Silence.  Calhoun clicked off and poured himself another cup of coffee.  Murgatroyd held out his cup for a refill.  Calhoun gave it to him.

“I hate to put on an official hat, Murgatroyd,” he said, annoyed, “but there are some people who demand it.  The rule is, never get official if you can help it, but when you must, out-official the official who’s officialing you.”

Murgatroyd said “Chee!” and sipped at his cup.

Calhoun checked the course of the Med Ship.  It bore on through space.  There were tiny noises from the communicator.  There were whisperings and rustlings and the occasional strange and sometimes beautiful musical notes whose origin is yet obscure, but which, since they are carried by electromagnetic radiation of wildly varying wave lengths, are not likely to be the fabled music of the spheres.

In fifteen minutes a different voice came from the speaker.

“Med Ship Aesclipus!  Med Ship Aesclipus!”

Calhoun answered and the voice said anxiously: 

“Sorry about the challenge, but we have the blueskin problem always with us.  We have to be extremely careful!  Will you come in, please?”

“I’m on my way,” said Calhoun.

“The planetary health authorities,” said the voice, more anxiously still, “are very anxious to be cooperative.  We need Med Service help!  We lose a lot of sleep over the blueskin!  Could you tell us the name of the last Med Ship to land here, and its inspector, and when that inspection was made?  We want to look up the record of the event to be able to assist you in every possible way.”

“He’s lying,” Calhoun told Murgatroyd, “but he’s more scared than hostile.”

He picked up the order folio on Weald Three.  He gave the information about the last Med Ship visit.

“What?” he asked, “is a blueskin?”

He’d read the folio on Weald, of course, but as the ship swam onward through emptiness he went through it again.  The last medical inspection had been only perfunctory.  Twelve years earlier—­instead of three—­a Med Ship had landed on Weald.  There had been official conferences with health officials.  There was a report on the birth rate, the death rate, the anomaly rate, and a breakdown of all reported communicable diseases.  But that was all.  There were no special comments and no overall picture.

Presently Calhoun found the word in a Sector dictionary, where words of only local usage were to be found: 

“Blueskin:  Colloquial term for a person recovered from a plague which left large patches of blue pigment irregularly distributed over the body.  Especially, inhabitants of Dara.  The condition is said to be caused by a chronic, nonfatal form of Dara plague and has been said to be noninfectious, though this is not certain.  The etiology of Dara plague has not been worked out.  The blueskin condition is hereditary but not a genetic modification, as markings appear in non-Mendelian distributions.”

Calhoun puzzled over it.  Nobody could have read the entire Sector directory, even with unlimited leisure during travel between solar systems.  Calhoun hadn’t tried.  But now he went laboriously through indices and cross-references while the ship continued to travel onward.