"Judy! Oh, God' look at her face!"
Ewen swung around to Dr. Lovat. Her cheeks and eyelids were covered with the greenish dots, which seemed to spread and enlarge and swell as he looked at them. She squeezed her eyes shut. Camilla caught her hands gently as she raised them to her face.
"Don't touch your face, Judy--Dr. Ross, what is it?"
"How the hell do I know?" Ewen looked around as the others gathered around them.
"Anybody else turning green?" He added, "All right, then. This is what I'm here for, and everybody else keep your distance until we know just what we've got. Heather!" He shook her shoulder sharply. "Stop that! You're not going to drop dead, as far as I can tell your vital signs are all just fine:,
With an effort, the girl controlled herself. "Sorry."
"Now. Exactly what do you feel? Do those spots hurt?"
"No, dammit, they itch!" She was flushed, her face red, her copper hair falling loose around her shoulders; she raised a hand to brush it back, and Ewen caught her wrist, careful to touch only her uniform sleeve. "No, don't touch your face," he said, "that's what Dr. Lovat did. Dr. Lovat, how do you feel?"
"Not so good," she said with some effort, "My face bums, and my eyes--well, you can see."
"Indeed I can." Ewen realized that the lids were swelling and turning greenish; she looked grotesque
Secretly Ewen wondered if he looked as frightened as he felt. Like everyone there, he had been brought up on stories of exotic plagues to be found on strange worlds. But he was a doctor and this was his job. He said, making his voice as firm as he could' "All right' everyone else stand back; but don't panic, if it was an airborne plague we'd all have caught it, and probably the night we landed here. Dr. Lovat, any other symptoms?"
Judy said, trying to smile, "None--except I'm scared."
Ewen said, "We won't count that--yet." Pulling rubber gloves from a steri-pac in his kit, he quickly took her pulse. "No tachycardia, no depressed breathing. You, Heather?"
"I'm fine, except for the damned itching."
Ewen examined the small rash minutely. It was pinpoint at first, but each papule quickly swelled to a vesicle. He said, "Well, let's start eliminating, What did you and Dr. Lovat do that nobody else did?"
"I took soil samples," she said, "looking for soil bacteria and diatoms."
"I was studying some leaves," Judy said' "trying to see if they had a suitable chlorophyll content."
Marco Zabal turned back his uniform cuffs. "I'll play Sherlock Holmes," he said. "There's your answer." He extended his wrists, showing one or two tiny green dots. "Miss Stuart, did you have to move away any leaves to dig up your samples?"
"Why, yes, some flat reddish ones," she said, and he nodded. "There's your answer. Like any good xenobotanist, I handle any plant with gloves until I'm sure what's in it or on it, and I noticed the volatile oil at the time, but took it for granted. Probably some distant relative of urushiol--rhus toxicodendron-- poison ivy to you. And it's my guess that if it comes out this quickly, it's simple contact dermatitis and there aren't any serious side effects." He grinned, his long narrow face amused. "Try an antihistamine ointment, if you have any, or give Dr. Lovat a shot, since her eyes are swollen so much it's going to be hard for her to see where she's going. And
from now on don't go admiring any pretty leaves until I pass on them., all right?"
Ewen followed his instructions, with a relief so great it was almost pain. He felt totally unable to cope with any alien plagues. A massive hypo of antihistamines quickly shrunk Judith Lovat's swollen eyes to normal, although the green color remained. The tall Basque showed them all his specimen leaf, encased in a transparent plastic sample case. "The red menace that turns you green," he said dryly. "Learn to stay away from alien plants, if you can."
MacAran said, "If everyone's all right, let's move along," but as they gathered up their equipment, he felt half sick with relief, and renewed fear. What other dangers could be lurking in an innocent-looking tree or flower? He said half-aloud to Ewen, "I knew this place was too good to be true."
Zabal heard him and chuckled. "My brother was on the First Landing team that went to the Coronis colony. That's one reason I was heading out there. That's the only reason I happen to know all this. The Expedition Force doesn't care to publicize how tricky planets can be, because no one on our nice, safe Earth would dare go out to them. And of course by the time the major colonizing groups get there, like us, the technological crews have removed the obvious dangers and, shall we say, smoothed things down a bit."
"Let's go," MacAran ordered, without answering. This was a wild planet' but what could he do about it? He'd said he wanted to take risks, now he was having his chance.
But they went on without incident, halting near midday to eat lunch from their packs and allow Camilla Del Rey to check her chronometer and come closer to the exact moment of noon. He drew closer to her as she was watching a small pole she had set up In the ground:
"What's the story?"
"The moment when the shadow is shortest is exact noon. So I note the length every two minutes and when it begins to get longer again, noon--the sun exactly on meridian---is is that two-minute period. This is close enough to true local noon for our measurements." She turned to him and asked in a low voice, "Are Heather and Judy really all right?"
"Oh, yes. Ewen's been checking them at every stop. We don't know how long it will take for the color to fade, but they're fine."
"I nearly panicked," she murmured' "Judy Lovat makes me ashamed of myself. She was so calm."
He noticed that imperceptibly the "Lieutenant Del Rey," "Dr. Lovat," "Dr. MacLeod" of the ship--where, after all, you saw only your few intimates except formally--were melting into Camilla, Judy, Mac. He approved. They might be here a long time. He said something like that, then abruptly asked, "Do you have any idea how long we will be here for repairs?"
"None," she said' "but Captain Leicester says--six weeks if we can repair it."
"If?"
"Of course we can repair it," she said suddenly and sharply, and turned away. "We'll have to. We can't stay here."
He wondered if this were fact or optimism, but did not ask. When he spoke next it was to make some banal remark about the quality of the rations they carried and to hope Judy would find some fresh food sources here.
As the sun angled slowly down over the distant ranges, it grew cold again, and a sharp wind sprang up. Camilla looked apprehensively at the gathering clouds.
"So much for astronomical observations", she murmured. "Does it rain every night on this damnable planet?"
"Seems like it," MacAran said briefly. "Maybe it's a seasonal thing. But every night, so far, at this season at least hot at noon, cooling down fast, clouds in the after
noon, rain at evening, snow toward midnight. And fog in the morning."
She said, knitting her brows, "From what I've guessed from the time changes--not that five days can tell us much--it's spring; anyhow the days are getting longer, about three minutes each day. The planet seems to have somewhat more tilt than Earth, which would make for violent weather changes. But maybe after the snow clears and before the fog rises, the sky will clear a little …" and fell silent, thinking. MacAran did not disturb her, but as a thin fine drizzle began to fall, began to search for a camping site. They had better get under canvas before it turned into a downpour.