Marion Bradley - Survey Ship

“Good,” Fontana said softly. “You do understand what I’m saying to you then.”

“Only — Fontana, I’m sorry. I mean, because I did take Teague away from you — if you miss him, I’m sorry—”

Fontana shrugged and laughed. “That doesn’t matter. Teague is old enough to choose for himself, and so am I.”

“Only — it’s what you said. In a group this small there aren’t many choices. It’s not as if there were a lot of men for you to choose from, and you’ve always had someone or other, haven’t you?”

Ching, Fontana thought, could be so forthright it was almost alarming. She said, “Well, it’s a problem; I suppose it will iron itself out. I don’t know what will happen with Ravi and Moira, either. That affair seems to be rather more off than on, these days. Teague might decide he wants you for a while, or that he wants me, or that he wants us both — would that bother you, Ching?”

She shook her head. She said, “I don’t know, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I told him I wanted to think it over before — before it happened again. I want to be sure how I feel. I don’t think it’s very nice to use a man to give myself confidence.”

But even so, Fontana saw her spontaneous bright smile as Teague came into the main cabin, and almost envied her. She wasn’t jealous about Teague; but she wished she could recapture that first kind of excitement. Maybe, she thought, it only happens once.

And I had mine, a long time ago; why envy Ching her own time of discovery? She’s waited long enough.

It came back to her, later, when the festive meal was only a few scraps on the plates, and she had begun to collect them and put them into the disposer. After a moment Moira joined her, and said, looking at Teague and Ching, snuggled into one chair, “It looks as if we had the kind of situation aboard that they left Jimson behind to prevent.”

“Well, it happens,” Fontana said, “and I think Ching has a right to it. But I doubt if it will last long enough to be a threat to the rest of us. Ching’s very sensible about it.”

“Sensible!” It was a snort, almost a small giggle. “Do you really think that’s important?”

“I think she knows what’s necessary, for all of us,” Fontana said quietly. “For a while I thought it would be you and Ravi.”

“Which wouldn’t suit you at all, would it,” said Moira sharply, “because that wouldn’t leave anyone for you except Peake!”

“Why do you assume we have to pair off that way?” Fontana asked.

“No. Seriously, Fontana. What are we going to do about Peake?”

“What makes you think it’s up to us to do anything at all about him?” Fontana asked. “He’s a grown man, and quite old enough to make his own choices in life. Why do you think we have to do anything?”

“Damn it,” Moira shouted so loud that the heads in the room turned to look at them all, “when will you stop answering every question I ask you with another question?”

Fontana said sharply, “When you stop acting as if it was my business to give you answers!”

“You’re the psychologist, aren’t you?”

Slowly, Fontana shook her head. She said in a low voice, “I’m not anything, Moira, just what the rest of you are. A crew member on the Ship, brainwashed like all the rest of us, to think that making Ship was the end of all our problems. And when I made it, I find out that it’s just the beginning of a whole new set of problems! The Academy just threw us out, half-trained, our minds crammed with facts and no real experience. We’ve already seen that Ching hasn’t got all the answers for the computer. Peake’s not a doctor, he’s a very well-trained medical student. I’m not a psychologist, I’ve graduated in courses in psychology. You’re not an engineer — though you had the experience of assembling the drives in space; you and Teague have had more experience than all the rest of us put together. They throw us out, half trained, to sink or swim, and the odds against any of the Ships surviving are enormous — but just think what’s happened to Earth since the first colony was established! They can have their success, it’s worth everything to train us and give us these Ships, even if one in ten of us get through — and they can afford not to care about the other nine!”

She stopped herself, forcibly, fighting waves of recurrent horror. They had been used. All of them! Used, their lives forfeit, since they were five years old. Never told how enormous the odds were against their survival. Yes. The laboratory guinea pig thinks he is petted, pampered, cared for, because he is important in himself. But he is important only to the ones who are using him in their experiment.’

We are all of us just guinea pigs, and probably we are ail going to die. And nobody even cares.’ They put a new crop of guinea pigs aboard Survey Ship 103, and threw us out to Jive or die.’

And I can’t even throw this out at the others, because they don’t know it yet, they haven’t realized…. Moira thinks it’s important how our group dynamics work for survival. Who sleeps with whom. We could all collapse into anarchy, nihilism, kill one another — we’ll die anyhow!

“What’s the matter, Fontana?” Peake asked, corning up and taking the stacked armful of disposable plates from her. “You look awfully tired. Here, let me take those for you.”

She Wanted to scream at Peake, don’t be so nice to me, don’t you know we’re all going to die, that they threw us all out to die? We survived the meteor by pure damn dumb luck…. why should I think we’ll be one of the ten who lives instead?

But before Peake’s dark, ugly, kindly face she could not speak the words. She said, “Thank you, Peake, I — I guess I am tired.”

“Let me get you a glass of wine,” Moira said, and turned to dial the controls. Fontana, controlling herself by a rigid effort, curled up in a soft chair beside Moira.

“Look,” Moira said, “I wasn’t trying to intrude on Peake’s private life. But you can’t tell me you haven’t thought of it. They sent out three men and three women, only one of the men is inaccessible, which means two men for three women, and nobody for Peake. That doesn’t seem to make sense, if they choose the crews as carefully as they say they do—”

Haven’t you figured it out yet, Moira, that they don’t care, that it’s completely random? There are all kinds of theories about what kind of crew mix will survive, they can afford to try them all. For a moment she was so confused by the words in her mind she wondered if she had actually spoken them aloud, But Moira was still waiting for her answer. Into the silence Moira said, with unusual shyness, “I — I offered — he turned me down flat. He’s all right. For now, anyhow. But it’s going to be years, Fontana…”

Assuming we live so long. Fontana was growing used to two sets of conversations: what she wanted to say and dared not say, what she really said. Sighing, she said the correct thing.

“Moira, my dear, there is nothing either of us can do about Peake; it’s his problem, to face in his own way. Sooner or later, either he will face how he feels about women, and decide to experiment with one of us; or he will persuade one of the men to experiment with him; or he will make a conscious decision to remain celibate and let the rest of us do what we like. And in any case it is his decision. The voyage is only a few days old. We have to give him time. At present it’s much more important to you to decide how you feel about Ravi, than to worry about Peake and his problems — or Ching and Teague and theirs.”

Moira’s smile was just a flicker. “I’d swap my problems for Ching’s, right now, but I don’t know if she’d care to trade. I’m glad she’s enjoying herself, anyhow. I wish I were.”