Evolution

“No matter what we do to Lewis Cantner, it won’t matter a whit to the rest of them on Earth. They’ll keep messing up their lives and blaming it on Luna, or their next door neighbor’s cat, or sunspots. They’ll never take responsibility for their own lives, especially for their own mistakes.”

“So Lewis Cantner was only the beginning. I think I see what you’re saying now,” Jenny said.

“This is the inefficient side of evolution, Jenny. There’s no guarantee that any given individual will survive, even if they’re better adapted. It’s a matter of odds. On average the best will survive, but sometimes it’s the strong who get taken out,” Anne said. “This time it hit a bit too close to home for comfort.”

Jenny nodded slowly. “All because Lewis Cantner was a problem looking for a place to happen.”

“Earth actively interferes with evolution in every way they can. They artificially prop up those who can’t cope. They won’t allow the second raters to fail—to face the consequences of their own actions. Instead, they cripple those who do have ability by taking the fruits of their labors to make the failures successful in spite of themselves. They go on, having children and wrecking other peoples’ lives when they should, by any objective standard, have failed long ago, taking their bloodline and their bad attitudes with them.” She sighed. “This is religion against science at its most fundamental, Jenny. Religion teaches that all life is sacred, no matter how warped or perverted. What they should teach is that adaptability, intelligence, and the ability to thrive are sacred. That’s what makes the human race stronger in the long run.”

“But what can we do?”

“Nothing. You can’t stop it. It’s the rabble mentality. You cannot reason with a mob. By their very existence, they destroy what they touch. Eventually, some new evolutionary mechanism may stop them, but for now, we aren’t strong enough to fight them.”

“What about closing the Door? If we isolate ourselves from them, we—”

“Once we get to Mars, we will close the Door, but we’ll need to be more self-contained than we were here.”

Jenny looked thoughtful. “I’d better start making some changes in the design of the Door, then.”

Anne blinked. “Why?”

“I’ll need to make it portable. Once we go through, we’ll pull it through after us, then close it from the Mars end. That way, we retain control.”

“But what’s that accomplish?”

“Closing the Door is one thing. But from what you’re saying, we’re not only going to need to close the Door, we’re going to need to raise the drawbridge behind us.”

Samuel Watts stood outside the cell where they were keeping Lewis Cantner. He looked at the officer standing before him. “All I want you to do is make certain that Cantner doesn’t escape. I don’t expect him to be any trouble, but you never know. He’s surprised us once. He might just do it again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Watts shook his head sadly. “This is at least partly my fault, you know. Alan was an easy target. He was unguarded. Cantner just walked right in.”

“Are you doing anything to protect his wife?”

“Anne? Yeah, we’re working some stuff out. It’ll just be temporary, though. Eventually, we’ll have to build an official commissioner’s office, just like they have governors’ mansions or the White House on Earth. Some place that has built-in security systems. God, Alan would have hated that. He didn’t want anything special or expensive because it would increase the cost of the government.”

“From what you’re saying, that attitude cost him his life.”

“Don’t remind me,” Watts said bitterly. He slapped the button to open the portal into Cantner’s cell and stepped inside.

Cantner looked up from where he sat on the side of his cot. “Leave me alone.”

Watts raised an eyebrow. “Now, that’s a curious attitude to take. You murder a man in cold blood, then have the gall to tell me to leave you alone. There’s an unborn child who’ll never know his father because of you.”

Something ugly flashed across Cantner’s face. “The bitch is pregnant?”

Watts gritted his teeth. “Don’t make me hate you more than I already do. You aren’t fit to dust the soles of that woman’s shoes.”

“But they—” Cantner began.

Watts raised his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care what you think they did to you. It didn’t justify killing Alan.”

“Save it for the trial, huh?”

Watts looked surprised. “Trial? What makes you think you’re going to get a trial?”

“But there has to be a trial! I—”

“Do you deny killing Alan Lister?” Watts demanded.

“No, of course not! He deserved—”

“So you’ve confessed to the crime. Add to that the fact that the computer recorded you firing two of the shots. Why waste the taxpayers’ money with a trial? Trials are to determine guilt. There’s no question of guilt, so there’s no need for a trial.”

“But the judge might see that there were extenuating circumstances. He might—”