TERRA SF 468 - Murray Leinster : Der Weltraumarzt greift ein

Murray Leinster : Der Weltraumarzt greift ein
Terra SF 468, 08.07.1966
Originalzusammenstellung
Aus dem Amerikanischem von Hubert Strassl
Titelbild : Karl Stephan

enthält die Stories
Das Band am Himmel (Ribbon in the Sky, 1952)
Die Hasskrankheit (The Hate Disease, 1963)


Wieder eine Originalzusammenstellung von Kurzgeschichten, diesmal mit den Weltraummediziner-Stories von Murry Leinster. Nicht mit denen von James White zu verwechseln, Leinster kümmert sich weniger um die Medizin als solche, sondern interessiert sich mehr für Umwelteinflüsse, natürliche als auch gesellschaftliche. Außerdem hat er mit Calhoun und seinem Tormal feste Protagonisten, die deutlich individueller agieren als Whites Weltraummedizinertruppe.


In Ribbon in the Sky trifft der Calhoun auf eine ehemalige Bergbaukolonie, seit Jahrzehnten verlassen und in drei Städte aufgeteilt. Diese Städte isolieren sich voneinander, da die Bewohner panische Angst vor den Krankheiten der jeweils anderen Städte haben. Was nicht ganz unberechtigt ist, wie Calhoun herausfindet. Aber durch das klassische Romeo-und-Julia-Szenario kann Calhoun die Bewohner physisch und psychisch heilen.

Wesentlich actionbetonter ist The Hate Disease :

"What's going on here?" demanded Calhoun angrily. "Damnation! What's going on here?"

The Minister for Health said unhappily:

"Why ... we've a public-health situation we haven't been able to meet. It appears to be an epidemic of ... of ... we're not sure what, but it looks like demoniac possession."

---

"I'd like," said Calhoun, "a definition. Just what do you mean by a para?"

Murgatroyd echoed his tone in an indignant, "Chee-chee!"

This was twenty minutes later. Calhoun had gone back into the Med Ship and treated the blaster burn on his side. He'd changed his clothing from the scorched uniform to civilian garb. It would not look eccentric here. Men's ordinary garments were extremely similar all over the galaxy. Women's clothes were something else.

Now he and Murgatroyd rode in a ground car with four armed men of the planetary police, plus the civilian who'd been introduced as the Minister for Health for the planet. The car sped briskly toward the spaceport gate. Masses of thick gray fog still clung to the ground where the would-be assassins' car lay on its back and where the bodies of the two dead men remained. The mist was being spread everywhere—everywhere the men had touched ground or where their car had run.

Calhoun had some experience with epidemics and emergency measures for destroying contagion. He had more confidence in the primitive sanitary value of fire. It worked, no matter how ancient the process of burning things might be. But very many human beings, these days, never saw a naked flame unless in a science class at school, where it might be shown as a spectacularly rapid reaction of oxidation. But people used electricity for heat and light and power. Mankind had moved out of the age of fire. So here on Tallien it seemed inevitable that infective material should be sprayed with antiseptics instead of simply set ablaze.

"What," repeated Calhoun doggedly, "is a para?"

The Health Minister said unhappily:

"Paras are ... beings that once were sane men. They aren't sane any longer. Perhaps they aren't men any longer. Something has happened to them. If you'd landed a day or two later, you couldn't have landed at all. We normals had planned to blow up the landing grid so no other ship could land and be lifted off again to spread the ... contagion to other worlds. If it is a contagion."

nach der Landung

Die vollständige Story gibt es auf gutenberg.org im Original zu lesen.

Man merkt aber schon an diesem Auszug, daß Murray Leinster hier den Einsamen Helden in den Vordergrund rückt, in guter alter amerikanischer Tradition sozusagen. Daß dieser Held aber mit Elektronenmikroskop statt Blaster agiert, macht die Romane um Calhoun und Murgatroyd, seinen Tormal, auch heute noch gut lesbar.