Skull Nebula, and for six months or so the whole area was full of cosmic ray particles and mesons, which blocked the regular route.

Lieutenant Riggs Blair, the sub-radio operator, picked up a very weak distress call as they were making the loop around the Skull Nebula. He listened to it as it was repeated twice and then called the ship's commander, Captain Doctor Latimer Wills.

"Captain, I've got a distress signal. The freighter Morris developed generator trouble four weeks ago, when they got caught in that storm. Ruined their infraspace drive and fouled up their subspace radio—almost no power left."

"Put a call through to the police," the captain replied. "Just relay it through, that's all. Why bother me with something as simple as that?"

"There's more to it, sir; the men are dying. They're sick with some sort of disease."

"What are the symptoms?" the captain asked. There was a marked change in the tone of his voice. This was his meat.

Lieutenant Blair tried to raise the Morris again, but got no response.

"Very well," said Captain Doctor Wills, "call Health Central, tell 'em what's happened. We're going down."

"I can't call Central, sir," the lieutenant objected. "That ion storm is between us. I'll try to relay it around."

"Good. We're going down, anyway."

It is a matter of record that the call never reached Health Central. Exactly where it got lost on the way isn't known, but a century ago such losses were by no means unusual.

Lieutenant Blair had pinpointed the spot where the Morris had landed within a hundred miles. The Caduceus hovered over the area and then settled slowly towards a fairly large offshore island, some forty miles from the mainland.

"There's a level area there," the captain said. "It would be the logical place for them to come down. If they didn't, we'll use the air ambulances to look the place over."

It had taken them twenty days to reach Cardigan's Green since they had heard the distress call.

Yon the Fisher saw the ship in the air. It was only a dot, fifty miles away, but it seemed to be dropping too slowly and too regularly to 

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