"I've got things lined up," he told Maril wrily, "if only they work out. If I can make somebody on Dara listen and follow my advice and if Weald doesn't get ideas and isn't doing what I suspect it is, maybe something can be done."
"I'm sure you'll do your best," said Maril politely.
Calhoun managed to grin. He watched the ship-clock. There was no sensation attached to overdrive travel except at the beginning and the end. It was now time for the end. He might find that absolutely anything had happened while he made plans which would immediately be seen to be hopeless. Weald could have sent ships to Dara, or Dara might be in such a state of desperation that ...
As it turned out, Dara was desperate. The Med Ship came out nearly a light-month from the sun about which the planet Dara revolved. Calhoun went into a short hop toward it. Then Dara was on the other side of the blazing yellow star. It took time to reach it. He called down, identifying himself and the ship and asking for coördinates so his ship could be brought to ground. There was confusion, as if the request were so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the planet's night side. Presently the ship was locked onto by the grid's force-fields. It went downward without incident.
Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each other, until the ship actually touched ground.
Then he opened the exit-port, and faced armed men in the darkness, with blast-rifles trained on him. There was a portable cannon trained on the Med Ship itself.
"Come out!" rasped a voice. "If you try anything you get blasted! Your ship and its contents are seized by the planetary government!"
CHAPTER 5
It seemed that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men were cadaverous. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon the ground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung loosely upon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks were hollow. They were emaciated. And there were the splotches of pigment of which Calhoun had heard. The leader of the truculent group was blue, except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination seemed whiter than white.