"I'm a Med Ship man," admitted Calhoun. "For whatever that may mean."
"You're needed in Two City," said the deep-voiced Hunt. His manner was purest resolution. "We came to get you. Get y'medicines. Dress warm. Load us down, if you like, with what you want to take. We got a sledge waiting."
Calhoun felt a momentary relief. This might make his job vastly easier. When isolation and fear brings a freezing of the mind against any novelty—even hope—a medical man has his troubles. But if one community welcomed him—
"Chee!" said Murgatroyd indignantly from overhead. Calhoun glanced up and Murgatroyd glared from a paw-hold near the ceiling. He was a peaceable animal. When there was scuffling he got out of the way. But now he chattered angrily. The masked men looked at him fearfully. But their deep-voiced leader growled at them.
"Just a animal." He swung back to Calhoun. "We got a need for you," he repeated. "We mean all right, and anything we got you can have if you want it. But you're coming with us!"
"Are your good intentions," asked Calhoun, "proved by your wearing masks?"
"They're to keep from catchin' your sickness," said the deep voice impatiently. "Point to what you want us to take!"
Calhoun's feeling of encouragement vanished. He winced a little. The isolation syndrome was fully developed. It was a matter of faith that strangers were dangerous. All men were assumed to carry contagion. Once, they'd have been believed to carry bad luck. But a regained primitiveness would still retain some trace of the culture from which it had fallen. If there were three settlements as the pastureslands seen from space suggested, they would not believe in magic, but they would believe in contagion. They might have, or once have had, good reason. Anyhow they would fanatically refrain from contact with any but their own fellow-citizens. Yet there would always be troubles to excite their terrors. In groups of more than a very few there would always be an impulse against the isolation which seemed the only possible safety in a hostile world. The effectiveness of the counter-instinct would depend in part on communications, but the urge to exogamy can produce ghastly results in a small culture gone fanatic.
"I think," said Calhoun, "that I'd better come with you. But the people here have to know I've gone. I wouldn't like them to heave my ship out to space in pure panic because I didn't answer from inside it!"
"Leave a writing," said Hunt's deep voice, as impatiently as before. "I'll write it. Make them boil, but they don't dare follow us!"