"I am the officer in charge of this vessel," Chuck said in a voice of great weariness. "There are rules and orders for this sort of occasion and I am on my oath to follow them. This is the correct procedure, an equal chance for all to survive, no favoritism."
"You are just using that for an excuse."
"You are welcome to think so. However, I agree with the rule and think it the only just one…"
"I'll have nothing to do with it."
"That is your choice. But the results are binding on you whether you partake or not." He looked over at Darnian who, white-faced, had been listening silently. "You talk to her, Darnian, perhaps she'll listen to you. Or do you agree with her?"
"I… really don't know. It is so hard to say. But we… that is, there isn't much choice really."
"None," Chuck said.
It was something Damian would never have considered doing before, putting his arms about a girl whom he had just met, but everything was very different now. He held her and she leaned against him and sobbed and it was very natural for both of them.
"Let's get this over with," Chuck said, "the worst thing we can do is wait. And we'd all better agree beforehand what is going to happen. I have three identical squares of plastic here, and I've marked one of them with an X. Take a look at them. And three pieces of brown wrapper from this food pack. You do it, Damian, twist a piece of wrapper around each square, twist each one the same way so they can't be told apart. Now shake them up in your cupped hands so you don't know which is which. All right. Let them float right there in the middle where we can all see them."
Damian opened his cupped hands and the three twists of plastic drifted in free fall. One floated away from the others and he prodded it back into position. They all stared, they could not help themselves, fixedly and intently at the tiny scraps of destiny.
"Here's what will happen next," Chuck said. "We'll each take one. I'll draw last. I have a pill in my belt, it's standard spacer gear, and whoever draws the piece with the X takes the pill six hours from now—" he looked at his watch—"at exactly 1900 hours. Is it understood and agreed? This is it. There is no going back or mind-changing later. Now and forever. Agreed?"
Tight-lipped, Damian only gave a quick nod. Helena said or did nothing, beyond flashing Chuck a look of utter hatred.
"It is agreed then," he said. "The pill is instantaneous and absolutely painless. Here we go. Helena, do you want to draw first?"
"No," she said unbelievingly. "You can't…"
"We have no other choice, do we," Damian told her, and managed to smile. "Here, let me draw first. You can have the second one."
"Don't open it," Chuck said as Damian reached out and took the nearest one. "Go ahead, Helena, none of us is enjoying this."
She did not move until Chuck shrugged and reached for a wrapped marker himself. Then her hand lashed out and she clutched the one he had been about to take. "That's mine.” she said.
"Whatever you say." Chuck smiled wryly and took the remaining one. "Open them up.” he said.
The others did not move, so he carefully unwrapped his and held up the square. It was blank on both sides. Helena gasped.
"Well, I'm next I imagine.” Damian said and slowly unfolded his. He looked at it, then quickly closed his fist.
"We have to see it too," Chuck told him. Damian slowly opened his hand to show a blank. "I knew it would be a trick!" Helena screamed and threw hers from her. Damian caught it when it rebounded from the wall, opened it at arm's length to reveal the scrawled black X.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, not looking at her. "I think we need a drink," Chuck told them as he twisted about to burrow in one of the lockers. "There are at least four more liters of vodka stowed down here with the water jugs, for some obscure Russian reason, and now is the time we can use them."
Damian took a deep breath so his voice wouldn't shake when he talked. "I'm sorry, I can't go along with this. If we come out of this I couldn't live with myself. I think I had better take Helena's place…"
"No!" Chuck Cohen said, outwardly angry for the first time. "It invalidates everything, all the choosing. You've put your life on the line — isn't that enough? Death hits by chance in space, the way it hit the others on the ship and missed us. It has hit again. The matter is closed." He pulled out a container and started the party by drinking a good fifth of it in one gulp.
Perhaps that was why the vodka was there. Helena, still unbelieving, drank because it was handed to her by the two men who could not look her in the eye. It numbed. If you drank enough it numbed.
The stars slipped by outside the uncovered port, the thermostat kept the temperature at a comfortable twenty-two degrees centigrade and the fan hummed as it circulated the air, pumping in metered amounts of the oxygen, each minute lowering the infinitely precious level in the tanks.
