
MURRAY LEINSTER

 

 

 PLAGUE

 

 ...By mnYEAR2075Earth Styleit was clear that merely the adniinistration of intersolar and interplanetary affairs would soon absorb the entire attention of the Galactic Commission, so the formation of an administrative service was a necessity. It was not then realized that administrative services in the past had had the good fortune to be tested continually by emergencies and conflicts with other administrative services. (See WARS.) The Galactic Administrative Service had, however, a monopoly in its field, and had necessarily vast authority. Individuals, to whom


 authorityper se is an ambition crowded into its ranks, fought bitterly among themselves for promotion, and unfortunately ultimately attained high posts. But individuals of this sort are unable to distinguish between authority and intelligence, subservience and subordination, or between protest and rebellion. After a hundred years with no emergencies or conflicts to reveal its faults, the Administrative Service was an ironclad, fossilized bureaucracy in which high place was an end in itself, pomposity a tradition, and red tape the breath of life. Red tape, alone, kept three solar systems from all contact with the rest of humanity for more than thirty years. Certain key documents had been misfiled, and without them no person had authority to give clearance to spaceships for those solar systems. Therefore, no ships could land on any planet of the three sunsnot even Space-Navy ships! The accidental discovery of the situation by a member of the Galactic Commission led to the dismissal of the officials responsible, but the Service did not reform itself. The Electron Plague of 2194 (SEE (1) LORE. (2) LIFE-FORMS. (3)ENTITIESImmateriaL) which threatened the entire human race came about because of bureaucratic stupidity alone. The Bazin Expedition had cleared from Pharona. After landing on Lore it was discovered that three Out of more than six hundred documents then required to be filed by an exploring expedition had been improperly made out. The Expedition was ordered to return to Pharona to remedy its errOr. Scientists of the expedition, already at work, reported that strange life-forms on Lore made return inadvisable until they had been further studied. The sub-commissioner on Pharona took the protest as a defiance of his authority and ordered a naval spaceship to bring in the expedition under arrest. This was done and within two months more than ten million women, girls, and infants

 half the population of Pharonadied of the plague unwillingly brought back by the Bazin Expedition. The scientists of the Expedition were under arrest for defiance of authority, and the plague had every chance of wiping out the entire human race throughout the Galaxy. .

 (Article, ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE,Reform of, in the Condensed Encyclopedia, Vol. 31, Edition of 2207, E.S.)

 

 Ben Sholto was in the very act of getting up an extraordinary fine fix on asethee bird in its elaborate nuptial dance, when the Reserve bracelet he was wearing nearly tore his arm off. It felt like that, at any rate. The electric shock tensed his muscles, threw the three-dimensional camera into an ungraceful wabble which wrecked the recording, and his sudden and violent movement revealed his presence. Thesethee bird and her mate vanished with a thin whistling of wings to take up their matrimonial status, most likely, with a lack of ceremony their fellows might deplore.

 Ben rubbed his arm vigorously and swore. He hastily dried the skin under the bracelet so that the order to follow would be less painful. It was sharp enough, at thatthe series of long and short electric shocks


 which solemnly ordered him to get in touch with Reserve Headquarters for this sector at once.

 What do those brass hats think Ill do after an active-status warning? Ben grumbled sourly.

 He started through the jungle back toward his small space cruiser. He was a Reserve officer. He had been Space-Navy, and he had been ordered from on high to do something which was completely idiotic and would cost lives. He accomplished the mission in a simpler fashion, without losing any men at all. His report curtly stated that he had not followed instructions exactly because they seemed to have been issued through an errorand he was called up for court-martial, on the basis of his report that he had not obeyed his written orders. After his witnesses had testified, however, the court-martial was hastily dropped by order of the brass hat who had ordered it. If Ben had been convicted and had appealed, the magnificent imbecility of the orders hed sidetracked would have become apparent to the local brass hats superiors. So the brass hat ordered Ben transferred to the Reserve, which could not be appealed. There was a certain amount of pay attached to Reserve status, though, and it allowed Ben to knock about in his own cruiser wherever he pleased. In this particular section of space the privilege was valuable. So he roamed about, taking three-dimension pictures of flora and fauna for the feature-casts, and mourned his Space-Navy career and the romance that seemed to have gone glimmering withit.The romance had been named Sally, anditwas her father who was the fatuous brass hat. But Ben missed her very much.

 His cruiser rested in a leafy screen beside a particularly prismatic brook. He went in and to the GCGeneral Communicationphone. He stabbed the special Reserve Headquarters button and watched the screen without expression.

 Ben Sholto reporting for orders, he said curtly when it lighted.

 A fat officer nodded uninterestedly.

 Acknowledged. Stand by.

 The screen faded, Ben waited. And waited. Nothing happened. Half an hour later his Reserve bracelet nearly tore his arm off again. He seethed, and jabbed the button once more. The same officer appeared on the screen after a leisurely interval.

 Ben Sholto reporting for the second time, said Ben angrily. I got a second set of shocks from my bracelet.

 Stand by, said the fat officer indifferently.

 After almost half an hour, Ben opened the back of his bracelet and put his wrist in a basin of water. He felt a bare tingle when the third call came. He grinned. That would blow something at Headquarters.

 The screen lighted. The fat officer scowled.

 Say, what are you trying to do?

 Get my orders, said Ben. Whats the emergency? Simulated mobilization against mythical enemy force from another galaxy, or what? Thats the standard, I think."


 The fat officer said curtly:

 You Reserve men think youre smart! Theres been a quarantine declared on Pharona, next System. Somebodys trying to breakit.Youll be assigned guard duty. Plug in your writer and get written orders.

 Ben threw the switch and prepared a meal. As he sat at the table, and before he threw his dishes in the fuel bin which would feed them to the converter as fuelconsiderably more than a mere sports cruiser would ever needthe writer buzzed. He glanced at his orders.

 

 You are to lie out in space and watch for a possible vessel breaking quarantine on Pharona trying to reach the planet on which you now are. Contact other Reserve watchers and divide the area surrounding your planet among you. If the vessel should be contacted by you, identifyit,secure a list of crew and passengers, and destroyit.This order is not to be questioned.

 

 Ben whistled, scowled, and then said furiously, Pompous fatheads! Then he shrugged philosophically.

 He took off. There wasnt any other Reserve officer on this planet. It was uninhabited. The sports cruiser whistled up through thin air. Then there was empty space. Ben went out and established a casual orbit, set his detector screens, and settled down with a good book. He expected nothing at all to happen. Simply, he would draw active-status pay while on this so-called emergency duty, plus pay for the use of his ship. Since he had been robbed of a careerand a romanceby a brass hat, he felt no qualms at letting the same brass-hat mentality throw a few credits his way now and then.

 He read until he was sleepy. Then he went to look at the instrument board before he turned in. The farthest screen of all was being nibbled at. The needle of its dial trembled almost imperceptibly. The alarm bell rang sharply.

 He settled down in the pilots chair and followed the detector-screen line on out. There was that odd, dizzying sensation at the beginning which always comes of a total-acceleration field taking hold. The little ship went hurtling through emptiness. As technical lieutenant, he knew atomic drive rather thoroughly. The Navy drive is in several essentials much above the commercial drive, thoughitrequires more competent attention. Ben could giveit,and hed altered the drive of his small craft to Navy quality.

 In ten minutes hed sighted the craft of which his detectors had told him. It drove on for the very minor planet he had just left. He signaled by space-phone, but got no answer. The sharp, authoritativeIdentify yourself immediately dot-dash signal is known to all space craft. To fail to answeritis to confess illegality.

 Ben pushed the Headquarters button again. There was a long delay before the screen lighted. He had time to reverse his acceleration and


 match course with the unresponsive ship, at a distance of no more than ten miles. The fat officer looked annoyed.

 Ben Sholto reporting, said Ben. I have located a vessel, on course apparently from Pharona. It refuses to reply to signals.

 The fat officer said Stand-by and became efficiously busy. A vast, bureaucratic dither went on behind the phone-screen focus. From time to time the fat officer answered some question put to him. At long last he turned to the screen again, pompously.

 No authorized vessel is in your locality. Destroyit.

 With what? asked Ben mildly. Ive a positron-beam pistol, but thats all. This is a Reserve Auxiliary ship.

 Then. . .er. . .accompany the suspicious vessel, said the fat man, frowning portentously. A destroyer will be sent to blastit.

 Ben punched the cut-off button. He felt rather wry. There was no need to report his own position, of course. The same force that could make his Reserve bracelet give him senselessly severe electric shocks could causeitto radiate direction-waves by which he could be triangulated upon even without his knowledgefrom an incredible distance.

 He regarded the hurtling ship some ten miles to one side. It was trimly streamlined, as if intended for at least occasional use as a yacht in atmosphere. It headed straight in for the planet now only a few thousand miles distant. It decelerated swiftly, and went into an orbit about the planet. Ben matched speed and course with the precision of long practice. Then he happened to glance at the phone board. There was a tiny bluish haze over to the left of the telltale tube, which reports the wave lengths of all broadcasters in operation, so that one may select. Curious, Ben tuned in that wave. It was a reflection-wave coming back from the planets heaviside layer while most of the signal went through.

 Ben!said a girls voice desperately.Ben! If youredownthere, signaL me quickly! Please, Ben! Please!

 Bens heart leaped crazily and then seemed to cramp itself into knots. Because this was the girl who was the romance hed been cheated of by a brass hat, and she was in the spaceship hed been ordered to destroy, and there was a Navy ship coming now to blastitout of space Sally! he cried fiercely into the transmitter. Im here! Im in the ship alongside!

 The visiphone screen lighted. And Sally Hale stared at him out ofit,pale and hunted to look at. She tried to smile. Then she toppled from view. She had fainted.

 

 Within this same hour, Galactic time, a sub-commissioner on Thallis II forbade the colonization of the planets largest moon by arbitrary edict, which could not be gainsaid. The only reason ever discovered for the order was that the sub-commissioner enjoyed the hunting on that tiny planet, anditwould be spoiled if the crowded population on Thallis II were admitted to colonists rights. Simultaneously, four spacelines in the


 Denib sector applied for permission to discontinue operations. They asserted, and offered to prove, that the cost of supplying required reports to the Administrative Service had grown to be the greatest single item of their operating costs, and made operation impossible save at a loss. (They were forbidden to discontinue operations.) And on the same Galactic day on Foorphthe solitary planet of Etamina crack express-liner from the Algol sector was refused landing and ordered to return to its port of departure. Of the more than eighteen hundred documents covering its voyage and cargo, exactly one lacked a sub-sub-clerks indorsement. The Administrative Service was behaving exactly as usual.

 But Ben Sholto was not behaving as a properly subordinate officer in the Naval Reserve. Half an hour after seeing Sally on the vision-screen, he cut loose the grapples and the tiny air lock hissed shut. The yacht seemed to swerve aside, butitwas actually the little sports cruiser which abruptly altered course. Dead ahead, the blue-white sun of this minor solar system burned terribly in emptiness. The long, slim space yacht which had come so far sped on and on. The smaller ship curved away and drove hard to get orbital speed. Ben went to the GC phone. He stabbed at the Headquarters button again. The fat officer thrust out an under lip.

 Well? he demanded challengingly.

 Reporting, said Ben woodenly. The ship from Pharona did not respond to repeated calls. It seemed to be heading straight for the sun, here. I have pulled away fromitnow, because on its present courseitwill either hit the sun or pass so close that nothing could possibly live onit.I suggest that the entire crew must be dead.

 Watch it, said the fat officer.

 Ben clicked off the phone. He went back to the single stateroom in his sports cruiser. Sally Hale said faintly, Really, Ben, Im all right. Just.

 just you were the only person in the world I could appeal to. Im hunted.

 Not any more, said Ben. Youre safe now!

 I . . . broke the quarantine on Pharona, said Sally. It . . . it was terrible, Ben! Theyre. .. dying there by. . - by millions. Women. Only women. And girls. And nobody knows why. Their bodies give off cosmic rays, and they die. Thats all. Theres no real night on Pharona, you know, only twilight, so it was only the day before I left that they . . . discovered that women who have the pague glow, too. They get. . . phosphorescent. They dont feel badly, only oppressed. They get fever, and cosmic rays come from them, and in the dark they shine faintly, and they get weaker and weaker, and then they die. And men are immune, and they are going crazy! Their wives and sweethearts and daughters and mothers dying before their eyes. And theyre not even in danger

 Dont tell me now if you dont want to, said Ben.

 I. . . think Im all right. I must be! said Salty. I was twelve days on the way. If. . - if Id had the plague Id have died, wouldnt I? At least Id be sick by now! But Im not. Only. . . I couldnt sleep much, Ben. I


 was all alone on the yacht, and four days out I heard the alarm g-go out for me, and Ive been hearing the GC phone organizing a hunt for me

 Maybe youd better eat something, and take a nap, said Ben. But howd you come to pick this place to run to?

 Sally flushed a little.

 You were here. She looked at him pleadingly. I. . .couldnt helpitthat my father.. .acted as he did. You know that after. . .well after my father got so angry with you, I felt badly. I went to Pharona to visit my uncle. And the Bazin Expedition came, and left for Lore, and the subcommissioner ordereditback, and it came, protesting all the way, and

 in four days the plague broke out. 1 was away over on the other side of the planet. The plague came back with the Bazin Expedition. We heard about it, and the quarantines that were clapped down, and finally the whole planet was quarantined. My uncle thought I would surely be safe, because his estate is so isolated. And then one of the maids got the plague. Shed been home visiting, and Uncle had put Geiger counters at the gates, so she didnt enter the grounds, but. . .it was time for me to get away. So he sent me off in the yacht. All by myself. He gave me my course. He stayed behind, with all his servants and staff. He.- .said hed report Id died. I couldnt have been exposed. Not possibly. I hadnt been within a mile of any woman whod had the plague, or any man whod been near any woman who hadit.But if I stayed Id die, so he sent me off. That was right, wasntit?

 Surely! said Ben quietly. Go on

 You see, she said pleadingly, I hadnt been exposed, and.. .nobody was missing from the estate, because I was supposed to be dead. It seemed like it was perfect. But they.. .must have gone to seal the engines of the yacht so nobody could useit,and they found it gone, and thought somebody had stolen it

 So youre officially dead, said Ben. All right. Go to sleep. Youre safe. Ive reported that the yacht didnt swerve from its course and dived into this sun. Its actually diving there now. Its not very probable that any spaceship coming out of interstellar space would hit a star by accident. It would take good piloting! Butitmay be just improbable enough not to seem like a made-up yarn.

 Ben went out of the stateroom and forward to the control cabin. His face was set. In olden days, perhaps, a human being could move about freely. But in these days of the Galactic Commission and the brass hats underit,there was a vast amount of red tape about everything. The brass hats, of course, were the administrative officials under the Commission, and they climbed to authority by seniority and a pious avoidance of anything which could not be justified by written rules. They were a sort of galactic civil service, surrounded by pomp and power. Some of them were decent enough, but a deplorable lot were stuffed shirts and brass hats. Fortunately, they had no control over the surface of planets, but they supervised all traffic in space with a fussy particularity which was madden-


 ing. Any ship capable of space flight had to be registered and licensed, and all space-ffights conducted under checks and double-checks which made spacemen utterly disrespectful.

 The question, said Ben wryly in the control room, appears to be serious. Sally isnt legally alive. I have, in fact, official orders to kill her. Im not going to doit.So, just how am I going to manage things?

 Every spaceship is inspected minutely at every spaceportitenters. He could not take Sally into any inhabited planet without questions he could not answer. He could not He pushed the CC button again. The screen lighted. The fat officer

 said boredly:

 Whats the mattei? A destroyers on the way.

 The vessel 1 reported has vanished in the corona of this sun, said Ben smoothly. This is a dwarf blue-white, as you may remember. The strange ship made an apparent grazing impact and is melted down to a blob of metal ifitisnt vaporized by now. I was taking some pictures back yonder. May I be released from Reserve duty?

 You will await orders

 The fat officer began to speak with pompous indignation. Then there was a scream behind Ben. Sally came stumbling out of the stateroom, her face like chalk.

 Ben! she choked. Ive. . -got the plague

 Bens left hand slammed off the CC phone, butitwas too late. He knewitwas too late. Hed seen the fat officers eyes widen blankly. Sub-ether phone communication does not operate by ether waves, and no time-lag has ever been detected even between the two rims of the Galaxy. Already the fat officer at headquarters had seen Sally and heard her cry.

 Ben was very white. Within minutes the whole Space-Navy of the Galaxy would have on their recorders the description of himself and his sports cruiser, with orders to hunt him down and blast him out of space on sight. Ten million dead on Pharona, and a case of the plague at large to startitup again Of course!

 He said hoarsely, in an effort to be reassuring:

 Dont be silly, Sally! You cant haveit

 Her teeth chattered.

 B-but I havel I t-turned out the light to try to sleep, and. . .and I saw my hand glowing. And I got up and looked in the mirror, and rn-my face

 She reached out and turned off the light switch in the control room. The instrument dials glowed faintly. But so did Sally. Her features and her throat and arms were faintly visible in an ethereal light which made herrather than frighteninglook like an angel. And from within the thin garments in which she had meant to sleep there came a faint effulgence, too.

 Bens throat made a queer sound.

 I.. .thought, gasped Sally pitifully, that we.. .could be happy


 because. . .no one could ever forbid us to be together if I w-was supposed to be dead. But I didnt think I was going to die a-after Id joined you

 Ben took her in his arms, helplessly. For an instant she thrust away from him, but then she clung close.

 You c-cant catch it, anyway, she sobbed. Please hold me close, Ben. I d-dont want to die, when Id j-just run away so I could never I-leave you,,

 

 At this time the members of the Galactic Commission, itself, were pressing the investigations which were later to make intergalactic exploration and colonization practical. They had set aside whole planets for research stations, and far out beyond the Galaxys rim there were those infinitely hazardous laboratories where men extended the knowledge of stellar physics so that we who follow them have already circumnavigated the universe and some day may even understandit.The members of the Commission also directed the investigation of that endocrine balance which is youth, so that age is now a measure merely of time, and the word senility is now marked obsolete in the dictionaries. But on this same day the mines on Thotmes II had to be shut down despite their usefulness. An Administrative Service clerk had discovered a flaw in the charter of the space line which ran to Thotmes II. It was not authorized to carry mineral products. Thereforeithad to be subjected to heavy fines, anditwas driven into bankruptcy, and one hundred and twenty thousand miners were isolated from the rest of humanity by the breaking of their only transportation link.

 And on this same day the Galaxys greatest mind in medicine was refused space-transportation. He wanted to go to Pharona, but the subcommissioner in residence on the planet on which he lived was a hypechondriac, and wished adequate medical attention to be available for his nervous stomach-aches.

 And another sub-commissioner, on Pharona, diverted attention from his own stupiditywhich had caused a plague with ten million victims-by pompously indignant demands for Ben Sholtos destruction.

 Ben Sholto, however, paid no attention. The light was on in the control room again. His face was white and set. The Reserve bracelet was off his wrist, now. It had signaled violently for him to report to Headquarters. For answer, hed hackeditin half and smashed its mechanism, and then thrustitdown into the very tip of the fuel bin, pushing until he felt dizzy as the heavy metal of the bracelet turned into energy for the motors and the total-acceleration field. With metal for the converter to work on, the small craft surged ahead under an amount of power only armored cruisers normally developed.

 Sally sat quietly in her chair, staring at Ben through eyes that were very steady now. He regarded a Geiger counter. It clicked busily. His face went gray.


 Youre giving off cosmics, he said dry-throated. Thats the sign of the plague. Theres nothing else known that will make the human body give off cosmics.

 Ill be dead in. . .two or three days, said Sally, unsteadily. Sometimes women live a week. Sometimes ten days. M-mostly when the plague first starts, and there are a lot of women about. In the cities, at the beginning, the women lived even two weeks. But in small places they die quickly. And Im the only woman here

 In two weeks, said Ben harshly, doctors should have worked out some serum, some protection.

 Theyv~.. .never seen the germ, Ben. Not even the electron microscope shows anything. Just.. .the women die

 But youre not going to! said Ben fiercely. Why couldnt I be a doctor or something useful!

 You, can be...comforting, said Sally bravely. I.. .gave my whole life to you when I ran to you, Ben. There arent but a few days, instead of. . .of years, but

 He bent over her groaning. The clatter of the Geiger counter stopped abruptly. It had touched her arm. She shivered a little.

 Broken, I guess. Butitwas ticking my life away. Lets forget it.

 Ben ground his teeth. He moved to thrust the instrument out of his way. It clattered briefly, and stopped again. It dangled from his hand by the cord to its electric connections. It clattered, and stopped, and clattered again. Ben stared down atit.It was not pointing at Sally. He swungitabout. It clattered steadily when pointed at the instrument panel. It was mute when it pointed at Sally. It was mute when it pointed at anything else but the instrument panel. No. It was mute whenitdid not point to the GC phone. No. It clattered only whenitpointed to the course-computer It clattered only Wait a minute! said Ben harshly. Theres something funny here!

 He turned out the lights again. The instrument dials glowed as before. Sally did not! But there was a whitish luminosity at the top of the pilots chair. It seemed spread along the metal frame. It was not phosphorescence. It was white, not bluish. Ben moved towardit.The Geiger counter chattered when Ben pointed it at the luminosity. Then, abruptly, the luminosity was not on the chair. A dial glowed whitely, as if a stronger light were behindit.The Geiger counter clattered when pointed at that dial. Ben swung the counter upon Sally. It was mute.

 Listen! said Ben in a strained voice. You say women with the plague give off cosmics. Youre not giving them off, so you haventit.But you did, so you did have it. My pilots chair was giving off cosmics. Didithave the plague? Now the gravitometer is giving off cosmics. Hasitgot the plague?

 Sally drew in her breath quickly. There was silence in the cabin of the little sports cruiser of the void. The only sound anywhere was a tiny humming. That was the converter, turning Bens Reserve bracelet and


 the refuse of his last meal into powerefficiency 99.9999.. .9 percent to drive the little craft with an insanely mounting velocity away from its last known position.

 The whitish glow reappeared suddenly. It was in the metal rim about the control ceiling light. It vanished, and reappeared on the handle of a metal door. It vanished yet again The strange life-forms of Lore, said Ben, his voice rough in the darkness. The Bazin Expedition didnt want to go back to Pharona. It said its return would be dangerous untilitunderstood those life-forms. It was forced to go back, anditcarried the plague. At a guess, this is one of the life-forms of Lore. It seems to stick to metal. It didnt move into the glass of the ceiling light, but stayed on the metal rim which holds it.

 He swung the Geiger counter. Carefully. It clattered.

 Its somewhere in the stern. Engine room, most likely

 Sally said unsteadily: I. . .havent got the plague, then

 No, you havent gotit.Bens voice softened. Youre dead officially, my dear, but nowitlooks like youre going to stay actually alive for a long time. Wed better do some planning for ourselves. At the moment, Im going to change course. Weve got all the Fleet in this part of space hunting us right now. I was talking to Headquarters when you yelled and weve got to hide. And I dont know for how long.

 Sally said slowly, as if incredulous of hope: I.. .dont care. Ive gotten you into terrible trouble. The least I can do is...anything you tell me to.

 He put his hand lightly on her shoulder.

 Theres a meteor-stream, he said. What we want is time and peace in which to make our plans. Ill dive into that stream and match up with it. Well be one of several million small objects heading out to aphelion in the track of a comet nobodys ever seen. With our drive off and a little care, theres no faintest danger that well ever be picked up. Ive supplies for a long enough time. Well be beyond the outermost planets before we put the drive on again, and then well start for. . .where shall we go, Sally? Sirius? Ri-gel? Ive heard there are some new colonies out beyond Rigel where things are rough and tough and the brass hats havent yet been able to sit back with their tummies sticking out with dignity to regulate everything to justify their feeling of importance.

 He moved to the pilots seat, not bothering to turn on the lights again. He swung the little ship about. The converter was still working on the bracelet he had shoved into the feed. It was crushed and being extruded into the converter-chamber as an infinitesimally fine wire. The efficiency of the converter and the drive was high. In theory, with one hundred percent efficiency, the mass of fuel needed to give a spacecraft a given velocity in empty space is the mass the spaceship will gain because of that velocity. In practice, of course, much more is needed. To attain a speed of a hundred miles a second from rest, in space, the fuel consumption is actually about a milligram of disintegrated matter per ton mass of the ship. In anything like a sports cruiser, the fuel for merely interplane


 tary jaunts is supplied by the carbon remaining after the air-purifier has broken down the carbon dioxide from the breathed air. Ben used his dirty dishesand the fuel pin periodically overflowed, though he drove the cruiser hard. His bracelet had weighed two ounces. Something like six thousand milligrams. The electrical mechanism of the bracelet was now smashed irreparably, but as wasteitwould more than accomplish an -interplanetary trip if he chose to coast.

 He was not coasting. The position of the dwarf blue-white star of this solar system, and of its several planets, was accurately before him on the naviboard. There was a transparent map of the meteor-streams, with their inclination to the ecliptic. With such a map and a divider it was simple enough to navigate, especially when you used detector-screens to find out your results. He worked in the half-light of the instrument dials. He punched the computer and set the motor controls.

 Ben, said Sallys voice, shaken, behind him.

 Yes?

 He was thinking unhappily. He felt awkward. Sally could never return to civilization or her friends. He, himself, had to vanish completely. The brass hats would go into a monstrous pother of offended dignity, based upon the real fact that Sally had broken quarantine on a planet where ten million people had died of plague. Sally and Ben were outlaws, now. Forever. Unless they lived isolated for the rest of time, they would have to take new names and new identities-and new names and identities are not easy to acquire on civilized planets. They wanted to be married. The ceremony was somehow essential to the way Ben felt about Sally. And he was going to have to find some way to make a living, which did not involve space-navigation or the technical equipment of a technical lieutenant of the Space Navy, because all such persons were very rigorously checked.

 Ben, said Sallys voice in the darkness. It was strained. The Thing is back! Its. . .its on the leg of your chair.

 He looked. Butitwas on the arm of his chair. He poked his finger experimentally atit.There was no sensation. He touchedit.It vanished. But his hand glowed. Both hands glowed. He gave off a faint, whitish luminosity. Just what Sally had had. Butitcontracted swiftly. He saw the reflection of his face and head in the glass of a dial. They shone brightly. The rest of him was dark. And he felt vague, formless pluckings at his brain. Something was probing hopefully. It was utterly alien, the Thing that probed for his thoughts. There could be no real contact of minds. He could never communicate with the Thing. But he felt its emotions. It was hopeful, and somehow terribly eager. But there was a dawning of disappointment. Somehow, he knewitwas becauseitcould not read his brain. Then he felt the formation of resolve; of a determined,-restless patience.

 His face ceased to glow. His hand shone brightly. He helditout and looked atit.The glow quivered, as if impatiently. He put his hand down ~n his navigating instruments. There was the impression of a flash of


 luminosity over all the instruments for the least possible part of a second. Thenitwas gone.

 And then Sally made a queer sound. He looked at her. He saw her clearly, even though the control cabin of the cruiser was in darkness. Her face and throat and arms glowed whitely. Even through her clothing diffused faint light showed. The Geiger counter clattered Ive. . .got- the Plague again, said Sally, her voice thin. I.

 realize now. Ive got the feeling I. . .had before. The feeling like there is something. . .inside me somehow. . .contented- . .and eager, and

 waiting for something, but.. .almost purring whileitwaits.

 Ben Sholto licked his lips. The fact that the luminous Thing had left Sally to rove inquisitively about the ship had madeitseem merely one of the curious life-forms of Lore. But now, abruptly, he realized the truth. A plague doesnt go into the back of instrument-boards, or shine on the frame of a metal chair, or put probing tendrils of alien thoughts into ones brain. An ordinary plague doesnt. But this plague did. The plague on Pharona wasnt a disease whose lethal effects were the result of toxins secreted by multitudes of submicroscopic organisms or viruses. The plague on Pharona wasThings. They flowed into the tissues of women as they flowed through metal. But they fed, somehow, upon the life-force of women. And the women died.

 Ten million women and girl-children had died on Pharona because of Things brought back from Lore. The things couldnt have come on one spaceship in numbers great enough to accomplish such slaughternot if women lived from two days to two weeks after their bodies began to glow. No. The Things must multiply somehow. The patience, the resolution to wait for something, which both Ben and Sally had feltthat might be the Thing deciding that for some reasonitmust remain solitary for a while.

 But Sally was the habitation of a Thing, one of those which had wiped out half the human race on Pharona. It interpenetrated her body. It waited eagerly for something. Anditpurred soundlessly whileitwaited.

 

 The Universe rolled on. The Galaxy paid no attention. The Administrative Service Appeal Board, sitting on Arcturis II, denied a petition signed by more than three hundred million people inhabiting four planets of Algol. They asked permission to present their grievances directly to the Galactic Commission itself, since the Administrative Service was inextricably tied up in its own rulings and red tape. But the Board ruled that the petition asked action by the Board for which there was no precedent, and which, therefore, was automatically beyond the Boards discretion.

 A sub-sub-commissioner on Phryne VII married the daughter of a subcommissioner, and traveled in state on a Rim-class battleship to his new post.

 A clerk of the Administrative Service unearthed the fact that the charter of the Allioth Colonization Co-operative lacked two commas and


 a semi-colon, and that seven million people, therefore, lacked legal title to the cities, factories, and installations they had built, and that they could be displaced by anybody who filed a new application for colonists rights on the planet. The clerk was regarded as a coming man in the Administrative Service.

 A fleet captain in the Space-Navy resigned his commission rather than carry out orders commanding him to depopulate the planet Quenn by any and all practical means, and was ordered under arrest. The order was carried out by subordinates, who affected to believe that the only practical means was to carry the inhabitants elsewhere. (It was later discovered that a clerical error had sent an order, intended for the Migration-Directive Bureau, to the Space-Navy Bureau. The order was meant to command the repopulation of Quenn by any and all practical means, becauseithad lost much of its population by emigration. The clerk responsible for the mistake was disciplined, but none of the higher officials who had counter-signedit.)

 And there was a plague on Pharona which was receiving very little attention, but an entire sub-sector battle fleet was being mobilized to capture a small sports cruiser of space which had defied official orders.

 The GC phone muttered and muttered, its volume turned down low. The detectors clanged twice as the little ship hurtled on, but once it was the outermost screen which barely wavered into alarm-intensity, and the second timeitwas a Navy cruiser coming head-on along the sports-cruisers course. It was coming fast, but Ben was going fast. He had kept the convefter going at full capacity for days past, and the bracelet had been converted into kinetic energywith other materials besidesof which a reasonable percentage had been imparted to Bens little ship. Half an ounce of pure energy had been converted into speed. So the small ship smashed into the Navy cruisers screens and through them. Had the passage been at a reasonable distancesay, five thousand miles or soit might have been just barely possible for the automatic beam-pointers of the cruiser to range him, compute his course and speed in three dimensions, and fire ahead of him so a positron beam would hit squarely.

 But the two craft actually passed within twenty miles. The passage would have been closer yet but for the flaring of energy into the Navy ships meteor-diverters, which flung both Space-Navy cruiser and sports cruiser of the void aside from all danger of a collision. Such incomputable movements could not be anticipated by range finders. The giant projectors flared, and on the vision screen straight ahead they were visibly higher in the spectrum than was normal. The relative velocity of the two ships was an appreciable fraction of the speed of light itself.

 Then the little ship was away, and once beyond screen-detection range, Ben began to decelerate at as violent a rate as he had before accelerated. The Navy now had the line of his flight, anditcould compute his maximum acceleration. He would be expected to swerve aside, after his escape


 from the hunting ship, in any possible direction. But he would be expected to continue to flee.

 A vast dragnet of the fleet would assemble, combing an expanding mushroom of space for the outlaws who carried with them the plague that had killed half of Pharona. The pomposity. of a brass hat had caused the plague, but all the power of the Galactic Commission would be used pitilessly to stampitout. Giant battleships of space would be entering sub-ether tubes for faster-than-light journeying to the scene of emergency. Monstrous motherships carrying destroyers and scouts would be vanishing in curiously wrinkled diminishment at spots parsecs away, and appearing nearby, reeling quaintly, to spout their brood of stingers to hunt for the sports cruiser which contained one sunken-eyed man and a white-faced girl. There were more than half a million men and thousands of spacecraft engaged in the search for Ben and Sally within twenty-four hours after their narrow passing by the Navy ship. And brass hats had a field day, giving pompous, arbitrary orders and requiring acknowledgements in triplicate.

 But the assumption was that Ben was running away. Actually, he was cutting down his velocity as fast as his converters could manageit.He reached the meteor-stream he had headed for at a bare crawl, and worked the little ship intoit,and began to drift out and out toward the aphelion point of an unknown comet at a gradually diminishing rate, surrounded by pebbles and boulders and masses of inchoate matter ranging from pinpoints to quasiasteroids in size. This, while the Navy hunted for a tiny ship in headlong ffight.-

 Theyll have quite a time finding us now, said Ben tiredly, when heCut offthe drive at last. How do you feel?

 Im. . .all right, I guess, said Sally, thinly.

 She was sitting in a chair Ben had insulated from the floor. At regular intervals, Ben took a Geiger counter reading. Always the counter clattered. The metabolism of the Thing involved -the production of cosmic rays. Electric metabolism. The Thing was, in fact, an organization of electric charges. Since electric charges are essential to cellular lifesuch as human lifethe Thing was not impossible. Electric charges in association with matter produce Terrestrial life, and the removal of the charges leaves merely dead matter. The first elucidation of ball lightning showed that energy alone can achieve organization and self-determined dimensions. So a creature which was merely an electrical pattern was not incredible.

 Therefore the insulated chair. For hours after the first exploratory departure of the Thing from Sallys body, they had hoped it would repeat its excursion. It had seemed curious about apparatus. Ben insulated the chair and brought out piece after piece of apparatus-everything from his cameras to the hand positron-beam projector which was the only weapon on the ship. He had Sally go near them. He had her touch them. He hoped that curiosity would lure the Thing into a second journey of investigation. But there was no sign. The Geiger counter aimed at Sallys


 body clattered at the same rate, neither greater nor less. She said, her voice shaking a little, that she felt a sensation within her as of something which was eager, but very patient, and very contented despite its eagerness. Purring.

 It was a disappointment. But the problem was not one of orthodox medicine, of ultra-microscopic organisms and the intricate interplay of enzymes, cells, and all the innumerable compounds of the body. This was a problem of a Thing. So Sally sat in an insulated chair. For three days.

 I dont know how intelligentitis, said Ben grimly, on the second day. I doubt if its IQ could be estimated. Butithas curiosity,itmakes decisions, andithas emotion. Maybe some superorthodox scientist would say we still havent proof that its really alive, but Ill letitgo at that. The Thing is a form of life which can exist apart from any specific bit of matter, butitis not independent of matter. It has to inhabit some bit or other. It prefers you to a bar of metal, or to me. You will die ifitstays in your body long enough. Thenitwill doubtless hunt for another body. That must be what happened on Pharona. Anditmust reproduce, because its alive. But on your journey from Pharona hereitdidnt. It doesnt seem to be nowbecause this is a long time. Maybeitrealizes that youre the only woman here, and if you die It looks likeitsomehow feeds on the vital energy of your body. It cant get that energy from me or from metal. Its.. .cannibalistic. It is life which feeds on other life. Your life. I wishit would try to take mine!

 Sally spoke very wearily from the insulated chair.

 I think its hopeless, she said in a low voice. Theres only one of the Things, but its going to kill me. We cant stopit.I could put on an insulated spacesuitit can oniy move through a conductorwhile Im in this chair. It would be imprisoned, then. I could walk about, anditcouldnt escape me. And I could go out the air lock andthe Thing could never harm anybody. But we.. .we couldnt ever land anywhere with this Thing alive. We couldnt loose a plague on another planet like the one which was loosed on Pharona! I.. .was there, Ben!

 Ben said fiercely:

 Do you think Id let you walk out of the lock? Do you think Id leave you in space?

 Id likeit,she said humbly, if youd turn a positron beam on me instead.-

 Im waiting to use the positron beam on that Thing, said Ben grimly. How do you feel?

 All right, I guess. But Im not comfortable. The Thing isnt quite as contented.

 He nodded. His jaw set.

 Maybe were getting somewhere. It must be a pattern of free electrons, bound into an organization which is alive. It cant be anything else! But its metabolism involves the production of cosmics rays. Making cosmic rays involve6 the production of positive charges. Insulated as you are, youre


 accumulating a positive charge that sooner or later is going to try to bind some of the free but organized electrons this Thing is made of. Maybe itll die without knowing what is happening. It acts as a disease to humans. Maybe weve concocted a disease or a poison forit.

 Ben could not touch Sally, lest he discharge. the positive potential they were building upor allowing the Thing to build up for its own destruction. They were trying to killitby the product of its own metabolism; to suffocateitby the positive electricityitcreated, just as a human being will suffocate in the carbon dioxide he must exhale.

 But Sally seemed to shrink into herself. She spoke rarely, and then in a strained voice. At last, on the third day, she spoke in a sudden gasp.

 Im...sorry, Ben, but I cant standitany longer. The Thing is suffering and its making me suffer. I cant stand any more!

 Ben reached out to touch her wrist. On the instant her wrist glowed. The Thing gathered itself together,itconcentrated itself to escape. It was visible even in the lighted cabin. At the touch of Bens finger a tiny spark jumped. That was all. But Sally almost fainted with relief. She tried to smile a wabbly smile.

 Its...gone, she said unsteadily. We drove it out. We.. .exorcisedit,Ben.-

 Ben turned off the light. Sally vanished into the blessed darkness. He heard her sigh with relief so sharp thatitwas almost a sob.

 For the second time, she said, valiantly trying to be flippant, I havent got the plague. How quaint!

 Sit still, said Ben savagely. Well watch forit.Positive electricity is poison toit.We know that, anyhow! And Ive got my positron pistol here. Watch forit!

 There was silence. The CC phone muttered, and muttered. There was one voice which was much louder than the rest. The muttering died away. The sound of Sallys breathing grew steady and even. Presently she sighed deeply, and went on breathing evenly.

 Then the bronze doorsill of the control-room door glowed whitely. The Thing, driven out of Sallys body, was suddenly there. It was a patch of whitish luminosity which almost but not quite filled the whole length of the sill. In case of accident, an air-tight door would snap shut across the opening, sealing the ship into separate compartments. Ben raised the positron pistol. Tiny radium dots marked the sights, but his hand trembled with hatred. He took both of them to steady his weapon. He pulled the trigger.

 There was a reddish glow from the pistol. No noise. Nothing else. That was all.

 But the white luminescence on the doorsill flared unbearably. Ben had an extraordinary sensation, as if he had heard a soundless scream. And the Thing went mad. It was here and there and everywhere. Every particle of bare metal in the control room seemed to flash as the Thing raced with incredible speed in a crazy, frenzied rush over every metallic pathithad


 traversed before. It could not be seen as an area of light, but it seemed as if all bare metal in sight emitted a wavy, lunatic glow.

 Ben started suddenly. He raised the pistol. And abruptly there was no glow anywhere. The control room was normal. The dials of the instruments were visible, of course, but Sally could not be seen.-

 If Id pointed this beam anywhere at all and helditon, said Ben bitterly, the Thing might have run intoit.But I didnt think ofitin time.-

 He turned on the light again. Sally was asleep in the insulated chair in which she had endured for three days and nights. She was utterly relaxed. She looked unspeakably weary and pathetic, sleeping in the abandoned confidence of a child.

 Ben looked down at her, and his face softened.

 Maybe its dead, he told her quietly, and maybe its not. But itll never get to you again!

 He went into the stateroom. He carefully and elaborately insulated the bunk there from any possible electrical connection with floor or side walls. He put on insulating shoes. He picked Sally up in his arms and carried her, still sleeping, and laid her on the bunk. He covered her. He kissed her very gently.

 In the control-room a pale white glow appeared on the metal of the pilots chair. It rose to the top and stayed there. It was motionless, butitwavered in intensity. It seemed to throb a little. If Ben had been in the roomwhy just as he had felt a little while since that he felt a soundless scream of agony, now he would have felt hatred so terrible that the hackles at the back of his neck would have stirred.

 He started back into the control room. The glow slid alertly down the metal parts of the chair. It was gone when he came through the door. Thenitappeared suddenly in the stateroom. It went restlessly, ragingly, back and forth upon the metal walls. And the stateroom seemed to be filled with hatred also.

 

 A space cruiser resignedly took up post in an orbit about the dark star Lamda Botes. It would circle that star for six months and be relieved. Forty years before, a sub-commissioner had intended to change cruisers at that place, and commanded that one be here to meet him. He had later changed his plan of travel, but there was no order to withdraw the cruiser posted at the rendezvous. The first cruiser asked for relief after six months of utterly useless waiting. It was relieved by a cruiser under orders to take its place. Seventy-eight cruisers, in turn, had uselessly swung about the dark star for six months each because of an order given forty years before and never rescinded.

 Highly unofficial gossip, told behind official palms, informed the sub-commissioner of the Formaihaut sector that the sub-commissioner of the Markhab sector had said he was a fool. The sub-commissioner of the Formalhaut sector, in indignation, ordered that no clearances be issued to


 spaceships to Markhab or fromit.All space lanes in that part of the Galaxy passed through the two sectors. In consequence, the economic system -by which eight hundred millions of people lived was brought to a standstill.

 The small sun Mu Aquila showed definite.signs of instabilitysigns which by the McPherson-Adair formula indicated an imminent internal explosion. There was no office of the Administrative Service on any of its planets, which altogether had a bare five million inhabitants. Notification of the impending nova-flare was sent to the nearest sector office, with the usual request for evacuation of all the planets which would be destroyed or made uninhabitable. A clerk, recently transferred to that sector and desirous of distinguishing himself, observed an error in the drafting of the request. He returneditfor re-preparation before forwarding it for action. He failed to markitUrgent Official, which meant thatitwent by ordinary mail and would not reach its destination for two months. Of course, the McPherson-Adair formula indicated that the explosion would take place in six to seven weeks.-

 There was a plague on Pharona, and a quarantine prohibited any psivate or commercial ship to land on or leave it. But an Administrative Service vessel landed, bringing dispatches, and left again after taking all normal sanitary precautions. It landed on Galata, and cases of the plague were observed there within twelve hours.

 And Ben Sholto still defied the Space Navy, the Administrative Service, and presumably the Galactic Commission itself by remaining alive.

 Great, jagged, rocky fragments floated in space between the stars. In between the greater pieces were innumerable smaller bits. The little spacecraft wallowed in a stream of cosmic flotsam, sharing its motion. The blue-white sun of this solar system was far away, now, and very faint. But even with the naked eye, from a port on the little sports cruiser, one could see half a dozen huge and irregularly-shaped masses within a matter of miles. This was the thickest part of the meteor-stream. This was, perhaps, the remnant of what had been the nucleus of a comet. Some of these great stones were half a mile by three-quarters. One needlelike mass was at least a mile and a half in length, but nowhere more than four hundred yards through.

 Ben surveyed his surroundings carefully. A tiny electron telescope amplified even starlight upon cold stone to any desired degree. The CC phone muttered and muttered and muttered. Someone, somewhere, had fired a positron beam. A Space-Navy receiver had picked up the radiation involvedand positron-beam bursts do not occur in nature. Naval craft were concentrating to hunt for the source of the blast. It had been, of course, the shot Ben had fired at the Thing on the doorsill, and the coordinates onitwere not as close as they might have been, because nobody had expected a fugitive to be so foolish. Even so, however, the hunt would have been much more deadly if spacemen had been conductingit,instead


 of being completely fettered by pompous orders issued by one brass hat, altered by another, and changed by a third in strict order of seniority.

 Ben turned on a low trace of his space drive. Its force could almost have been measured in dynes, rather than in the milposmillions of foot-poundscommonly spoken of in engine rooms. The little spaceship swam slowly among the crowded bits of cometary debris. It came to rest close beside the flank of the largest of all the masses of matter in sight. He maneuvered until no more than fifty feet separated the small vessel from the great mass of metal and rock. There would be mutual gravitation between them, of course. They would tend to fall together. But the acceleration of that gravity was so slight thatitmight take a month or more for the sports cruiser to fall just fifty feet.

 For two days, now, Sally had remained on the insulated bunk, except when she donned an insulated spacesuit with the helmet left off, to move about the little ship. The Thing could not reach her. She was recovering from the terrific ordeal she had enduredand now Ben swore at himself for what he considered stupidity. Instead of allowing the Thing-itself to build up a positive potential, he could have made one artificially. If by any chance the Thing found a way to return to Sally, he felt confident that he could driveitOut again, now, in minutes rather than days.

 He knew that the Thing still existed. The Geiger counter revealed its presence from time to time. Sally had seenit,glowing balefully in the darkness of the stateroom, when she woke after infinitely restful sleep.

 The little sports cruiser lay close beside a monstrous and misshapen hunk of stone and metal. It went drifting Out and out from the blue-white sun. Destroyers and cruisers and even battleships hunted forit,bedeviled by authoritative brass hats in swivel chairs. The CC phone muttered and muttered. Without detector-screens, which were useless anyhow because of the meteor-stream all about, Ben could not even estimate the nearness of his pursuers, but he felt safe. They could not ex amine every one of the countless millions of objects in a cometary orbit. Not possibly.

 He made a careful visual examination with the electron telescope, and grinned at Sally.

 Picking us out at even a thousand miles would be a miracle, he told her. We can go in for conversation and such things until the Navy decides that somebody was mistaken or we are dead. Meanwhile Im going to see if I can make that Thing a little more uncomfortable still.

 The Thing was in the metal fabric of the ship. It could move anywhere that a conductor existed. Butitwas not, apparently, possible for it to extract subsistence from metal. It was cannibalisticlife which liyed by devouring life. For some reason the life force in a male bodya mans bodywas not suitable forit.It could only derive nourishment from the vital force in the cells of a womans tissues. Yet its metabolism continued. It gave off cosmic rays in metal, as in human flesh. It must be thatitlost energy while in nonliving matter, and regained energyfedin living


 stuff. If it could be kept from any access to Sally for a long enough time,itmight starve, simply becauseithad radiated away in cosmic rays all the energyitpossessed.

 Sally smiled at Ben. They were bound to each other not only by feeling, but by the fact that they stood together literally~ against the universe. All the power of all the nations upon all the planets of all the suns of the Galaxy was opposed to them. They defied the pomposity of the brass hats of the universe simply by remaining alive. All authority demanded their death. Thousands of ships, with their number constantly increasing, and hundreds of thousands of men were- devoting their every effort to the discovery of a sixty-foot space cruiser designed for sport, in which Ben Sholto and Sally Hale carried a plague which had wiped out ten million people. And fat men in swivel chairs grew purple with rage as stinging rebukes passed from higher to lower officialdom.

 Conversation? said Sally, smiling. Weve been togetherhow long, Ben? Well be together all the rest of our lives. Maybe only we two, hiding through all the years to come!

 Maybe, admitted Ben, grinning, in that case well hold hands.

 She put her hand in its insulating glove upon his shoulder. She bent-down. He kissed her. And then he started, as if startled by a flash of light.

 She straightened up, her face stricken and pale.

 Its. . -back! she said in a queer, -racked voice. Oh, Ben! Its back! I can. . .feelit!And its raging! Its crazy with hatred! Its. . .its. . .oh,-its terrible!

 Ben swung the Geiger counter. Pointed at Sally,itclattered. No, it did not clatter. It roared. The cosmic rays created by the Thing, as shown by the counter, were many, many times more than any previous amount. It seemed as if the Thing were starved, and tore at the life force of Sallys body with a terrible voracity.

 Im going to pack you full of positive charges, and Ben, frantically, and get that Thing out again, and Im going to killit.

 He worked savagely. Sally sat down. In the insulated spacesuit the Thing could not leave her, though that was what they most desperately desired. Ben swiftly put together a static generator. It was old-fashioned. It was archaic, butitwas what the only possible theory called for. He workeditby hand and touched its electrode to Sallys cheek. The existence of a high potential was instantly evidenced. Sallys hair stirred and tried to stand out from her head.

 How doesitlike that? demanded Ben fiercely.

 Sally babbled. And Ben had worked so swiftly and so concentratedly that he had hardly looked at her. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were bright but vague. She showed every sign of fever; high fever; fever producing delirium. But the Thing had fled, before, when the positive charge was vastly less than this.

 Ben touched her cheek. A spark leaped, and she quivered a little.


 W-water, please. she babbled. Id like a drink of water with lots of ice and pink roses init

 But the Thing should be out, now. Ben turned off the lights to look at her. And she still glowed. The Thing had not come out.

 

 A battered space-tramp was ordered blasted out of space as a dangerous object by a sub-commissioner when in defiance of orders not to land in the Beta Cetacia solar systemitdived toward the surface of an uninhabited planet. It had reported desperately that its crew was nearly out of food and the air-supply would last for only four more days. Butitcould show no proper clearance from its last port-of-landing, and was suspected of smuggling. The Navy ship which traileditdid not destroyituntilithad landed and its crew had escaped, and was ordered to return to port for arrest and disciplinary action.

 Three thousand colonists were refused landing-permits on Thetis IX, because of missing papers they swore they had turned over on the day of their arrival. (The papers were found months later in an under-clerks desk drawer. He had forgotten to forward them. For the credit of the Service they were destroyed and the affair hushed up.)

 The sub-commissioner on Axcturis V issued an order forbidding criticism of the Administrative Service until criticized conditions had been reported to and passed upon by the Administrative Service Board of Appeals. On the same day he denied four requests for appeals to the Administrative Service Board of Appeals.

 On Sirius II, one Arthur Matheson was ordered arrested for making scientific experiments endangering the authority of the Galactic Commission. The experiments were those which led ultimately to the Matheson Matter-transmitter.

 Anditwas reported to Reserve Headquarters that Ben Sholtos position had been approximately determined and his capture was a matter of hours.

 But Ben was frantically fighting the intangible Thing which occupied Sallys body. Three times he charged Sally, in the insulated spacesuit, with the highest potential the static generator could produce. Three times he drove the Thing to frenzy. And three times he released the charge. The number of Things which roved triumphantly about the metalwork of the small ship increased visibly. There were at least a dozen. But Sallys body continued to glow. The Geiger counter continued to make a roaring noise rather than a clattering. The Thingsomehow Ben assumed thatitwas the original oneremained, tearing at the life which remained in Sally, consumingitand raking revenge for the hurtithad suffered.

 The CC phone muttered and muttered. Once or twiceitspoke loudly and distinctly. Some one of the searching ships was very near. Then there came the blasting tone-signal of a General Order, and Ben automatically touched the volume-control, half-crazed as he was -by the urgency of the problem the Thing presented.

 He had fired a single positron-blast at the Thing. The radiation from


 that blast had been picked up. The co-ordinates onitwere not accurate but now someone used that very inaccuracy in-a statistical method of makingitimpossible for Ben to escape from a closing-in mass of ships. It had to be assumed that Ben would listen in on Navy orders, and he had dodged past one Space-Navy cruiser by passing too close to it, too fast for its ranging devices to operate. This order forestalled any chance of his doing such a thing again. The order commanded every Navy ship within certain fixed classifications-at least two thousand ships in allto assume the co-ordinates of the positron-beam blast to be no better than approximate, and to use random mathematics to alter them within certain fixed limits. Each ship was then to head for its arbitrarily chosenbut nearby destination at maximum acceleration.

 The Space-Navy would close in on the section of space in which Bens little ship was, of course. Butitwould not come in in any pattern. The courses of the ships would be unpredictable. They would come together, but in a manner and at intervals and speeds none could compute. If Ben had been planning flight, he would have recognized its hopelessness. He might have dodged or crashed through any orderly arrangement of englobing ships, but this plan made evasion mathematically impossible. And, moreover, the General Order commanded the moving up of other thousands of ships behind the globe. Bens positron-beam blast had been within or near the orbit of a meteor-stream. With all the might of the Galactic Commission behind the search for him, that meteor-stream would be examined. Every stony mass would be inspected. The task, of course, would be quite the most gigantic task ever undertaken even by the Galactic Fleet, but it ended, absolutely, any trace of hope for Ben and Sally.

 But Ben had other, grimmer, more immediate reason for despair. Sally burned with fever. She had been rested, and she had been relatively strong. But now the Thing devoured her life.

 Bitterly, he saw the flaw in the process which had driven the Thing out the first time. He had made Sallys body painful foritto inhabit. The first time, the Thing had fled at its first opportunity. Butithad fled. It had not been forced outit had been frightened out. And the Thing was intelligent. Nowitrealized that Ben would have to release the positive potential which causeditsuffering, and that thenitwould cease to suffer. It endured the discomfort he created in order to work its re

 venge.-

 I need, said Ben desperately, while the Galactic Navy moved to destroy him and Sally babbled in delirium, to make something that will drag the Thing around! Dragit!Physically! Anditisnt matter! Its just a pack of negative charges bound together. Its a bound charge. A bound charge

 Electrons. A complex of electrons. It was energy on the verge of becoming matter, or matter past the verge of becoming energy. What can


 you do to an electric charge? How can you make it move, save by its own tension? What can you do to a bound charge?-

 Bound charge.. .bound charge muttered Ben, with sweat beading his forehead. Sallys dying, and Im thinking about bound charges the stuff kids learn in kindergarten! Whats a boundAh-h-h-h-h!

 He plunged at his instrument board.-He dragged ruthlessly at the CC phone. He pulled off the front panel by main strength and jerked fiercely at certain wires withinit.He wanted plate-current and condensers and a tiny rectifier capsule. The condensers and rectifier went into a unit hastily built up on an insulated handle. The device terminated in a ball-contact. There was a single, long, flexible lead to the plate-current terminal of the last of the amplifying tubes of the CC phone. He worked madly, and whenitwas done he set the originating circuit in the phone to oscillating, and pushed the oscillation frequency up to a hundred million per second. But his take-off was from the plate of the last tube, which did not yield oscillating current, but merely pulsating. It was current which varied in voltagebut not in direction of flowa hundred million times a second. And the variations in voltage were a thousand volts or more. He checked his device, sweating, and went over to Sally. He was shaking with hope and hatred and terror. He turned off the ceiling light. Sally glowed terribly. The multiplied metabolism of the Thing made her seem almost white-hot. Ben touched the ball-contact to Sallys cheek. He pressed the contact which let the pulsating plate-current flow into his condenser. The glow of Sallys flesh vanished.

 It was just as simple as that.

 Ben raged at himself for not having doneitearlier. It is taught almost in kindergartens that when one plate of a condenser is charged with positive electricity, and the second plate connected to an insulated body, that freenegativeelectrons in the insulated body will be drawn into the condenser. If the condenser is taken away,itwill carry those electrons withit.If its capacity and applied voltage are high enough,itwill leave no free electrons in the insulated body. And the Thing was a complex of free electrons.

 Butithad will. It was alive. It had intelligence, and it could hate. And such an entity could resist, could figuratively dig in, could symbolically sink its teeth and claws into the bodyitinhabited and resist the drawing power of applied voltage, even the maximum that Ben could apply. But one can resist a steady pull where an intermittent one is irresistible. The pulsations of the plate-current, as Ben had now arranged it, caused no steady pull, but instead a series of fierce and wrenching jerks at the resistance of the Thing. The current now shook the Thing. It tore atitlike a dog at the throat of a rat. The Thing was brutally torn at, and brutally released, one hundred million times in every second. Nothing, material or immaterial, could withstand such a mauling. The Things grip was broken, its will shattered, its resistance made impossibleperhaps it was rendered unconscious! It flowed into the condenser, and the rectifier


 capsule prevented its return. It was imprisoned in the small device in Bens handand an unholy triumph filled him.

 He turned on the lights and put the condenser-device very carefully down. He made sure to putiton an insolantite surfacean insulator of practically infinite resistance. He put on insulatiuig boots. He stood before the Geiger counter, anditgave no sign. He picked up Sally and carried her for the second time to the bunk he had insulated from the floor. He laid her there. She still babbled, and her eyes were fever-bright, but the cause of that fever was gone. She would return to normalbut probably terribly weakwithin a very little time.

 Ben returned to the control room. His eyes burned more brightly with hatred than Sallys had burned with fever. He regarded his device with a vengeful satisfaction. He cut off the switch and discharged the positive plate. The knob he had touched to Sallys cheek began to glow fiercely, even though the lights were shining. There was more than one Thing in the condenser. Freed-from the electric bondage Ben had contrived, but with no path by which to escape to the metal skin of the ship, there was a fierce glowing of the compressed, intolerably crowded Things.

 He turned the Geiger counter upon the knob. It clattered furiously. He turneditaway.

 Ah-h-h-h! he said thickly. Youre there, eh? And you know youre caught!

 He seemed to feel waves of pure hate enveloping him. He grinned savagely.

 Youd kill Sally, eh? Youre smart! Maybe you can understand me, and maybe you cant, but you know whats going to happen, dont you?

 He took out the little positron-beam pistol. He putitwithin inches of the knob of metal which glowed with pulsa~ting, hating light. He pulled the trigger. There was a reddish glow from the pistol. There was a searing, intolerable light from the knob. There was an unhearable, unbearable shriekthe feeling of anguish and rage and insupportable hatred.

 Then the knob- was merely a bit of metal attached to a condenser and an electric cord. It did not affect the Geiger counter. Ben licked his lips, his rage unappeased. He turned out the lights once more. There was a glow on the pilots chair. He stalkedit,and touched the knob toitwith the plate-current on. The glow vanished. He turned off the switch and discharged the positive plate. The knob glowed. More faintly, to be sure. There was but one Thing trapped this time. Ben laughed without mirth. He gave the Thing a blast of the positron beam. It screamed soundlessly and died.

 Sallys babbling ceased. She called faintly. Ben went to her, all savagery and hate. He gave her water.

 Im killing them! he said thickly. Ill get all of them! Ill kill ev&y one! They made you suffer. Theyd have killed you! Ill get every one

 Sally smiled tiredly at him. She was utterly exhausted, and she was very weak indeed.


 Well have to send word somehow, so theyll know what. to do if the plague ever shows up anywhere else

 Ben remembered. Sally was thinking in terms of hope, but there was no hope. He was killing the Things because they had karmed Sally. But the orders hed overheard a little while back made anything he could do a mere futility. And worse, the plague had already spread from Pharona. A newscast, hours sincehed hardly noticeditat the timereported that a Galactic Commission cruiser had landed on Pharona with dispatches for the local sub-commissioner. He could not be cut off from his regular flow of documents to sign! It observed all sanitary precautions. Butitdid not think to prevent any possibility of bound electric charges entering its metal fabric. So whenitwent on to Galataitcarried the plague, and women were now dying by thousands, and other women by more thou--sands glowed faintly with cosmic rays coming from their bodies.

 Ben told her, his face savagely stern.

 We must tell, she insisted. Even if we die, Ben

 My dear, said Ben bitterly, you know the brass hat mind. The instant we open communication, every ship thats hunting us will come bouncing here to blast us Out of space. And theyll find us.If we can get our information to them and on their recorders before were killed

 why. . .sooner or later, after maybe millions more lives have been lost, the information weve given will be passed on as the result of brilliant investigation under the supervision of brass hat so-and-so. But well be dead and disreputable. And well stay disreputable after were dead, so that some pompous ass can claim credit for what weve found out and get a few more decorations to hang on his fat tummy.

 Maybe hers, said Sally. She lay there in the bunk, looking up at Ben with soft eyes. Some brass hats are women, and a woman brass hat is even worse than a man. You cant blame them, Ben. Theyre important people. They have important posts. So they get dignified and pompous and stupid. If they could only feel that its their work instead of them thats important

 But they never will, said Ben grimly. So we die. I pulled down the

 -GC phone to get rid of the Things. Ill kill off the rest and put the -phone back together. Then Ill broadcast my stuff, and well sit down and hold hands until were killed.

 Darling! said Sally wistfully. Would you mind kissing me? You havent kissed me but twice since weve been together

 He bent down. He kissed her. And then they clung, suddenly. The little sports cruiser had reeled. Something had hold ofit.With a tractorbeam. Ben fought against a savage acceleration, applied from without, and then- there was a violent impact. They had been drawn violently against the hull of a much larger vessel. Tools worked instantly on the air lock, and before Ben could do more than reach the door of the stateroom with his positron-pistol in his hand, he found himself looking into the muzzles of other positron-guns. Navy men faced him.


 Youre under arrest, Sholto, said a voice crisply. We were ordered to burn you down on sight, but since the plagues hit Calata, weve got instructions to doitbefore a visiphone screen as a warning to anybody else who has the idea of breaking a planetary quarantine. Come along!

 

 Brass hat:an idiom accepted as Auxiliary Basic since Circa 2126 Earth Style. It originally referred to the headgear used to distinguish staff officers in an army (See ARMY) who gave orders without responsibility for their result, and which they were required to justify only by precedent, political necessity or strategic reasons,terms which have no discoverable exact meaning. Costly blunders by officers of the mental pattern AF-IQ-R.37 and its derivatives(to whom the career of a staff officer was irresistibly attractive in time of war) led to the use of the term brass hat to indicate persons of those now-recognized mental patterns. It is an interesting case of instinctive popular recognition of mental patterning before personality analysis emerged from charlatanry.

 (Dictionary of Auxiliary BasicWordsand Idioms.Cephus, Antres VII. 2215 Earth Style.)

 

 Ben grinned. There was no particular mirth init,butitwas the only possible expression of the way he felt.

 Ah-h-h! he said softly. The brass-hat mind in action! The order undoubtedly ended, this order is not to be questioned. But try and carryitout! You can kill me, of course. But Ive a pistol in my hand, too. Try and drag me to a visiphone! And youve got a boarding-mike with you, havent you? Ah, yes! Everything I say will be recorded and goes through all the ranks of brass hats up to the Galactic Commission, if necessary. Very well! This is a plague ship. I have a girl here who has had the plague and has been cured ofit.I know how to cure the plague. But the ship is infectedand so is yours, now! If there are as many as a dozen women on boardit,youve got a dozen cases of plague in your ships company, and youve only to set a Geiger counter in front of any one of themor stand them in the darkto finditout! What Ive said is recorded! Now kill me and go and land on any planet in the universe!

 The boarding officer said uncertainly:

 I have orders to take you to a visiphone screen and blast you before it.

 Tryit!said Ben savagely.

 He shook-with fury. Because it seemed that every hope was gone, not only of his own life and Sallys, but of being able to get past the wall of pompous stupidity brass-hattism had erected. The Space-Navy and all interstellar traffic suffered intolerably from a policy which assumed that infinite wisdom lay in any person with authority to issue an order, and that only blind obedience should be practiced by inferiors.

 He raged at himself, too. It was his use of the positron pistol to kill


 the Things which had led this Navy cruiser directly to him. PullingOutthe GC phone to get its condenser had left him unaware of demands for surrender. His screens had been off. And now he would be killed, and the plague would go all through the galaxy. Because, of-course, brass hats would refuse to believe anything they did not already know, and they would solemnly remove themselves from infected planets-with all sanitary precautions, of courseto exercise their authority elsewhere, and they would spread the plague themselves.

 The boarding-officers helmet phone hummed. His uncertainty vanished.-

 Very good, sir, he said to the air. To Ben be said, Your first statements have been checked. Four cases of plague have been found already. You say you can cure them. They will be brought here. The order for your execution is suspended for the time being.

 Ill doit,said Ben curtly, in the control room.-

 People crowded through the air lock and into the control room. There were four women and a stout and pompous individual with the brass tabs of an under-commissioner. Of brass hat ratingand brass hat mentality.

 You are incredibly insolent! he puffed. You have defied the authority of the Galactic Commission! It is unheard of!

 Also, said Ben grimly, Ive found out how to cure the plague. If you cant think of anything but my defiance -of authority, youre a fool!

 The brass hat purpled and gasped. But Ben turned out the lights. The four women, in Space-Navy Auxiliary uniform, stood out starkly in the darkness. Their faces and throats and hands glowed with a pale white light. Ben picked up his condenser. He toucheditto the cheek of the first woman, whose features were working convulsively. The glow vanished from her. The little knob glowed instead. Ben helditout and gaveita momentary positron blast. There was the feeling of a soundless scream. He touched the second woman. She no longer glowed. A second blast. A second unheard shriek. The third. When he had drawn the Thing from the fourth woman he did not use the blast uponit.Instead, he turned on the lights.

 Those four cases of plague are cured, he said shortly.

 The brass hat puffed.

 In that case, he said querulously, there is nothing more to be done. Regulations have to be obeyed. You will carry out your orders, lieutenant?

 The boarding-officers jaw dropped.

 You mean, sir

 Hes been ordered to be executed, said the brass hat, indignantly.Hasntthe Navy learned yet that orders are to be obeyed first andquestionsasked afterwards?

 Ben released the last Thing into the fabric of the ship.

 But the plague isnt finished, he said, his eyes burning. I inform youand all my words are recordedthat if you land on any planet with-


 out my having cleaned your ship of the plague, you will start the plague again wherever you land.

 Butthats blackmail! cried the brass hat.

 There were sounds. Three more people came through the air lock.

 -Two were the ranking officers of a Space-Navy cruiser. The third was a white-haired woman in a gray cloak. She had alert, intelligent eyes.

 Maam, bellowed the brass hat. This man has insulted and tried to blackmail the Galactic Commission! I have ordered him blasted!

 It would be unthinkable, of course, to carry out a death sentence in the presence of a member of the Galactic Commission itself. The white-haired woman said gently:

 More immediately important, I am afraid, is the fact that he called you a fool. She looked at Ben. I am Myra Thorn. I am one of the Galactic Commission. I was on my way to Galata, where the plague has broken out, to try to press its investigation. Within the past five minutesitappears that I have developed the plague myself. I feel that there is something within me, but separate from me, which gloats in triumphant hate. A Geiger counter verifies my diagnosis. And... I glow in darkness. The plague-is a form of life, isitnot? An entity which is not quite matter?

 Yes, maam, said Ben. He regarded her from beneath frowning brows. It is an organized form of electron gas.

 I wish, said the white-haired woman, that you would broadcast through the cruisers CC phone, since your own is dismantledall the information you have on these entities, and the method you have devised for destroying them.

 Yes, maam, said Ben. He still regarded her- steadily.

 Then, at your convenience, she said quietly, you may clean the cruiser alongside, and last of allbut I must be lastyou may cure me of the plague.

 Easy enough, said Ben grimly.

 Very well-

 The brass hat bleated:

 But maam, there is an official order that he shall be blasted immediately upon his capture if not on sight! It is irregular! It is unheard of! A Commission orderAnd he has defied the Commission! He tried to blackmailit!

 The white-haired woman said meditatively:

 To be sure. Formalities must be observed. So I formally annul his sentence. And, by the way, I order you under arrest for courtmartial. The charge will be stupidity, incompetence, and arrogance. I have to make a charge, she added mildly, so we can have a psychometrist make a complete chart of your personality. Really, we must make regulations to keep your sort from having authority, hereafter. You do too much damage. She turned again to Ben. Now, what will you need?

 Five minutes with your technical officer, said Ben briefly. Then he


 can do anything I could. But maam, I have a girl on board. Shes been officially reported dead, and sentenced to death afterward. I would like-

 A pardon? Of course!

 No, maam, a wedding,- said Ben. He grinned.

 

 (Formal announcement by the Galactic Commission, Sitting in Executive Session, January z6,2195.)

 

 The Galactic Commission makesitknown thatitrecognizes that the plague upon Pharona, and its very great threat to the entire human race, cannot be blamed upon anything but certain ill-advised actions of members of the Administrative Service. Members of the Commission, having discovered this fact, have discovered other and further evidences of extraordinary incapacity and stupidity among high officials of the Administrative Service, and have determined that such persons fall into certain mental patterns which from now on are to be forbidden. Persons falling within patterns.. .(Here follows a list of sixteen mental patterns) are forbidden hereafter to hold any office under the Commission, or any office of authority in any enterprise under the Commissipns guidance. The Commission recommends to planetary governments that such patterns be forbidden planetary positions of authority also, but since politics has enormous attraction for persons of these types,itcannot expect that they can successfully be excluded from legislative bodies until genetics supplies a means of breeding these strains out of the human race.


