This World Is Taboo

patiently repeated, over and over again, that the Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty notified its arrival and requested coordinates f

t's center at which, a certain time so many hours or minutes later, the force-fields of the grid w

sh meat for Dara, from the herds I'm told about, it should be manned. But they don't se

, and his fr

that case it would be reasonable to blast me before I could land and unload some fighting men. On the other hand, no ship from Weald would

ook he

ship at Weald, and what Weald thinks about it! My guess is that you came to tell them. It isn't likely th

t she compressed them tightl

rged papers for it, and they'd travel so far from this part of space that when they landed nobody would think of Dar

pinched, but s

e, and take ships that went various roundabout ways, and arrive on Weald one by one, to see what could

an to g

here are other ... agents, if you like that word better, on Weald. And there hasn't been a plague on Weald so you people aren't

let it go again. But the people didn'

opped

me!" she cried passio

op," sai

leisurely motion across its screen. Then a huge, gibbous shining shape appeared, and there were irregular patches of that muddy color which

und by members of a hunting part

ill not be easy to find by random search. But there were clues to this one. Men hunting for sport would not choose a

airie. The settlement on Orede, then, would be near the edge of mountains, not far fro

ly one ship at a time, it might be a very small grid. It could be only hundreds o

e found a speck. He enlarged it manyfold. It was the mine on Orede. There were heap

call," observed Calhoun,

the emergency rockets boomed.

sphere. The noise of its rockets had become thunde

royd," commanded Calhoun. "We

pointed toward the planet and poured out pencil-thin, blue-white, high-velocity flam

in, and swept onward over the mountaintops, and then tilted once more and went racing up the valley in wh

tion, hovered momentarily, and settled to solidity outside the framework of the grid

down below. But there seemed no other sound. There was no other motion. There was absolute stillness all around. But when Calhoun switched on t

aster in his poc

said with a certain grimness. "I don't qu

feet from what once had been a wooden building. In it, ore from the mines was concentrated and the useless tail

could still be seen, but the structure was in fragments. Next to that, again, had been

. Cattle by thousands and tens of thousands had trampled everything. Cattle had burst in the wooden sides of

able chaos. Many, many cattle had died in the crush. There were heaps of dead beasts about the meta

hrough and over and upon it. Senselessly, they'd trampled each other to horrible shapelessness. The mine shaft was no

t some monstrous herd, making its way through a mountain pass, somehow went crazy and bolted for the plains. This sett

e ship as blindly as the cattle trampled down this little town. The ship stampeded off into space as i

t w

y, "do you intend to get in

t if the ship stays here, they're bound to

. If your friends are a meat-getting party from Dara, as I believe, they should cover up their tracks, get off-planet as fast as

I do?" she as

y nothing. I'll work something out. I've got the devil of a

leave me

a supposedly uninhabited planet, with the knowledge that it might actually be uninhabited, and the fu

be hiding had so much to lose if they were discovered that they might be hundreds or even thousands of miles from anywhere a spa

aid the cattle herds of Orede for food to carry back to their home planet; that somehow the miners on Orede had found that they had blueskin neighbors,

o warn all blueskins that Weald would presently try to find them on Orede, when all hell must break loose upon Dara fo

do was try to make contact and give warning by such means as would leave no evidence

or might not be picked up, and were unlikely to be acknowledge

ands to keep in touch with each other, but it had to be tried. He broadcast, tuned as broadly as possible, and

et a fix on it: nobody might be listening. He exhausted the normal communication pattern. Then he broadcast on old-fashioned

any Darians-blueskins-on Orede ought to know. There'd been no answer. And it was all too likely that if he'd

aw Murgatroyd staring vexedly at the exit port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The

rily, "How long

Murgatroyd

left behind. He and the girl were close friends, now. If she'd left Murgat

he outside-speaker switch and said curtly into the microphone, "Coff

him within a mile. She did not appear. He went to a small and inconspicuous closet and armed himself. A

long minutes, staring angrily about. Almost certainly she wouldn't be looking in the mountains for men of Dara come here for cattle. He used a pair o

nd a faraway hill crest. It was her

he ground outside, he locked the port with that combination that

rgatroyd sourly. "Come along

out in

iversal in planets whose surface rises and falls and folds and bends from the effects of weather or vulcanism. There were plants, as ha

, a perfectly predictable ecological system on Orede. The organic molecules involved in life here would be made up of the sa

nd it was reasonable for cattle to thrive and increase here. Only m

considered the splintered se

o determine which she'd followed. That cost time. Then the mountains abruptly ended and a vast undulating plain stretched away to

Calhoun increased his stride. He began

"Chee!" in a c

un dourly, "but there was and is a chance I w

tination in the girl's mind. But she was in no such despair as to want deliberately to be lost. She'd guessed

pt her to find out the meaning of the Med Ship's landing. Then she could identify her

en me marching after her now, which spoils her scheme. And I

dozen or so cattle a little distance away. The bull looked up and snorted. T

f up to a charge. Then Calhoun suddenly remembered one of the items in the da

Fast! Stay with me if you can, but-" he was jog-trott

ling of the ground. She came to a full stop. He ran. He saw her turn to retrace her steps. He fl

d down into a hollow. Horns appeared over the hillcrest she'd just left. Cat

ther blast to guide her. He ran on at top speed with Murgatroyd trailing anxiously behind. Fro

, now. The girl fled from them, but it is the instinct of beef-cattle on the open range-Calhoun had learned it only two days before-to charge any human t

y with shut eyes, as bulls do, but the cows, many times more deadly, charged with their eyes w

t extremity of terror. The nearest of the pursuing cattle were within ten yards when

on. The girl saw Calhoun now, and ran toward him, panting. He knelt very

ind them. It appeared that all the cattle on the plain joined in the blind and sensel

Calhoun had shot. He shot them too. More and more cattle came pounding past the rampart of his victims, but a

inct of cattle to join their running fellows in whatever crazed urgency they feel. There was a dense, pounding, wailing, grunti

he gruesome pile of animals which had divided the charging herd into two parts. They could see the rears of innumerable running

he barrel of his blast-rifle a

d coldly, "that I don't k

girl. She swallowe

o go off by yourself! You could have been lost! You could have cost me

ething about the plans Weald's already making! You have just acted with the most concen

leave Murgatroyd behind to get to you in ti

right! Come on back to the ship. We'll go to

nd draggled, and his tail dropped, and he sneezed again. He moved as if he could barely put one paw before another, but at sight of C

e horrors and disasters endured. And as a matter of fact the escape of a small animal like Murgatroyd was remarkable. He'd escaped the trampling hoofs

he was at that age when girls-and men of corresponding type-can grow most passionately devoted to ideals or causes in default of a promising personal romance.

lers began to notice them. It would have been a matter of no moment if they'd been domesticated dairy cattle, but these were range cattle gone wild. Twice, Calhoun had to us

was two miles more to the landing-grid with the Me

houn so close that he felt the monstrous heat. There had been no challenge. There was no warning. There