Calhoun waited a long time, because he had put a great deal of dextrethyl into a small space. But presently he went in and bent over each man in turn, while Murgatroyd watched with bright, inquisitive eyes. He arranged one figure so that it seemed to have been stricken while bending over another, fallen companion. The others he carried out, one at a time, and placed at different distances as if they had fallen while fleeing from a plague. One he carried quite a long distance, and left him with dusty knees and hands as if he had tried to crawl when strength failed him.
"They'd have been immunized at pretty well the same time, before they were shipped on this job," Calhoun told Murgatroyd. "It'll seem very plaguelike for them to fall into comas nearly together. If I found men like this, and didn't know what to do, I'd suspect that it was a delayed-action effect of some common experience—like an immunization shot. We'd better try the ship, Murgatroyd."
On the way he passed close to the control-building of the landing grid. There was a light inside it, too. There were four men on watch. Two remained inside, very, very still, when Calhoun went on. The others seemed to have fled and collapsed in the act. They breathed, to be sure. Their hearts beat solidly. But it would not be possible to rouse them to consciousness.
Calhoun didn't get into the ship, though. A chance happening intervened, which seemed an unfavorable one. Its port was locked and his cautious attempt to open it brought a challenge and a blaze of lights.
He fled for the side of the landing grid with blaster-bolts searing the ground all about him. Murgatroyd leaped and pranced with him as he ran.
VI
"The probable complete success of a human enterprise which affects non-co-operating other human beings may be said to vary inversely as the fourth power of the number of favorable happenings necessary for complete success. This formula is admittedly empirical, but its accordance with observation is remarkably close. In practice, the probability of absolute, total success in any undertaking is negligible. For this reason, mathematics and sanity alike counsel the avoidance of complex plannings, and most especially of plans which must succeed totally to succeed at all."
Probability and Human Conduct
Fitzgerald