Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE
MAN WHO
PLAYED TO LOSE
By LARRY M. HARRIS
Sometimes the very best thing you can do is to lose. Thecholera germ, for instance, asks nothing better than that itbe swallowed alive....
Illustrated by Douglas
hen I came into the control room the Captain looked up from a set ofcharts at me. He stood up and gave me a salute and I returned it, notmaking a ceremony out of it. "Half an hour to landing, sir," he said.
That irritated me. It always irritates me. "I'm not an officer," Isaid. "I'm not even an enlisted man."
He nodded, too quickly. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said. "Sorry."
I sighed. "If you want to salute," I told him, "if it makes youhappier to salute, you go right ahead. But don't call me 'Sir.' Thatwould make me an officer, and I wouldn't like being an officer. I'vemet too many of them."
It didn't make him angry. He wasn't anything except subservient andawed and anxious to please. "Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said.
I searched in my pockets for a cigarette and found a cup of them andstuck one into my mouth. The Captain was right there with a light, soI took it from him. Then I offered him a cigarette. He thanked me asif it had been a full set of Crown Jewels.
What difference did it make whether or not he called me "Sir"? I wasstill God to him, and there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Did you want something, Mr. Carboy?" he asked me, puffing on thecigarette.
I nodded. "Now that we're getting close," I told him, "I want to knowas much about the place as possible. I've had a full hypno, but ahypno's only as good as the facts in it, and the facts that reachEarth may be exaggerated, modified, distorted or even out of date."
"Yes, Mr. Carboy," he said eagerly. I wondered if, when he was throughwith the cigarette, he would keep the butt as a souvenir. He mighteven frame it, I told myself. After all, I'd given it to him, hadn'tI? The magnificent Mr. Carboy, who almost acts like an ordinary humanbeing, had actually given a poor, respectful spaceship Captain acigarette.
It made me want to butt holes in the bulkheads. Not that I hadn't hadtime to get used to the treatment; every man in my corps gets a fulldose of awe and respect from the services, from Government officialsand even from the United Cabinets. The only reason we don't get itfrom the man in the street is that the man in the street—unless hehappens to be a very special man in a very unusual street—doesn'tknow the corps exists. Which is a definite relief, by the way; atleast, off the job, I'm no more than Ephraim Carboy, citizen.
I took a puff on my cigarette, and the Captain followed suit, veryrespectfully. I felt like screaming at him but I kept my voice polite."The war's definitely over, isn't it?" I said.
He shrugged. "That depends, Mr. Carboy," he said. "The armies havesurrendered, and the treaty's been signed. That happened even beforewe left Earth—three or four weeks ago. But whether you could say thewar was over ... well, Mr Carboy, that depends."
"Guerrillas," I said.