"Those Darian characters," said Calhoun annoyedly, "shouldn't have gone to Orede in the first place. If they went there, they should at least have stayed on a continent where there were no people from Weald digging a mine and hunting cattle for sport on their off days! They could be spotted! I believe they were! And again, if it had been a long way from the mine installation, they could probably have wiped out the people who sighted them before they could get back with the news! But it looks like miners saw men hunting, and got close enough to see they were blueskins, and then got back to the mine with the news!"
She waited for him to explain.
"I know I'm guessing, but it fits!" he said distastefully. "So something had to be done. Either the mining settlement had to be wiped out or the story that blueskins were on Orede had to be discredited. The blueskins tried for both. They used panic-gas on a herd of cattle and it made them crazy and they charged the settlement like the four-footed lunatics they are! And the blueskins used panic-gas on the settlement itself as the cattle went through. It should have settled the whole business nicely. After it was over every man in the settlement would believe he'd been out of his head for a while, and he'd have the crazy state of the settlement to think about, and he wouldn't be sure of what he'd seen or heard beforehand. They might try to verify the blueskin story later, but they wouldn't believe anything certainly! It should have worked!"
Again she waited. So Calhoun said very wrily indeed;
"Unfortunately, when the miners panicked, they stampeded into the ship. Also unfortunately, panic-gas got into the ship with them. So they stayed panicked while the astrogator—in panic!—took off and headed for Weald and threw on the overdrive—which would be set for Weald anyhow—because that would be the fastest way to run away from whatever he imagined he feared. But he and all the men on the ship were still crazy with panic from the gas they were re-breathing until they died!"
Silence. After a long interval, Maril asked;
"You don't think the—Darians intended to kill?"
"I think they were stupid!" said Calhoun angrily. "Somebody's always urging the police to use panic-gas in case of public tumult. But it's too dangerous. Nobody knows what one man will do in a panic. Take a hundred or two or three and panic them all, and there's no limit to their craziness! The whole thing was handled wrong!"
"But you don't blame them?"
"For being stupid, yes," said Calhoun fretfully. "But if I'd been in their place, perhaps ..."