Life on other planets -- Fiction; Quarantine -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space medicine -- Fiction
The broadcast waves of Dara told of agreement, and wild and fierce
resentment filled the pariah planet's people. There was almost
revolution to insist upon resistance, however hopeless and however
fatal. But not all of Dara realized that a vital change had come about
in the state of things on Dara. The enemy fleet had not a hint of it.
In menacing array, the invading fleet spread itself about the skies of
Dara, well beyond the atmosphere. Harsh voices talked with increasing
arrogance to the landing-grid staff. A monster ship of Weald came
heavily down, riding the landing-grid's force-fields. It touched
gently. Its occupants were apprehensive, but hungry for the loot they
had been assured was theirs. The ship's outer hull would be sterilized
before it returned to Weald, of course. And there was adequate
protection for the landing-party.
Men came out of the ship's ports. They wore the double, transparent
sag-suits Calhoun had suggested, which had been painstakingly tested,
and which were perfect protection against contagion. They were double
garments of plastic, with air tanks inside the inner flexible
envelope.
Men wearing such sag-suits could walk about on Dara. They could work
on Dara. They could loot with impunity and all contamination must
remain outside the suits, and on their return to their ships they
would simply stand in the airlocks while corrosive gases swirled
around them, killing any possible organism of disease. Then, for extra
assurance, when air from Weald filled the airlock again, the men would
burn the outer plastic covering and step into the ship without ever
having come within two layers of plastic of infection.
What loot they gathered, obviously, could be decontaminated before it
was returned to Weald. Metals could be melted, if necessary. Gems
could be sterilized. It was a most satisfactory discovery, to realize
that blueskins could be not only scorned but robbed. There was only
one bit of irrelevant information the space fleet of Weald did not
have.
That information was that the people of Dara weren't blueskins any
longer. There'd been a trivial epidemic....
The sag-suited men of Weald went zestfully about their business. They
took over the landing-grid's operation, driving the Darian operators
away. For the first time in history the operators of a landing-grid
wore make-up to look like they did have blue pigment in their skins.
They didn't. The Wealdian landing-party tested the grid's operation.
They brought down another giant ship. Then another. And another.
Parties in the shiny sag-suits spread through the city. There were the
huge stockpiles of precious metals, brought in readiness to be
surrendered and carried away. Some men set to work to load these into
the holds of the ships of Weald. Some went forthrightly after personal
loot.
They came upon very few Darians. Those they saw kept sullenly away
from them. They entered shops and took what they fancied. They
zestfully removed the treasure of banks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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