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gently. He held me for quite a while, and when he did put me down

it wasn't exactly gentle. By this time he was a little bored with me.

I was demanding, you see."
     
     
I could hardly imagine Pat being demanding. But maybe I was hearing about

a different Pat. Most of us are a lot of different people in the course

of our lives.
     
     
"Don't blame him," she went on. "Whatever you do, don't blame Fred.

That would be unjust." I didn't know whether the irony in her voice was

applicable to what she was saying at the time, or just to her life. Her

whole life, I thought. "After all, did you duck? Well, the same thing

went on happening over and over again. Exactly the same thing. Fred and

I meet, as if for the first time, and play the same old broken record."
     
     
"Why?" I asked bluntly.
     
     
"Easy," she said lightly. "Because that's the nearest I can get to being

happy. And because Fred isn't made of asbestos."
     
     
She had said all she was going to say on the subject, but I didn't need

any more. It was one of those stories that begin: "Things would have been

so different if . . ." Maybe they would; what always seems to me to matter

is what things are, not what they might have been. But I couldn't help

breaking my own rule and wondering if things would have been different

if Pat and Sammy had got together, as they obviously never had.
     
     
"How come you didn't know about this girl of Sammy's?" I asked.
     
     
She shrugged. "Never had much to do with Sammy. He and I started off on

the wrong foot a long time ago, I guess." She gave a hard laugh.

"It happens with the nicest people sometimes."
     
     
We had just finished breakfast when the Powells arrived. They weren't

in the least surprised to see Pat, but her presence seemed to bother them.

So after a while she went into the back bedroom.
     
     
The Powells still had trouble coming to the point. I hoped they weren't

going to break down and beg me to take them to Mars because Marjory was

going to have a baby, or for any other second-feature reason.
     
     
It was Marjory who managed to tell me the reason for their visit at last,

though not without more hedging. She was polishing her fingernails

very carefully, stopping now and then to pull her perfectly straight

skirt straight. "We didn't want to say anything about it," she said,

"because we didn't think it would matter anyway, but all the same we felt

we ought to -- you understand, don't you? Just in case. It's only fair."
     
     
I waited, knowing that anything I said would only be an excuse for more

circumlocution -- they would explain in great detail that they didn't

mean that.
     
     
"I said there wasn't any chance of your picking us," said Marjory,

"but Jack said after all, you might. So we thought we'd better tell you

not to. Not that it was likely, but -- "
     
     
"Why?" I asked bluntly. "You mean you want to die?"
     
     
"I mean I can't help it," said Marjory simply. "I'm too great a risk, Bill.

I had a miscarriage once and the doctor told me another pregnancy would

kill the child and me."
     
     
"You think only people who can have children should go?"
     
     
"It's more than that, Bill. It didn't seem to matter . . . I'm pregnant now."
     
     
"I see," I said.
     
     
"Of course you may think we had our nerve thinking you were going to

pick us out," said Marjory quickly. "It's not that. It's just that you

had to know, in case."
     
     
There was nothing for me to say. Could I tell them they had been on the

list? Obviously not. Would it make them feel any better if I said they'd

never been seriously considered? No. I could only murmur stupidly that I

was sorry. It wasn't what I had expected, but it was still second-feature

stuff.
     
     
Pat came back as soon as the Powells had gone. I told her about them and

went on, "I wonder why everybody's chosen this morning to come and tell

me these things?"
     
     
"Easy enough," Pat replied. "Five people died in the fight