One in 300 (4 page)

 

 

But it was important that no one should know he was going to Mars, or
not going. People could become desperate when they knew there wasn't
any chance. Even Pat, despite what she said.

 

 

So I said noncommittally, "Nobody's 'sure of his or her place, Leslie.
Until Thursday night, when eleven of us leave here, no one knows that
he'll go or stay. You can see it must be like that if you only think
about it for a minute."

 

 

Leslie frowned. We were in the lounge of my suite. I set Pat down on a sofa.
"But . . ." Leslie said.

 

 

Pat really laughed this time. "Still don't believe it, Leslie?"
she said mockingly. "Listen. Bill and I have never discussed this,
except when I told him, right away, I didn't expect to be one of the
ten. I don't say I want to die -- who does? But if Bill won't tell you
straight, I will. He wouldn't take a girl like me to Mars. If he did,
he wouldn't be Bill. So I can just carry on being myself without trying
to buy myself a place on the ship by being someone else. See?"

 

 

Leslie nodded, incredulously. "I'll go and call the doctor," she said.
I threw out a shirt and a pair of slacks for her, without a word.

 

 

"I'd think more of her if she believed you," I said, frowning, when she
had gone.

 

 

"Can you expect her to?" Pat asked wryly. "We're always together. We . . ."

 

 

But she found talking not worth the effort, and stopped. I thought Pat
had come out of the affair better than Leslie, and the frown didn't come
off my face. You could judge people by what they believed of others. Was
I making a mistake?

 

 

Or was Pat, after all, putting up a magnificent bluff, for the highest
stakes of all?

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

I had a caller next morning before I was properly awake. Pat, as I had
suspected, was tough. She was up and moving about, in a green silk dressing
gown of mine, ordering breakfast, and introducing the famous feminine
touch to the suite.

 

 

She had stayed in the apartment. There was nothing in that. If desperate
people wanted to kill her and only I could protect her, it was obvious
that she should stay with me. But when I heard the knock I nodded toward
the bathroom.

 

 

She shook her head definitely. "It's probably only Leslie," she said,
without lowering her voice. "Besides, the less openly a thing's done,
the more weight people give it. A whiff of my perfume -- and I use very
strong perfume, haven't you noticed? -- no sign of me, and it would be
settled beyond doubt. Everyone would know you were taking me along."

 

 

The truth of the matter was, she just didn't want to hide. She had crossed
to the door as she spoke, and opened it.

 

 

It was Mortenson. The door hid him for a second or two, so I didn't see
his reaction when Pat opened the door to him. By the time he was inside
he was taking her presence for granted. Mortenson was never discomposed
by anything.

 

 

"Say, Bill," he said in his easy, friendly manner. "After what happened
yesterday, don't you think you could use some help? I mean, you're all
on your own here. Pat doesn't count when the broken glass starts flying.
Suppose I move in with you?"

 

 

I considered it. There might be times when I'd be glad of Mortenson
around. But I knew I was right in having as little as possible to
do with the people I had already chosen. The case of Pat proved it,
though I hadn't chosen her. Everyone about me was suspect. I didn't
want Mortenson, the Powells, Leslie, and Harry Phillips to be found in
an alley with knives in their backs.

 

 

"Smart, Fred," Pat remarked admiringly. "Just in case Bill hasn't had
a chance to appreciate your sterling qualities, you want to hang around
and give him the opportunity. You needn't worry. He knows what a great
guy you are."

 

 

He admitted his motive without a trace of irritation. Mortenson was
always easy, friendly, natural. "The thought had crossed my mind,"
he said. "How about it, Bill?"

 

 

"Better not," I said, and explained why, without telling him he was on
the list. He nodded. "Reasonable," he admitted. "More than that, you're
perfectly right. Announce the names of the ten people who're going with
you, and it's the National Bank to one peanut not more than one of your
ten would be alive the same night. Say, Pat, if Bill won't take my offer
-- when you want to go out and Bill isn't around, give me a ring, will
you? I don't pretend I'm crazy about you, but I'd hate to see you after
that swan-white neck of yours had had an interview with a meat ax."

 

 

Pat shuddered. "You put things so realistically," she said.

 

 

Before he went Mortenson warned me that he wouldn't be the last caller I
had that morning. "I came early to get in first," he said frankly. "I know
Miss Wallace is coming to see you, and the Powells, and Sammy Hoggan -- "

 

 

"Sammy!" I exclaimed. "Can he walk?"

 

 

"I knew you'd underrate Sammy," said Mortenson, shaking his head.
"Nearly twenty-four hours ago he went out flat. Now, apart from a head
he'd be glad to sell if anyone would buy it, he's the old Sammy. Suddenly
realized the girl wasn't worth it."

 

 

Knowing he couldn't leave a better impression by staying longer, he went
out and closed the door quietly.

 

 

Mortenson was a puzzle -- which meant, of course, that I didn't quite
understand him. I can't hope to convey the principal thing about him
when you met him -- the impression he gave of being larger than life,
of having done and seen everything. He was the man of ten talents. After
he had gone one wondered what was so startling about what he had said
and done; but one never wondered that at the time.

 

 

I looked at Pat quizzically. "You don't like him," I said.

 

 

"On the contrary," she retorted flippantly, "I've been in love with him
for years. Now and then he's even acknowledged it in passing."

 

 

"You don't sound as if you loved him."

 

 

"Think hard, Bill. Can you imagine me sounding as if I were in love
with anybody?"

 

 

That rang the bell. Pat had grown up in a school of life in which the
first rule to be learned was: Show your feelings, and someone will slap
you down for it.

 

 

"You wouldn't like to tell me about it, would you?" I asked.

 

 

"There's nothing to tell. What does a lady tell a gentleman about another
gentleman?" She was very bitter over the words "lady" and "gentleman."
I said nothing, hoping she would fill the silence with words. Presently
she did.

 

 

"I threw myself at him," she said. "I didn't know any better. But it
didn't matter, for he was kind and understanding. He caught me and put
me down gently. That's all you can ask of anyone, isn't it? This was
when I was seventeen. I tried again, and this time he didn't put me
down gently. He held me for quite a while, and when he did put me down
it wasn't exactly gentle. By this time he was a little bored with me.
I was demanding, you see."

 

 

I could hardly imagine Pat being demanding. But maybe I was hearing about
a different Pat. Most of us are a lot of different people in the course
of our lives.

 

 

"Don't blame him," she went on. "Whatever you do, don't blame Fred.
That would be unjust." I didn't know whether the irony in her voice was
applicable to what she was saying at the time, or just to her life. Her
whole life, I thought. "After all, did
you
duck? Well, the same thing
went on happening over and over again. Exactly the same thing. Fred and
I meet, as if for the first time, and play the same old broken record."

 

 

"Why?" I asked bluntly.

 

 

"Easy," she said lightly. "Because that's the nearest I can get to being
happy. And because Fred isn't made of asbestos."

 

 

She had said all she was going to say on the subject, but I didn't need
any more. It was one of those stories that begin: "Things would have been
so different if . . ." Maybe they would; what always seems to me to matter
is what things are, not what they might have been. But I couldn't help
breaking my own rule and wondering if things would have been different
if Pat and Sammy had got together, as they obviously never had.

 

 

"How come you didn't know about this girl of Sammy's?" I asked.

 

 

She shrugged. "Never had much to do with Sammy. He and I started off on
the wrong foot a long time ago, I guess." She gave a hard laugh.
"It happens with the nicest people sometimes."

 

 

We had just finished breakfast when the Powells arrived. They weren't
in the least surprised to see Pat, but her presence seemed to bother them.
So after a while she went into the back bedroom.

 

 

The Powells still had trouble coming to the point. I hoped they weren't
going to break down and beg me to take them to Mars because Marjory was
going to have a baby, or for any other second-feature reason.

 

 

It was Marjory who managed to tell me the reason for their visit at last,
though not without more hedging. She was polishing her fingernails
very carefully, stopping now and then to pull her perfectly straight
skirt straight. "We didn't want to say anything about it," she said,
"because we didn't think it would matter anyway, but all the same we felt
we ought to -- you understand, don't you? Just in case. It's only fair."

 

 

I waited, knowing that anything I said would only be an excuse for more
circumlocution -- they would explain in great detail that they didn't
mean that.

 

 

"I said there wasn't any chance of your picking us," said Marjory,
"but Jack said after all, you might. So we thought we'd better tell you
not to. Not that it was likely, but -- "

 

 

"Why?" I asked bluntly. "You mean you want to die?"

 

 

"I mean I can't help it," said Marjory simply. "I'm too great a risk, Bill.
I had a miscarriage once and the doctor told me another pregnancy would
kill the child and me."

 

 

"You think only people who can have children should go?"

 

 

"It's more than that, Bill. It didn't seem to matter . . . I'm pregnant now."

 

 

"I see," I said.

 

 

"Of course you may think we had our nerve thinking you were going to
pick us out," said Marjory quickly. "It's not that. It's just that you
had to know, in case."

 

 

There was nothing for me to say. Could I tell them they had been on the
list? Obviously not. Would it make them feel any better if I said they'd
never been seriously considered? No. I could only murmur stupidly that I
was sorry. It wasn't what I had expected, but it was still second-feature
stuff.

 

 

Pat came back as soon as the Powells had gone. I told her about them and
went on, "I wonder why everybody's chosen this morning to come and tell
me these things?"

 

 

"Easy enough," Pat replied. "Five people died in the fight yesterday.
Twenty-four more went to the hospital. Six were sent to the county jail,
to come up in court next Monday. Only there probably isn't going to
be a next Monday, so they won't see anything more in their lives but
their cells. People suddenly realize that this isn't just a nightmare
that will be over tomorrow morning. This is Tuesday. If they haven't
convinced you by Thursday night that you ought to take them to Mars,
they're going to die."

 

 

I was more interested in Pat than in what she said. I remembered that
there were now two vacancies for Mars. There was no argument with what
Marjory had said. I couldn't give one of those priceless places on
my lifeship to someone who might die in a few months or, worse still,
become on Mars an invalid who would have to be looked after.

 

 

I didn't want to see anyone else. I wanted to sit down and think.
But the procession went on.

 

 

Miss Wallace had early lost all sign of youth and become ageless. I knew
she was only thirty, but she could have passed for forty-five or fifty,
if she set her mind to it.

 

 

The reason for her visit was to make a plea that Leslie Darby should go.

 

 

"You may think she's young and frivolous," said Miss Wallace earnestly
(quite unnecessarily, for Leslie was obviously young and no one but Miss
Wallace would have thought her frivolous), "but if you haven't seen her
with children, take my word for it, she has a very special gift. That
will be needed in a new world. Sometimes I'm afraid, Lieutenant Easson --
I hope you don't think this is presumptuous -- that you and other young
men like you will build up a Spartan colony -- hard, brave men and women
with no time for the softer things of life. Perhaps that is right. Only
I feel that the children in such a world will grow up harder and braver
still, and a new race will be born that will be cruel and ignorant and -- "

 

 

"I don't think any of us want that, Miss Wallace," I told her. I got rid
of her soon afterward, for after all she was wasting her time and mine.
Leslie was going. So was Miss Wallace, though she seemed to have no thought
of that. Besides, I had an uncomfortable feeling her sincerity would weaken
me and make me say something I might regret.

 

 

"Let's go out," said Pat. "Otherwise everybody in Simsville will come."