"Perhaps it has, in a way," said the doctor unhappily. "One doesn't
like to think about it." He paused. "Twenty years ago there was a
famine on Dara. There were crop failures. The situation must have been
very bad: They built a spaceship.

"They've no use for such things normally, because no nearby planet
will deal with them or let them land. But they built a spaceship and
came here. They went in orbit around Weald. They asked to trade for
shiploads of food. They offered any price in heavy metals--gold,
platinum, irridium, and so on. They talked from orbit by vision
communicators. They could be seen to be blueskins. You can guess what
happened!"

"Tell me," said Calhoun.

"We armed ships in a hurry," admitted the doctor. "We chased their
spaceship back to Dara. We hung in space off the planet. We told them
we'd blast their world from pole to pole if they ever dared take to
space again. We made them destroy their one ship, and we watched on
visionscreens as it was done."

"But you gave them food?"

"No," said the doctor ashamedly. "They were blueskins."

"How bad was the famine?"

"Who knows? Any number may have starved! And we kept a squadron of
armed ships in their skies for years--to keep them from spreading the