"But—there isn't any hope for Dara! No real hope!"
He gaped at her.
"What do you think we're here for?"
He set to work to restore his four recent students to consciousness. It was not a difficult task. The dosage, mixed in the coffee he had given them earlier, was a light one. Calhoun took the precaution of disarming them first, but presently four hot-eyed young men glared at him.
"I'm calling," said Calhoun, holding a blaster negligently in his hand, "I'm calling for volunteers. There's a famine on Dara. There've been unmanageable crop-surpluses on Weald. On Dara, the government grimly rations every ounce of food. On Weald, the government has been buying up surplus grain to keep the price up. To save storage costs, it's loaded the grain into out-of-date space-ships it once used to stand sentry over Dara to keep it out of space when there was another famine there. Those ships have been put out in orbit, where we're hooked on to one of them. It's loaded with half a million bushels of grain. I've brought space-suits from it, I've turned on the heaters in its interior, and I've set its overdrive unit for a hop to Dara. Now I'm calling for volunteers to take half a million bushels of grain to where it's needed. Do I get any volunteers?"
He got four. Not immediately, because they were ashamed that he'd made it impossible to carry out their original fanatic plan, and now offered something much better to make up for it. They raged. But half a million bushels of grain meant that people who must otherwise die might live.
Ultimately, truculently, first one and then another angrily agreed.
"Good!" said Calhoun. "Now, how many of you dare risk the trip alone? I've got one grain-ship warming up. There are plenty of others around us. Every one of you can take a ship and half a million bushels to Dara, if you have the nerve?"
The atmosphere changed. Suddenly they clamored for the task he offered them. They were still acutely uncomfortable. He'd bossed them and taught them until they felt capable and glamorous and proud. Then he'd pinned their ears back. But if they returned to Dara with four enemy ships and unimaginable quantities of food with which to break the famine....