Jim Harmon

“ I think an accident prone is simply a super-genius with a super-doubt of himself.
I believe accident prones have a better system of calculation than a cybernetic machine. They can take everything into consideration—the humidity, their blood sugar, the expression on the other guy's face—and somewhere in the corners and attic of their brain they infallibly make the right choice in any given situation. Then, because they are incapable of trusting themselves, they do exactly the opposite. ”

“ You may wonder why anybody should make things so pleasant for a grownup who can't walk a city block without tripping over his own feet and who has a very low life expectancy on Earth due to the automobiles they are constantly stepping in front of and the live wires they are fond of picking up so the street won't be littered.
The Admiralty, however, is a very thorough group of men. Before they open a planet to colonization or even fraternization, they insist on knowing just what they are up against. ”

“ If there is anything I am afraid of, and there probably is, it is having a rookie Accident Prone, half-starved from the unemployment lines, aboard my spaceship. They are always so anxious to please. They remember what it is like to live in a rathole behind an apartment house furnace eating day-old bread and wilted vegetables, which doesn't compare favorably to the Admiralty-style staterooms and steak and caviar they draw down in the Exploration Service. ”

“ The alien had Charlie where he wanted him before we could move. He lashed him securely with stringy vine and, with him thrown over his shoulder, ran up the slate, which rumbled down ominously behind them. He tossed Charlie over a wide hole at the top of the ridge. Slate rained down into the hole. If the Prone hadn't snapped awake and made his body rigid, he would have tumbled into the hole at that moment.
"So you wake, Familyman," the native said. "How could you admit to being anything so immoral when you were alone? ”

“ You began your filthy practice too young to know better. But imagine! Combining with others of your kind to survive—at the expense of decent individuals like myself. Robbing us, eating us. The Finger of Fire will come soon and will destroy you. I have heard Familymen often try to aid one another. Perhaps others of your kind will die with you!"
He was gone long before the translation was finished, leaving Charlie Baxter arched across a pit that widened as the alien's descent disturbed more of the soft shale.
The native was out of sight. ”

“ I paused and came up with my best argument. "How would you like to live like an ordinary spaceman, without rare steaks and clean sheets? Because if you're not our Accident Prone, you're just another crew member, you know." ”

“ Even at the time, I was gratified by the sudden thoughtful narrowing of his eyes.
I wasn't surprised the next day when Bronoski reported that Charlie Baxter had taken a bacpac—food, soap, blankets and so forth—and left the Hilliard. He was determined to prove that he wasn't merely Accident Prone and could get things done on his own.
"Charterson and Von Elderman are following him?" I asked.
Bronoski nodded his bullet-shaped head. "Like a hawk."
"The Bird can follow him like a hawk. I want them to follow him like men."
"They are as good at the job as I am," Bronoski reassured me. ”

“ I turned to Baxter, rather wishing Selby could have stayed. It was a labor dispute and I was used to having a mediator present at bargaining sessions at my glassworks. But this was a military, not a civilian, spaceship.
"I have some facts of life to give you, Baxter," I told him. "It is your duty to actively fulfill your position. You have to make decisions and plan courses of action. Do you figure on just walking around in that jungle until a tree falls on you?" ”

“ I felt a little sorry for Charlie Baxter, but I was Captain of the Hilliard and my job was to keep him worried and trying. The worst thing that can happen is for a Prone to give up and let himself sink into the fate of being a Prone. ”

“ I couldn't absorb enough radiation to be dangerous to you in simple proximity and still be alive. Don't you see that?"
At once, all of my crew at the table covered their faces with their arms.
"Don't look at us!" Bronoski screamed, his voice knifing toward the higher octaves.
Baxter gaped in a daze from one of us to the other. "What do you mean? Why shouldn't I look at you?"
"You've got The Eye! All pile drivers get it."
"But I have to eat," he objected. "I'm hungry. Really I am." ”

“ If he merely accepts being a Prone, his accidents gain us nothing. We can't profit from mistakes that come about from resignation or laughing off blunders or, as in this case, conviction that he never got himself into anything he couldn't get himself out of. ”

“ If you don't actively fulfill the obligations of a Prone, you aren't allowed the luxuries and privileges that go with the position. Do you think you would like to be without your armed guards to protect you every moment? ”

“ I have always admired the men who can look starched in a uniform. Mine always seemed to wrinkle as soon as I put them around my raw-boned frame. Sometimes it is hard for me to keep a military appearance or manner. ”

“ After all the time, effort and money the Service puts into acquiring and training a Prone, I wonder if it is possible for one to beat his problem and cease to be an Accident Prone or even an accident prone. ”

“ I had a cigarette in my mouth, futilely pounding my pockets for the lighter I didn't have, when Charlie met the alien.
There was only one native this time, the same thin form, but more lightly clothed here. I shifted uneasily and hoped the two guards were close. There was only one this time, but it was useless to suppose Charlie could handle him himself.
"Greetings," Charlie said. "I am Big Brother of a new Family."
There was no sound equipment in the Bird, but the translator circuits in the control board read Baxter's lips and produced their sound patterns for us. ”

“ The racial mind for the whole species seemed obsessed with survival by natural selection, but his tribe had gone off on the tangent of individualism, which was fine to some extent, but the Service had learned that a race couldn't survive without some degree of cooperation and this one's level of mating and trading did not seem sufficient. ”

“ He had probably decided being Accident Prone had deprived him of much of the company he had every right to enjoy with his shipmates.
"Get out of here!" Frank Peirmonte yelled, jumping up from the other end of the oblong table.
"Why?" Baxter asked in astonishment.
"Baxter," I put in, "I'm afraid the men think they may catch radiation fever from a pile driver like you."
"Catch radiation fever?" he repeated. "Men have been exposed to atomics for hundreds of years. Surely you men must know any poisoning in one individual can't be transmitted to another like germs. ”

“ All of this is properly recorded for the next expedition in the Admiralty files, and if it's any consolation, high officials and screen stars often visit you in the hospital.
Charlie Baxter was like all of the other Prones, only worse. Moran III was sort of an unofficial test for him and he wanted to make good. We had blasted down in the black of night and were waiting for daylight to begin our re-survey of the planet. It was Charlie's first assignment, so we had an easy one—just seeing if anything new had developed in the last fifty years. ”

“ Of course, it is available only to those filling the position of Accident Prone and doing the work faithfully and according to orders."
"Yes, sir," Charlie mumbled.
"Selby is your personal physician, you realize," I drove on. "He takes care of the rest of us only if he has time left over from you. Why, when I was having my two weeks in the summer as an Ensign, I had to lie for half an hour with a crushed foot while the doctor sprayed our Prone's throat to guard against infection. ”

“ He would be, but he would be boiled alive.
Only there are mistakes and mistakes, and sometimes mistakes aren't mistakes at all.
The geyser exploded, higher, faster and harder than it ever had before. And Charlie, half-drowned and half-or-more scalded, popped up and landed in the brush twenty feet away.
Bronoski fought for control of his flyer and finally made a fast pickup.
Doc Selby did a pretty good job with the First Aid Kit. Charlie's neck and collarbone were broken and over fifty per cent of his skin had to be replaced. Still, it was lucky Charlie had that concentrated soap in his pack. ”

“ The big insurance companies on Earth discovered them when they found out in the last part of the nineteenth century that ninety per cent of the accidents were happening to a few per cent of the people. ”