and cured themselves. They accounted
+for what faith was left in Doc's plasma and gave some unfounded hope to
+the others.
+
+Northport fell a week later, putting the whole planet in rebel hands.
+
+Jake returned, wearier than ever. He'd proved to be one of the natural
+immunes, but the weight of the campaign that could only end in a defeat
+by the plague left him no room to rejoice in his personal fortune.
+
+This time he looked completely defeated. And a moment later, Doc saw why
+as Jake flipped a flimsy sheet onto the table. It bore the seals of
+Space and Medical Lobbies.
+
+Jake pointed upwards. "The war rockets are there, all right. We knew
+they'd come. Now all they want for calling them off is our surrender and
+your cure. If they don't get both, they'll blow the planet to bits. We
+have two days."
+
+The rockets could be seen clearly with binoculars. There were more than
+enough to destroy all life on the planet. Maybe they'd be used
+eventually, anyhow, since the Lobbies wanted no more rebellion. But with
+a cure for the plague, he might have bought them off.
+
+Chris stood beside him, looking as if it were a bitter pill for her,
+too. She'd risked herself in the hands of the enemy, had cooperated with
+him in everything she'd been taught to oppose, and had worked like a
+dog. Now the Lobbies seemed to forget her as a useless tool. They were
+falling back on a raw power play and forgetting any earlier schemes.
+
+"Maybe they'd hold off for a while if I agreed to go to them and share
+all my ideas, specimens and notes," he said at last. "Do you think your
+Lobby would settle for that, Chris?"
+
+"I don't know, Dan. I've stopped thinking their way." She seemed almost
+apologetic for the admission.
+
+He dropped an arm over her shoulder and turned with her back to the
+laboratory. "Okay, then we've got to find a miracle. We've got two days
+ahead of us. At least we can try."
+
+But he knew he was lying to himself. There wasn't anything he could
+think of to try.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Decision
+
+
+Two days was never enough time for a miracle. Doc decided as he packed
+his notes into a small bag and put it beside his bundle of personal
+belongings. He glanced around the room for the last time, and managed a
+grin at Jake's gloomy expression.
+
+"Maybe I can bluff them, or maybe they'll string along for a while," he
+said. "Anyhow, now that they've agreed to take me and my notes in place
+of the cure we're fresh out of, I've got to be on that shuttle when it
+goes back to their men at orbital station."
+
+Jake nodded. "I don't like selling friends down the river, Doc. But it
+wouldn't do you any more good to blow up with the planet, I reckon. They
+won't call off the war rockets when they do get you, of course. But
+maybe they won't use them, except as a threat to put the Lobbies back
+in, stronger than ever."
+
+He stuck out one of his awkwardly shaped hands, clapped the aspirator
+over his face and hurried out. Doc picked up his bags and went toward
+the little tractor where Lou was waiting to drive him and Chris back
+toward Southport and the shuttle rocket that would be landing for them.
+They hadn't mentioned Chris in their demands, but her father must expect
+her to return.
+
+After they had him, he'd be on his own. His best course was probably to
+insist on talking only to Ryan at Medical Lobby, and then being
+completely honest. The room here would be kept sealed, in case the
+Lobby wanted to investigate where he had failed. And his notes were
+honest, which was something that could usually be determined. Chris
+could testify to that, anyhow, since she'd kept a lot of them for him.
+
+At best, there would be a chance for some compromise and perhaps some
+clue for them that might eventually end the plague. They had enough men
+to work on it, and billions in equipment. At worst, he should gain a
+little time.
+
+"Cheer up, Chris," he told her as he climbed through the little airlock.
+"Maybe Harkness will turn up the cure before our negotiations break
+down. He has the whole of Northport Hospital to play with. They haven't
+tried to chase him out of there yet. After all, we almost found
+something with no equipment except wild imaginations."
+
+She shook her head as the tractor began moving. "Shut up! I've got
+enough trouble without your coming down with logorrhea. Don't be a
+fool."
+
+"Why change now?" he asked her. "Everything I've done has been because I
+am a fool. I guess my luck lasted longer than I could expect. And I'm
+still fool enough to think that the solution has to turn up eventually.
+We know it has to be in that room. Damn it, we must know it--if we could
+only think straight now."
+
+She reached over and touched his hand, but made no comment. They had
+been over that statement of desperation too many times already. But it
+kept nagging at him--something in the room, something in the room!
+Something so common that nobody noticed it!
+
+They passed a crowd chasing down a runner. Something in that room could
+have saved the unlucky man. It could have saved Mars, perhaps.
+
+He growled for the hundredth time, cursing his fatigue-numbed mind. Too
+little sleep, too much coffee and bracky....
+
+He reached for the package of weed, realizing that he would miss it on
+Earth, if he ever got there. Like everything here on the planet, he'd
+begun by detesting it and wound up finding it the thing he wanted to
+keep forever. He lighted the bracky and sat smoking, watching Lou drive.
+When the first was finished, he lighted another from the butt.
+
+She put out a hand and took it away. "Please, Dan. I can stand the
+stuff, but I'll never like it, and the tractor's stuffy enough already.
+I've taken enough of it. And it keeps reminding me of our test--the
+three of you stinking up the place, puffing and blowing that out, while
+I couldn't even get a breath of air...."
+
+She was getting logorrhea herself now and--
+
+The answer finally hit him! He jerked around, making a grab for Lou's
+shoulder, motioning for the man to head back.
+
+"Bracky--it has to be! Chris, that's it. Jake picked out the second
+group of men from his friends--and they are all cronies because they
+hang around so much in their so-called smoking room. The first time, it
+killed the bugs for all of us who smoked--and it didn't work for you
+because you never learned the habit."
+
+Lou had the tractor turned and the rheostat all the way to the floor.
+
+She was sitting up now, but she wasn't fully satisfied. "The percentage
+of immunes seems about right. But why do some of the smokers get the
+disease while some don't?"
+
+"Why not? It depends on whether they pick up the habit before or after
+the disease gets started. Tom must have got his while he was in
+Northport. They wouldn't let him smoke there--if he had the habit
+before, for that matter."
+
+She found no fault with that. He twisted it back and forth in his mind,
+trying to find a fault. There seemed to be none. The only trouble was
+that they couldn't send a message that bracky was the cure and hope that
+Earth would prove it true. No polite note of apology would do after
+that. They had to be sure. Too many other ideas had proved wrong
+already.
+
+Jake saw them coming and came running toward the laboratory, but Lou
+stopped the tractor before it reached the building and let the older man
+in.
+
+"Get me a dozen men who have the plague. I want the worst cases you
+have, and ones that Harkness tested himself," Doc ordered. "And then
+start praying that the cure we've got works fast."
+
+Chris was at the electron mike at once, but one of her hands reached out
+for the weed. She began puffing valiantly, making sick faces. Now other
+men began coming in, their faces struggling to find hope, but not daring
+to believe yet. Jake followed them.
+
+"We'll test at ten-minute intervals. That will be about two hours for
+the last from the group," Doc decided. One of the doctors Harkness had
+brought to the villages was busy cutting tiny sections from the lumps on
+the men's necks, while Chris ran them through the microscope to make
+sure the bugs were still alive. The regular optical mike was strong
+enough for that.
+
+Doc handed each man a bracky weed, with instructions to keep smoking, no
+matter how sick it made him.
+
+There were no results at the end of ten minutes when the first test was
+made. The second, at the end of twenty minutes, was still infected with
+live bugs. At the half-hour, Chris frowned.
+
+"I can't be sure--take a look, Dan."
+
+He bent over, moving the slide to examine another spot. "I think so. The
+next one should tell."
+
+There was no doubt about the fourth test. The bugs were dead, without a
+single exception that they could find.
+
+One by one, the men were tested and went storming out, shouting the
+news. For a minute, the gathering crowd was skeptical, remembering the
+other failures. Then, abruptly, men were screaming, crying and fighting
+for the precious bracky, like the legions of the damned grabbing for
+lottery tickets when the prize was a passport to paradise.
+
+Jake swore as he moved toward the door. "We're low on bracky here. Have
+to get a supply from Edison, I guess, and cart it to the shuttle. Enough
+for a sample, and to make them want more. It'll be tough, but we'll get
+it there in time--by the time the shuttle should be picking you up. Doc,
+you've won our war! From now on, if Earth wants to keep her population
+up, we'll be a free planet!"
+
+Chris turned slowly from the microscope, holding a slide in her hands.
+"My bugs," she said unbelievingly. "Dan, they're dead!"
+
+Jake patted her shoulder. "That makes it perfect, girl. Now come on.
+We've got to start celebrating a victory!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the general feeling of most of the heads of the villages when
+they met the next day in Southport, using the courtroom that had been
+presided over so long by Judge Ben Wilson. It was victory, and to the
+victor belonged the spoils. The bracky had gone out to Earth on a
+converted war rocket that could make the trip in less than two weeks,
+and one packet had been specially labeled for Captain Everts. But Earth
+had already confirmed the cure. The small amounts of the herb found in
+the botanical collections had been enough to satisfy all doubts.
+
+Harkness, Chris and Doc had been fighting against the desire to rob
+Earth blind that filled most of the men here for hours now. Now they had
+the backing of Jake and Ben Wilson. And now finally they leaned back,
+sensing that the argument had been won.
+
+Bargaining was all right in its place, but it had no place in affairs of
+life and death such as this. They had to see that Earth received all the
+bracky she needed. It was only right to charge a fair price for it, but
+they couldn't restrict it by withholding or overcharging. And they could
+still gain their ends without blackmail.
+
+Martian alkaloids were tricky things, and bracky smoke contained a
+number of them. It would take Earth at least ten years to discover and
+synthesize the right one--and it would still probably cost more than it
+would to import the weed from Mars. As long as the source of that weed
+was here, and in the hands of the colonials, there would be no danger of
+Earth's bombing the planet.
+
+Harkness got up to underscore a point Wilson had made. "The plague lived
+a million years, and it won't disappear now. The jumping headache, or
+Selznick's migraine, is unpleasant enough to make us reasonably sure
+that there will be a steady consumption of the weed. Our problem will be
+to keep the children from using too much of it, probably." He pulled a
+weed out and lighted it, puckering his face as the smoke bit his
+tongue. "I'm told that this gets to be an enjoyable habit. If I can
+believe that, surely you can believe me when I say we don't have to
+bargain with lives."
+
+The village men were human, and most of them could remember the strain
+they had been under when they expected those they loved to die at any
+hour. It had made them crave vengeance, but now as they had a chance to
+reexamine it, they began to find it harder to impose the horror of any
+such threat on others. The final vote was almost unanimous.
+
+Doc listened as they wrangled over the wording of the message to Earth,
+feeling disconnected from it. He passed Chris a bracky and lighted it
+for her. She took it automatically, smiling as the smoke hit her lungs.
+It was one thing they had in common now, at least.
+
+Ben Wilson finally read the message.
+
+"To the people of Earth, greetings!
+
+"On behalf of the free people of Mars, I have the honor to announce that
+this planet hereby declares itself a sovereign and independent world. We
+shall continue to regard Earth as our mother, and to consider the health
+and welfare of her people in no way second to our own in matters which
+affect both planets. We trust that Earth will share this feeling of
+mutual friendship. We trust that all strains of hostility will be ended.
+The advantages to each from peaceful commerce make any course other than
+the most cordial of relations unthinkable.
+
+"We shall consider proof of such friendship an order by Earth to all
+rockets circling this planet that they shall deliver themselves safely
+into our hands, in order that we may begin converting them to peaceful
+purposes for the trade that is to come. In turn, we pledge that all
+efforts will be made to ensure a prompt delivery of those products most
+in demand, including the curative bracky plant."
+
+He turned to Doc then. "You want to sign it, Dr. Feldman? Make it as
+acting president or something, until we can get around to voting you
+into permanent office."
+
+"You and Jake fight over the job," Doc told him. "No, Ben, I mean it."
+
+He got up and moved out into the outer room, where he could avoid the
+stares of amazement that were turned to him. He'd never asked for the
+honor, and he didn't want it.
+
+Chris came with him. Her face was shocked and something was slowly
+draining out of it as he looked at her.
+
+"Forget it, Chris," he said. "You're going back to Earth. There is
+nothing for you here."
+
+She hadn't quite given up. "There could be, Dan. You know that."
+
+"No. No, Chris, I don't think there ever can be. You can't find a man
+strong enough to rule who'll be weak enough to let you rule in his
+place. It didn't work on Earth, and it won't work here. Forget the
+dreams you had of what could be done with a new planet. Those are the
+dreams that made a mess of the old one."
+
+"I'll be back," she told him. "Some day I'll be back."
+
+He shook his head again. "No. You wouldn't like what you find here.
+Freedom is heady stuff, but you have to have a taste for it. You can't
+acquire a fondness for it secondhand. And for a while, there's going to
+be freedom here. Besides, once you get back to Earth, you'll forget what
+happened here."
+
+She sighed at last. For the first time since he had known her, she
+seemed to give in completely. And for that brief moment, he loved what
+she could have been, but never would be.
+
+"All right, Dan," she said quietly. "I can't fight you. I never could, I
+see now. I'll take the rocket back. What are you going to do?"
+
+He hadn't bothered to think, but he knew the answer. "Research. What
+else?"
+
+There would be a lot of research done here. It had been suppressed too
+long, and had piled up a back-pressure that would have to be relieved.
+And from that research, he suspected, would come the end of the stable
+oligarchy of Earth. It could never stand against the changes that would
+be pouring out of Mars.
+
+She put her hands on his shoulders and moved forward to kiss him. He
+bent down to meet her, and found her eyes were wet. Maybe his were, too.
+Then she broke free.
+
+"You're a fool, Dan Feldman," she whispered, and began moving down the
+hallway and out of the council hall of Mars.
+
+Doc Feldman nodded slowly as he let her go. He was a fool. He had always
+been a fool, and always would be. And that was why he could never take
+over leadership here. Fools and idealists should never govern a world.
+It took practical men such as Jake to do that.
+
+But the practical men needed the foolish idealists, too. And maybe for a
+time here on Mars their kind of men and his kind of fools could make one
+more stab at the ancient puzzle of freedom.
+
+Outside the war rockets of Earth began landing quietly on the free soil
+of Mars.
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The following errors in the original have been
+corrected in this version:
+
+Page 5: 'and there was' to 'and there were'
+
+Page 9: 'ideopathic gastroentiritis' to 'idiopathic gastroenteritis'
+
+Page 29: 'The cheapness of snythetics' to 'The cheapness of synthetics'
+
+Page 42: 'huband's' to 'husband's'
+
+Page 43: 'Southpost' to 'Southport'
+
+Page 47: 'laywer' to 'lawyer'
+
+Page 50: 'in a can' to 'to a can'
+
+Page 118: 'Selnick's' to 'Selznick's'
+
+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ANDRE NORTON
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+
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+NOVELS BY
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