The Minister for Health seemed to have shriveled inside his garments. He wrung his hands again. Then a ground car braked to a stop five yards away. Two uniformed men jumped out. The first of them jerked at his blaster in its holster on his hip.
"That's the tormal!" he snapped. "This's the man, all right!"
Calhoun pulled the trigger of his blaster three times. It whined instead of rasping, because of its low-power setting. The Minister for Health collapsed. Before he touched ground the nearer of the two uniformed men seemed to stumble with his blaster halfway drawn. The third man toppled.
"Murgatroyd!" said Calhoun sharply.
"Chee!" shrilled Murgatroyd. He leaped into the ground car beside Calhoun.
The motor squealed because of the violence with which Calhoun applied the power. It went shrilly away with three limp figures left behind upon the ground. But there wouldn't be instant investigation. The atmosphere in Government Center was not exactly normal. People looked apprehensively at them. But Calhoun was out of sight before the first of them stirred.
"It's the devil," said Calhoun as he swung to the right at a roadway curve, "to have scruples! If I'd killed Lett in cold blood, I'd have been the only hope these people could have! Maybe they'd have let me help them!"
He made another turn. There were buildings here and there, and he was hardly out of sight of where he'd dropped three men. But it was astonishing that action had been taken so quickly after Lett regained consciousness. Calhoun had certainly left him not more than a quarter of an hour before. The low-power blaster must have kept him stunned for minutes. But immediately he'd recovered he'd issued orders for the capture or the killing of a man with a small animal with him, a tormal. And the order would have been carried out if Calhoun hadn't happen to have his own blaster actually in his hand.
But the appalling thing was the over-all situation as now revealed. The people of Government Center were turning para and Dr. Lett had all the authority of the government behind him. He was the government for the duration of the emergency. But he'd stay the government because all the men in high office were paras who could conceal their condition only so long as Dr. Lett permitted it. Calhoun could picture the social organization to be expected. There'd be the tyrant; the absolute monarch at its head. Absolutely submissive citizens would receive their dosage of vaccine to keep them "normals" so long as it pleased their masters. Anyone who defied him or even tried to flee would become something both mad and repulsive, because subject to monstrous and irresistible appetite. And the tyrant could prevent even their satisfaction! So the citizens of Tallien Three were faced with an ultimate choice of slavery, or madness, for themselves and their families.