ere's been an epidemic of something that--is
obliterating the blue spots on everybody that catches it. There are
always trivial epidemics that nobody notices. Korvan's found evidence of
one that's making 'blueskin' no longer a word with any meaning."

"Remarkable!" said Calhoun.

"Did you--do it?" asked Maril. "Did you start a harmless epidemic
that--wipes out the virus that makes blueskins?"

Calhoun said in feigned astonishment;

"How can you think such a thing, Maril?"

"Because I was there," said Maril. She said somehow desperately; "I know
you did it! But the question is--are you going to tell? When people find
they're not blueskins any longer--when there's no such thing as a
blueskin any longer--will you tell them why?"

"Naturally not," said Calhoun. "Why?" Then he guessed. "Has Korvan--."

"He thinks," said Maril, "that he thought it up all by himself. He's
found the proof. He's--very proud. I'd have to tell him the truth if you
were going to tell. And he'd be ashamed and--angry."

Calhoun considered, staring at her.

"How it happened doesn't matter," he said at last. "The idea of anybody
doing it deliberately would be disturbing, too. It shouldn't get about.
So it seems much the best thing for Korvan to discover what's happened
to the blueskin pigment, and how it happened, but not why."

She read his face carefully.

"You aren't doing it as a favor to me," she decided. "You'd rather it
was that way."

She looked at him for a long time, until he squirmed. Then she nodded
and went away.

An hour later the Wealdian space-fleet was reported, massed in space and
driving for Dara.

CHAPTER 8

There were small scout-ships which came on ahead of the main fleet.
They'd originally been guard-boats, intended for solar-system duty only
and quite incapable of overdrive. They'd come from Weald in the
cargo-holds of the liners now transformed into fighting ships. The
scouts swept low, transmitting fine-screen images back to the fleet, of
all that they might see before they were shot down. They found the
landing-grid. It contained nothing larger than Calhoun's Med Ship,
Aesclipus Twenty.

They searched here and there. They flitted to and fro, scanning wide
bands of the surface of Dara. The planet's cities and highways and
industrial centers were wholly open to inspection from the sky. It
looked as if the scouts hunted most busily for the fleet of former
grain-ships which Calhoun had said blueskins