Where There's Hope

  Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  _The women had made up their minds, and nothing--repeat, nothing--could change them. But _something_ had to give...._

  WHERE THERE'S HOPE

  By Jerome Bixby

  Illustrated by Kelly Freas

  "If you called me here to tell me to have a child," Mary Pornsen said,"you can just forget about it. We girls have made up our minds."

  Hugh Farrel, Chief Medical Officer of the Exodus VII, sighed and leanedback in his chair. He looked at Mary's husband. "And you, Ralph," hesaid. "How do you feel?"

  Ralph Pornsen looked at Mary uncomfortably, started to speak and thenhesitated.

  Hugh Farrel sighed again and closed his eyes. It was that way with allthe boys. The wives had the whip hand. If the husbands put up anargument, they'd simply get turned down flat: no sex at all, children orotherwise. The threat, Farrel thought wryly, made the boys softer thanwatered putty. His own wife, Alice, was one of the ringleaders of the"no babies" movement, and since he had openly declared warfare on theidea, she wouldn't even let him kiss her good-night. (For fear of losingher determination, Farrel liked to think.)

  He opened his eyes again to look past the Pornsens, out of the curvingport of his office-lab in the Exodus VII's flank, at the scene outsidethe ship.

  At the edge of the clearing he could see Danny Stern and his crew, tinybeneath the cavernous sunbeam-shot overhang of giant leaves. Danny wasstanding up at the controls of the 'dozer, waving his arms. His crew wasstruggling to get a log set so he could shove it into place with the'dozer. They were repairing a break in the barricade--the place whereone of New Earth's giant saurians had come stamping and whistlingthrough last night to kill three colonists before it could be blastedout of existence.

  It was difficult. Damned difficult. A brand-new world here, all readyto receive the refugees from dying Earth. Or rather, all ready to be_made_ ready, which was the task ahead of the Exodus VII's personnel.

  An Earth-like world. Green, warm, fertile--and crawling, leaping,hooting and snarling with ferocious beasts of every variety. Farrelcould certainly see the women's point in banding together and refusingto produce children. Something inside a woman keeps her from wanting tobring life into peril--at least, when the peril seems temporary, andsecurity is both remembered and anticipated.

  Pornsen said, "I guess I feel just about like Mary does. I--I don't seeany reason for having a kid until we get this place ironed out and safeto live in."

  "That's going to take time, Ralph." Farrel clasped his hands in front ofhim and delivered the speech he had delivered so often in the past fewweeks. "Ten or twelve years before we really get set up here. We've gotto build from the ground up, you know. We'll have to find and mine ourmetals. Build our machines to build shops to build more machines.There'll be resources that we _won't_ find, and we'll have to learn whatthis planet has to offer in their stead. Colonizing New Earth isn'tsimply a matter of landing and throwing together a shining city. I onlywish it were.

  "Six weeks ago we landed. We haven't yet dared to venture more than amile from this spot. We've cut down trees and built the barricade andour houses. After protecting ourselves we have to eat. We've plantedgardens. We've produced test-tube calves and piglets. The calves aredoing fine, but the piglets are dying one by one. We've got to find outwhy.

  "It's going to be a long, long time before we have even a minimum ofsecurity, much less luxury. Longer than you think.... So much longerthat waiting until the security arrives before having children is out ofthe question. There are critters out there--" he nodded toward the portand the busy clearing beyond--"that we haven't been able to kill. We'vethrown everything we have at them, and they come back for more. We'llhave to find out what _will_ kill them--how they differ from those we_are_ able to kill. We are six hundred people and a spaceship, Ralph. Wehave techniques. That's _all_. Everything else we've got to dig up outof this planet. We'll need people, Mary; we'll need the children. We'recounting on them. They're vital to the plans we've made."

  Mary Pornsen said, "Damn the plans. I won't have one. Not now. You'vejust done a nice job of describing all my reasons. And all the othergirls feel the same way."

  * * * * *

  She looked out the window at the 'dozer and crew. Danny Stern was stillwaving his arms; the log was almost in place. "George and May Wrightwere killed last night. So was Farelli. If George and May had had achild, the monster would have trampled it too--it went right throughtheir cabin like cardboard. It isn't fair to bring a baby into--"

  Farrel said, "Fair, Mary? Maybe it isn't fair _not_ to have one. _Not_to bring it into being and give it a chance. Life's always a gamble--"

  "_It_ doesn't exist," Mary said. She smiled. "Don't try circumlocutionon me, Doc. I'm not religious. I don't believe that spermatozoa and anovum, if not allowed to cuddle up together, add up to murder."

  "That isn't what I meant--"

  "You were getting around to it--which means you've run out of goodarguments."

  "No. I've a few left." Farrel looked at the two stubborn faces: Mary's,pleasant and pretty, but set as steel; Ralph's, uncomfortable,thoughtful, but mirroring his definite willingness to follow his wife'slead.

  Farrel cleared his throat. "You know how important it is that thiscolony be established? You know that, don't you? In twenty years or sothe ships will start arriving. Hundreds of them. Because we sent amessage back to Earth saying we'd found a habitable planet. Thousands ofpeople from Earth, coming here to the new world we're supposed to getbusy and carve out for them. We were selected for that task--first ofjudging the right planet, then of working it over. Engineers, chemists,agronomists, all of us--we're the task force. We've got to do the job.We've got to test, plant, breed, re-balance, create. There'll be a lotof trial and error. We've got to work out a way of life, so thethousands who will follow can be introduced safely and painlessly intothe--well, into the organism. And we'll need new blood for the jobsahead. We'll need young people--"

  Mary said, "A few years one way or the other won't matter much, Doc.Five or six years from now this place will be a lot safer. Then we womenwill start producing. But not now."

  "It won't work that way," Farrel said. "We're none of us kids anylonger. I'm fifty-five. Ralph, you're forty-three. I realize that I mustbe getting old to think of you as young. Mary, you're thirty-seven. Wetook a long time getting here. Fourteen years. We left an Earth that'sdying of radioactive poisoning, and we all got a mild dose of that. Theradiation we absorbed in space, little as it was, didn't help any. Andthat sun up there--" again he nodded at the port--"isn't any helpeither. Periodically it throws off some pretty damned funny stuff.

  "Frankly, we're worried. We don't know whether or not we _can_ havechildren. Or _normal_ children. We've got to find out. If our genes havebeen bollixed up, we've got to find out why and how and get to work onit immediately. It may be unpleasant. It may be heart-breaking. Butthose who will come here in twenty years will have absorbed much more ofEarth's radioactivity than we did, and an equal amount of the spacestuff, and this sun will be waiting for them.... We'll have to know whatwe can do for them."

  "I'm not a walking laboratory, Doc," Mary said.

  "I'm afraid you are, Mary. All of you are."

  Mary set her lips and stared out the port.

  "It's got to be done, Mary."

  She didn't answer.

  "It's going to be done."

  "Choose someone else," she said.

  "That's what they all say."

  She said, "I guess this is one thing you doctors and psychologistsdidn't figure on, Doc."

  "Not at first," Farrel said. "But we've given it some
thought."

  MacGuire had installed the button convenient to Farrel's right hand,just below the level of the desk-top. Farrel pressed it. Ralph and MaryPornsen slumped in their chairs. The door opened, and Doctor John J.MacGuire and Ted Harris, the Exodus VII's chief psychologist, came in.

  * * * * *

  When it was over, and the after-play had been allowed to run its course,Farrel told the Pornsens to go into the next room and shower. They cameback soon, looking refreshed. Farrel ordered them to get back into theirclothes. Under the power of the hypnotic drug which their chairs hadinjected into them at the touch of the button, they did so. Then he toldthem to sit down in the chairs again.

  MacGuire and Harris had gathered up their equipment, piling it on top ofthe operating table.

  MacGuire smiled. "I'll bet that's the best-monitored, most hygienic sexact ever committed. I think I've about got the space radiations effectlicked."

  Farrel nodded. "If anything goes wrong, it certainly won't be our fault.But let's face it--the chances are a thousand to one that something_will_ go wrong. We'll just have to wait. And work." He looked at thePornsens. "They're very much in love, aren't they? And she was receptiveto the suggestion--beneath it all, she was burning to have a child, justlike the others."

  MacGuire wheeled out the operating table, with its load of serums,pressure-hypos and jury-rigged thingamabobs which he was testing onalternate couples. Ted Harris stopped at the door a moment. He said, "Ithink the suggestions I planted will turn the trick when they find outshe's pregnant. They'll come through okay--won't even be too angry."

  Farrel sighed. They'd been over it in detail several times, of course,but apparently Harris needed the reassurance as much as he did. He said:"Sure. Now scram so I can go back into my act."

  Harris closed the door. Farrel sat down at his desk and studied the pairbefore him. They looked back contentedly, holding hands, their eyesdull.

  Farrel said, "How do you feel?"

  Ralph Pornsen said, "I feel fine."

  Mary Pornsen said, "Oh, I feel _wonderful_!"

  Deliberately Farrel pressed another button below his desk-top.

  The dull eyes cleared instantly.

  "Oh, you've given it some thought, Doc?" Mary said sweetly. "And whathave you decided?"

  "You'll see," Farrel said. "Eventually."

  He rose. "That's all for now, kids. I'd like to see you again in onemonth--for a routine check-up."

  Mary nodded and got up. "You'll still have to wait, Doc. Why not admityou're licked?"

  Ralph got up too, and looked puzzled.

  "Wow," he said. "I'm tired."

  "Perhaps just coming here," Farrel said, "discharged some of the tensionyou've been carrying around."

  The Pornsens left.

  Farrel brought out some papers from his desk and studied them. Then,from the file drawer, he selected the record of Hugh and Alice Farrel.Alice would be at the perfect time of her menstrual cycle tomorrow....

  Farrel flipped his communicator.

  "MacGuire," he said. "Tomorrow it's me."

  MacGuire chuckled. Farrel could have kicked him. He put his chin in hishands and stared out the port. Danny Stern had the log in place in thebarricade. The bulldozer was moving on to a new task. His momentarydoubt stilled, Farrel went back to work.

  * * * * *

  Twenty-one years later, when the ships from Earth began arriving, thelog had been replaced by a stone monument erected to the memory of theExodus VII, which had been cut apart for its valuable steel. Around themonument was a park, and on three sides of the park was a shiningtown--not really large enough to be called a city--of plastic and stone,for New Earth had no iron ore, only zinc and a little copper. This wasoften cause for regret.

  Still it was a pretty good world. The monster problem had been licked byhigh-voltage cannon. Now in their third generation since the landing,the monsters kept their distance. And things grew--things good to eat.

  And even without steel, the graceful, smoothly-functioning town lookedimpressive--quite a thing to have been built by a handful of beings withtwo arms and two legs each.

  It hadn't been, entirely. But nobody thought much about that any more.Even the newcomers got used to it. Things change.

  THE END

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ November 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.