As it turned out, Dara was desperate. The Med Ship came out nearly a light-month from the sun about which the planet Dara revolved. Calhoun went into a short hop toward it. Then Dara was on the other side of the blazing yellow star. It took time to reach it. He called down, identifying himself and the ship and asking for coordinates so his ship could be brought to ground. There was confusion, as if the request were so unusual that the answers were not ready. The grid, too, was on the planet's night side. Presently the ship was locked onto by the grid's force-fields. It went downward without incident. Calhoun saw that Maril sat tensely, twisting her fingers within each other, until the ship actually touched ground. Then he opened the exit-port, and faced armed men in the darkness, with blast-rifles trained on him. There was a portable cannon trained on the Med Ship itself. "Come out!" rasped a voice. "If you try anything you get blasted! Your ship and its contents are seized by the planetary government!" CHAPTER 5 It seemed that the smell of hunger was in the air. The armed men were cadaverous. Lights came on, and stark, harsh shadows lay black upon the ground. Calhoun's captors were uniformed, but the uniforms hung loosely upon them. Where the lights struck upon their faces, their cheeks were hollow. They were emaciated. And there were the splotches of pigment of which Calhoun had heard. The leader of the truculent group was blue, except for two fingers which in the glaring illumination seemed whiter than white. "Out!" said that man savagely. "We're taking over your stock of food. You'll get your share of it, like everybody else, but--out!" Maril spoke over Calhoun's shoulder. She uttered a cryptic sentence or two. It should have amounted to identification, but there was skepticism in the the armed party. "Oh, you're one of us, eh?" said the guard-leader sardonically. "You'll have a chance to prove that! Come out of there!" Calhoun spoke abruptly; "This is a Med Ship," he said. "There are medicines and bacterial cultures, inside it. They shouldn't be meddled with. Here on Dara you've had enough of plagues!" The man with the blue hand said as sardonically as before; "I said the government was taking over your ship! It won't be looted. But you're not taking a full cargo of food away! In fact, it's not likely you're leaving!" "I want to speak to someone in authority," snapped Calhoun. "We've just come from Weald." He felt bristling hatred all about him as he named Weald. "There's tumult there. They're talking about dropping fusion bombs here. It's important that I talk to somebody with the authority to take a few sensible precautions!" He descended to the ground. There was a panicky "_Chee! Chee!_" from behind him, and Murgatroyd came dashing to swarm up his body and cling apprehensively to his neck. "What's that?"