Copyright 1990 by Henry Melton

Sprung! The bullet struck the side of the bus almost before the whoosh of the opening door had faded from his ears. Gavin Owen glanced up at the roof of the hardware store across the road. A rage that had been bubbling within him flared, focussing on the figure.

"That's enough of that!" He jumped down from the bus, pulled a 5mm Ruger pistol from his pocket and peppered the ledge above with the popping staccato of a full clip. The sniper had ducked out of sight, but the white puffs of pulverized brick where his shells struck gave him at least a hollow satisfaction.

A voice behind him intruded into his bad mood, "He'll keep his head down now."

Gavin looked back. Bento Gerret eased out of the bus door, giving him a smile. Behind his head, above the opening, there was a bare metal scar where the sniper's shell had struck. Inside, the bus driver was showing no interest at all. He knew better than to come out and check on it. Bus drivers were much more popular targets than mere passengers.

Bento patted him on the back as Gavin shifted the little pistol, as it grew hot, to his other hand. "I heard about your good fortune. I am proud for you. You will make our city proud. It will be a loss to the neighborhood when you emigrate. Remember us when you become a rich Martian landholder, eh?" Behind them, the bus closed its door and slid silently away on its rounds.

The scowl on Gavin's face deepened slightly, "What did you hear?"

Bento shrugged, "My wife -- you know Belinda. She talks with your wife. I have heard about it all, the tests and the doctors. You must be proud that your company recommended you."

He nodded slightly. "It has been an interesting week. Your pardon, Anna will have heard the shots ...."

Bento frowned, "Yes. I had better get to the house, too." He smiled and shrugged. "Wives, they worry."

Gavin's house was two blocks over from the bus stop. He replaced the clip in his pistol absently as he walked. His mind wasn't on the sniper. This was a border town, after all. And by now, the sporadic protests by the country to the south were becoming less passionate, more pro forma. It was clear that the settlement rights to Mars were going to stay where they were. Some countries were left out -- so okay, they will get first crack at the next terraformed planet. Gavin knew how slim was his little country's chances in the race to build a successful colony on Mars. The Premier had pulled many old debts to get the UA/CPI committee to give them enough of a quota to found a colony of their own.

But Bento's comment settled despair on his shoulders. Anna had spread the word. Everybody knew. Everyone expected them to go.

Anna's voice could be heard load and clear as he walked into the house. She was on the phone.

"... only one family. I was so proud of Gavin when he was selected. And of course it has been so exciting for us." She glanced up as he walked into the room. Her eyes dropped to the pocket in his coat where he had slipped his pistol. She turned back to the phone, "Judy, could I call you back? Gavin is just home." She listened intently, "Fine. Tomorrow then. Bye." She cancelled the call and turned a concerned eye to him, "Those shots? Was that you?" He nodded, the frown still frozen on his face. "A sniper shot at the bus. I scared him off."

She reached for his coat and helped him out of it. Her eyes checked him over, to make sure he was unhurt. When he settled down into his chair, she glanced over at the phone, "Maybe I should call the store and tell Bart to take a cab home."

"Oh, give the phone a rest!" he snapped.

She put a hand on the back of his neck. "You have had a bad day?"

Gavin settled himself deeper into the chair, not looking at her. "Umm."

Brightly, she said, "Well, we eat in fifteen minutes. I have it almost done. Food will make you feel better."

He watched her walk into the kitchen. Just around the wall, he could see her shadow on the floor and hear the clank of pots and smell the scent of cheese beginning to bubble.

How do I tell her? What do I tell her? He gritted his teeth in frustration. What do I do now?

The federal officer had looked at him like one of the statues at the courthouse in town. For days, Gavin had been riding a rush of excitement. He couldn't believe his luck at being one of the three families in the whole city chosen for emigration to the new national colony on Mars.

He had been right.

The man in the green uniform had not softened the news. "The Federal Colonization Board has rejected your application for emigration."

Gavin had been speechless for a moment. "What do you mean? I was told that my family had been accepted. We are part of the city's quota."

The man's eyes didn't meet his. "The city's quota will be respected. Another family will be found."

Gavin's teeth gritted in remembrance. He had begged. "I don't understand. Why are we not acceptable? We were selected!"

"You were not selected by the FCB. There are certain criteria that must be met. There are certain skills needed by our colonists. The nation must be represented by the best."

He had been angry, "I was selected on the basis of merit. This wasn't a lottery. I was the top man in my division."

The federal man nodded, listening, but still rock firm. "You are the top man, in your field. But Martian colonists need skills other than drafting and layout experience. This is a different job, one that you have not been trained in. We have tested you, and your native skills in these matters do not measure up to the qualifying score. I am sorry, but the nation must be served."

"Then train me! I can learn these skills. I am an intelligent man. We must be allowed to go."

The longing for the far lands in the sky caught his breath. It was a new desire, not more than two years old. But he remembered the shows put out by the FCB as they built support for this great national effort -- the scenes from the cool rugged mountains where new cities were being surveyed, the commentary on the type of agriculture the new farmers would be trying, sense of newness that came whenever he thought of his country's new colony.

He was stuck here, otherwise, in a marginally comfortable job, in a marginally pleasant neighborhood, where his boys would get a marginally adequate education and grow up to be just like him.

He hated his "okay" life. He wanted more -- more challenge for himself, more potential for his kids. And this was the only way out.

"Check again," he had begged the cold man. "Maybe there is a mistake in the records."

Calmly, the man had done so, calling up a long scrolling display on a screen that Gavin could just barely see. For more than a minute, the words had rolled upwards, vanishing into nothingness at the top of the screen. He could make out the headings as they went by. "Application." "Education." "Work History."

His heartbeat had jumped as "Testing Results" passed up the screen. He had held his breath, hoping that something would catch the eye of the cold-faced man and make his stop -- make him review some little error in the testing results.

But the words moved on. He had felt his muscles turn to water. There was no error. He simply did not measure up. He was not good enough to be a colonist. Oh, he was good enough to make a living for his family -- just not good enough to make a future for them.

He had stopped trying to read the screen when the man's finger did jab at the keys and did stop the scrolling. The federal man had frowned at the text for a moment, then still frowning, he had turned to Gavin. "There is an option. But you may turn me down."

But when Gavin heard the explanation, he didn't turn him down. He didn't accept either. He simply got angry. He yelled, and called the federal man and his agency "cold-hearted pigs", among other things.

The man's reply had been simple and scientific. He gave Gavin a day to make his decision.

But how do I explain it to Anna?

Anna came and called him to the table. The boys were out, which was a relief.

And she was right, food did help. The black depression which had grown around him yielded slowly to a warm stomach and his wife's easy chatter. He listened idly as she related how expensive things had gotten in the meat market and the poor condition of the fruit. He listened to the troubles of his friends, in more detail than he cared to know. It always disturbed him to know in what intimate detail his wife was party to other people's financial, health, and marital problems. He had a sick feeling that there were a dozen women who intimately knew his own troubles.

He cut her off when she began talking about an older lady's broken hip.

"Anna, I was told some bad news today."

She fell instantly silent. When it came time to listen, she turned her full attention to it. Perhaps, he mused, that is why so many people told her their problems.

"I had an interview with the Federal Colony Board officer. He reviewed our medical tests and discovered that you have diabetes."

Anna sat back in her chair, a puzzled look on her face. "I don't have diabetes. I am healthy. You know that."

Gavin put out a hand and waved down her objections, "Yes, yes I know you are healthy. It's not as if you had the disease outright. You just have the heredity for it. They did a gene-scan and one of the things they discovered was that you inherited the diabetes pattern. If you don't have it now, the chances are still very good that you will get it later on in your life.

"Bart and David have it too."

Anna was silent for a moment as she absorbed the news. Then her smile gradually came back. "Well, this is indeed bad news, but it is not terrible. We can have it fixed. Uncle Jason had diabetes. The doctor cured him. They fiddled with his DNA for a couple of months, then he was as good as new."

She noticed that her husband's frown had not gone away. She asked, "Is there more? Is there some problem with the colonization people. Will we have to wait until I get cured? Is that what is worrying you?"

Gavin was having trouble looking her in the face. He shook his head. "It's not that."

Anna sat back and asked, "Well what is it then?"

Gavin took a deep breath, and then another, his mind empty of the words he needed. He shook his head.

"Anna -- they said we can't go."

She looked down at her lap. Quietly, she asked, "Is it ... is it because of my diabetes that we can't go?"

Gavin reached across the table and grabbed her hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze. "No. It's not your fault at all. All those tests -- they said I wouldn't make a good enough farmer or something. In spite of everything the company told us, their recommendation wasn't enough. I had to pass those stupid tests, and I failed."

Anna got up from the table and came around to where they could hug. "Isn't there something we can do? Maybe they can give us the test again. Maybe there was a mistake."

Gavin shook his head, "I tried that. I had the officer re-check our records right then. That is when he noticed the diabetes."

"Is there no hope at all?"

Gavin hesitated. Better to keep it from her, he thought.

"What is it?" Anna asked, sensing his turmoil. "Tell me or I'll tickle." She poked a finger at his ribs.

He shook his head, "No, it's nothing."

Quickly, he got up from the chair and stalked back to the bathroom. He could feel her eyes on him.

The door locked with a click. The bathroom was the only privacy in their tiny apartment. But the click sounded like the slam of a prison door. What future was there now? When the word got out, the stigma of failure would mark him for the rest of his life.

The kids, Anna, they would survive. But he would have to find another job. He knew the company. They were generous enough to the winners, but the losers were swept under the rug with never a backward glance. They would have to move.

It would be simpler to die. He startled himself with the thought, but quickly forced it back into the depths. No matter how bad things get, I won't quit. I won't abandon my family.

The doorknob clicked and Anna entered, screwdriver in hand, the one they used to bypass the lock when the kids locked themselves in.

She had a worried look on her face.

"You are keeping a secret," she accused. "You promised me you would never do that. Now tell."

He sighed, "Can't I keep any secrets from you?" He looked into her eyes. "No. I guess I never could."

He captured her fingers and explained. "The officer told me that while my scores didn't pass their qualifying level, there was one other way that we, as a family, could emigrate to the Martian colony.

"It seems that the colonization authority has decreed that a complete cross section of the human gene pool must be included in the colonization. If we lost spaceflight and Mars was cut off, they want to insure that no genetic trait would be lost because of too efficient screening of the colonists.

"He told me that we could go -- if neither you nor the boys had corrective genetic reconstruction done.

"We can't cure you if we go. We can't go if you are cured."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh."

Anna frowned, "Why in the world do they want to keep a genetic disease? That makes no sense at all."

Gavin shook his head, "The way he explained it to me, there is some theory that there is a beneficial side effect. Diabetics may have a metabolism that could survive better than normal people under some famine conditions. I'm not sure I buy the theory."

"But the colony people do," Anna said quietly.

Gavin spoke firmly, "It makes us no difference! I'm not going to trade my family's health for an uncertain future."

"Did you tell the colony officer that we wouldn't go?"

"No, but I will. If it makes any difference. I bent his ears back good when he first suggested this."

"Maybe we should go."

Gavin looked carefully at his wife. "What do you mean? I meant it. We aren't going to trade away your health."

Anna shook her head, "I don't know. I am healthy. The boys are healthy. There are things you can do, diet things, that you can do to help prevent diabetes. We are warned, we can take precautions now. Disease doesn't scare me. Uncle Jason lived with it for years."

She looked into his eyes, "But that sniper scared me. This gun in your pocket scares me. The riots scare me. The boys' schools scare me. The look I see on your face when you come home from work each day, that scares me most of all.

"Call the colony man, right now. Let's go. I'll trade uncertain health for a future, any day."

"No!" he looked away, angrily. "I will not ride to Mars at the expense of you and the kids."

Anna squeezed his hand. "Gavin, you have no right to keep us from going. I will risk the diabetes. The Father Above knows I would do the same if it were cancer. And so would you.

"It isn't our future anymore. It is Bart's and David's. Maybe you and I can afford to take the safe life, but they can't. All Earth is falling apart. There is no other place they can go."

Gavin was silent for a moment. Then he nodded, and asked "But what about the disease?"

She shrugged, "I'll learn to cook differently. We'll tell them about the diabetes. They can be trained to take care of their health. As a family, we can adapt. We have to."

The phone rang. Anna automatically bounced up to get it. "Hello?" "Oh, Belinda, I'm glad you called." "Gavin? No. There's no problem."

She muted the line, and spoke to her husband, "It's Belinda. Bento was worried about you." She released the mute.

"Yes, we will be moving to the training camp in a month." "No. In fact, the federal colony man told Gavin just today that we were really needed on Mars." She gave her husband a wink and continued airily, "You see, they need our genes."

-end-