"If the plague is an intended crime," added Calhoun, "you are the witnesses to it. You've got to be gotten rid of before colonists from somewhere other than Dettra arrive here."
The dark-bearded man growled:
"Monstrous! Monstrous!"
"Agreed," said Calhoun. "But there's no interstellar government, now, any more than there was a planetary government in the old days back on Earth. So if somebody pirates a colony ready to be occupied, there's no authority able to throw them out. The only recourse would be war. And nobody is going to start an interplanetary war! Not with the bombs that can be landed! If the invaders can land a population here, they can keep it here. It's piracy, with nobody able to do anything to the pirates." He paused, and said with irony: "Of course they could be persuaded that they were wrong."
But that was not even worth thinking about. In the computation of probabilities in human conduct, self-interest is a high-value factor. Children and barbarians have clear ideas of justice due to them, but no idea at all of justice due from them. And though human colonies spread toward the galaxy's rim, there was still a large part of every population which was civilized only in that it could use tools. Most people still remained comfortably barbaric or childish in their emotional lives. It was a fact that had to be considered in Calhoun's profession. It bore remarkably on matters of health.
"So you'll have to hide. I think permanently," Calhoun told them. "But in the morning, after I've checked on you people again, I think I'll go into the city and see what I can do about it. Try to rest now. You should all feel much better in the morning."
Kim Walpole said abruptly:
"You've been exposed to the plague. Have you protected yourself?"
"Not yet," acknowledged Calhoun. "Give me a quarter of a CC."
He handed the injector to the gaunt young man. He noted the precision with which Kim handled it. Then he helped get the survivors of the original group—there were six of them—to the leafy beds under the shelters. They were very quiet—even more quiet than their illness demanded. They were very polite. The old man and woman who had struggled back to the glade together made an especial attempt to bid Calhoun good night with the courtesy appropriate to city folk of tradition.