"To break it down," said Calhoun bitterly, "I need aromatic olefines and some acetone, and acetic-acid radicals and methyl submolecular groups. To destroy it absolutely I need available unsaturated hydrocarbons—they'll be gases! And it has to be kept from reforming as it's broken up, and I may need twenty different organic radicals available at the same time! It's a month's work for a dozen competent men just to find out how to make it, and I'd have to make it in quantity for millions of people and persuade them of its necessity against all the authority of the government and the hatred of the paras, and then distribute it—"
Murgatroyd was upset. He wanted something that Calhoun wouldn't give him. Calhoun had shown impatience—almost an unheard-of thing! Murgatroyd squirmed unhappily. He still wanted the thing in the chest. But if he did something ingratiating....
He saw the blaster, lying on the floor. Calhoun often petted him when, imitating, he picked up something that had been dropped. Murgatroyd went over to the blaster. He looked back at Calhoun. Calhoun paced irritably up and down. The grid operator stood with clenched hands, contemplating the intolerable and the monstrous.
Murgatroyd picked up the blaster. He trotted over to Calhoun. He plucked at the man's trouser-leg again. He held the blaster in the only way his tiny paw could manage it. A dark, sharp-nailed finger rested on the trigger.
"Chee-chee!" said Murgatroyd.
He offered the blaster. Calhoun jumped when he saw it in Murgatroyd's paw. The blaster jerked, and Murgatroyd's paw tightened to hold it. He pulled the trigger. A blaster-bolt crashed out of the barrel. It was a miniature bolt of ball-lightning. It went into the floor, vaporizing the surface and carbonizing the multi-ply wood layer beneath it. The Med Ship suddenly reeked of wood smoke and surfacer. Murgatroyd fled in panic to his cubbyhole and cowered in its farthest corner.
But there was a singular silence in the Med Ship. Calhoun's expression was startled; amazed. He was speechless for long seconds. Then he said blankly:
"Damnation! How much of a fool can a man make of himself when he works at it? Do you smell that?" He shot the question at the grid operator. "Do you smell that? It's wood smoke! Did you know it?"
Murgatroyd listened fearfully, blinking.
"Wood smoke!" said Calhoun between his teeth. "And I didn't see it! Men have had fires for two million years and electricity for half a thousand. For two million years there was no man or woman or child who went a full day without breathing in some wood smoke! And I didn't realize that it was so normal a part of human environment that it was a necessary one!"
There was a crash. Calhoun had smashed a chair. It was an oddity because it was make of wood. Calhoun had owned it because it was odd. Now he smashed it to splinters and piled them up and flung blaster-bolt after blaster-bolt into the heap. The air inside the Med Ship grew pungent; stinging; strangling. Murgatroyd sneezed. Calhoun coughed. The grid operator seemed about to choke. But in the white fog Calhoun cried exultantly:
"Aromatic olefines! Acetone! Acetic acid radicals and methyl submolecular groups! And smoke has unsaturated hydrocarbon gases. This is the stuff our ancestors have breathed in tiny quantities for a hundred thousand generations! Of course it was essential to them! And to us! It was a part of their environment, so they had to have a use for it! And it controlled the population of certain molecules...."
The air system gradually cleared away the smoke, but the Med Ship still reeked of wood-smoke smells.
"Let's check on this thing!" snapped Calhoun. "Murgatroyd!"
Murgatroyd came timidly to the door of his cubbyhole. He blinked imploringly at Calhoun. At a repeated command he came unhappily to his master. Calhoun petted him. Then he opened the chest in which a container held living scavengers which writhed and swam and seemed to seethe. He took out that container. He took off the lid.
Murgatroyd backed away. His expression was ludicrous. There was no question but that his nose was grievously offended. Calhoun turned to the grid operator. He extended the sample of scavengers. The grid man clenched his teeth and took it. Then his face worked. He thrust it back into Calhoun's hand.
"It's—horrible!" he said thickly. "Horrible!" Then his jaw dropped. "I'm not a para! Not ... a para—" Then he said fiercely. "We've got to get this thing started! We've got to start curing paras—"
"Who," said Calhoun, "will be ashamed of what they remember. We can't get co-operation form them! And we can't get co-operation from the government! The men who were the government are paras and they've given their authority to Dr. Lett. You don't think he'll abdicate, do you? Especially when it's realized that he was the man who developed the strain of scavengers that secrete this modified butyl mercaptan that turns men into paras!"
Calhoun grinned almost hysterically.
"Maybe it was an accident. Maybe he found himself the first para and was completely astonished. But he couldn't be alone in what he knew was—degradation. He wanted others with him in that ghastly state. He got them. Then he didn't want anybody not to be like himself.... We can't get help from him!"
Exultantly, he flipped switches to show on vision screens what went on in the world outside the ship. He turned on all the receivers that could pick up sounds and broadcasts. Voices came in:
"There's fighting everywhere! Normals won't accept paras among them! Paras won't leave normals alone.... They touch them; breathe on them—and laugh! There's fighting—" The notion that the para state was contagious was still cherished by paras. It was to be preferred to the notion that they were possessed by devils. But there were some who gloried in the more dramatic opinion. There were screamings on the air, suddenly, and a man's voice panting: "Send police here fast! The paras have gone wild. They're—"
Calhoun seated himself at the control desk. He threw switches there. He momentarily touched a button. There was a slight shock and the beginning of a roar outside. It cut off. Calhoun looked at the vision plates showing outside. There was swirling smoke and steam. There were men running in headlong flight, leaving their ground cars behind them.
"A slight touch of emergency rocket," said Calhoun. "They've run away. Now we end the plague on Tallien Three."
The grid operator was still dazed by the continued absence of any indication that he might ever become a para. He said unsteadily:
"Sure! Sure! But how?"
"Wood smoke," said Calhoun. "Emergency rockets. Roofs! There's been no wood smoke in the air on this planet because there are no forest fires and people don't burn fuel. They use electricity. So we start the largest production of wood smoke that we find convenient, and the population of a certain modified butyl mercaptan molecule will be reduced. Down to a normal level. Immediately!"
The emergency rocket bellowed thunderously and the little Med Ship rose.
There have been, of course, emergency measures against contagion all through human history. There was a king of France, on Earth, who had all the lepers in his kingdom killed. There have been ships and houses burned to drive out plague, and quarantines which simply interfered with human beings were countless. Calhoun's measure on Tallien was somewhat more dramatic than most, but it had good justification.
He set fire to the planet's capital city. The little Med Ship swept over the darkened buildings. Her emergency rockets made thin pencils of flame two hundred feet long. She touched off roofs to the east, and Calhoun rose to see which way the wind blew. He descended and touched here and there....