The Project Gutenberg EBook of For Every Man A Reason, by Patrick Wilkins

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Title: For Every Man A Reason

Author: Patrick Wilkins

Release Date: May 8, 2010 [EBook #32293]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's note:

This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science Fiction November 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

_Illustrated by Paul Orban_

BY PATRICK WILKINS

FOR EVERY MAN A REASON

_To love your wife is good; to love your State is good, too. But if
it comes to a question of survival, you have to love one better
than the other. Also, better than yourself. It was simple for the
enemy; they knew which one Aron was dedicated to...._

The thunder of the jets died away, the sound drifting wistfully off into
the hills. The leaves that swirled in the air returned to the ground
slowly, reluctantly.

The rocket had gone.

Aron Myers realized that he was looking at nothing. He noticed that his
face was frozen into a meaningless smile. He let the smile slowly
dissolve as he turned to look at his wife.

She was a small woman, and he realized for the first time how fragile
she was. Her piquant face, framed by long brown, flowing hair, was an
attractive jewel when set on the plush cushion of civilization. Now her
face, set in god-forsaken wilderness, metamorphosed into the frightened
mask of a small animal.

They were alone.

Two human beings alone on this wild, lonely planet. Aron's mind suddenly
snapped from that frame of reference--his subjective view of their
position--to the scale of galaxies. It was a big planet to them, but it
was a marble in the galaxy that man had discovered and claimed, and was
now fighting with himself to retain. This aggregate of millions of
pebbles was wracked with the violence of war, where marbles were more
expendable than the microbes that dwelt on them.

The two walked hand in hand away from the meadow where t