The leader of the truculent group—­it might have been a firing squad—­made an imperious gesture with his hand.  It was blue, except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination seemed whiter than white.

“Out!” said that man savagely.  “We’re taking over your stock of food.  You’ll get your share of it, like everybody else, but—­”

Maril spoke over Calhoun’s shoulder.  She uttered a cryptic sentence or two.  It should have amounted to identification but there was skepticism in the armed party.

“Oh, you’re one of us, eh?” said the guard leader sardonically.  “You’ll have a chance to prove that.  Come out of there!”

Calhoun spoke abruptly, “This is a Med Ship,” he said.  “There are medicines and bacterial culture inside it.  They shouldn’t be meddled with.  Here on Dara you’ve had enough of plagues!”

The man with the blue hand said as sardonically as before, “I said the government was taking over your ship!  It won’t be looted.  But you’re not taking a full cargo of food away!  In fact, it’s not likely you’re leaving!”

“And I want to speak to someone in authority,” snapped Calhoun.  “We’ve just come from Weald.”  He felt bristling hatred all about him as he named Weald.  “There’s tumult there.  They’re talking about dropping fusion-bombs here.  It’s important that I talk to somebody with the authority to take a few sensible precautions!”

He descended to the ground.  There was a panicky “Chee!  Chee!” from behind him, and Murgatroyd came dashing to swarm up his body and cling apprehensively to his neck.

“What’s that?”

“A tormal” said Calhoun.  “He’s not a pet.  Your medical men will know something about him.  This is a Med Ship and I’m a Med Ship man, and he’s an important member of the crew.  He’s a Med Ship tormal and he stays with me!”

The man with the blue hand said harshly, “There’s somebody waiting to ask you questions.  Here!”

A groundcar came rolling out from the side of the landing-grid enclosure.  The groundcar ran on wheels, and wheels were not much used on modern worlds.  Dara was behind the times in more ways than one.

“This car will take you to Defense and you can tell them anything you want.  But don’t try to sneak back in this ship!  It’ll be guarded!”

The groundcar was enclosed, with room for a driver and the three from the Med Ship.  But armed men festooned themselves about its exterior and it went bumping and rolling to the massive ground-layer girders of the grid.  It rolled out under them and onto a paved highway.  It picked up speed.

There were buildings on either side of the road, but few showed lights.  This was night, and the men at the landing-grid had set a pattern of hunger, so that the silence and the dark buildings did not seem a sign of tranquility and sleep, but of exhaustion and despair.

The highway lamps were few, by comparison with other inhabited worlds, and the groundcar needed lights of its own to guide its driver over a paved surface that needed repair.  By those moving lights other depressing things could be seen:  untidiness, buildings not kept up to perfection, evidences of apathy, the road, which hadn’t been cleaned lately, litter here and there.