But it was quite otherwise when another ship-day began with the taped sounds of morning activities as faint as echoes but nevertheless establishing an atmosphere of their own. * * * * * Calhoun examined the plastic block and its contents. He read the instruments which had cared for it while he slept. He put the block--no longer frosted--in the culture-microscope and saw its enclosed, infinitesimal particles of life in the process of multiplying on the food that had been frozen with them when they were reduced to the spore condition. He beamed. He replaced the block in the incubation oven and faced the day cheerfully. Maril greeted him with great reserve. They breakfasted. "I've been thinking," said Maril evenly. "I think I can get you a hearing for--whatever ideas you may have to help Dara." "Kind of you," murmured Calhoun. "May I ask whose influence you'll exert?" "There's a man," said Maril reservedly, "who--thinks a great deal of me. I don't know his present official position, but he was certain to become prominent. I'll tell him how you've acted up to now, and your attitude, and of course that you're Med Service. He'll be glad to help you, I'm sure." "Splendid!" said Calhoun, nodding. "That will be Korvan." She started. "How did you know?" "Intuition," said Calhoun drily. "All right. I'll count on him." But he did not. He worked in the tiny biological lab all that ship-day and all the next. The girl remained quiet. On the ship-day after, the time for breakfast approached. And while the ship was practically a world all by itself, it was easy to look forward with confidence to the future. But when contact and--in a fashion--conflict with other and larger worlds loomed nearer, prospects seemed less bright. Calhoun had definite plans, now, but there were so many ways in which they could be frustrated! Weald's political leaders could not oppose hysterical demands for action against blueskins, after a deathship arrived with no signs whatever of blueskins as responsible for its cargo of corpses. It was certain that a starving Dara would tend to desperate and fatal measures against hereditary enemies. Calhoun sat down at the control-board and watched the clock. "I've got things lined up," he told Maril wrily, "if only they work out. _If_ I can make somebody on Dara listen and follow my advice and _if_ Weald doesn't get ideas and isn't doing what I suspect it is, maybe something can be done." "I'm sure you'll do your best," said Maril politely. Calhoun managed to grin. He watched the ship-clock. There was no sensation attached to overdrive travel except at the beginning and the end. It was now time for the end. He might find that absolutely anything had happened while he made plans which would immediately be seen to be hopeless. Weald could have sent ships to Dara, or Dara might be in such a state of desperation that ...