V
Calhoun considered coldly. They were beyond what had been thefarthest small city on the multiple highway. They would go on pastnow-starlit fields of plants native to Maya, passing many places wheretrucks loaded with the plants climbed up to the roadway and headedfor the factories which made use of them. The fields ran for scoresof miles along the highway's length. They reached out beyond thehorizon,--perhaps scores of miles in that direction, too. There werethousands upon thousands of square miles devoted to the growing of thedark-green vegetation which supplied the raw materials for Maya's spaceexports. Some hundred-odd miles ahead, the small town of Tenochitlanlay huddled in the light of the distant star-cluster. Beyond that, morehighway and Maya City. Beyond that--
Calhoun reasoned that the projector to make the induction cattle fencewould be beyond Maya City, somewhere in the mountains the photographin the spaceport building showed. A large highway went into thosemountains for a limited distance only.
A ground-inductor projector field always formed at a right angle tothe projector which was its source. It could be adjusted--the processwas analogous to focusing--to come into actual being at any distancedesired, and the distance could be changed. To drive the people ofMaya City eastward, the projector of a cattle fence--about whichthey would know nothing; it would be totally strange and completelymysterious--the projector of the cattle fence would need to be west ofthe people to be driven. Logically, it would belong in the mountains.Practically, it would be concealed. Drawing on broadcast power to doits work, there would be no large power source needed to give it thesix million kilowatts it required. It should be quite easy to hidebeyond any quick or easy discovery. Hunting it out might require weeksof searching.
But the people beyond the end of the highway couldn't wait. They hadno food, and holes scrabbled down to ground-water by men digging withtheir bare hands simply would not be adequate. The cattle fence hadto be cut off immediately--while the broadcast of power had to becontinued.
Calhoun made an abrupt grunting noise. Phrasing the thing that neededto be done was practically a blueprint of how to do it. Simple! He'dneed the two electronics engineers, of course. But that would be thetrick....
He drove on at a hundred thirty miles an hour with his lips set wrily.The three other cars came behind him. Murgatroyd watched the way ahead.Mile after mile, half-minute after half-minute, the headlights castbrilliantly blinding beams before the cars. Murgatroyd grew bored. Hesaid, ”_Chee!_” in a discontented fashion and tried to curl up betweenAllison and Calhoun. There wasn't room. He crawled over the seat-back.He moved about, back there. There were rustling sounds. He settleddown. Presently there was silence. Undoubtedly he had draped his furrytail across his nose and gone soundly off to sleep.
Allison spoke suddenly. He'd had time to think, but he had no practicein various ways of thinking.
”How much money have you got?” he asked.
”Not much,” said Calhoun. ”Why?”
”I--haven't done anything illegal,” said Allison, with an unconvincingair of confidence, ”but I could be put to some inconvenience if youwere to accuse me before others of what you've accused me personally.You seem to think that I planned a criminal act. That the action I knowof--the research project I'd heard of--that it became--that it got outof hand is likely. But I am entirely in the clear. I did nothing inwhich I did not have the advice of counsel. I am legally unassailable.My lawyers--”
* * * * *
”That's none of my business,” Calhoun told him. ”I'm a medical man.I landed here in the middle of what seemed to be a serious publichealth situation. I went to see what had happened. I've found out. Istill haven't the answer,--not the whole answer anyway. But the humanpopulation of Maya is in a state of some privation, not to say danger.I hope to end it. But I've nothing to do with anybody's guilt orinnocence of crime or criminal intent or anything else.”
Allison swallowed. Then he said with smooth confidence:
”But you could cause me inconvenience. I would appreciate it if youwould--would--”
”Cover up what you've done?” asked Calhoun.
”No! I've done nothing wrong. But you could simply use discretion. Ilanded by parachute to complete some business deals I'd arranged monthsago. I will go through with them. I will leave on the next ship.That's perfectly open and above board. Strictly business. But you couldmake a--an unpleasing public image of me. Yet I have done nothing anyother business man wouldn't do! I did happen to know of a researchproject--”
”I think,” said Calhoun without heat, ”that you sent men here with acattle-fence device from Texia to frighten the people on Maya. Theywouldn't know what was going on. They'd be scared; they'd want to getaway. So you'd be able to buy up practically all the colony for theequivalent of peanuts. I can't prove that,” he conceded, ”but that's myopinion. But you want me not to state it. Is that right?”
”Exactly!” said Allison. He'd been shaken to the core, but he managedthe tone and the air of a dignified man of business discussing anunpleasant subject with fine candor. ”I assure you you are mistaken.You agree that you can't prove your suspicions. If you can't provethem, you shouldn't state them. That is simple ethics. You agree tothat!”
Calhoun looked at him curiously.
”Are you waiting for me to tell you my price?”
”I'm waiting,” said Allison reprovingly, ”for you to agree not to causeme embarrassment. I won't be ungrateful. After all, I'm a person ofsome influence. I could do a great deal to your benefit. I'd be glad--”
”Are you working around to guess at a price I'll take?” asked Calhounwith the same air of curiosity.
He seemed much more curious than indignant, and much more amusedthan curious. Allison sweated suddenly. Calhoun didn't appear to bebribable. But Allison knew desperation.
”If you want to put it that way--yes,” he said harshly. ”You can nameyour own figure. I mean it!”
”I won't say a word about you,” said Calhoun. ”I won't need to. Thecharacters who're operating your cattle fence will do all the talkingthat's necessary. Things all fit together,--except for one item.They've been dropping into place all the while we've been driving downthis road.”
”I said you can name your own figure!” Allison's voice was shrill. ”Imean it! Any figure! Any!”
Calhoun shrugged.
”What would a Med Ship man do with money? Forget it!”
He drove on. The highway turnoff to Tenochitlan appeared. Calhoun wentsteadily past it. The other connection with the road through the townappeared. He left it behind.
Allison's teeth chattered again.
The buildings of Maya City began to appear, some twenty minutes later.Calhoun slowed and the other cars closed up. He opened a window andcalled:
”We want to go to the landing-grid first. Somebody lead the way!”
A car went past and guided the rest assuredly to a ramp down from thenow-elevated road, and through utterly dark streets, of which some werenarrow and winding, and came out abruptly where the landing-grid roseskyward. At the bottom its massive girders looked huge and cyclopean inthe starlight, but the higher courses looked like silver lace againstthe stars.
* * * * *
They went to the control building. Calhoun got out. Murgatroyd hoppedout after him, dust clinging to his fur. He shook himself, and aten-thousand-credit interstellar credit certificate fell to the ground.Murgatroyd had made a soft place for sleeping out of the contents ofAllison's attache case. It was assuredly the most expensive if not themost comfortable sleeping cushion a _tormal_ ever had. Allison satstill as if numbed. He did not even pick up the certificate.
”I need you two electronics men,” said Calhoun. Then he saidapologetically to the others, ”I only figured out something on the wayhere. I'd believed we might have to take some drastic action, comedaybreak. But now I doubt it. I do suggest, though, that you turn offthe car headlights and get set to do some shooting if anybody turns up.I don't k
now whether they will or not.”
He led the way inside. He turned on lights. He went to the place wheredials showed the amount of power actually being used of the enormousamount available. Those dials now showed an extremely small powerdrain, considering that the cities of a planet depended on the grid.But the cities were dark and empty of people. The demand needle waveredback and forth, rhythmically. Every two seconds the demand for powerwent up by six million kilowatts, approximately. The demand lasted forhalf a second, and stopped. For a second and a half the power in usewas reduced by six million kilowatts. During this period only automaticpumps and ventilators and freezing equipment drew on the broadcastpower for energy. Then the six-million-kilowatt demand came again forhalf a second.
”The cattle fence,” said Calhoun, ”works for half a second out of everytwo seconds. It's intermittent or it would simply paralyze animalsthat wandered into it. Or people. Being intermittent, it drives themout instead. There'll be tools and parts for equipment here, in casesomething needs repair. I want you to make something new.”
The two electronics technicians asked questions.
”We need,” said Calhoun, ”an interruptor that will cut off the powerbroadcast for the half-second the ground-induction field is supposedto be on. Then it should turn on the broadcast power for the secondand a half the cattle fence is supposed to be off. That will stop thecattle-fence effect, and I think a ground car should be able to workwith power that's available for three half-seconds out of four.”
The electronics men blinked at him. Then they grinned and set to work.Calhoun went exploring. He found a lunch box in a desk with three verystale sandwiches in it. He offered them around.
It appeared that nobody wanted to eat while their families--at the endof the highway--were still hungry.
The electronics men called on the two mechanics to help buildsomething. They explained absorbedly to Calhoun that they were makinga cutoff which would adjust to any sudden six-million-kilowatt demand,no matter what time interval was involved. A change in the tempo of thecattle-fence cycle wouldn't bring it back on.
”That's fine!” said Calhoun. ”I wouldn't have thought of that!”
He bit into a stale sandwich and went outside. Allison sat limply,despairingly, in his seat in the car.
”The cattle fence is going off,” said Calhoun without triumph. ”Thepeople of the city will probably begin to get here around sunrise.”
”I--I did nothing legally wrong!” said Allison, dry-throated. ”Nothing!They'd have to prove that I knew what the--consequences of the researchproject would be. That couldn't be proved! It couldn't! So I've donenothing legally wrong....”
Calhoun went inside, observing that the doctor who was also tennischampion, and the policeman who'd come to help him, were keeping keeneyes on the city and the foundations of the grid and all other placesfrom which trouble might come.
There was a fine atmosphere of achievement in the power-controlroom. The power itself did not pass through these instruments, butrelays here controlled buried massive conductors which supplied theworld with power. And one of the relays had been modified. When thecattle-fence projector closed its circuit, the power went off. Whenthe ground-inductor went off, the power went on. There was no longera barrier across the highways leading to the east. It was more thanprobable that ground cars could run on current supplied for one and ahalf seconds out of every two. They might run jerkily, but they wouldrun.
* * * * *
Half an hour later, the amount of power drawn from the broadcast beganto rise smoothly and gradually. It could mean only that cars werebeginning to move.
Forty-five minutes later still, Calhoun heard stirrings outside. Hewent out. The two men on guard gazed off into the city. Something movedthere. It was a ground-car, running slowly and without lights. Calhounsaid undisturbedly:
”Whoever was running the cattle fence found out their gadget wasn'tworking. Their lights flickered, too. They came to see what was thematter at the landing-grid. But they've seen the lighted windows. Gotyour blasters handy?”
But the unlighted car turned and raced away. Calhoun only shrugged.
”They haven't a prayer,” he said. ”We'll take over their apparatusas soon as it's light. It'll be too big to destroy, and there'll befingerprints and such to identify them as the men who ran it. Andthey're not natives. When the police start to look for the strangerswho were living where the cattle-fence projector was set up.... Theycan go into the jungles where there's nothing to eat, or they can givethemselves up.”
He moved toward the door of the control building once more. Allisonsaid desperately:
”They'll have hidden their equipment. You'll never be able to find it!”
Calhoun shook his head in the starlight.
”Anything that can fly can spot it in minutes. Even on the groundone can walk almost straight to it. You see, something happened theydidn't count on. That's why they've left it turned on at full power.The earlier, teasing uses of the cattle fence were low-power. Annoying,to start with, and uncomfortable the second time, and maybe somewhatpainful the third. But the last time it was full power.”
He shrugged. He didn't feel like a long oration. But it was obvious.Something had killed the plants of a certain genus of which smallspecies were weeds that destroyed Earth-type grasses. The ground-coverplants--and the larger ones, like the one Calhoun had seen decayingin a florist's shop which had had to be grown in a cage--theground-cover plants had motile stems and leaves and blossoms. Theywere cannibals. They could move their stems to reach, and theirleaves to enclose, and their flowers to devour other plants, evenperhaps small animals. The point, though, was that they had somelimited power of motion. Earth-style sensitive vines and flycatcherplants had primitive muscular tissues. The local ground-cover plantshad them too. And the cattle-fence field made those tissues contractspasmodically. Powerfully. Violently. Repeatedly. Until they died ofexhaustion. The full-power cattle-fence field had exterminated Mayanground-cover plants all the way to the end of the east-bound highway.And inevitably--and very conveniently--also up to the exact spot wherethe cattle-fence field had begun to be projected. There would be anarrow-shaped narrowing of the wiped-out ground-cover plants where thecattle-field had been projected. It would narrow to a point whichpointed precisely to the cattle-fence projector.
”Your friends,” said Calhoun, ”will probably give themselves up and askfor mercy. There's not much else they can do.”
Then he said:
”They might even get it. D'you know, there's an interesting side effectof the cattle fence. It kills the plants that have kept Earth-typegrasses from growing here. Wheat can be grown here now, whenever andas much as the people please. It should make this a pretty prosperousplanet, not having to import all its bread.”
* * * * *
The ground cars of the inhabitants of Maya City did begin to arrive atsunrise. Within an hour after daybreak, very savagely intent personsfound the projector and turned it off.
By noon there was still some anger on the faces of the people of Maya,but there'd been little or no damage, and life took up its normalcourse again. Murgatroyd appreciated the fact that things went back tonormal. For him it was normal to be welcomed and petted when the MedShip _Esclipus Twenty_ touched ground. It was normal for him to movezestfully in admiring human society, and to drink coffee with greatgusto.
And while Murgatroyd moved in human society, enjoying himself hugely,Calhoun went about his business. Which, of course, was conferences withplanetary health officials, politely receiving such information as theythought important, and tactfully telling them about the most recentdevelopments in medical science.
What else was a Med Ship man for?
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