The Cold Equations Read Free Page A

brassy look was gone from her face, like a mask that had slipped. "I'm sorry. And I'll take care of Billy."
    * * *
    The first objection to his assumption of leadership occurred an hour later. The prowlers had withdrawn with the coming of full daylight and wood had been carried from the trees to build fires. Mary, one of the volunteer cooks, was asking two men to carry her some water when he approached. The smaller man picked up one of the clumsy containers, hastily improvised from canvas, and started toward the creek. The other, a big, thick-chested man, did not move.
    "We'll have to have water," Mary said. "People are hungry and cold and sick."
    The man continued to squat by the fire, his hands extended to its warmth. "Name someone else," he said.
    "But—"
    She looked at Prentiss in uncertainty. He went to the thick-chested man, knowing there would be violence and welcoming it as something to help drive away the vision of Irene's pale, cold face under the red sky.
    "She asked you to get her some water," he said. "Get it."
    The man looked up at him, studying him with deliberate insolence, then he got to his feet, his heavy shoulders hunched challengingly.
    "I'll have to set you straight, old timer," he said. "No one has appointed you the head cheese around here. Now, there's the container you want filled and over there"—he made a small motion with one hand—"is the creek. Do you know what to do?"
    "Yes," he said. "I know what to do."
    He brought the butt of the rifle smashing up. It struck the man under the chin and there was a sharp cracking sound as his jawbone snapped. For a fraction of a second there was an expression of stupefied amazement on his face then his eyes glazed and he slumped to the ground with his broken jaw setting askew.
    "All right," he said to Mary. "Now you go ahead and name somebody else."
    * * *
    He found that the prowlers had killed seventy during the night. One hundred more had died from the Hell Fever that often followed exposure and killed within an hour.
    He went the half mile to the group that had arrived on the second cruiser as soon as he had eaten a delayed breakfast. He saw, before he had quite reached the other group, that the Constellation 's Lieutenant Commander, Vincent Lake, was in charge of it.
    Lake, a tall, hard-jawed man with pale blue eyes under pale brows, walked forth to meet him as soon as he recognized him.
    "Glad to see you're still alive," Lake greeted him. "I thought that second Gern blast got you along with the others."
    "I was visiting midship and wasn't home when it happened," he said.
    He looked at Lake's group of Rejects, in their misery and uncertainty so much like his own, and asked, "How was it last night?"
    "Bad—damned bad," Lake said. "Prowlers and Hell Fever, and no wood for fires. Two hundred died last night."
    "I came down to see if anyone was in charge here and to tell them that we'll have to move into the woods at once—today. We'll have plenty of wood for the fires there, some protection from the wind, and by combining our defenses we can stand off the prowlers better."
    Lake agreed. When the brief discussion of plans was finished he asked, "How much do you know about Ragnarok?"
    "Not much," Prentiss answered. "We didn't stay to study it very long. There are no heavy metals here, or resources of any value. We gave Ragnarok a quick survey and when the sixth man died we marked it on the chart as uninhabitable and went on our way.
    "As you probably know, that bright blue star is Ragnarok's other sun. Its position in the advance of the yellow sun shows the season to be early spring. When summer comes Ragnarok will swing between the two suns and the heat will be something no human has ever endured. Nor the cold, when winter comes.
    "I know of no edible plants, although there might be some. There are a few species of rodent-like animals—they're scavengers—and a herbivore we called the woods goat. The prowlers are the dominant form of life on Ragnarok and I