was snatched—snatched like a ball, right out of the air—and passed from hand to hand. Of course I don’t weigh much at one-tenth gravity, all there is at the main axis, but it is rather breath-taking. Some more hands shoved me into my billet, already stretched out, as casually and impersonally as a housewife stows clean laundry, and a voice called out, “Fries, Podkayne!” and another voice answered, “Check.”
The spaces around me, and above and below and across from me, filled up awfully fast, with the crewmen working with the unhurried efficiency of automatic machinery sorting mail capsules. Somewhere a baby was crying and through it. I heard the Captain saying, “Is that the last?”
“Last one, Captain,” I heard the Purser answer. “How’s the time?”
“Two minutes thirty-seven seconds—and your boys can start figuring their payoff, because this one is no drill.”
“I didn’t think it was, Skipper—and I’ve won a small bet from the Mate myself.” Then the Purser walked past my billet carrying someone, and I tried to sit up and bumped my head and my eyes bugged out.
The passenger he was carrying had fainted; her head lolled loosely over the crook of his arm. At first I couldn’t tell who it was, as the face was a bright, bright red. And then I recognized her and I almost fainted. Mrs. Royer—
Of course the first symptom of any bad radiation exposure is erythema. Even with a sunburn, or just carelessness with an ultraviolet lamp, the first thing you see is the skin turning pink or bright red.
But was it possible that Mrs. Royer had been hit with such extremely sharp radiation in so very little time that her skin had already turned red in the worst “sunburn” imaginable? Just from being last man in?
In that case she hadn’t fainted; she was dead.
And if that was true, then it was equally true that the passengers who were last to reach the shelter must all have received several times the lethal dosage. They might not feel ill for hours yet; they might not die for days. But they were just as dead as if they were already stretched out stiff and cold.
How many? I had no way of guessing. Possibly— probably I corrected myself—all the first-class-passengers; they had the farthest to go and were most exposed to start with.
Uncle Tom and Clark—
I felt sudden sick sorrow and wished that I had not been in the control room. If my brother and Uncle Tom were dying, I didn’t want to be alive myself.
I don’t think. I wasted any sympathy on Mrs. Royer. I did feel a shock of horror when I saw that flaming red face, but truthfully, I didn’t like her, I thought she was a parasite with contemptible opinions, and if she had died of heart failure instead, I can’t honestly say that it would have affected my appetite. None of us goes around sobbing over the millions and billions of people who have died in the past . . . nor over those still living and yet to be born whose single certain heritage is death (including Podkayne Fries herself). So why should you cry foolish tears simply because you happen to be in the neighborhood when someone you don’t like—despise, in fact—comes to the end of her string?
In any case, I did not have time to feel sorrow for Mrs. Royer; my heart was filled with grief over my brother and my uncle. I was sorry that I hadn’t been sweeter to Uncle Tom, instead of imposing on him and expecting him always to drop whatever he was doing to help me with my silly problems. I regretted all the many times I had fought with my brother. After all, he was a child and I am a woman; I should have made allowances.
Tears were welling out of my eyes and I almost missed the Captain’s first words:
“Shipmates,” he said, in a voice firm and very soothing, “my crew and our guests aboard . . . this is not a drill; this is indeed a radiation storm.
“Do not be alarmed; we are all, each and every one of us, perfectly safe. The Surgeon has examined the personal radiation
The spaces around me, and above and below and across from me, filled up awfully fast, with the crewmen working with the unhurried efficiency of automatic machinery sorting mail capsules. Somewhere a baby was crying and through it. I heard the Captain saying, “Is that the last?”
“Last one, Captain,” I heard the Purser answer. “How’s the time?”
“Two minutes thirty-seven seconds—and your boys can start figuring their payoff, because this one is no drill.”
“I didn’t think it was, Skipper—and I’ve won a small bet from the Mate myself.” Then the Purser walked past my billet carrying someone, and I tried to sit up and bumped my head and my eyes bugged out.
The passenger he was carrying had fainted; her head lolled loosely over the crook of his arm. At first I couldn’t tell who it was, as the face was a bright, bright red. And then I recognized her and I almost fainted. Mrs. Royer—
Of course the first symptom of any bad radiation exposure is erythema. Even with a sunburn, or just carelessness with an ultraviolet lamp, the first thing you see is the skin turning pink or bright red.
But was it possible that Mrs. Royer had been hit with such extremely sharp radiation in so very little time that her skin had already turned red in the worst “sunburn” imaginable? Just from being last man in?
In that case she hadn’t fainted; she was dead.
And if that was true, then it was equally true that the passengers who were last to reach the shelter must all have received several times the lethal dosage. They might not feel ill for hours yet; they might not die for days. But they were just as dead as if they were already stretched out stiff and cold.
How many? I had no way of guessing. Possibly— probably I corrected myself—all the first-class-passengers; they had the farthest to go and were most exposed to start with.
Uncle Tom and Clark—
I felt sudden sick sorrow and wished that I had not been in the control room. If my brother and Uncle Tom were dying, I didn’t want to be alive myself.
I don’t think. I wasted any sympathy on Mrs. Royer. I did feel a shock of horror when I saw that flaming red face, but truthfully, I didn’t like her, I thought she was a parasite with contemptible opinions, and if she had died of heart failure instead, I can’t honestly say that it would have affected my appetite. None of us goes around sobbing over the millions and billions of people who have died in the past . . . nor over those still living and yet to be born whose single certain heritage is death (including Podkayne Fries herself). So why should you cry foolish tears simply because you happen to be in the neighborhood when someone you don’t like—despise, in fact—comes to the end of her string?
In any case, I did not have time to feel sorrow for Mrs. Royer; my heart was filled with grief over my brother and my uncle. I was sorry that I hadn’t been sweeter to Uncle Tom, instead of imposing on him and expecting him always to drop whatever he was doing to help me with my silly problems. I regretted all the many times I had fought with my brother. After all, he was a child and I am a woman; I should have made allowances.
Tears were welling out of my eyes and I almost missed the Captain’s first words:
“Shipmates,” he said, in a voice firm and very soothing, “my crew and our guests aboard . . . this is not a drill; this is indeed a radiation storm.
“Do not be alarmed; we are all, each and every one of us, perfectly safe. The Surgeon has examined the personal radiation
Similar Books
