"Oh, brother," said Jenkins. "Somebody's cracked the Contract Code or something."
A moment later a tall sleepy man in green undershorts appeared at the control room, rubbing his eyes. "What happened?" he said. "We've changed course."
"Yeah. Ever hear of Morua II?"
Green Doctor Wally Stone frowned and scratched his whiskered chin. "Sounds familiar, but I can't quite tune in. Crash call?" His eye caught the black-striped card. "Class VI planet ... a plague spot! How can we get a crash-call from this?"
"You tell me," said Jenkins.
"Wait a minute. Seems to me there was some sort of nasty business—"
Jenkins nodded heavily. "There sure was. Five successive attempts to establish a Contract with them, and five times we got thrown out bodily. The last time an Earth ship landed there half the crew was summarily shot and the others came home with their ears cut off. Seems the folks on Morua II didn't want a Contract with Hospital Earth. And they're still in the jungle, as far as their medicine goes. Witch doctors and spells." He tossed the Info-card down the chute with a growl. "So now we have an emergency call from them in a Contract code they couldn't possibly know."
The surgeon in the green undershorts chewed his lip. "Looks like somebody in that last crew spilled the beans before they shot him."
"Obviously."
"Well, what are we doing on automatics? We're not going there, are we?"