The Colonists.

by Raymond F. Jones.

[Sidenote: _If historical precedent be wrong--what qualities, then, must man possess to successfully colonize new worlds? Doctor Ashby said: "There is no piece of data you cannot find, provided you can devise the proper experimental procedure for turning it up." Now--about the man and the procedure...._]

This was the rainy year. Last year had been the dry one, and it would come again. But they wouldn't be here to see it, Captain Louis Carnahan thought. They had seen four dry ones, and now had come the fourth wet one, and soon they would be going home. For them, this was the end of the cycle.

At first they had kept track of the days, checking each one off on their calendars, but the calendars had long since been mingled indistinguishably with the stuff of the planet itself--along with most of the rest of their equipment. By that time, however, they had learned that the cycle of wet and dry seasons was almost precisely equivalent to a pair of their own Terran years, so they had no more need for the calendars.

But at the beginning of this wet season Carnahan had begun marking off the days once again with scratches on the post of the hut in which he lived. The chronometers were gone, too, but one and three-quarters Earth days equalled one Serrengian day, and by that he could compute when the ships from Earth were due.

He had dug moats about the hut to keep rain water from coming in over his dirt floor. Only two of the walls were erected, and he didn't know or much care whether he would get the other two up or not. Most of the materials had blown away during the last dry period and he doubted very much that he would replace them. The two available walls were cornered against the prevailing winds. The roof was still in good shape, allowing him a sufficient s.p.a.ce free of leaks to accommodate his cooking and the mat which he called a bed.

He picked up a gourd container from the rough bench in the center of the room and took a swallow of the burning liquid. From the front of the hut he looked out over the rain swept terrain at the circle of huts.

Diametrically across from him he could see Bolinger, the little biologist, moving energetically about. Bolinger was the only one who had retained any semblance of scientific interest. He puttered continually over his collection, which had grown enormously over the eight year period.

When they got back, Bolinger at least would have some accomplishment to view with pride. The rest of them--?

Carnahan laughed sharply and took another big swallow from the gourd, feeling the fresh surge of hot liquor already crossing the portals of his brain, bringing its false sense of wisdom and clarity. He knew it was false, but it was the only source of wisdom he had left, he told himself.

He staggered back to the bed with the gourd. He caught a glimpse of his image in the small steel mirror on the little table at the end of the bed. Pausing to stare, he stroked the thick mat of beard and ran his fingers through the mane of hair that had been very black when he came, and was now a dirty silver grey.

He hadn't looked at himself for a long time, but now he had to. He had to know what they would see when the ships of Earth came to pick up the personnel of the Base and leave another crew. The image made him sick.

At the beginning of this final season of the rains, all his life before coming to Serrengia seemed like a dream that had never been real. Now it was coming back, as if he were measuring the final distance of a circle and approaching once again his starting point. He kept remembering more and more. Watching his image in the mirror, he remembered what General Winthrop had said on the day of their departure. "The pick of Earth's finest," the General said. "We have combed the Earth and you are the men we have chosen to represent Mankind in the far reaches of the Universe.

Remember that wherever you go, there goes the honor of Mankind. Do not, above all, betray that honor."

Carnahan clenched his teeth in bitterness. He wished old fatty Winthrop had come with them. Savagely he upended the gourd and flung it across the room. It meant a trip to Bailey's hut to get it replenished. Bailey had been the Chief Physicist. Now he was the official distiller, and the rotgut he produced was the only thing that made existence bearable.

The Captain stared again at his own image. "Captain Louis Carnahan," he murmured aloud. "The pick of Earth's finest--!" He smashed a fist at the little metal mirror and sent it flying across the room. The table crashed over, one feeble leg twisting brokenly. Then Carnahan hunched over with his face buried against the bed. His fists beat against it while his shoulders jerked in familiar, drunken sobs.

After it was over he raised up, sitting on the edge of the bed. His mind burned with devastating clarity. It seemed for once he could remember everything that had ever happened to him. He remembered it all. He remembered his childhood under the bright, pleasant sky of Earth. He remembered his ambition to be a soldier, which meant s.p.a.ceman, even then. He remembered his first flight, a simple training tour of the Moon installations. It convinced him that never again could he consider himself an Earthman in the sense of one who dwells upon the Earth. His realm was the sky and the stars. Not even the short period when he had allowed himself to be in love had changed his convictions. He had sacrificed everything his career demanded.

Where had it gone wrong? How could he have allowed himself to forget?

For years he had forgotten, he realized in horror. He had forgotten that Earth existed. He had forgotten how he came to be here, and why. And all that he was meant to accomplish had gone undone. For years the scientific work of the great base expedition had been ignored. Only the little biologist across the way, pecking at his tasks season after season, had accomplished anything.

And now the ships were coming to demand an accounting.

He groaned aloud as the vision became more terrible. He thought of that day when they had arrived at the inhospitable and uninhabited world of Serrengia. He could close his eyes and see it again--the four tall ships standing on the plateau that was scarred by their landing. The men had been so proud of what they had done and would yet do. They could see nothing to defeat them as they unloaded the mountains of equipment and supplies.

Now that same equipment lay oozing in the muck of leafy decomposition, corroded and useless like the men themselves. And in the dry seasons it had been alternately buried and blasted by the sands and the winds.

He remembered exactly the day and the hour when they had cracked beyond all recovery. With an iron hand he had held them for three years. Weekly he demanded an appearance in full dress uniform, and hard discipline in all their relationships was the rule. Then one day he let the dress review go. They had come in from a long trek through a jungle that was renewing itself after a dry season. Too exhausted in body and spirit, and filled with an increasing sense of futility, he abandoned for the moment the formalities he had held to.

After that it was easy. They fell apart all around him. He tried to hold them, settling quarrels that verged on mutiny. Then in the sixth month of the fourth year he had to kill with his own hands the first of his crazed and rebellious crew. The scientific work disintegrated and was abandoned. He remembered he had locked up all their notes and observations and charts, but where he had hidden the metal chest was one of the few things he seemed unable to recall.

The more violent of the expedition killed each other off, or wandered into the jungle or desert and never came back. On the even dozen who were left there had settled a kind of monastic hermitage. Each man kept to himself, aware that a hairbreadth trespa.s.s against his neighbor would mean quick challenge to the death. Yet they clung to membership in this degenerate community as if it represented their last claim to humanness.

This is what they would see though. They would see his personal failure.

It _was_ his, there was no question of that. If he had been strong he could have held the expedition together. He could have maintained the base in all the strength and honor of military tradition that had been entrusted to him. He hadn't been strong enough.

The ships would come. The four of them. They might come tomorrow or even today. A panic crept through him. The ships could land at any time now, and their men would come marching out to greet him in his failure and cowardice and his dishonor. It must not happen. Old fatty Winthrop had said one thing that made sense: "--there goes the honor of Mankind. Do not, above all, betray that honor."

Fatty was right. The only thing he had left was honor, and in only one way could he retain it.

With the fiery clarity burning in his brain he struggled from where he lay and picked up the metallic mirror and hung it from the post near the bed. He turned up the broken table against the wall. Then, with the air of one who has not been on the premises for a long time he began searching through the long unused chests stacked in the corner. The contents were for the most part in a state of decay, but he found his straight edged razor in the oiled pouch where he had last placed it.

There should have been shaving detergent, but he couldn't find it. He contented himself with preparing hot water, then slowly and painfully hacked the thick beard away and sc.r.a.ped his face clean. He found a comb and raked it through his tangled mat of hair, arranging it in some vague resemblance to the cut he used to wear.

From the chests he drew forth the dress uniform he had put away so long ago. Fortunately, it had been in the center, surrounded by other articles so that it was among the best preserved of his possessions. He donned it in place of the rags he wore. The shoes were almost completely hard from lack of care, but he put them on anyway and brushed the toes with a sc.r.a.p of cloth.

From underneath his bed he took his one possession which he had kept in meticulous repair, his service pistol. Then he stood up, b.u.t.toning and smoothing his coat, and smiled at himself in the little mirror. But his gaze shifted at once to something an infinity away.

"'Do not, above all, betray that honor.' At least you gave us one good piece of advice, fatty," he said.

Carefully, he raised the pistol to his head.

Hull number four was erect and self-supporting. Its sh.e.l.l enclosure was complete except for necessary installation openings. And in Number One the installations were complete and the ship's first test flight was scheduled for tomorrow morning.

John Ashby looked from the third story window of his office toward the distant a.s.sembly yards on the other side of the field. The four hulls stood like golden flames in the afternoon sunlight. Ashby felt defeated by the speed with which the ships were being completed. It was almost as if the engineers had a special animosity toward him, which they expressed in their unreasonable speed of construction. This was nonsense, of course. They had a job to do and were proud if they could cut time from their schedule.

But there was no cutting time from _his_ schedule, and without the completion of his work the ships would not fly. He had to find men capable of taking them on their fantastic journeys. To date, he had failed.

He glanced down at the black car with government markings, which had driven in front of the building a few moments before, and then he heard Miss Haslam, his secretary, on the interphone. "The Colonization Commission, Dr. Ashby."

He turned from the window. "Have them come in at once," he said.

He strode to the door and shook hands with each of the men. Only four of them had come: Mr. Merton, Chairman; General Winthrop; Dr. Cowper; and Dr. Boxman.

"Please have seats over here by the window," Ashby suggested.

They accepted and General Winthrop stood a moment looking out. "A beautiful sight, aren't they, Ashby?" he said. "They get more beautiful every day. You ought to get over more often. Collins says you haven't been around the place for weeks, and Number One is going up tomorrow."

"We've had too much to occupy us here."

"_My_ men are ready," said the General pointedly. "We could supply a dozen crews to take those ships to Serrengia and back, and man the base there."

Ashby turned away, ignoring the General's comment. He took a chair at the small conference table where the three Commissioners had seated themselves. Winthrop followed, settling in his chair with a smile, as if he had scored a major point.

"Number One is ready," said Merton, "and still you have failed to offer us a single man, Dr. Ashby. The Commission feels that the time is very near when definite action will have to be taken. We have your reports, but we wanted a personal word with you to see if we couldn't come to some understanding as to what we can expect."

"I will send you the men when I find out what kind of man we need," said Ashby. "Until then there had better be no thought of releasing the colonization fleet. I will not be responsible for any but the right answers to this problem."

"We are getting to the point," said Boxman, "where we feel forced to consider the recommendations of General Winthrop. Frankly, we have never been able to fully understand your objections."