One in 300 (6 page)

She knew a little place down the valley I hadn't had a chance to see.
She said it was a good place to think of when remembering Earth.

 

 

It was curious, I'd never thought of that. Perhaps because I'd lived in
three country districts and four cities before I was ten, I had never
felt any duty to any one place. I hadn't thought much about leaving
Earth forever. I had realized vaguely that Harry Phillips would do so
with a pang; but if everybody left on Earth was going to die, I was
going to leave it without any regrets. What was Earth, anyway? Just a
place. Define planets generically, and you had Mars and no loss on the
deal that technology couldn't make up in a hundred years or so.

 

 

But as Leslie spoke I understood that no other planet would ever be made
the same as Earth.

 

 

We stopped about two miles from Simsville, and there was no sign anywhere
of mankind. Two hills folded in on us, hills thickly wooded. A stream
meandered one way, then the other, in its search for lower ground. The
clouds were very white and still against an almost tropical blue sky.

 

 

I found for the first time that though I had no eye for beauty I could
let it sink in and something in me appreciated

 

 

Leslie was wearing a watered-silk blue dress, and I could appreciate
that too. It darkened her fair hair. I had always liked blue and gold.

 

 

"I wish . . ." said Leslie.

 

 

We had sat down in the shade, and she was leaning forward, her legs
drawn up in front of her, pulling at her ankles.

 

 

"What do you wish?" I asked obligingly.

 

 

She seemed to have forgotten. "Why was it done like this?" she demanded.

 

 

I was disappointed. I had hoped I was getting away from Simsville and
my job and its responsibility.

 

 

"How can one person get to know over three thousand people in fourteen
days?" she went on. "You know you can't. You haven't tried. Oh, I don't
say you aren't conscientious. I think you are. If you could have arranged
the method of selection, all over the world, how would you have done it?"

 

 

I shrugged. "Phone book, I guess."

 

 

"How do you mean?"

 

 

"Every three hundred and twenty-fifth name."

 

 

Leslie caught her breath as if I'd suggested setting fire to a cathedral.
"You
couldn't
!" she exclaimed. "That would be horribly callous."

 

 

"Why? It would be fair."

 

 

"But this way . . . at least there's a chance. The good, the wise,
the clever, the beautiful
may
come through . . ."

 

 

"For God's sake!" I ejaculated, shocked by her lack of understanding.
"Do you think that's what we're supposed to do? Take all the crowned heads
in our thousands of little arks and ignore the rabble? Intellectual or
artistic snobbery is no better than social snobbery. If I had Beethoven
and Michelangelo and Napoleon and Madame Curie and Shakespeare and Helen
of Troy and St. Peter here in Simsville, do you think I'd pick them?"

 

 

"Wouldn't you?" She had lost her horror, and in its place was a vast
surprise.

 

 

"Suppose I did, what would happen to John Doe? Sure, if Simsville had a
genius, I'd consider him. There aren't too many geniuses. But when it's
one out of three hundred, we're not going to blot out the average man
and woman by taking only the people who would come out at the head of
a competitive examination in something or other. I . . ."

 

 

I didn't have the eloquence I needed. I knew I was right. I wanted her
to see it. But how could I tell her that outstanding people, after all,
were only clever dogs that had learned new tricks, and that John Smith
was worth quite as much to himself as Shakespeare?

 

 

"Let's talk of something else," I said helplessly. "Or better still,
not talk at all."

 

 

She nodded, hesitated, and then with sudden resolution put her hand to
her throat.

 

 

Perhaps I was to blame as much as she was. I watched stupidly as she did
things to her dress, and then became angry when there was no reason to
be. After all, what was wrong in wanting to live? Why shouldn't people
try anything and everything?

 

 

I knew too much about her, and not enough. If it had been Pat . . . well,
if it had been Pat it would have been quite different. All I knew was that
Leslie wasn't the kind to give herself casually to a near stranger. And
that, instead of improving things, made them worse.

 

 

"You brought me here for this?" I asked furiously.

 

 

"Suppose I did?" she said defiantly.

 

 

I was wildly, unreasonably angry. I was also, quite irrationally,
disappointed. "You think you could buy any lieutenant that way?" I demanded.
"We could all of us have screen stars and princesses and models every night,
no obligation, without having to bother about small-town teachers. What I
should do is take you, and strike you off the list."

 

 

She became very still. It was all melodramatic, cheap, and stupid.
She had been very clumsy in her effort to seduce me, not knowing how it
was done. If she had known how to pretend to be in love with me, or at
least attracted by me, the cheapness would have gone. But only someone
who was ashamed of herself could make the horrible mess Leslie made of it.

 

 

"Hadn't you even the sense to see," I said bitterly, "that any of us
could have any woman we wanted? Don't you think I've had enough silly
offers and proposals? People who promise to do everything I say on Mars,
who offer me the equivalent of ten years' salary in whatever currency we
use out there, if they have to sweat for twenty years to pay it . . . men
who contract to do my killing for me in the colony, help me to set up
a state of my own. Damn it, Leslie, isn't it obvious that I must have
decided long ago on the only possible thing to do about such proposals --
and that's to leave the people who make them behind?"

 

 

"You said . . . something that implied you'd picked me to go."

 

 

"Yes, I had."

 

 

Her head came up sharply and she laughed in my face. "I heard the same
thing often when I was a child," she retorted. "'I was going to give
you something, but now I won't.' We all said it. It . . ."

 

 

I lunged away from her, back to Simsville. The blue silk dress still
lay about her as if she were sitting in a sparkling pool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

 

It was hours, not days now. Very soon the ten who were going with me
would be told. Whether they ever reached Mars would depend, among other
things, on how well they could conceal their knowledge.

 

 

There was another fight in the square. I saw it from my window this time,
keeping well hidden, for I didn't want it too definitely known where I
was. Nobody wanted to fight, but nobody could help it. Everybody in the
town was going to die, except eleven. The temperatures all over Earth
were still normal, and the sun looked the same. It seemed incredible
that there was nothing to see, hear, or feel.

 

 

I looked down from the sun to the square just in time to see Jack Powell
die. Someone got him down and crushed his neck with his boot. With a sick
feeling I saw it was Mortenson. Mortenson! In that moment something clicked
into place and I began to understand Mortenson.

 

 

Favored. Fortunate. Strong, good-looking, healthy. He had so many things,
how could he help but have everything he wanted? Like the beautiful girl
who told him, in effect, and went on telling him, "Do what you like with
me -- I love you." People would forgive him for anything. Men liked him,
women loved him.

 

 

He had hurt Pat. I had known that, but hadn't made any real effort to
understand it. She had only talked once about her relations with Mortenson.
Of course he had hurt Pat. She had asked for it -- the whole world asked
for it. Everybody was ready with forgiveness, eager to pardon the magnificent
Mortenson.

 

 

In four words: he had too much. He had more than he could handle.
Overnurtured, he had gone bad.

 

 

I didn't care about the rights and wrongs of the fight, or what had led to
Mortenson's snuffing out Jack Powell's life. I would always remember the
picture of Mortenson stamping on a man's neck, howling with joy. Mortenson
was finished, as far as I was concerned.

 

 

Now Marjory would die alone, in sorrow and fear and hate. I would never
see her again.

 

 

Betty and Morgan appeared, saw what was going on, and ran off down a side
street. That was good. They hadn't compelled me to strike them off the
passenger list of my lifeship. Sammy was there. He had a gun. Could he
have been one of the three masked men? No -- they were fools, and Sammy
was no fool. Besides, he had been with Pat. Where was Pat?

 

 

I must have said it aloud, for she spoke behind me. "Come away from the
window, Bill," she said. "It's like dope. It gets you in the end. You're
not tough enough."

 

 

I brushed my hand over my eyes. She was right; I didn't really know what
was going on. At least, I recorded it faithfully enough, but it didn't mean
to me what it should have meant.

 

 

The list was complete. Mortenson out, the Powells out, Leslie out. She
had done something, I forgot what it was, but I remembered that she was
off the list. Miss Wallace, Harry Phillips, Bessie Phillips, the Stowes,
Jim Stowe, Betty Glessor, Morgan Smith. But that was only eight. Oh yes,
Sammy and Pat.

 

 

"Pat," I said. "Did I ever tell you? You're going to Mars."

 

 

She wasn't surprised, as I had half thought, and she certainly wasn't
delighted. She was very calm and serious.

 

 

"You really mean that?" she said.

 

 

"Of course. I wouldn't joke about it."

 

 

"No. That's what I thought. It's not just that you . . ."

 

 

I didn't know what she meant, and probably she didn't either. "It's not
just anything," I said. "Of the population of Simsville, I don't know
anyone who has more right to live than you."

 

 

I hoped it was taken as calmly in each case. I wouldn't know. I wasn't
going to tell any of them myself, except Sammy and Pat.

 

 

The fight seemed to have stopped, or at least moved somewhere else.
There were no shouts or screams as I waited, wondering how the other
eight were taking it.

 

 

Pastor Munch was visiting the Stowes. That, of course, was the way.
I couldn't visit the people I had chosen, I couldn't write or phone or
telegraph, and I couldn't send anyone who had been close to me. The three
clergymen had offered to help, and this was the way in which they could.
No one would interfere with them as they went about visiting people;
and I had not been in touch with them often enough or publicly enough
for anyone to guess that they were my messengers.

 

 

Munch only knew about the Stowes. He hadn't wished to know more.

 

 

Father Clark was taking care of Harry Phillips. Harry would be incredulous,
I guessed. I had thought all along that, left to himself, he would refuse.
But mention of Bessie would shut him up. He would be afraid that if he said
anything about himself Bessie might lose her chance.

 

 

Miss Wallace was another who might be dumfounded. Father Clark would
tell her too.

 

 

I didn't know how Betty Glessor and Morgan Smith would react when MacLean
told them they were going. They were the gamble of the group. But when
it came to couples, one had to gamble. It seemed unfair to give half the
available places to one family, but families wouldn't be split. That meant
either couples who hadn't started to have their children, like Betty and
Smith, or couples with only one child, like the Stowes.

 

 

There would be plenty of children on Mars. There always were when life
for a group began anew. I would marry, naturally. I looked at Pat.

 

 

"Can you tell me now who else is going?" she asked. I told her.

 

 

"You've done a good job," she said.

 

 

I was inordinately relieved. Pat would know. So I had picked on roughly
the right people.

 

 

"But . . ." she said, suddenly frowning.

 

 

"But what?"

 

 

"What about Leslie?" she demanded.

 

 

"I always meant to take a cross section. It was always you or Leslie.
Not both."

 

 

Now she did look surprised. "But why me?"

 

 

"Pat, you always had a low opinion of yourself. You were quite right.
You're nothing to write home about. Except maybe for your looks. But
the sad thing is, other people rate even lower than you. So you go."

 

 

"Lower than me?" she murmured, in strange humility. "That's a pity."

 

 

The commonplace nature of her comment seemed the funniest thing I had heard
for months. I was close to hysteria, and I laughed until I was sore. A pity
that people were such heels. A pity that the sun was going to radiate just
the fraction more heat that meant the end of all life. A pity that only
ten people from Simsville had a chance of life.

 

 

Sammy came in. I took control of myself.