One in 300 (26 page)

 

 

Public opinion is often wrong, but I didn't think it was wrong this time.
Now I believed Mleen. Now I knew I'd been mistaken about Ritchie.

 

 

So I was wrong. So Ritchie was a killer. So Aileen probably had good reason
to hate him.

 

 

All I can take credit for is that when I knew I was wrong I admitted it
fairly and squarely to myself and revised all my ideas about Ritchie
and Aileen and Winant.

 

 

I didn't like what I came up with.

 

 

Some people wanted to string Ritchie and Morgan up without trial.
If I'd been in charge of things, I'd have let them do it. We couldn't
afford, yet, to be fair and impartial. It was, let's say, a sixty-five
per cent probability that Morgan and Ritchie between them had killed all
three people, and that was good enough. Even if we had the wrong people,
this swift, decisive retribution would keep the actual murderers quiet
for a long time. It wasn't the justice of civilization, it was the
expediency of emergency.

 

 

Unfortunately, though, since we had such a big proportion of decent,
fair-minded people among us, that was vetoed. Martian law wasn't going
to start with hanging without trial.

 

 

"He knew that would happen," said Aileen listlessly. "Why don't people
see that law doesn't prevent crime, it makes it easy for a clever man?"

 

 

The council passed a few more laws, and one of them made it clear that
we weren't following the old principle of not trying a man twice for
the same crime. We would try him, and keep on trying, until we proved
his guilt or his innocence.

 

 

Then we tried Morgan and Ritchie for the three murders. We didn't even
manage to make it look particularly likely that they were guilty.

 

 

But
they
did, by their attitude.

 

 

"You have nothing for us to answer," said Ritchle blandly, "nothing for
us to deny, except that we murdered these three men. I can't speak for
Morgan Smith; I can only say, for myself, I didn't kill any of these men,
and you all know it. I don't see why I should bother to deny inciting
Smith to commit a crime which no one has established he did commit."

 

 

"Why pick on me?" said Morgan resentfully, when he was called. "I'm only
one of about five thousand people who might have stuck a knife in these
three guys. Are you going to hang everybody who can't prove he didn't
do it?"

 

 

And that was that. There was no evidence, let alone proof. We could only
discharge them. We hadn't proved Morgan's innocence, but we certainly hadn't
proved his guilt.

 

 

Nevertheless, a lot of people who had been uncertain before the brief,
impromptu, abortive trial were quite sure after it. Ritchie and Morgan
didn't act like innocent men. They acted, very deliberately, like guilty
men who were quite certain their guilt couldn't be proved.

 

 

Unfortunately that wasn't evidence.

 

 

Very soon we found we'd played into Ritchie's hands. It was now generally
known that he and Morgan were killers, and that nobody could do anything
about it. Ritchie could use it as a threat. He did, almost openly. His
power grew and grew. It was no use people saying he wouldn't dare.
Obviously he would dare.

 

 

Before this I'd never had any actual demonstration of his power. Ritchie
had never really seemed any concern of mine. I had issued no contracts,
nor had Leslie; there seemed no hold he could possibly have over us.

 

 

But when I made a serious attempt to have Aileen transferred to 94,
I found out something of what Ritchie could do if he felt like it.

 

 

Leslie had her baby, a girl. We called her Patricia. The idea was Leslie's,
not mine. I agreed without asking her whether she was thinking of Pat Darrell
or not. At any rate, Aileen was so useful that Leslie felt we ought to do
something for her, and what Aileen wanted was to get completely clear
of Ritchie.

 

 

I thought her rather weak in this matter. You read of Trilbys completely
dominated by Svengalis, but a normal person isn't so easy to dominate. All
that was needed, I was certain, was that Aileen should take a firm stand
and tell Ritchie firmly and without heroics what it was. However, there
it was; Aileen thought she was in her father's power, and if she was to
stop thinking so, someone else would have to take a hand.

 

 

I pulled all the strings I could think of to have Aileen declared
independent of her PL, or transferred to another group, or anything
else that would serve the purpose. Each time I was told, as I expected,
"See So-and-so." On Mars people in authority were already back to the
old game of refusing all responsibility, of passing the buck, of doing
nothing rather than do anything wrong.

 

 

About every third time the person I was told to see was Ritchie, even if
I hadn't mentioned Aileen by name. Apparently Ritchie had things arranged
so that most changes had to be made, sooner or later, through him.

 

 

So I went and saw Ritchie. He had acquired one of the top flats, though
he had no woman, and unlike the rest of us, he had all three rooms. That
alone showed his power, wealth, and authority. He even had a stairway to
the roof and had somehow managed to get part of it fenced off for his own
private use. He probably saw himself as a millionaire with a penthouse.

 

 

Inside, too, there were many evidences of his special privileges.
His flat was more nearly finished than any I had seen so far. He even
had some rough furniture.

 

 

I ignored all that and went straight to the point.

 

 

"Why don't you leave Aileen alone, Ritchie?" I demanded.

 

 

"She's my daughter, Bill," Ritchie said gently.

 

 

"She doesn't want to be your daughter."

 

 

"She can't help it. It's an accident of Fate."

 

 

"What percentage is there for you in keeping her tied to you?"

 

 

Ritchie spoke in the same gentle tone: "I told you long ago, Bill, it
wasn't money that mattered, but what you could get for it. I'm going
to explain myself to you, Bill. But first I'm going to tell you why I'm
doing it."

 

 

He sat back comfortably and looked at me. He was in no hurry.

 

 

"Drink?" he asked casually.

 

 

I shot a puzzled glance at him.

 

 

He reached behind him and from a recess in the wall produced a bottle
and two glasses. He poured me out a drink and handed it to me. I sniffed
it and sipped it.

 

 

It was raw, but it was alcohol.

 

 

"How the devil . . . ?" I began.

 

 

"Just drink it," said Ritchie. "I'll come to that. I'm going to show you
a few more things, Bill. I'm glad you came to see me. I was going to ask
you to come anyway, one of these days."

 

 

He downed the liquor and poured himself some more.

 

 

"What I want," he said, "is what quite a lot of people want. But I can
get it. They can't. I want to be able to do what I like, eat what I like,
drink what I like. I want to do things just to show I can do them. This,
for example." He raised his glass. "I don't really give a damn for liquor.
I can take it or leave it alone. But I like having it made, keeping it
here. I like being the only man alive who can have a drink when he likes."

 

 

He smiled happily at me.

 

 

"I sell it too, of course," he said reflectively, "on a very limited scale.
And it's no use thinking you can report that and have something done about
it, because you can't."

 

 

He put the bottle away again.

 

 

"Now you wonder why I'm telling you this," he went on.

 

 

"I think I know," I said bitterly.

 

 

"Perhaps you do. You're thinking of fighting me, Bill. I strongly advise
against it. I hate to mention Jean Martine as a threat, but in some ways
Jean was very like you."

 

 

If I give the impression that Ritchie talked like an oily villain in
very cheap melodrama, that's about right. The only thing he lacked was
the unreasonable anger of such stage types. I don't think Ritchie knew
how to be angry. He was always friendly, even when he was threatening
your life. He had only one record to play. Friendliness, good humor,
pleasure in your company -- however false it all was, that was the
invariable background music to anything his words might happen to mean.

 

 

"Soon I will have a very efficient bodyguard," Ritchie remarked. "Even now
-- Morgan!"

 

 

Morgan Smith appeared in the doorway. He had a gun in his hand, and he
enjoyed pointing it at me.

 

 

"This is crazy," I snapped. "You get some scared chemist to supply you
with alcohol, and there may be a lot of people who have made you silly
promises, and you may control a lot of votes, but if Morgan shot me now
a lot of people would dash in and you'd both be hanged. There's too much
weight against you, Ritchie."

 

 

He nodded. "That's true. At the moment, anyway. No, if I really wanted
to kill you, I'd have to arrange it another way. But it would be very
little more difficult, Bill. You must know that. And I'm building up
weight on my side. Morgan, send Edith here."

 

 

Morgan disappeared.

 

 

I got up. "I don't want any further demonstration," I said disgustedly.
"No doubt this girl Edith will do anything you like. I'll believe that.
I've also heard your threats."

 

 

Ritchie held up his hand in protest. "Edith works here as a servant,
that's all," he said. "As far as women are concerned, I'm highly moral,
Bill. I'm sorry marriage was abolished. I'm not in favor of these loose
sex relations. Soon I'll have marriage reinstated, and then perhaps I
might marry. But that's not what I want to talk about."

 

 

"I don't care what you want to talk about. I'm going. I take it you insist
on making Aileen miserable to prove you can do that, too?"

 

 

"I'll always see," he retorted coolly, "that Aileen will have no real
cause to be miserable. If she insists on pretending to herself that she
is, I can't stop that. Just a minute, Bill. I expect you're even more
determined to fight me now. Remember you have a daughter and a wife."

 

 

"You're threatening Pat and Leslie?"

 

 

"And you," he added easily. "If you yourself are a nuisance, it'll be you
I have removed. But I know better than to try to scare you on your own
account. Remember your daughter and wife when you think of doing anything."

 

 

I turned from him in white anger. A girl, Edith presumably, came in
as I went out. I paid no attention to her, but I did notice she wasn't
pretty. Probably Ritchie was as blameless from the sex point of view as
he claimed.

 

 

Possibly also he was no sadist, unlike Morgan. Perhaps his deals were
straight, according to the business ethics of dead Earth. Perhaps in
many other ways he was blameless.

 

 

But none of that prevented him from being a fount of corruption, in a way
I hadn't dreamed he was only a few days since.

 

 

Aileen was terribly right about Ritchie. She was right to be afraid of him.

 

 

Ritchie was still only a comparatively little man, despite his boasts.
But there was nothing to stop him growing. He knew it. There would be a
time when, if he and Morgan and I were placed as we had been, he could
say casually, if he liked: "Shoot him dead, Morgan."

 

 

And Morgan could do it, then. Nothing would happen to either of
them. Ritchie, by that time, would have things organized his way.

 

 

Only now did I really understand how vitally important we lieutenants
had been back on Earth, what an enormous responsibility we had had,
and how two of us at least had misused it.

 

 

Lieutenant Porter had brought Ritchie along, and I had brought Morgan
Smith. Porter was lucky -- he wasn't going to see the consequences of
his choice.

 

 

I was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

 

Betty didn't have a miscarriage, but her baby was born dead. We went to
see her, expecting grief and hysteria.

 

 

We didn't see it. Betty was curiously calm and unconcerned. I think she
had known all along that she would lose her baby, and that it would break
her heart.

 

 

Leslie and I were silent as we left the hospital. Leslie wasn't back at
work yet, but it would be only a day or two before she was. Eventually on
Mars human beings would probably lose a lot of their physical strength
through not taking enough vigorous exercise to develop it. Meantime,
however, a person who would have been weak on Earth was quite capable
of vigorous movement on Mars.

 

 

We were silent because we had seen a girl who had lost everything,
and because we knew what it had done to her. Betty was too heartbroken,
too lost to cry, to be anything but calm and apparently unconcerned.

 

 

It wasn't what had happened to Betty that mattered. If Leslie had lost
me and then her baby, it wouldn't have finished Leslie. She would have
cried violently, been miserable for a while, and then started to build
new things into her life to replace what she had lost.