One in 300 (28 page)

 

 

I looked at Sammy, but there was nothing to be learned from him. He was
looking broodingly at Aileen.

 

 

"Killing is nasty," said Aileen in the same quiet, controlled tone, "and
killing one's own father is so much nastier that I didn't even consider it
until now. But it's got to be done. Already he has guards. Soon there'll
be more of them. I'm one of the few people left who can get close to
him. You couldn't, Bill. Sammy couldn't"

 

 

She took a deep breath.

 

 

"I'm going to kill him, but I don't want to die. I don't think I deserve to
die for it. Will you help me? Will you lie, knowing people will believe you?"

 

 

Sammy had called me a tough nut, and perhaps he had had some reason. I said
without hesitation:

 

 

"I'll help you, Aileen. I'll lie."

 

 

 

 

Leslie and Sammy and I were watching, on the ground. Ritchie, Morgan,
and Aileen were on the sunroof -- occasionally we saw one of them. With
luck, we were going to see a murder.

 

 

The most plausible accident that could befall Ritchie was to fall from
the sunroof to the ground. Everyone could believe in an accident like
that -- or make himself believe it.

 

 

We had argued, but Aileen and I were stubborn. Neither of us could see
that it was wrong, or cared even if it was. If, back on the lifeship,
I had known what Morgan would do later, I'd have seen to it that he never
reached Mars. I'd have made sure something happened to him, something
fatal -- and I wouldn't have felt I was a criminal. There is, after all,
a great difference between execution and murder. Aileen was executing
Ritchie, knowing he deserved execution, knowing someone had to do it.
She was probably right, too, when she said she was one of the few people
who
could
do it.

 

 

Sammy wasn't so happy about it. "I wish I were God," he muttered, as we
waited. "Then I'd know 'what was right. What an infernal situation . . ."

 

 

He stopped abruptly as we saw a head moving. It disappeared again.

 

 

The pit was now so deep that we could make out very little at the top.
When people came close to the waist-high stone parapet we could see
their heads and shoulders, and their legs through the spaces in the
stonework. Unless they were close we couldn't see them at all.

 

 

In the circumstances there could be no warning. We couldn't see what
led up to the incident we were to misreport. Our bias would be known,
of course -- but who would care? Who would speak up for Ritchie? Who
would be sorry if he died? Who would try to prove we were lying?

 

 

Presumably Aileen would be working patiently to get rid of Morgan,
whom we knew to be present on the roof.

 

 

"It's a mad scheme," murmured Sammy. "Ritchie knows everybody hates and
fears him. He knows Aileen would be glad if he were dead. He won't be such
a fool as to -- "

 

 

"Look!" Leslie screamed.

 

 

It looked as if Sammy was right. We saw two men and a girl struggling
on the edge. What had gone wrong we didn't know. But clearly Aileen had
moved too soon, made a mistake, given herself away -- or Ritchie had
been expecting her attempt, waiting for it.

 

 

Anyway, she was going to fail. Her only chance had been surprise, to get
Ritchie to the edge unsuspecting.

 

 

"I'm going up there," said Sammy desperately.

 

 

"Wait!" I said.

 

 

It was two men against a girl. Perhaps the two men, knowing that,
were careless. Perhaps they forgot that though their strength was still
overpoweringly greater than hers, the thrust of her legs was enough to
raise all three of them quite easily against the 0.38 gravity of Mars.

 

 

Struggling in Morgan's grip, she lashed out with one foot. Through the gaps
in the stonework we saw her leg whip up straight, so fast that it was a
blur, and though a support blocked our view we winced involuntarily as her
toe sank into Ritchie's belly.

 

 

On Earth that kick would have winded Ritchie, perhaps injuring him seriously.
But this wasn't Earth. It lifted him perhaps two feet. He crashed back
against the parapet, probably breaking his back. That didn't stop him
either. His legs came up and he somersaulted over, turning in the air.

 

 

Instead of watching the roof, as we should have done -- for Ritchie was
already as good as dead, and didn't matter any more -- we watched him,
unable to look away, even when he struck the ground sickeningly.

 

 

When we looked up again, Morgan had both hands on Aileen's throat, and from
the way his shoulders were hunched we knew they must be biting deep.
Morgan was loyal to Ritchie to the end, apparently. He wanted revenge
for Ritchie more than he wanted Aileen.

 

 

Then with a lithe backward flip Aileen wrenched Morgan off his feet and
her shoulders back over the parapet. She must have put all her strength
into it. Morgan sailed over, screaming.

 

 

She went over too, of course.

 

 

Sammy moaned even before they struck the ground. I knew what he was thinking.
He had lost two women he loved, one on Earth and one on Mars.

 

 

Despite the horror of the thing, despite Sammy's pain, I couldn't help
feeling a sense of relief. Even if it had to be grim and bloody and
melodramatic like that, Mars was the better for it.

 

 

There was a thin cry from above. We looked up. Leslie gasped and shaded
her eyes, screwing them up to see better.

 

 

"I think that's Aileen!" she exclaimed.

 

 

"Then who . . . ?" I began.

 

 

"It
is
Aileen," Sammy shouted.

 

 

We waved to her, and ran to where Morgan had fallen. We winced as we
looked at them. His hands were still around Betty's throat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

We could only guess at Betty's state of mind. From the timing, she had
obviously guessed what Aileen intended. Whether Betty had meant all along
to kill Morgan or had done what she did in a sudden frenzy was anybody's
guess. At any rate, she had sent Aileen inside for something, and when
Aileen came back there was no one on the roof.

 

 

Very likely, as Sammy had said, Ritchie distrusted Aileen. But neither
he nor Morgan seemed to have any distrust of Betty. We found it ironic,
when we tried later to reconstruct the incident on the basis of all we
knew, that Ritchie had probably been trying to save Betty from Morgan
when she kicked him. Betty must have made some move against Morgan. That
would probably only amuse Ritchie. He would have gone forward to break
Morgan's grip. And Betty kicked him over the edge.

 

 

But these were only guesses. Aileen had meant to kill, and hadn't had to.

 

 

"I can't say I'm glad things have happened this way," she said. "I -- "

 

 

"You can't say it, but you are," Sammy observed.

 

 

"I know
I
am," Leslie said. "Betty's life wasn't any good to her."

 

 

We still had big problems, we still had a struggle to live on a world
that wasn't our own. However, it was nice to get on with it without the
knowledge that we were always in danger of being stabbed in the back.

 

 

Sammy was in a daze for nearly a week. The certainty that it had been
Aileen who had died had really shaken him. It was no use pretending
after that that he didn't love her.

 

 

"Why are some people ashamed of perfectly decent emotions?" Leslie marveled.
"Do you think Aileen will laugh at you for loving her, Sammy? If so,
you haven't learned the first thing about women -- the very first thing."

 

 

"Hell, Leslie," Sammy protested, "don't you start."

 

 

"The truth is," Leslie told him, "you don't believe in happy endings.
It doesn't seem possible that Aileen is safe and prepared to love you
and be loved, does it?"

 

 

"Let us have no more talk of love," Sammy ordained. "Love is a feminine
myth, invented for the benefit of females. It's always women who talk
of love."

 

 

With Ritchie removed, the Martian settlement moved on more surely, more
in step, more cleanly. No one took on Ritchie's mantle. Now that he was
dead, people spoke freely about him and his works.

 

 

There was a startling change. Startling, that is, if you don't know
human beings. Apparently Ritchie had had no friends. Apparently no one
had ever liked him or supported him in any way. Apparently no one had
ever been afraid of him.

 

 

The whole of Winant, it seemed, had been just about to put Ritchie in
his place. There were suddenly all sorts of things that could have been
done about Ritchie. Obviously, by being killed, he had merely escaped
what was catching up with him, and would have caught up with him if he'd
lived a few days longer.

 

 

Lieutenant Porter and I had both made mistakes. Fortunately they canceled
each other out in the end.

 

 

My group was what it should have been all along, a sound and healthy body
of people. With Aileen in it, and Morgan out of it, it was a group of
people who liked each other, could get on well together, and believed
in the same sort of things.

 

 

"Of course," said Sammy, "this is only the beginning. Look at what we've
had to face in the last year or so. Take the supremely optimistic view
and say that this year things will only be half as bad -- "

 

 

Leslie yelped involuntarily. "Aileen, shut him up, for heaven's sake," she
exclaimed. "Sammy being supremely optimistic -- like that -- is just about
enough to make me want to go away in a dark corner and cut my throat."

 

 

"I
am
being supremely optimistic," Sammy insisted. "Oh well, if you
all want to live in a fool's paradise, don't let me stop you."

 

 

"I won't, anyway," said Aileen quietly. "There never is an ending, Sammy,
we all know that. But there are turning points, and afterward when we look
back we see how we were going down and down and down, until something
happened and we started coming up and up and up. I think that's where
we are now."

 

 

"Well, sure," said Sammy. "Didn't I say that things this year will only
be half as bad as they've been so far?"

 

 

Sammy was right, and we all knew it. But we refused to listen to him
all the same.

 

 

"You belong in the Old Testament," Leslie told him.

 

 

I grinned. "And Sammy begat Ahab," I said. "And Sammy begat Rebecca.
And Sammy begat -- "

 

 

Sammy and Aileen fled.

 

 

"And Bill begat . . . ?" Leslie suggested.

 

 

I think you could justifiably describe the way we kissed as supremely
optimistic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

J. T. McINTOSH
The author of
World out of Mind
and
Born Leader was born in Scotland and
attended the University of Aberdeen.
He was only ten when he brought out
his first magazine --
The Diamond
--
which consisted mainly of a two-hun-
dred-word story and a masthead. At
the age of eleven, on the basis of sev-
eral more stories, he was answering
the familiar schoolroom question:
"Now what are we going to be when
we grow up?" with a quiet assurance.
"I'm going to be a journalist."
Mr. Mcintosh became a journalist
and worked for several years as a sub-
editor of a newspaper before interest
in the news of the future replaced his
interest in the news of the present.
Since then he has written several top-
flight science-fiction novels and
science-fiction stories, which he has
very successfully published both in
England and in the United States. Mr.
McIntosh lives and writes in Aber-
deen.
Published by
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY. INC.
Publishers of the
Thorndike-Barnhart
Comprehensive Desk Dîctionary
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
TODAY'S FICTION --
TOMORROW'S FACTS
LIFE Magazine says there are more than TWO
MILLION science fiction fans in this country.
From all corners of the nation comes the re-
sounding proof thaf science fiction has estab-
lished itself as an exciting and imaginative NEW
FORM OF LITERATURE that is attracting liter-
ally tens of thousands of new readers every
year!
Why? Because no other form of fiction can
provide you with such thrilling and unprece-
dented adventures! No other form of fiction
take you on an eerie trip to Mars . . . amaze
you with a journey into the year 3000 A.D. . . .
or sweep you into the fabulous realms of un-
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exciting new form of imaginative literature has
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