One in 300 (23 page)

 

 

I had been able to ignore the people I didn't know, treating them as
puppets in the wild, mad scene, no more aidable than the shadows on a
movie screen. But crazy though it might be to move from my comparatively
safe anchorage, I had to try to help someone I did know. I started
clawing my way along the ridge to Aileen.

 

 

In two places the ridge was broken, the wind whistling through the gap.
I'd have stopped at the first if it hadn't been obvious that, left unaided,
Aileen was going to be swept away in a few minutes. I don't know quite how
I did cross the two gaps. I certainly didn't walk, and I didn't crawl.
I must simply have thrown myself across and grabbed the rock.

 

 

Just before I reached Aileen the thought crossed my mind that if it had
been Morgan, not she, a problem would have been solved. I could have stayed
put and watched him fight his battle with the storm and lose it. But I
couldn't be sure that I'd have let even Morgan die. In a turmoil like
that, a man might be insane enough to risk his life to save an enemy,
simply to try to cheat the gale and because they were both human beings.

 

 

I reached Aileen and grasped her firmly. I had seen her often and nodded
to her, but I had never actually spoken to her except for those few words
in the hospital.

 

 

"Thanks," she gasped. "I couldn't have lasted much longer."

 

 

"Let's get five yards back," I said. I could feel the words being ripped
out of my mouth and swept away across the desert. "There's a safe place
for both of us."

 

 

We made it with a struggle. The ridge was only about four feet high, but
at that point there was a crack into which we could wedge ourselves. We
jammed our legs in together and stood breast to breast like dancers in a
ballroom. Aileen could lean back a little against the rock, and did. She
seemed rather embarrassed. The situation was too serious for me to be
embarrassed at all.

 

 

"Where are you hurt?" I asked.

 

 

"Arm, side, and head, I think," she said.

 

 

I checked her injuries, but they seemed minor -- minor, at any rate,
while the world was being blown apart at the seams. She wasn't going to
be able to use her left arm for a day or two, her fair hair was clotted
with blood, and she had a six-inch gash in her side -- but what was that
when hundreds of people were being dashed to pulp all about us?

 

 

"What happened to the rest of 92?" I asked.

 

 

"They're all right. They got under cover. I didn't quite make it.
How about your group, Lieutenant Easson?"

 

 

"In the pit," I said. I grinned wryly. "In the circumstances, Aileen,
I think you might call me Bill."

 

 

She smiled. "I suppose so, Bill. How long do you think this'll last?"

 

 

"Since nothing quite like this has happened before, any guesses I might
make would be worthless. I'd have thought it would have been over long
since."

 

 

Instead of its being over, we suddenly found ourselves enveloped in
the dust cloud of all time. We shut our eyes, not only to protect them,
but because we couldn't see anything anyway.

 

 

The flying dust and sand pierced our skin like thousands of tiny needles.
I felt a sharp twinge in my neck as a cloud of sand peppered it like
buckshot. I put my hand to the back of my neck and it came away sticky
with blood.

 

 

Then just as the worst of the dust storm seemed to be over and I opened
my eyes cautiously, rain swept over us, hammering our skin, beating on
our temples.

 

 

Aileen's voice came to me from a long way off. "You don't mind if I . . . ?"
She straightened against me and put her arms around me.

 

 

I clutched her tightly. "I don't mind at all," I said.

 

 

In a few seconds we were awash, water running down from our shoulders
to our ankles. I felt a stream from Aileen's knee transferring itself
to my calf. Gradually the gray dust that had covered us was washed away,
like chalk marks on a wall when a shower starts.

 

 

Aileen was crying. Her tears seemed to surprise her more than they
surprised me. She made a desperate effort to stop, and told me fiercely:
"I don't know why I'm doing this. It's not because I'm hurt."

 

 

I understood, because I felt like crying too. I've heard of men doing
it in storms on Earth, when their utter impotence is brought home to
them. Here there was all there had been in storms on Earth, plus the
insecurity and helplessness of being so lightly secured to the surface
of the world by the weak, tenuous gravity.

 

 

The rain lasted only two minutes or so. Then the character of the wind
changed. It began to come in sudden, incredibly fierce gusts, followed
by comparative calm.

 

 

Aileen mastered herself at last. She cast a quick, ashamed glance up at
my face, still clinging to me.

 

 

"Think nothing of it," I said. "It's enough to make anyone cry."

 

 

"I feel such a baby," she said vehemently. "So weak and useless --
if you weren't here I wouldn't last five minutes in this."

 

 

Out of the fog of dust which was still streaming overhead a huge,
gleaming shape dropped abruptly. We couldn't move. We waited to be
crushed to death, hugging each other convulsively.

 

 

However, its size had deceived us. It crashed down fully fifty yards away,
broke in two, and was swept away on the wings of the wind again. We didn't
hear the sound of the crash at all. It was entirely dissipated by the storm.

 

 

"What was that?" asked Aileen.

 

 

"Lifeship," I said. I was thinking of how that ship had come safely from
Earth to Mars, and had then been destroyed by a mere wind.

 

 

Suddenly the wind died. We were left feeling rather foolish, clinging
tightly to each other as protection against a storm that no longer existed.

 

 

"Can that be the end?" Aileen whispered. It seemed natural to whisper
in the sudden silence.

 

 

"Probably, but while we're here we're safe. Let's wait until the dust
settles a little. I'll have a look at that gash of yours, now that
there's water to -- "

 

 

"I'd rather you didn't," said Aileen quickly.

 

 

"As you like," I said equably.

 

 

"I'm sorry, I only meant -- "

 

 

I grinned. "I know." I prised myself out and sat on the rock. Aileen
pulled herself up beside me.

 

 

"Bill, I should have known better," she said humbly. " Please see if
you can do anything about that gash."

 

 

"Stop apologizing, Aileen." I smiled. "And don't make an issue of it.
I don't think you thought I thought whatever it was. Come on, I'll carry
you to the hospital."

 

 

"I can walk."

 

 

"Perhaps, but it isn't necessary. You realize that if I carry you I'm
still only moving point six nine of what I used to have to tote around
all the time on Earth?"

 

 

She chuckled. "That's so. All right, go ahead."

 

 

We lost our lightness of manner before we'd gone far. The ground was
strewn with debris, human and otherwise. And a glance showed that the
crops some of us had labored over were all destroyed.

 

 

"We can't say Mars gave us no warning," I said heavily. "There were light
winds and strong winds. We should have been ready for an occasional much
stronger wind."

 

 

I left her at the research station and went to the pit, refusing to look
about me and see how much of our work was ruined.

 

 

 

 

The great storm killed 2590 people and injured 6000 more. It put us back
where we had started as far as food was concerned, and killed so many
cattle that the remainder would have to be watched and tended and bred
very carefully if the species were not to die out. It showed that only
buildings as strong as the research station itself were of any use on
the surface of Mars. It put an end once and for all to all grumbles
and complaints about working on permanent buildings. It demonstrated
clearly to anyone and everyone how shaky our foothold on Mars still was,
and how risky it was to relax until we had made it a lot more secure.
It undermined the new laby system, since so many contracts which had been
perfectly good the day before were now worthless.

 

 

In many ways the results of the gale were good. But no one would have
wanted these things at such a cost. Besides, in one or two not so
immediately obvious ways the results of the storm were not good.

 

 

One big change in plan was inevitable. Before this the general construction
plan had been to construct fair-sized buildings around the research station
and use the pit, the cave homes, more or less for temporary housing. The
ground-level building was the important thing and the below-ground-level
work stopgap and experimental.

 

 

After the storm the plan was reversed. Flats carved in solid rock,
reinforced by concrete and steel, and below ground level, were obviously
much safer than buildings on the surface which, as had just been
demonstrated, were very vulnerable while they were in course of
construction. We would make a huge square a hundred feet deep, and build
on only two sides. Later we could make it even bigger, and finally we
should have a warm, sheltered garden all over the floor of the square,
with comfortable, solid flats all around.

 

 

True, at first the flats would be makeshift. But that way we could
develop in safety. By building on the surface we should always be at
the mercy of a great storm like that first one.

 

 

Group 94 came through the storm unharmed. Once I knew that, I could help
to assess the damage it had done with more equanimity.

 

 

Aileen wasn't seriously hurt. She was at the hospital only a few minutes.
There were too many people more seriously hurt for the hospital staff
to pay much attention to mere gashes and lumps on the head.

 

 

She came and tried to thank me for saving her life. Leslie interrupted
her. "He enjoyed it, Aileen," she said. "Now he'll save your life any
time he gets a chance, and kiss you again."

 

 

"He didn't kiss me!" Aileen protested.

 

 

"Why not?" Leslie asked me, puzzled.

 

 

"I don't like blondes," I told her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

 

 

When the first informal election was held, I was voted PL. The word
"lieutenant" had never been a very good description -- we had been called
lieutenants merely to give us some sort of pseudo-military authority
over the people back on Earth whom we were taking, or not taking, to
Mars. We now became known as party leaders. But since that phrase had
political connotations we didn't like, the initials were generally used.

 

 

There was no opposition to my election as PL, not even from Morgan. Morgan
had been quieter, rather to my surprise, since I whipped him. He never did
anything to suggest that he regretted what he had done to Betty; in fact,
there was all too little doubt that he was one of those compulsive sadists
who could no more keep his hands off his girl than an addict could stop
taking drugs. He and Betty still fought like wildcats, and of course Betty
invariably came off worst. But there was never anything for which I could
whip Morgan again. He always stopped short of doing her any real harm.

 

 

She would have a bruise on her face, and say it was nothing. Or there
would be blue marks on her thin wrists. Once when she turned up with her
arm and shoulder bandaged, I was going to go for Morgan again, whatever
Betty said. But it transpired that this time he really had had nothing
to do with it. She had been dashed against a wall by the winds.

 

 

The suspension of marriage didn't do their relations any good. Morgan
didn't say outright that he was finished with Betty, but he made it
clear that he didn't mind whether she stayed with him or not. Betty,
poor kid, still loved the man.

 

 

I had guessed for some time that Ritchie was one of the leading profiteers,
and that Morgan was tied up with him in some way. After the storm there
was no pretense at all. Ritchie had done very well out of the storm,
and didn't mind admitting it.

 

 

With so many people dying, the whole laby system had taken a knock, since
a lot of the contracts in circulation were suddenly valueless. Ritchie
apparently followed out the time-hallowed process of forcing the market
as low as it would go, buying all he could and then letting the market
rise again. I didn't follow any of his transactions in detail, but the
general line was obvious.

 

 

"You're a reasonable fellow, Bill," he told me good-humoredly when I met
him once. "You must know that when anything happens -- anything at all
-- there's always something for a smart man to make out of it. Now I'll
repeat an offer I made once before. If you'd like to come in with me -- "

 

 

"Ritchie," I said grimly, "you're a reasonable fellow too, in your own
way, and you know damn well before you say any more that I'm not going
to come in with you in any of your schemes."

 

 

Ritchie laughed as if I had made a very good joke. "That's what I like
about you, Bill," he said warmly. "Cards always on the table, and no
dealing off the bottom of the deck. Well, I'll be just as frank with
you. From what I hear you saved Aileen's life, and I never like to feel
I owe any man anything. So -- "