One in 300 (22 page)

 

 

Leslie's eyes met mine. "No, Betty," I said sadly. "We can never forget
all about it. A man can beat his wife or throw her about a bit and it's
nobody's business but their own. But when a man does what Morgan's done
to you, it's everybody's business."

 

 

"Please," Betty pleaded. "Let Morgan and me -- "

 

 

"No, Betty," I repeated patiently. "Do you want Morgan to kill you and
your baby?"

 

 

When Morgan appeared that evening I waited until his paid deputy had gone,
and then drew the whole group together in the husk of the building we were
helping to erect. I wasn't dramatic. I told them simply what was going
to happen and precisely why. Morgan went ashen and tried to run for it,
but Sammy was right behind him.

 

 

I made Betty show them all what Morgan had done to her. I had to do that,
because Betty was quite capable of denying, at some future date, that
Morgan had ever assaulted her at all. At the gasps and cries and murmurs
of anger that were loosed I surveyed Morgan to see if there was any sign
of regret. There was none -- only fear of what was going to happen to him.

 

 

Well, fear it would have to be, then. He would have to leave Betty alone
because he was afraid to touch her, if that was the only restraint that
could be put on him.

 

 

I didn't ask them to stay while I whipped Morgan. The only purpose
in public punishment is to deter others, and the others didn't need
deterring. Sammy stayed, that was all. I got Leslie to take Betty away.

 

 

Sammy had said he always thought I was a hard nut. When I whipped Morgan
I discovered quite definitely that I wasn't. Each time he screamed,
and he screamed often, the sound crawled in my guts. I couldn't see what
pleasure anyone could get in hurting other people. It made me sick.

 

 

I had to keep reminding myself, as I'd told Morgan again and again, that
this wasn't punishment for the past, it was warning for the future. Any
time he wanted to act like a beast in the future, I told him over and
over again, he would have to decide whether it was worth being beaten
half to death afterward.

 

 

When it was over Morgan was moaning and crying together. I didn't blame
him for that. I'd given him just about all he could take.

 

 

And once again I tried to drive the lesson home. "The next time, Morgan,"
I said quietly, "it will be worse.

 

 

Sammy and I left him. I wouldn't meet Sammy's eyes. I still felt it had
had to be done, but I wasn't proud of having done it.

 

 

"If you'd carried on just a little longer," Sammy said, "you might have
left him feeling so low that he'd have killed himself."

 

 

I stared at him in surprise.

 

 

"It would he much better that way," said Sammy moodily. "Morgan's never
going to be any use to anybody."

 

 

I thought of that as an epitaph, and shuddered.

 

 

MORGAN SMITH
He was never any use to anybody.

 

 

 

 

For once, all the lieutenants were called together to vote on some of the
big questions. It was time we had a properly constituted government. There
was no question of that.

 

 

It was some meeting. There were nearly two thousand present, in the biggest
hall at the research station and in dozens of other rooms around it,
hearing what was going on by a big public-address link-up. Every room
had to have a sort of chairman to keep his group in order and not have
the P.A. system choked with babble.

 

 

One of the things we did was vote ourselves out of power, as lieutenants.
Some of us were pretty fed up with the job anyway. We had a little power
and a lot of extra work. Others knew that though they might have been
the right men to command lifeships, they weren't the right men for the
job they had now. We agreed that the groups of eleven, the lifeship
crews, should stay units for the moment, but each should elect its own
leader. Representatives would also be returned in the same way by the
big ships' complements and by the members of the original colony.

 

 

There was a long discussion about whether it was a good thing to keep
representation in three groups like that. Somebody said we should have
government for the whole population, not representatives who stood for the
special interests of different groups. But it was agreed in the end that
there were no special interests. It no longer mattered whether people had
been on Mars all along or had come in the big ships or in the lifeships.

 

 

We were building a new council from scratch, at last, instead of trying to
patch up some existing organization. Nobody imagined it would be perfect.
It would be better, that was all. The next council, we hoped, would be
better still.

 

 

We might have gone back and held our elections right away, so that it
would be the new council who settled the other problems we had before
us. However, on another vote we decided that, rather than throw the
new council in at the deep end, we'd give them soinething to work on
and amend. We'd make the decisions and go on giving the orders for a
week longer before throwing the council open to everybody. We had some
experience of command, after all. The new members would have to learn
how to apply it.

 

 

We agreed that the laby system was out of our control. We could avoid
what might be called inflation and deflation, that was all.

 

 

Marriage was abolished temporarily. There had been a lot of trouble
over that, people wanting someone to marry them, people wanting someone
to give them divorces, people living together without marriage, people
formally married sneering at people informally married and saying they
were living in sin. It seemed that the best answer was not to elevate
formal marriage and give away or refuse divorces, but at one bold stroke
to destroy immorality and leave sex relations to -- of all things --
common sense.

 

 

Then there was another long discussion on the problem of language, race,
and nation.

 

 

Our twenty thousand plus was composed of white men, black men, brown men,
and yellow men, speaking English, French, Chinese, Russian, German, Italian,
Arabic, Swahili, and scores of other languages. Agreement on English
as the standard language was surprisingly easy, but agreement that the
other languages should die was as difficult as anyone would have expected.

 

 

You couldn't blame the Spaniards, with their Cervantes, the Greeks,
with their glorious classical age, the Germans, with their Goethe and
Sculler and Heine, for objecting. I don't have to put their case, it's
so obvious. However, the case for English as not merely the standard
language but the only language was pretty good too. Without language
barriers we'd have a much better chance of real unity than Earth ever had.

 

 

We didn't settle that question. It was clear we couldn't, just then.
But it would probably work itself out. If people had to speak English to
be understood, the other languages would die, year by year, generation
by generation.

 

 

Again, it was with surprisingly little trouble that we agreed that mating
between any female and any male should be permitted, outside the blood
relationships which would exist again in the next generation. Some of the
Americans, Germans, and Africans were violently against miscegenation. The
French didn't give a damn. The South Africans and Australians wouldn't
even talk about it. The English thought it would be a good thing,
in theory.

 

 

And it was in theory that we agreed on it. We couldn't solve a problem
like that merely by voting on it. But the vote meant that we hoped the
Martian colony would one day comprise one people and one race, speaking
one language.

 

 

It all sounded very fine.

 

 

We decided to go on as at present with soil preparation and building as
the two over-all priorities. We formed a banking unit to supervise laby
transactions, a medical unit to check on a few new (fortunately mild)
illnesses that were appearing in the new conditions, and an exploration
unit to survey Mars, chiefly for rich soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

Came the day of the great storm, which modified most of our plans.

 

 

It started like any ordinary gale. I was out alone, about half a mile from
the research station, looking for another vein of the red rock we'd been
using. When the wind started I dropped flat. Usually the winds didn't last.
You waited for a calm period and then made for shelter.

 

 

The first indication I had that this wasn't an ordinary wind was when I
was lifted like a feather, whirled in the air, swept along about twenty
yards, and then dashed to the ground. I was lucky in being dropped on
one of the thickest patches of lichen. I was only jarred from tip to
toe. No bones were broken.

 

 

Presently I wasn't so sure that I had been lucky in my landing ground.
The lichen offered no purchase at all. At least the rocks were something
to hang onto. Another gust came and I was lifted again. I spun crazily,
touched the ground with one foot, somersaulted, and bounced off the lichen
again. I was bowled along, half lifted, half rolled, for fully a hundred
yards. This time, however, I came to a stop against a spur of rock to which
I clung grimly.

 

 

The gale, insofar as it had direction, was coming from Winant. Fairly
safe for the moment, I looked to see what was being blown from there --
and there was plenty. There were sheets of metal, tarpaulins, doors, bits
of masonry -- and people, little black, struggling things whirling like
confetti from an electric fan. I was thankful that my group was working in
the vast hole in front of the station. They would be safe, if anyone was.

 

 

A naked body shot past me, twenty feet in the air. I knew the man was
dead, because his head was flapping from side to side like a flag. He
still wore his shoes, but his suit had been torn off him. Fifty yards
to the right a woman was swept past. She was still alive -- she saw me
and made a wild gesture of appeal. I could do nothing, of course. The
only hope anyone had in a storm like that was to find an anchor, as I
had done, and stay put.

 

 

Just for an instant, and then it was gone, I heard a distant crash.
I scanned Winant, my eyes stung by the wind, streaming with tears. The
gale had actually lifted a lifeship and cast it down again across half
a dozen others. As I looked, another lifeship was torn loose and spun
crazily along across the plain.

 

 

I wondered if this was going to be the end of it all for Winant and for
the people from Earth. My arms were aching; an extra-strong gust and I
should be swept away again. No one else could be in much better state
except the people in the pit, and those in the station itself. Even if
the storm stopped at once, the toll must be enormous.

 

 

The fate of the community was going to depend very largely on the number
of people who happened to be in the pit and the station at the time.
I had no up-to-date information on who was working where. If there had
been only a thousand actually at the station and fifty in the pit --
which was possible -- Winant might drop in one day below the critical
level for survival.

 

 

As if to show that even the people in the pit weren't safe, the wind
suddenly threw up a vast black cloud of dust which completely obscured
Winant. Hundreds of tons of dust and sand must be showering into the
excavations.

 

 

I was trying not to see the things and people flying past me. Winant I could
do nothing about, but it seemed that I should at least try to help the poor
wretches who were blown past, helpless, most of them dead but some all too
obviously still alive. I felt guilty because I was safe.

 

 

In a black shower, what seemed like half Winant hurled across the plain
two hundred yards away. There were cattle, helpless in the gale; men and
women, clawing wildly at the air, desperately seeking something to hang
on to; loose stones, clothing, and thousands of small objects I couldn't
identify. As I watched, unable to look away, the whole dark cloud was
dashed to the ground, disintegrated like a bombed house, and swept on
in a dozen streamlets.

 

 

I saw one man grasp a rock as I had done. He took a firm hold with both
arms. Just for an instant relief must have flooded him. Then a big, dark
object that might have been part of a wall struck him in the back with
such force that it broke the rock through him, and all together they
swept on before the gale -- masonry, broken rock, and indeterminate
pieces of animal tissue.

 

 

A youth whose mind must have given way flew past gracefully, flapping
his arms like a bird's wings and laughing in ecstasy. I watched him into
the distance, still beating his arms as if he had discovered the secret
of flight.

 

 

Far out to my right I saw a speck high in the air, higher than any debris
I had seen so far. It had thin, waving tendrils that must be arms and legs.
Abruptly it fell as the wind, which had supported it, died for an instant.
I saw it plummet down almost to the ground. Then it was swept away again,
only a few feet above the plain, as if the gale was playing with it.

 

 

When I looked back toward Winant I saw three people quite near me rolling
in line across the plain, like a grotesque act in an acrobatic show.
I started when I saw the middle one clearly for an instant. It was Aileen
Ritchie. Dust blinded me for long seconds. When I could see again,
two of the three were gone, but Aileen was clinging to the same spur
of rock as I was, forty yards away. As I saw her, she nearly lost her
grip. She seemed to be hurt, which was no surprise at all.