“This,” he told Murgatroyd, “may be a good day’s work.  Now I think I can rest.”

Then, for a long while, there was no sound or movement in the Med Ship.  The girl may have slept, or maybe not.  Calhoun lay relaxed in a chair which at the touch of a button became the most comfortable of sleeping places.  Murgatroyd remained in his cubbyhole, his tail curled over his nose.

There were comforting, unheard, easily dismissable murmurings now and again.  They kept the feeling of life alive in the ship.  But for such infinitesimal stirrings of sound, carefully recorded for this exact purpose, the feel of the ship would have been that of a tomb.

But it was quite otherwise when another ship-day began with the taped sounds of morning activities as faint as echoes but nevertheless establishing an atmosphere of their own.

Calhoun examined the plastic block and its contents.  He read the instruments which had cared for it while he slept.  He put the block—­no longer frosted—­in the culture microscope and saw its enclosed, infinitesimal particles of life in the process of multiplying on the food that had been frozen with them when they were reduced to the spore condition.  He beamed.  He replaced the block in the incubation oven and faced the day cheerfully.

Maril greeted him with great reserve.  They breakfasted, with Murgatroyd eating from his own platter on the floor, a tiny cup of coffee alongside.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Maril evenly.  “I think I can get you a hearing for whatever ideas you may have to help Dara.”

“Kind of you,” murmured Calhoun.

In theory, a Med Service man had all the authority needed for this or any other emergency.  The power to declare a planet in quarantine, so cutting it off from all interstellar commerce, should be enough to force cooperation from any world’s government.  But in practice Calhoun had exactly as much power as he could exercise.

And Weald could not think straight where blueskins were concerned, and certainly the authorities on Dara could not be expected to be levelheaded.  They had a history of isolation and outlawry, and long experience of being regarded as less than human.  In cold fact, Calhoun had no power at all.

“May I ask whose influence you’ll exert?” asked Calhoun.

“There’s a man,” said Maril reservedly, “who thinks a great deal of me.  I don’t know his present official position, but he was certain to become prominent.  I’ll tell him how you’ve acted up to now, and your attitude, and of course that you’re Med Service.  He’ll be glad to help you, I’m sure.”

“Splendid!” said Calhoun, nodding.  “That will be Korvan.”

She started.  “How did you know?”

“Intuition,” said Calhoun dryly.  “All right.  I’ll count on him.”

But he did not.  He worked in the tiny biological lab all that ship-day and all the next.  The girl was very quiet.  Murgatroyd tried to enter into pretended conversation with her, but she was not able to match his pretense.