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They flitted to and fro, scanning wide bands of the surface of Dara. The planet's cities and highways and industrial centers were wholly open to inspection from the sky. It looked as if the scouts hunted most busily for the fleet of former grain-ships which Calhoun had said blueskins had seized and rushed away. If the scouts looked for them, they did not find them.
"Chee-chee," said Murgatroyd encouragingly. Calhoun changed the Med Ship's course. The guard-ship changed course too. Calhoun let it draw nearer, but only a little. He led it away from the fleet of grain-ships. He swung his electron telescope on them. He saw a space-suited figure outside one, safely roped, however.
Not confining their depredations to the sea, they plundered the coasts of Italy, and stopped the grain-ships on which Rome depended for food. Pompeius undertook to exterminate this piratical community. By the Gabinian Law, he was clothed with more power than had ever been committed to an individual. He was to have absolute command over the Mediterranean and its coasts for fifty miles inland.
Then Calhoun pulled the Med Ship slowly away from the clump of still-lifeless grain-ships. It was highly improbable that the guard-boat would carry an electron telescope. Most likely it would have only an echo-radar, and so could determine only that an object of some sort moved of its own accord in space. Calhoun let the Med Ship accelerate. That would be final evidence.
It is obvious, then, that in getting these districts once more under cultivation two birds are being killed with one stone: the refugee is being made a self-supporting person an economic asset instead of a dead weight and the tonnage problem is being solved. If more food is grown behind the Western Front, grain-ships can be released for transporting the munitions of war from America.
Presently the fleet of grain-ships would arrive and unload and lift again for Orede, and this time they would make an infinity of slaughter among wild cattle-herds, and bring back incredible quantities of fresh-slaughtered frozen beef. Almost everybody would get to taste meat again, which would be most gratifying. Then, the industries of Dara would labor at government-required tasks.
The booming voice bellowed. Another voice of higher authority took over. Murgatroyd was entranced that so many people wanted to talk to him. He made what for him was practically an oration. The last voice spoke persuasively and suavely. "Chee-chee-chee-chee," said Murgatroyd. One of the grain-ships flickered and ceased to be. It had gone into overdrive. Another. And another.
It would send a messenger-ship to stop its own fleet's bombardment if Weald would accept payment for the grain-ships and their cargoes. It would pay in ingots of iridium and uranium and tungsten and gold if Weald wished it for all damages Weald might claim. It would even pay indemnity for the miners of Orede, who had died by accident but perhaps in some sense through its fault.
The grain-ships were between Weald and its sun. Even electron telescopes on the ground and electron-telescopes were ultimately optical telescopes with electronic amplification even electron telescopes on the ground could not get a good image of the ship through sunlit atmosphere. "Chee?" asked Murgatroyd solicitously. "Chee-chee-chee?"
One of the grain-ships from Weald had broken out of overdrive and its pilot was triumphantly calling for landing-coördinates. The grid office relayed his call to loudspeaker circuits as the quickest way to get it on the communication system of the whole planet. "Calling ground," boomed the triumphant voice of the first of the student pilots Calhoun had trained. "Calling ground!
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