Norm Schein said, “This is rather an unfortunate welcome to our hovel, I’m afraid, getting you embroiled in our controversy like this. But we’ve run out of Can-D; we either have to restock or switch: this is the critical moment. Of course the Can-D pusher, Impy White, is after us to reorder through her… by the end of tonight we’ll have decided one way or another. And it will affect all of us… for the rest of our lives.”
“So be glad you didn’t arrive tomorrow,” Fran said. “After the vote is taken.” She smiled at him encouragingly, trying to make him feel welcome; they had little to offer him except their mutual bond, the fact of their relatedness one to another, and this was extended now to him.
What a place, Barney Mayerson was thinking to himself. The rest of my life… it seemed impossible, but what they said was true. There was no provision in the UN selective service law for mustering out. And the fact was not an easy one to face; these people were the bodycorporate for him now, and yet–how much worse it could be. Two of their women seemed physically attractive and he could tell–or believed he could–that they were, so to speak, interested; he sensed the subtle interaction of the manifold complexities of the interpersonal relationships which built up in the cramped confines of a single hovel. But–
“The way out,” Mary Regan said quietly to him, seating herself on the side of the bench opposite Tod Morris, “is through one or the other of the translating drugs, Mr. Mayerson. Otherwise, as you can see–” She put her hand on his shoulder; the physical touch was there already. “It would be impossible. We’d simply wind up killing one another in our pain.”
“Yes,” he said. “I see.” But he had not learned that by coming to Mars; he had, like every other Terran, known that early in life, heard of colony life, the struggle against the lure of internecine termination to it all in one swift surrender.
No wonder induction was fought so rabidly, as had been the case with him originally. It was a fight to hold onto life.
“Tonight,” Mary Regan said to him, “we’ll procure one drug or the other; Impy will be stopping by about 7 P.M., Fineburg Crescent time; the answer will have to be in by then.”
“I think we can vote now,” Norm Schein said. “I can see that Mr. Mayerson, even though he’s just arrived, is prepared. Am I right, Mayerson?”
“Yes,” Barney said. The sand-dredge had completed its autonomic task; his possessions sat in a meager heap, and loose sand billowed across them already–if they were not taken below they would succumb to the dust, and soon. Hell, he thought; maybe it’s just as well. Ties to the past…
The other hovelists gathered to assist him, passing his suitcases from hand to hand, to the conveyer belt that serviced the hovel below the surface. Even if he was not interested in preserving his former goods they were; they had a knowledge superior to his.
“You learn to get by from day to day,” Sam Regan said sympathetically to him. “You never think in longer terms. Just until dinner or until time for bed; very finite intervals and tasks and pleasures. Escapes.”
Tossing his cigarette away, Barney reached for the heaviest of his suitcases. “Thanks.” It was profound advice.
“Excuse me,” Sam Regan said with polite dignity and went to pick up the discarded cigarette for himself.
Seated in the hovel-chamber adequate to receive them all, the collective members, including new Barney Mayerson, prepared to solemnly vote. The time: six o’clock, Fineburg Crescent reckoning. The evening meal, shared as was customary, was over; the dishes now lay lathered and rinsed in the proper machine. No one, it appeared to Barney, had anything to do now; the weight of empty time hung over them all.
Examining the collection of votes, Norm Schein announced, “Four for Chew-Z. Three for Can-D. That’s the decision, then. Okay, who wants the job of telling Impy White the bad news?” He peered around at each of them. “She’s going to be sore; we better expect that.”
Barney said, “I’ll tell her.”
Astonished, the three couples who comprised the hovel’s inhabitants in addition to himself stared at him. “But you don’t even know her,” Fran Schein protested.
“I’ll say it’s my fault,” Barney said. “That I tipped the balance here to Chew-Z.” They would let him, he knew; it was an onerous task.
Half an hour later he lounged in the silent darkness at the lip of the hovel’s entrance, smoking and listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the Martian night.
Far off some lunary object streaked the sky, passing between his sight and the stars. A moment later he heard retrojets. Soon, he knew; he waited, arms folded, more or less relaxed, practicing what he intended to say.
Presently a squat female figure dressed in heavy coveralls trudged into view. “Schein? Morris? Well, Regan, then?” She squinted at him, using an infrared lantern. “I don’t know you.” Warily, she halted. “I have a laser pistol.” It manifested itself, pointed at him. “Speak up.”
Barney said, “Let’s move off out of earshot of the hovel.”
With extreme caution Impatience White accompanied him, still pointing the laser pistol menacingly. She accepted his ident-pak, reading it by means of her lantern. “You were with Bulero,” she said, glancing up at him appraisingly. “So?”
“So,” he said, “we’re switching to Chew-Z, we at Chicken Pox Prospects.”
“Why?”
“Just accept it and don’t push any farther here. You can check with Leo at P.P. Or through Conner Freeman on Venus.”
“I will,” Impatience said. “Chew-Z is garbage; it’s habit forming, toxic, and what’s worse leads to lethal, escape-dreams, not of Terra but of–” She gestured with the pistol. “Grotesque, baroque fantasies of an infantile, totally deranged nature. Explain to me why this decision.”
He said nothing; he merely shrugged. It was interesting, however, the ideological devotion on her part; it amused him. In fact, he reflected, its fanaticism was in sharp contrast to the attitude which the girl missionary aboard the Terra–Mars ship had shown. Evidently subject matter had no bearing; he had never realized this before.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night at this same time,” Impatience White decided. “If you’re being truthful, fine. But if you’re not–”
“What if I’m not?” he said slowly, deliberately. “Can you force us to consume your product? After all, it is illegal; we could ask for UN protection.”
“You’re new.” Her scorn was enormous. “The UN in this region is perfectly aware of the Can-D traffic; I pay a regular stipend to them, to avoid interference. As far as Chew-Z goes–” She gestured with her gun. “If the UN is going to protect them, and they’re the coming thing–”
“Then you’ll go over to them,” Barney said.
She did not answer; instead she turned and strode off. Almost at once her short shape vanished into the Martian night; he remained where he was and then he made his way back to the hovel, orienting himself by the looming, opaque shape of a huge, apparently discarded tractortype farm machine parked close by.
“Well?” Norm Schein, to his surprise, said, meeting him at the entrance. “I came up to see how many holes she had lasered in your cranium.”
“She took it philosophically.”
“Impy White?” Norm laughed sharply. “It’s a millionskin business she runs–‘philosophically’ my ass. What really happened?”
Barney said, “She’ll be back after she gets instructions from above.” He began to descend into the hovel.
“Yeah, that makes sense; she’s small-fry. Leo Bulero, on Terra–”
“I know.” He saw no reason to conceal his previous career; in any case it was public record; the hovelists would run across the datum eventually. “I was Leo’s Pre-Fash consultant for New York.”
“And you voted to switch to Chew-Z?” Norm was incredulous. “You had a falling-out with Bulero, is that right?”
“I’ll tell you sometime.” He reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped out into the communal chamber where the others waited.
With relief Fran Schein said, “At least she didn’t stew you with that little laser pistol she waves around. You must have outstared her.”
“Are we rid of her?” Tod Morris asked.
“I’ll have that news tomorrow night,” Barney said.
Mary Regan said to him, “We think you’re very brave. You’re going to give this hovel a great deal, Mr. Mayerson. Barney, I mean. To mix a metaphor, a good swift goose to our morale.”
“My, my,” Helen Morris mocked. “Aren’t we getting a little inelegant in our dithering attempt to impress the new citizen?”
Flushing, Mary Regan said, “I wasn’t trying to impress him.”
“Flatter him, then,” Fran Schein said softly.
“You, too,” Mary said with anger. “You were the first to fawn over him when he stepped off that ramp–or anyhow you wanted to; you would have, if we hadn’t all been here. If your husband especially hadn’t been here.”