“Those four cases of plague are cured,” he said shortly.
The brass hat puffed.
“In that case,” he said querulously, “there is nothing more to be done. Regulations have to be obeyed. You will carry out your orders, lieutenant?
The boarding-officer’s jaw dropped.
“You mean, sir—”
“He’s been ordered to be executed,” said the brass hat, indignantly. “Hasn’t the Navy learned yet that orders are to be obeyed first and questions asked afterwards?”
Ben released the last Thing into the fabric of the ship.
“But the plague isn’t finished,” he said, his eyes burning. “I inform you—and all my words are recorded—that if you land on any planet without my having cleaned your ship of the plague, you will start the plague again wherever you land.”
“But—that’s blackmail!” cried the brass hat.
There were sounds. Three more people came through the air lock.
-Two were the ranking officers of a Space-Navy cruiser. The third was a white-haired woman in a gray cloak. She had alert, intelligent eyes.
“Ma’am,” bellowed the brass hat. “This man has insulted and tried to blackmail the Galactic Commission! I have ordered him blasted!”
It would be unthinkable, of course, to carry out a death sentence in the presence of a member of the Galactic Commission itself. The white-haired woman said gently:
“More immediately important, I am afraid, is the fact that he called you a fool.” She looked at Ben. “I am Myra Thorn. I am one of the Galactic Commission. I was on my way to Galata, where the plague has broken out, to try to press its investigation. Within the past five minutes it appears that I have developed the plague myself. I feel that there is something within me, but separate from me, which gloats in triumphant hate. A Geiger counter verifies my diagnosis. And... I glow in darkness. The plague - is a form of life, is it not? An entity which is not quite matter?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ben. He regarded her from beneath frowning brows. “It is an organized form of electron gas.”
“I wish,” said the white-haired woman, “that you would broadcast— through the cruiser’s CC phone, since your own is dismantled—all the information you have on these entities, and the method you have devised for destroying them.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ben. He still regarded her- steadily.
“Then, at your convenience,” she said quietly, “you may clean the cruiser alongside, and last of all—but I must be last—you may cure me of the plague.”
“Easy enough,” said Ben grimly.
“Very well—” -
The brass hat bleated:
“But ma’am, there is an official order that he shall be blasted immediately upon his capture if not on sight! It is irregular! It is unheard of! A Commission order—And he has defied the Commission! He tried to blackmail it!”
The white-haired woman said meditatively:
“To be sure. Formalities must be observed. So I formally annul his sentence. And, by the way, I order you under arrest for courtmartial. The charge will be stupidity, incompetence, and arrogance. I have to make a charge,” she added mildly, “so we can have a psychometrist make a complete chart of your personality. Really, we must make regulations to keep your sort from having authority, hereafter. You do too much damage.” She turned again to Ben. “Now, what will you need?”
“Five minutes with your technical officer,” said Ben briefly. “Then he can do anything I could. But ma’am, I have a girl on board. She’s been officially reported dead, and sentenced to death afterward. I would like—” -
“A pardon? Of course!”
“No, ma’am, a wedding,”- said Ben. He grinned.
(Formal announcement by the Galactic Commission, Sitting in Executive Session, January 26, 2195.)
“The Galactic Commission makes it known that it recognizes that the plague upon Pharona, and its very great threat to the entire human race, cannot be blamed upon anything but certain ill-advised actions of members of the Administrative Service. Members of the Commission, having discovered this fact, have discovered other and further evidences of extraordinary incapacity and stupidity among high officials of the Administrative Service, and have determined that such persons fall into certain mental patterns which from now on are to be forbidden. Persons falling within patterns. . .“ (Here follows a list of sixteen mental patterns) “are forbidden hereafter to hold any office under the Commission, or any office of authority in any enterprise under the Commissipn’s guidance. The Commission recommends to planetary governments that such patterns be forbidden planetary positions of authority also, but since politics has enormous attraction for persons of these types, it cannot expect that they can successfully be excluded from legislative bodies until genetics supplies a means of breeding these strains out of the human race.”