INSECURITY, PART 2

Warning: this is rated PG-13.

            The next morning, Robinson and West watched a very morose Dr. Smith exit the ship and approach the table. As it happened, the women and children were still inside preparing breakfast. Smith looked up, met their eyes, and faltered. His approach became far slower and more uneasy.

            "Are you all right?" Robinson inquired.

            Smith stopped, and answered the question with a question, "Are you still angry?"

            "No, no, no." The commander dismissed it with a wave.

            "I barely slept," Smith now answered his previous inquiry. "Because of yesterday...and last night. But I do want to tell you that there is one thing about yesterday for which I am quite grateful."

            "Now what's that?" West wondered curiously.

            "You two warned me. And you gave me a way out of it. You didn't just...attack."

            Robinson and West exchanged a look, and clearly didn't know what to say.

            "Well," Robinson replied semi-awkwardly, "I'm glad that you appreciate it."

            Smith sat down with them, and asked earnestly, "Will it always be so???"

            "Well now how can we possibly predict that?" Robinson demanded.

            "You're asking us to see into the future!" West agreed.

            Smith shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Actually, I'm asking you to make a bargain with me." He eyed them wistfully.

            They regarded him doubtfully. "What sort of bargain?"

            "I want you to promise that you'll always warn me, and give me a way out. And in return, I promise that I'll always surrender. You'll never have to hurt me, to get what you want." He regarded them fervently, and leaned closer.

            "Smith, that's ridiculous!" West declared.

            "Why???" Smith was mystified and crestfallen. "It seems to me to be a rather elegant agreement. For all three of us."

            "Except for one basic thing," Robinson told him decisively. "What are you going to be guilty of?"

            West added, "And will we always be trying to persuade you of something, like yesterday? Or just punishing you for what can no longer be fixed!"

            Smith sat back in his chair in miserable defeat. "In other words, the way things have been going for us during this harrowing journey, it's inevitable, sooner or later. It's only a matter of time. Isn't it?"

            Robinson shrugged helplessly. "Could be."

            Tears forming, Smith said despondently, "I feel as if I'm looking at my eventual executioners."

            As if it were planned, both Robinson and West folded their arms and regarded him sourly.

            Unlike his customary melodrama, Smith whispered sincerely, "I'm doomed."

            West looked disgusted. "We told you last night, we wouldn't necessarily kill you. We know how to hold back, and be careful. We're discussing whether we'll someday clobber you, not necessarily murder you."

            Robinson raised a finger. "With one important exception."

            "What's that?" West wondered.

            Robinson regarded Smith intently. "If any of your shenanigans ever get a member of my family killed, all bets are off!"

            "And how!" West instantly agreed. "That will get you a death sentence: at our hands. And there will be no holding back!"

            The tears began to fall. Silently, steadily, Smith cried. Eventually, he asked, with a quavering voice, "Must it be done...that way??? You couldn't just...shoot me quickly and get it over with???"

            Robinson countered challengingly, "How mercifully will my family member have died?"

            West's brows rose, impressed with Robinson's point.

            Now Smith sobbed aloud. When he finally again tried to speak, he managed haltingly, "But...I'm...so...much...more scared...than anyone else here!"

            "Irrelevant," Robinson declared decisively. "How much he or she suffers, is how much you suffer!"

            "Noooo!!!" Smith sat whimpering and sniffling.

            At that point, Maureen and the children emerged, carrying the breakfast platters.

            "Straighten up!" Robinson told Smith, sotto voce, even as West poked him under the table.

            Startled, intimidated, Smith stifled himself with major effort. Nevertheless, the others were at least a bit clued in when Smith asked, "Mrs. Robinson, may I please be excused? I'm not hungry."

            She observed his glazed eyes, and was about to comment, when Robinson sharply said, "Remain here; it's polite. Besides, your appetite may return."

            It didn't, but Smith obeyed, and forced himself to accept a morsel or two.

            At the end of a comparatively quiet meal, Robinson rose and stated, "Don and I are going to the drill site. Smith, you're going with us."

            Shocked, Smith rose, and regarded the two men like a deer eyeing two hunters. "Why must I go??"

            "Because we said so," responded West, rising from his seat.

            "Please? Can't Will go with us???" Smith clearly fervently hoped for a yes.

            But it was Maureen who disappointed him. "This is Will's one day a month to work with the girls and me. We can't have him completely inept in the kitchen; it may matter a great deal to him someday." She turned and ushered her brood inside ahead of her.

            Stricken, Smith faced Robinson and West in terror. "Why do you want to get me alone out there???"

            "Smith, stop imagining things. Until Maureen said it, I hadn't even remembered that this was Will's day with her," said Robinson.

            West couldn't resist joking, "Besides, Smith, as we keep reminding you, Will couldn't stop us anyway." His eyes twinkled with humor, but a bit more seriously, he added, "Not verbally...but certainly not physically, either." He eyed Smith, who gulped, and subsided.

            The ride in the chariot was a decidedly silent one. Upon arrival, before commencing work, Robinson sat Smith down and motioned for West to join them.

            "Actually, I do have a special reason for wanting to get Smith out here alone with us. But it's not for any nefarious reason."

            At his first sentence, Smith felt his heart nearly stop. At his second, Smith felt it cautiously start up again.

            "I simply want to talk. I have a few crucial things to add to the conversation that we had at the table this morning, and I didn't want to say these things in front of Maureen and the children. Smith, you are never, ever to tell any of them what we discussed: namely, that Don and I anticipated your possibly causing the death of one of the family someday. I do not want to worry any of them with such thoughts. They all have enough to worry about, as do we." He included West in his last word. "I never want you to mention it. But I never want you to forget it, either." He eyed Smith with an intensity that Smith seldom saw, making the latter shiver.

            Robinson went on, "Because I can promise you that if your shenanigans ever do actually cause the death of one of our group, not only will your suffering equal or exceed that of your unintentional victim, but Don and I will make your demise as miserable as we possibly can."

            Smith swallowed hard and whimpered.

            "Including, but not necessarily limited to, the beating that you so dreadfully fear."

            "Have mercy on me!" he implored.

            "There will be none; that's just the point."

            West was hearing all of this, too, of course, and was clearly impressed with Robinson's relentlessness. It was a new side of the diplomatic, usually patient leader. The pilot felt emboldened to add his own voice to the proceedings. "And, with our commander's permission, I'd like to declare that if the victim is Judy, I claim the privilege of the killing blow."

            Not only did Robinson not contradict him, but he added, "As do I, if it is Maureen."

            Both brunettes nodded to each other, acknowledging their having made a solemn pact.

            They allowed Smith to cry for as long as he needed, before requiring him to participate in the day's work.