unstuck,
remembering his fear that the lifeships were a cruel hoax.
Before we were clear of the atmosphere I knew the truth. Fortunately no
one else did. I knew it by the way the ship handled, by the amount of fuel
I was using, the amount I would still have to use, the amount I had left.
Sammy, in a way, was right. The governments of the world that was to
die could have given, say, a million people a sixty per cent chance of
life. It was all a question of the time and labor they had. What could
be done in so long? But the multiple wasn't big enough. Not if they
were to keep the multitudes quiet enough for them to have control of
things at places like Detroit to run them as they had, without yelling,
screaming millions fighting for life.
In the end they'd calculated to give a ridiculously small chance to a
comparatively large number of people. One in 324.7, in fact. Enough to
keep the world almost sane in those last few weeks.
I had sufficient fuel left, certainly, to shove us past Earth's
gravitational pull, but I needed a lot more than that. Some where,
sometime, I wanted to land. And there aren't any filling stations
in space.
I thought of Father Clark and Pastor Munch and the Reverend John MacLean,
still alive, still with their flock -- or had their flock, the mob,
found out that they had been running errands for me and torn them to
pieces? They had trusted me, accepted me -- but perhaps they didn't fully
realize that I wasn't Simsville's instrument of God only for the three
weeks of selection, but beyond that along every inch of the millions of
miles of nothing between Earth and Mars.
But they could still trust me. I had promised Sammy and Leslie and all
the others life, and it wasn't going to be my fault if they didn't get it.
One in a Thousand
1
Somewhere between the surface of Earth and Mars, well on the way or just
about to take off, there were seven hundred thousand-odd lifeships. And
believe me, the operative word was "odd." It took about a year to build
a spaceship, and each and every one of these lifeships had been thrown
together in eight weeks.
Problem: If two thousand skilled men can build a lifeship in a hundred
days, how long will it take a thousand unskilled men to do it? Answer:
56 days. If your math's as good as mine (and mine isn't so hot) you'li get
a pretty good indication of the standard of workmanship in the lifeships.
I was lying in the pilot's acceleration couch, controlling the ship with my
fingertips, as far as it was being controlled at all, and hearing, seeing,
and feeling the moluone fuel drain away as if it were my lifeblood.
I had a simple enough choice. I could stop the blast now, and crash back
on Earth; or I could let it roar out of the tanks the way it was doing,
and crash somewhere else, if I ever reached anything to crash against.
When I say "in" the couch I mean just that. The couch was constructed so
that I was half sitting, half lying, knees up to assist the circulation.
That was a better position in which to withstand the acceleration than
lying flat. I was strapped up like a mummy with imprex tape supporting
my muscles. And though the couch wasn't particularly soft -- it felt like
solid rock -- I was almost submerged in it.
But that was unimportant. What mattered was this -- somehow the lifeship
had to escape from Earth's gravity, and sometime it had to land on Mars.
There wasn't enough fuel to do it. I could see that now, only a matter
of seconds from takeoff. Ten people, lower down in the lifeship, were
depending on me and on the ship for life that the ship and I weren't
going to be able to give them.
I was thinking like a prairie fire, though I was practically certain
there was no solution. Soon I had a little piece of an answer. My fingers
moved and the blast mounted. Anyone below who
remembering his fear that the lifeships were a cruel hoax.
Before we were clear of the atmosphere I knew the truth. Fortunately no
one else did. I knew it by the way the ship handled, by the amount of fuel
I was using, the amount I would still have to use, the amount I had left.
Sammy, in a way, was right. The governments of the world that was to
die could have given, say, a million people a sixty per cent chance of
life. It was all a question of the time and labor they had. What could
be done in so long? But the multiple wasn't big enough. Not if they
were to keep the multitudes quiet enough for them to have control of
things at places like Detroit to run them as they had, without yelling,
screaming millions fighting for life.
In the end they'd calculated to give a ridiculously small chance to a
comparatively large number of people. One in 324.7, in fact. Enough to
keep the world almost sane in those last few weeks.
I had sufficient fuel left, certainly, to shove us past Earth's
gravitational pull, but I needed a lot more than that. Some where,
sometime, I wanted to land. And there aren't any filling stations
in space.
I thought of Father Clark and Pastor Munch and the Reverend John MacLean,
still alive, still with their flock -- or had their flock, the mob,
found out that they had been running errands for me and torn them to
pieces? They had trusted me, accepted me -- but perhaps they didn't fully
realize that I wasn't Simsville's instrument of God only for the three
weeks of selection, but beyond that along every inch of the millions of
miles of nothing between Earth and Mars.
But they could still trust me. I had promised Sammy and Leslie and all
the others life, and it wasn't going to be my fault if they didn't get it.
One in a Thousand
1
Somewhere between the surface of Earth and Mars, well on the way or just
about to take off, there were seven hundred thousand-odd lifeships. And
believe me, the operative word was "odd." It took about a year to build
a spaceship, and each and every one of these lifeships had been thrown
together in eight weeks.
Problem: If two thousand skilled men can build a lifeship in a hundred
days, how long will it take a thousand unskilled men to do it? Answer:
56 days. If your math's as good as mine (and mine isn't so hot) you'li get
a pretty good indication of the standard of workmanship in the lifeships.
I was lying in the pilot's acceleration couch, controlling the ship with my
fingertips, as far as it was being controlled at all, and hearing, seeing,
and feeling the moluone fuel drain away as if it were my lifeblood.
I had a simple enough choice. I could stop the blast now, and crash back
on Earth; or I could let it roar out of the tanks the way it was doing,
and crash somewhere else, if I ever reached anything to crash against.
When I say "in" the couch I mean just that. The couch was constructed so
that I was half sitting, half lying, knees up to assist the circulation.
That was a better position in which to withstand the acceleration than
lying flat. I was strapped up like a mummy with imprex tape supporting
my muscles. And though the couch wasn't particularly soft -- it felt like
solid rock -- I was almost submerged in it.
But that was unimportant. What mattered was this -- somehow the lifeship
had to escape from Earth's gravity, and sometime it had to land on Mars.
There wasn't enough fuel to do it. I could see that now, only a matter
of seconds from takeoff. Ten people, lower down in the lifeship, were
depending on me and on the ship for life that the ship and I weren't
going to be able to give them.
I was thinking like a prairie fire, though I was practically certain
there was no solution. Soon I had a little piece of an answer. My fingers
moved and the blast mounted. Anyone below who
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