looked somewhat happier.
“What about the women themselves, though? We sold them a bill of goods, too, you know. They’re expecting modern cities and handsome, rugged heroes for husbands. I know damn well that a lot of the colonies aren’t much more than sinkholes and I suspect the sanitary, rugged, thoughtful male is strictly off the artist’s drawing board. What happens when the women find that out?”
Escher took the ball out of the glass and went back a few paces for another try.
“Don’t forget, Mac, the girls are the ones who weren’t wanted here, the ones who were heading up for lives as old maids. They’re going to planets where they’re strictly a scarce item, where they’ll be appreciated. The colonists will think they’re getting something special and they’ll treat the girls that way. They’ll take good care of them. There might be a few difficulties at first, but it’ll come out all right.”
“In other words, the whole thing hinges on how the colonists receive the girls. Isn’t that it?”
The ball thunked solidly into the glass again and rolled out.
“That’s right. We’ve hedged our bets the best we can. Now we’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“Uh-huh,” MacDonald grumbled. “It works out nice in theory, but I wonder how it’ll be in practice.”
VIII
Phyllis let the deceleration press her into the cot and tried to relax. In ten minutes they would be disembarking in Landing City. Landing City, with its wide, paved streets and modern buildings, the neatly laid-out farms and the modern rocket port.
There was a clanging of bells, a sudden feeling of nausea, and she knew they had landed. In the excited buzz of conversation from the others, she got her small suitcase and filed toward the hatch.
They took her name and gave her the emigration bonus, and then she was on the ramp going down, smelling the cool fresh air and feeling a damp breeze against her face.
She looked down....
The modern rocket port was a scorched expanse of dirty ground, with a rusting shed at one end that she guessed was the office. Landing City was a collection of rundown shacks and corrugated huts with mud streets and wooden sidewalks running between them.
She should have guessed, she thought bitterly. She had been sold a bill of goods. And there was no going back now; she was stuck with it.
Stuck with it.
She took another look. At least it would be healthy, and there was something besides the concrete and granite of a city to look at. It wouldn’t be day in and day out of sitting eight hours behind a typewriter, and then back to her lonesome two rooms for an evening of bridge or a night with a boring book.
And there was nothing wrong with the town that couldn’t be remedied and improved with a little work. She and the others would see to that. Progress was going to hit Landing City whether the colonists like it or not.
The colonists....
She stared at the whiskery, ragged lot of men of all shapes and sizes that were waiting to welcome them.
They had probably, she thought queerly, never heard a lecture on art in their lives. And they wouldn’t have any interest in historical novels and it was an even-money bet that bridge and canasta games would bore them.
They were uncultured, she thought happily, thoroughly uncultured! Their main interest was probably in having a home and raising a family and working....
And with a shave and clean clothes, they might even be handsome! A dimly remembered poster of a blond-haired giant flashed into her mind, but she dismissed it. The men below had a hard, healthy look about them, a certain virility, an individuality that the pale men back on Earth, now that she thought of it, seemed to lack.
She was very definitely going to like it here.
Then she had a sudden, nagging thought.
How would the colonists take to her and the other bedraggled females?
IX
The twinkling fire came nearer and they could make out the outlines of the slim-ship. It rapidly grew in size and finally settled to a heavy, groaning rest on the pitted and blackened landing field.
Karl was holding his breath, staring at the outline of the hatch on the ship’s rusty side. It opened and the flight of descent stairs slid out. The captain and crew came out first.
Then the women filed down the ladder, smiling timidly and looking cold and frightened.
The Death Traps of FX-31, by Sewell Wright
I do not wish to appear prejudiced against scientists. I am not prejudiced, but I have observed the scientific mind in action, on a great many occasions, and I find it rather incomprehensible.
It is true that there are men with a scientific turn of mind who, at the same time, you can feel safe to stand with shoulder to shoulder, in an emergency. Young Hendricks, who was my junior officer on the Ertak, back in those early days of the Special Patrol Service, about which I have written so much, was one of these.
Nor, now that I come to think of the matter in the cool and impartial manner which is typical of me, was young Hendricks the only one. There was a chap—let’s see, now. I remember his face very well; he was one of those dark, wiry, alert men, a native of Earth, and his name was—Inverness! Carlos Inverness. Old John Hanson’s memory isn’t quite as tricky as some of these smart young officers of the Service, so newly commissioned that the silver braid is not yet fitted to the curve of their sleeves, would lead one to believe.
I met Inverness in the ante-room of the Chief of Command. The Chief was tied up in one of the long-winded meetings which the Silver-sleeves devoted largely to the making of new rules and regulations for the confusion of both men and officers of the Service, but he came out long enough to give me the Ertak’s orders in person.
“Glad to see you here at Base again, Commander,” he said, in his crisp, business-like way. “Hear some good reports of your work; keep it up!”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, wondering what was in the air. Any time the Chief was complimentary, it was well to look out for squalls—which is an old Earth term for unexpected trouble.
“Not at all, Commander, not at all. And now, let me present Carlos Inverness, the scientist, of whom you have undoubtedly heard.”
I bowed and said nothing, but we shook hands after the fashion of Earth, and Inverness smiled quite humanly.
“I imagine the good captain has been too busy to follow the activities of such as myself,” he said, sensibly enough.
“A commander”—and I laid enough emphasis on the title to point out to him his error in terminology—”in the Special Patrol Service usually finds plenty to occupy his mind,” I commented, wondering more than ever what was up.
“True,” said the Chief briskly. “You’ll pardon me if I’m exceedingly brief, Commander, but there’s
