I spent years and years trying to think up a remark would really get
home to M'Clare; well I have done it now.
I say, "Look. You are tired and worried and maybe not thinking so well
just now.
"I know this is a very risky job, don't think I missed that at all. I
tried hard to imagine it like you said over the speaker. I cannot
quite imagine dying but I know how Dad will feel if I do.
"I did my level best to scare myself sick, then I decided it is just
plain worth the risk anyway.
"To work out a thing like this you have to have a kind of arithmetic,
you add in everybody's feelings with the other factors, then if you
get a plus answer you forget everything else and go right ahead.
"I am not going to think about it any more, because I added up the sum
and got the answer and upsetting my nerves won't help. I guess you
worked out the sum, too. You decided four million people were worth
risking twenty, even if they do have parents. Even if they are your
students. So they are, too, and you gave us all a chance to say No.
"Well nothing has altered that, only now the values look different to
you because you are tired and worried and probably missed breakfast,
too."
Brother some speech, I wonder what got into me? M'Clare is wondering,
too, or maybe gone to sleep sitting, it is some time before he answers
me.
"Miss Lee, you are deplorably right on one thing at least. I don't
know whether I was fit to make such a decision when I made it, but I'm
not fit now. As far as you personally are concerned...." He trails off
looking tireder than ever, then picks up again suddenly. "You are
again quite right, I am every bit as responsible for the other people
on board as I am for you."
He climbs slowly to his feet and walks out without another word.
The door is left open and I take this as an invitation to freedom and
shoot through in case it was a mistake.
No because Ram is opening doors all along the corridor and ten of
Russett's brightest come pouring out like mercury finding its own
level and coalesce in the middle of the floor.
The effect of release is such that after four minutes Peter Yeng Sen's
head appears at the top of a stairway and he says the crew is lifting
the deck plates, will we for Time's sake go along to the Conference
Room which is soundproof.
* * * * *
The Conference Room is on the next deck and like our cabins shows
signs of hasty construction; the soundproofing is there but the
acoustics are kind of muffled and the generator is not boxed in but
has cables trailing all over, and the fastenings have a strong but
temporary look.
Otherwise there is a big table and a lot of chairs and a small
projection box in front of each with a note-taker beside.
It is maybe this very functional setup or maybe the dead flatness of
our voices in the damped room, but we do not have so much to talk
about any more. We automatically take places at the table, all at one
end, leaving seven vacant chairs near the door.
Looking round, I wonder what principle we were selected on.
Of my special friends Eru Te Whangoa and Kirsty Lammergaw are present
but Lily Chen and Likofo Komom'baratse and Jean LeBrun are not; we
have Cray Patterson who is one of my special enemies but not Blazer
Weigh or the Astral Cad; the rest are P. Zapotec, Nick Howard, Aro
Mestah, Dillie Dixie, Pavel Christianovitch, Lennie DiMaggio and
Shootright Crow.
Eru is at the end of the table, opposite the door, and maybe feels
this position puts it up to him to start the discussion; he opens by
remarking "So nobody took the opportunity to withdraw."
Cray Patterson lifts his eyebrows ceilingwards and drawls out that the
decision was supposed to be a private one.
B says "Maybe but it did not work out that way, everyone who learned
Morse knows who was on the ship, anyway they are all still here so
what does it matter? And M'Clare would not have picked people who were
going to funk it, after all."
My chair gets a kick on the ankle which I suppose was meant for B; Eru
is six foot five but even his legs do not quite reach; he is the only
one of us facing the door.
M'Clare has somehow shed his weariness; he looks stern but fresh as a
daisy. There are four with him; Ram and Peter looking serious, one
stranger in Evercleans looking determined to enjoy the party and
another in uniform looking as though nothing would make him.
M'Clare introduces the strangers as Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr.
Yardo. They all sit down at the other end of the table; then he frowns
at us and begins like this:
"Miss Laydon is mistaken. You were not selected on any such grounds as
she suggests. I may say that I was astonished at the readiness with
which you all engaged yourselves to take part in such a desperate
gamble; and, seeing that for the last four years I have been trying to
persuade you that it is worth while, before making a decision of any
importance, to spend a certain amount of thought on it, I was
discouraged as well."
Oh.
"The criterion upon which you were selected was a very simple one. As
I told you, you were picked not by me but by a computer; the one in
the College Office which registers such information as your home
addresses and present whereabouts. You are simply that section of the
class which could be picked up without attracting attention, because
you all happened to be on holiday by yourselves or with other members
of the class; and because your nearest relatives are not on Earth at
present."
Oh, well.
All of us can see M'Clare is doing a job of deflation on us for
reasons of his own, but it works for all that.
He now seems to feel the job is complete and relaxes a bit.
"I was interested to see that you all, without exception, hit on
variations of the same idea. It is of course the obvious way to deal
with the problem." He smiles at us suddenly and I get mad at myself
because I know he is following the rules for introducing a desired
state of mind, but I am responding as meant. "I'll read you the most
succinct expression of it; you may be able to guess the author."
Business with bits of paper.
"Here it is. I quote: 'Drag in some outsider looks like he is going
for both sides; they will gang up on him.'"
Yells of laughter and shouts of "Lizzie Lee!" even the two strangers
produce sympathetic grins; I do not find it so funny as all that
myself.
"Ideas as to the form the 'outsider' should take were more varied.
This is a matter I propose to leave you to work out together, with the
assistance of Colonel Delano-Smith and Mr. Yardo. Te Whangoa, you
take the chair."
Exit M'Clare.
* * * * *
This leaves the two halves of the table eying one another. Ram and
Peter have been through this kind of session in their time; now they
are leaning back preparing to watch us work. It is plain we are
supposed to impress the abilities of Russett near-graduates on the two
strangers, and for some moments we are all occupied taking them in.
Colonel Delano-Smith is a small, neat guy with a face that has all the
muscular machinery for producing an expression; he just doesn't care
to use it. Mr. Yardo is taller than any of us except Eru and flesh is
spread very thin on his bones, including his face which splits now and
then in a grin like an affable skeleton. Where the colonel fits is
guessable enough, Mr. Yardo is presumably Expert at something but no
data on _what_.
Eru rests his hands on the table and says we had better start; will
somebody kindly outline an idea for making the Incognitans "gang up"?
The simpler the better and it does not matter whether it is workable
or not; pulling it to pieces will give us a start.
We all wait to see who will rush in; then I catch Eru's eye and see I
am elected Clown again. I say "Send them a letter postmarked Outer
Space signed BEM saying we lost our own planet in a nova and will take
over theirs two weeks from Tuesday."
Mr. Yardo utters a sharp "Ha! Ha!" but it is not seconded; the
colonel having been expressionless all along becomes more so; Eru
says, "Thank you, Lizzie." He looks across at Cray who is opposite me;
Cray says there are many points on which he might comment; to take
only one, two weeks from Tuesday leaves little time for 'ganging up',
and what happens when the BEMs fail to come?
We are suddenly back in the atmosphere of a seminar; Eru's glance
moves to P. Zapotec sitting next to Cray, and he says, "These BEMs who
lost their home planet in a nova, how many ships have they? Without a
base they cannot be very dangerous unless their fleet is very large."
It goes round the table.