open center of the grid, he said: "My job is doing Med Service. I can't advise you how to plan a new world. If I could, I wouldn't. But whoever does have authority here had better think about some very immediate troubles." "We'll fight if Phaedra attacks!" said the driver darkly. "They'll never get to ground alive, and if they do—they'll wish they hadn't!" "I wasn't thinking of Phaedra," said Calhoun. The car stopped close by the Med ship. He got out. There had been attempts to enter the ship in his absence. The gang which occupied the control building and in theory protected Canis III against attack from the sky had tried to satisfy their curiosity about the little ship. They'd even used torches on the metal. But they hadn't gotten in. Calhoun did. Murgatroyd chattered shrilly when he was put down. He scampered relievedly about the cabin, plainly rejoicing at being once more in familiar surroundings. Calhoun paid no attention. He closed and dogged the air-lock door. He switched on the spacephone and said shortly: "Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling Phaedrian fleet! Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling—" The loud-speaker fairly deafened him as somebody yelled into another spacephone mike in the grid-control building. "Hey! You in the ship! Stop that! No talking with the enemy!" Calhoun turned down the incoming volume and said patiently: "Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling fleet from Phaedra. Come in, fleet from Phaedra! Med Ship Esclipus Twenty calling—" There was a chorus of yellings from the nearby building. The motley, swaggering, self-appointed landing-grid guard had tried to break into the ship out of curiosity, but they were vastly indignant when Calhoun did something of which they disapproved. They made it impossible for him to have heard a reply from the space fleet presumably overhead. But after a moment someone in the control house evidently elbowed the others aside and shouted: "You! Keep that up and we'll smash you! We've got the grid to do it with, too!" Calhoun said curtly: "Med ship to
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