Plague Ship

ANDRE NORTON

(Writing As "Andrew North")

PLAGUE SHIP




Copyright, 1956 by Andrew North

All Rights Reserved




Chapter I

PERFUMED PLANET


Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free
Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship's cramped
bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the
Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste
to the skin between Dane's rather prominent shoulder blades. The small
cabin was thickly redolent with spicy odors and Rip sniffed
appreciatively.

"You're sure going to be about the best smelling Terran who ever set boot
on Sargol's soil," his soft slur of speech ended in a rich chuckle.

Dane snorted and tried to estimate progress over one shoulder.

"The things we have to do for Trade!" his comment carried a hint of
present embarrassment. "Get it well in--this stuff's supposed to hold for
hours. It'd better. According to Van those Salariki can talk your ears
right off your head and say nothing worth hearing. And we have to sit and
listen until we get a straight answer out of them. Phew!" He shook his
head. In such close quarters the scent, pleasing as it was, was also
overpowering. "We would have to pick a world such as this--"

Rip's dark fingers halted their circular motion. "Dane," he warned,
"don't you go talking against this venture. We got it soft and we're
going to be credit-happy--if it works out--"

But, perversely, Dane held to a gloomier view of the immediate future.
"_If_," he repeated. "There's a galaxy of 'ifs' in this Sargol
proposition. All very well for you to rest easy on your fins--you don't
have to run about smelling like a spice works before you can get the time
of day from one of the natives!"

Rip put down the jar of cream. "Different worlds, different customs," he
iterated the old tag of the Service. "Be glad this one is so easy to
conform to. There are some I can think of--There," he ended his massage
with a stinging slap. "You're all evenly greased. Good thing you don't
have Van's bulk to cover. It takes him a good hour to get his cream
on--even with Frank helping to spread. Your clothes ought to be steamed
up and ready, too, by now--"

He opened a tight wall cabinet, originally intended to sterilize clothing
which might be contaminated by contact with organisms inimical to
Terrans. A cloud of steam fragrant with the same spicy scent poured out.

Dane gingerly tugged loose his Trade uniform, its brown silky fabric damp
on his skin as he dressed. Luckily Sargol was warm. When he stepped out
on its ruby tinted soil this morning no lingering taint of his off-world
origin must remain to disgust the sensitive nostrils of the Salariki. He
supposed he would get used to this process. After all this was the first
time he had undergone the ritual. But he couldn't lose the secret
conviction that it was all very silly. Only what Rip had pointed out was
the truth--one adjusted to the customs of aliens or one didn't trade and
there were other things he might have had to do on other worlds which
would have been far more upsetting to that core of private fastidiousness
which few would have suspected existed in his tall, lanky frame.

"Whew--out in the open with you--!" Ali Kamil apprentice Engineer,
screwed his too regular features into an expression of extreme distaste
and waved Dane by him in the corridor.

For the sake of his shipmates' olfactory nerves, Dane hurried on to the
port which gave on the ramp now tying the Queen to Sargol's crust. But
there he lingered, waiting for Van Rycke, the Cargo-master of the spacer
and his immediate superior. It was early morning and now that he was out
of the confinement of the ship the fresh morning winds cut about him,
rippling through the blue-green grass forest beyond, to take much of his
momentary irritation with them.

There were no mountains in this section of Sargol--the highest elevations
being rounded hills tightly clothed with the same ten-foot grass which
covered the plains. From the Queen's observation ports, one could watch
the constant ripple of the grass so that the planet appeared to be
largely clothed in a shimmering, flowing carpet. To the west were the
seas--stretches of shallow water so cut up by strings of islands that
they more resembled a series of salty lakes. And it was what was to be
found in those seas which had lured the Solar Queen to Sargol.

Though, by rights, the discovery was that of another Trader--Traxt
Cam--who had bid for trading rights to Sargol, hoping to make a