blew his way out through the bow and walked on logs back to the Morgue. He had headed for the only opening he had seen in the jungle wall ahead and that opening had been made by a killed ship.
He came back up through the air lock and opened all the switches on the battle panel except the screens.
"We can go now, master," said Hippocrates brightly. "Scanner shows nothing to stop us."
"Shut that off and fix me a biological kit," said Ole Doc.
"You're not going?" gaped Hippocrates.
"According to article something or other when the majority of a human population on a planet is threatened a soldier has to stay on the job."
"But I said that," said Hippocrates.
"When?" said Ole Doc.
Hippocrates retreated hurriedly into the operating room and began to throw together the hundred and seventy-two items which made up a bacteriological kit and when he had them in cases on his back he shot after Ole Doc who was already a quarter of the way back to the compound.
Ole Doc walked up the steps of O'Hara's bungalow, thrust open the office door and walked in. O'Hara looked up and gaped.
"Why didn't you tell me?" snapped Ole Doc.
"You have an accident with some animal?" said O'Hara. "I heard some shots but I knew you were armed. I thought—"
"About this jettisoned cargo!" said Ole Doc impatiently.
"What about it?" said O'Hara. "They just stacked it up and left."
"You saw them leave?"
"Well, no. The captain was in here telling me he was having trouble with his ship and when I saw they were gone in the morning I went over to see if he'd left our supplies in good shape and I found his cargo. It'd rained and the labels—"
"Was it scattered around?" demanded Ole Doc.
"Why would he scatter it around?" said O'Hara.
"What was the name of that ship?"
"The Wanderho," said O'Hara. "Same old tub. The only one which ever comes. Undependable. She's about a month overdue now—"
"O'Hara, you won't ever see that ship again. She's lying over there in the jungle shot full of holes and her crew dead inside. You didn't hear a take-off a year ago. You heard a ship being shot to pieces."
O'Hara looked a little white. "But the cargo ! It was all stacked up in a neat pile—"
"Precisely."
"You mean—I don't follow this!"
"Neither do I," said Ole Doc. "Have you got any force screen protection?"
"No? Why should I have? Who'd want to trouble an experimental station? We haven't got anything, not even money."
