“Which way is my room?” Larkin asked.
The attendant said, “They ought to know better. You can’t beat the percentage. This is the only way out of it.”
With sudden fury Larkin grabbed the young man’s shoulder, spun him around. “I don’t want philosophy. I want to find my room.”
“Don’t get in a sweat, Pop. Right down that corridor and second turn to your left. Room thirty-eight’ll be on the right-hand side.”
As Larkin walked away the attendant called, “Charlie Bliss’ll check you into the room, Pop.”
There was no sign of Bliss. Samuel Larkin went down to his room, stripped off his coat, lay at full length on the bunk. He fingered the wide web straps with idle curiosity. He left the door to the tiny room open.
It must have been an hour later when Bliss came in, a clerical-looking man who carried a thick pad of forms on a clip board.
“Mmmm. Thirty-eight,” he said. “Larkin? Got to rush this, mister. Lots of last-minute detail this time. Read this form and sign it.”
Samuel Larkin sat on the edge of his bunk and skimmed through the form. “Having been advised by the Future Bureau… realizing that death on Earth is the only other possible outcome, agree to participate as a passenger and colonist on an experimental space voyage to a destination to be later designated by the ship’s crew… untold hardship… but such a complete alteration of all earthly variables that it is the only chance of escaping the death which has been postulated as inevitable should the undersigned remain on Earth… no possibility of return to Earth… should be understood by all concerned…”
He signed it quickly. At the man’s request he stood up, raised his right hand, repeated the oath that deprived him of free will, that committed him to the long years of voyage, the hardship of colonization, that made him subject to the orders of ColBu, even though those orders meant death.
Bliss said, “Okay, you can sit down.” He glanced at his watch. “Blowoff in eight minutes. I got to get off this tub. Strap yourself into the bunk. After acceleration slows to two G’s, the medic will come and check you and the exec will give you your duties. I got to go check on a freevee. We don’t get many of them.”
For a moment Larkin forgot his personal torment. He knew the ColBu slang. A freevee was a volunteer of free will, one who elected to board one of the ships of the doomed, to join those who left Earth only because in staying they would guarantee the death that had been statistically ascertained.
As Bliss went out the door Larkin heard him grumble, “Waste of talent, shooting a dish like that into space.”
And Sam Larkin suspected. He reached the door in time to see Bliss, far down the corridor, turn into another room.
He hurried after Bliss, stood in the doorway, his heart thudding, and saw Martha Hood, pale and hollow-eyed, sign her name on the bottom of the form.
“You can’t, Martha 1” he said hoarsely. “You can’t do it!”
She looked up at him and her eyes were glowing. “Why not, Sam?”
“You have everything here on Earth to five for. A normal life, Martha. A good life.”
She smiled, as though humoring a child. “With you gone, Sam, there wouldn’t be anything left here for me. I decided after you left me in the office.”
Larkin turned to Bliss. “Take her off this ship!”
Bliss glared. “Maybe you could push people around yesterday, mister. But you’re signed on and you take orders. So does this girl. Get back to your room.”
Martha said, “I’ll see you later, darling.”
The deep-toned bell began to toll, a heavy cadence, a sound of dull warning. Like a man in a dream Sam Larkin went back to his room. He tightened the heavy web straps. He lay on his back, looking toward the invisible stars. And suddenly his heart was full of peace — and a strange new hope.