Med Ship by Murray Leinster; Eric Flint; Guy Gordon

Author:Murray Leinster; Eric Flint; Guy Gordon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction - Adventure, Science Fiction - Space Opera, Fiction - Science Fiction, High Tech, Space Opera, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743435550
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2002-07-31T15:00:00+00:00

IV

As it happened, the timing was critical, though Calhoun hadn't realized it. There were moving lights on the highway to the city at the moment Calhoun and the grid operator went into the Med Ship and closed the airlock door behind them. The lights drew nearer. They raced. Then ground-cars came rushing through the gate of the space-port and flung themselves toward the wholly peaceful little Med Ship where it stood seeming to yearn toward the sky. In seconds they had it ringed about, and armed men were trying to get inside. But Med Ships land on very many planets, with very many degrees of respect for the Interstellar Medical Service. On some worlds there is great integrity displayed by space-port personnel and visitors. On others there is pilfering, or worse. So Med Ships are not easily broken into.

They spent long minutes fumbling unskillfully at the outer airlock door. Then they gave it up. Two car-loads of men went over to the control-building, which now was dark and silent. Its door was not locked. They went in.

There was consternation. The interior of the control-building reeked of antiseptic spray—the spray used when a para was discovered. In some cases, the spray a para used when he discovered himself. But it was not reassuring to the men just arrived from Government Center. Instead of certifying to their safety, it told of horrifying danger. Because despite a broadcast by the planetary president, terror of paras was too well-established to be cured by an official statement.

The men who'd entered the building stumbled out and stammered of what they'd smelled inside the building. Their companions drew back, frightened by even so indirect a contact with supposed contagion. They stayed outside, while a man who hadn't entered used the police-car's communicator to report to the headquarters of the planetary police.

The attempt to enter the ship was known inside, of course. But Calhoun paid no attention. He emptied the pockets of the garments he'd worn into the city. There were the usual trivia a man carries with him. But there was also a blaster—set for low-power bolts—and a small thick-glass phial of a singular grayish fluid, and a plastic container.

He was changing to other clothing when he heard the muttering report, picked up by a ship-receiver turned to planetary police wave-length. It reported affrightedly that the Med Ship could not be entered, and the grid's control-building was dark and empty and sprayed as if to destroy contagion. The operator was gone.

Another voice snapped orders in reply. The highest authority had given instructions that the Med Ship man now somewhere in the capitol city must be captured, and his escape from the planet must be prevented at all costs. So if the ship itself could not be entered and disabled, get the grid working and throw it away. Throw it out to space! Whether there was contagion in the control-building or not, the ship must be made unusable to the Med Ship man!

"They think well of me," said Calhoun.

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