Гарри Гаррисон - 50 in 50

"You are just using that for an excuse."

"You are welcome to think so. However, I agree with the rule and think it the only just one…"

"I'll have nothing to do with it."

"That is your choice. But the results are binding on you whether you partake or not." He looked over at Darnian who, white-faced, had been listening silently. "You talk to her, Darnian, perhaps she'll listen to you. Or do you agree with her?"

"I… really don't know. It is so hard to say. But we… that is, there isn't much choice really."

"None," Chuck said.

It was something Damian would never have considered doing before, putting his arms about a girl whom he had just met, but everything was very different now. He held her and she leaned against him and sobbed and it was very natural for both of them.

"Let's get this over with," Chuck said, "the worst thing we can do is wait. And we'd all better agree beforehand what is going to happen. I have three identical squares of plastic here, and I've marked one of them with an X. Take a look at them. And three pieces of brown wrapper from this food pack. You do it, Damian, twist a piece of wrapper around each square, twist each one the same way so they can't be told apart. Now shake them up in your cupped hands so you don't know which is which. All right. Let them float right there in the middle where we can all see them."

Damian opened his cupped hands and the three twists of plastic drifted in free fall. One floated away from the others and he prodded it back into position. They all stared, they could not help themselves, fixedly and intently at the tiny scraps of destiny.

"Here's what will happen next," Chuck said. "We'll each take one. I'll draw last. I have a pill in my belt, it's standard spacer gear, and whoever draws the piece with the X takes the pill six hours from now—" he looked at his watch—"at exactly 1900 hours. Is it understood and agreed? This is it. There is no going back or mind-changing later. Now and forever. Agreed?"

Tight-lipped, Damian only gave a quick nod. Helena said or did nothing, beyond flashing Chuck a look of utter hatred.

"It is agreed then," he said. "The pill is instantaneous and absolutely painless. Here we go. Helena, do you want to draw first?"

"No," she said unbelievingly. "You can't…"

"We have no other choice, do we," Damian told her, and managed to smile. "Here, let me draw first. You can have the second one."

"Don't open it," Chuck said as Damian reached out and took the nearest one. "Go ahead, Helena, none of us is enjoying this."

She did not move until Chuck shrugged and reached for a wrapped marker himself. Then her hand lashed out and she clutched the one he had been about to take. "That's mine.” she said.

"Whatever you say." Chuck smiled wryly and took the remaining one. "Open them up.” he said.

The others did not move, so he carefully unwrapped his and held up the square. It was blank on both sides. Helena gasped.

"Well, I'm next I imagine.” Damian said and slowly unfolded his. He looked at it, then quickly closed his fist.

"We have to see it too," Chuck told him. Damian slowly opened his hand to show a blank. "I knew it would be a trick!" Helena screamed and threw hers from her. Damian caught it when it rebounded from the wall, opened it at arm's length to reveal the scrawled black X.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, not looking at her. "I think we need a drink," Chuck told them as he twisted about to burrow in one of the lockers. "There are at least four more liters of vodka stowed down here with the water jugs, for some obscure Russian reason, and now is the time we can use them."

Damian took a deep breath so his voice wouldn't shake when he talked. "I'm sorry, I can't go along with this. If we come out of this I couldn't live with myself. I think I had better take Helena's place…"

"No!" Chuck Cohen said, outwardly angry for the first time. "It invalidates everything, all the choosing. You've put your life on the line — isn't that enough? Death hits by chance in space, the way it hit the others on the ship and missed us. It has hit again. The matter is closed." He pulled out a container and started the party by drinking a good fifth of it in one gulp.

Perhaps that was why the vodka was there. Helena, still unbelieving, drank because it was handed to her by the two men who could not look her in the eye. It numbed. If you drank enough it numbed.

The stars slipped by outside the uncovered port, the thermostat kept the temperature at a comfortable twenty-two degrees centigrade and the fan hummed as it circulated the air, pumping in metered amounts of the oxygen, each minute lowering the infinitely precious level in the tanks.

"Lower metabolism…" Chuck said, then closed his eyes so he wouldn't see the spinning walls of the capsule — nor the two others who were at the end of the capsule, as far as they could get from him. We found his mouth with the flask and sucked in a burning measure of the liquid. "Metabolism is oxidation and we gotta save oxygen, eat, eat less, burn less. Go three weeks without food. Good for the figure. Lie down. Move less, burn less. . oxygen…" His grumbling voice died away and the plastic flask floated free of his limp fingers.

"No, no, I can't," Helena sobbed and held to Damian. She had drunk little, but fear had affected her even more strongly.

"No, you shouldn't, shouldn't," Damian said and drank again because he did not know what to do. He bent to kiss her hair and somehow had his lips against the tear-cold dampness of her cheek, then on the full warmth of her mouth.

She was suddenly aware of him. Her lips responded and her arms were about him, her body pressing against him, her legs thrusting. They floated freely in the air, rotating slowly locked in tight embrace.

"I want you, I don't want to die, I can't, I can't," Helena sobbed and took his hand, putting it inside her dress onto the bare, warm firmness of her breast. "Help me, help me…"

Damian kissed her in a roaring wave of sensation. He knew that the spaceman was there, unconscious, only feet away, yet he didn't care. The escape from the wreck, the unbearable tension of gambling with his own life, the amount he had drunk, the closeness of death, the passion of the woman's flesh against his, all of this combined to wipe away everything except the burning awareness of her presence and the rising passion she evoked.

"Come to me, I need you," she whispered in his ear, then took it hard between her teeth. "I can't die. Why should I? He wants it, that pig. Only he wants it. He wants death, why can't he die? Why didn't he leave me in the ship? He gave me my life and now he will take it away again. And you too, you'll see, after me he'll find a way to kill you. What does he need either of us for? You can't believe a thing he said, why should we? He's brutal, deadly, a monster. He's going to kill me. You want me and he is going to kill me."

"Helena…" he whispered, as his flesh touched hers.

"No!" she wailed, and pushed him from her. He did not understand. He pressed forward again but she held him from her. "No, I cannot, I want to, but I cannot. Not with him here, not before I die. But I do want you…"

Then she was gone, and when he turned to look for her he became dizzy and saw her bending over the end of the capsule. Time moved strangely, too fast, yet slow at the same time. She was gone a long time, yet she was suddenly back and putting something cold into his hand.

"Take this," she whispered, "it's from the medical kit. I can't do it, you must. Someone must die. He must die, you can do it. He is the biggest. Do it then come back to me. I'll be here, I'll be with you always, just do this for me."

Blinking, Damian looked down at the glittering scalpel on his palm, at her hand closing his fingers over it. "Do it!" she breathed and pulled him, drifting, the length of the tiny space until he hung over the snoring spaceman. ''DO IT!" the voice said and, not knowing quite what he was doing or why, he raised his fist high.