This World Is Taboo | Page 8

the ship from sounding like a grave.
The reel played and the speakers gave off minute creakings, and
meaningless hums, and very tiny noises of every imaginable sort, all of
which were just above the threshold of the inaudible.
Calhoun fretted. Sector Twelve was in very bad shape. A conscientious
Med Service man would never have let the anti-blueskin obsession go
unmentioned in a report on Weald. Health is not only a physical affair.
There is mental health, also. When mental health goes a civilization can
be destroyed more surely and more terribly than by any imaginable war
or plague germs. A plague kills off those who are susceptible to it,
leaving immunes to build up a world again. But immunes are the first
to be killed when a mass neurosis sweeps a population.
Weald was definitely a Med Service problem world. Dara was another.
And when hundreds of men jammed themselves into a cargo spaceship
which could not furnish them with air to breathe, and took off and went
into overdrive before the air could fail.... Orede called for no less of
worry.
"I think," said Calhoun dourly, "that I'll have some coffee."
Coffee was one of the words that Murgatroyd recognized. Ordinarily he
stirred immediately on hearing it, and watched the coffeemaker with
bright, interested eyes. He'd even tried to imitate Calhoun's motions
with it, once, and had scorched his paws in the attempt. But this time he
did not move.

Calhoun turned his head. Murgatroyd sat on the floor, his long tail
coiled reflectively about a chair leg. He watched the door of the Med
Ship's sleeping cabin.
"Murgatroyd," said Calhoun. "I mentioned coffee!"
"Chee!" shrilled Murgatroyd.
But he continued to look at the door. The temperature was kept lower
in the other cabin, and the look of things was different than the control
compartment. The difference was part of the means by which a man
was able to be alone for weeks on end--alone save for his
tormal--without becoming ship-happy.
There were other carefully thought out items in the ship with the same
purpose. But none of them should cause Murgatroyd to stare fixedly
and fascinatedly at the sleeping cabin door. Not when coffee was in the
making!
Calhoun considered. He became angry at the immediate suspicion that
occurred to him. As a Med Service man, he was duty-bound to be
impartial. To be impartial might mean not to side absolutely with
Weald in its enmity to blueskins.
And the people of Weald had refused to help Dara in a time of famine,
and had blockaded that pariah world for years afterward. And they had
other reasons for hating the people they'd treated badly. It was entirely
reasonable for some fanatic on Weald to consider that Calhoun must be
killed lest he be of help to the blueskins Weald abhorred.
In fact, it was quite possible that somebody had stowed away on the
Med Ship to murder Calhoun, so that there would be no danger of any
report favorable to Dara ever being presented anywhere. If so, such a
stowaway would be in the sleeping cabin now, waiting for Calhoun to
walk in unsuspiciously, only to be shot dead.
So Calhoun made coffee. He slipped a blaster into a pocket where it
would be handy. He filled a small cup for Murgatroyd and a large one

for himself, and then a second large one.
He tapped on the sleeping cabin door, standing aside lest a blaster-bolt
come through it.
"Coffee's ready," he said sardonically. "Come out and join us."
There was a long pause. Calhoun rapped again.
"You've a seat at the captain's table," he said more sardonically still.
"It's not polite to keep me waiting!"
He listened, alert for a rush which would be a fanatic's desperate
attempt to do murder despite premature discovery. He was prepared to
shoot quite ruthlessly, because he was on duty and the Med Service did
not approve of the extermination of populations, however justified
another population might consider it.
But there was no rush. Instead, there came hesitant foot-falls whose
sound made Calhoun start. The door of the cabin slid slowly aside. A
girl appeared in the opening, desperately white and desperately
composed.
"H-how did you know I was there?" she asked shakily. She moistened
her lips. "You didn't see me! I was in a closet, and you didn't even enter
the room!"
Calhoun said grimly, "I've sources of information. Murgatroyd told me
this time. May I present him? Murgatroyd, our passenger. Shake
hands."
Murgatroyd moved forward, stood on his hind legs and offered a
skinny, furry paw. She did not move. She stared at Calhoun.
"Better shake hands," said Calhoun, as grimly as before. "It might relax
the tension a little. And do you want to tell me your story?