by Anthology
But what reason, in heaven's name, would they have for staying here? Three people, marooned, growing old, dying one by one. There was no chance for Man's survival here. From the evidence about them, they had come to the conclusion that on this New Earth, in the tree of evolution, the bud to grow into a limb of primates had never formed.
She turned and looked at the tall, straight pines ahead of her. She saw the deciduous hardwoods, now gold and red, to one side of her. Behind her the lake was teeming with fish. The spicy smell of fall was all around her, and a stray breeze brought a scent of grapes she had overlooked when she was gathering all she could find to make a wine to pleasantly surprise the boys.
She thought of the flock of wild chickens which had learned to hang around the cabin for scraps of food, the grunting lazy pigs, grown quite tame, begging her to find their acorns for them, the nanny goat with two half-grown kids Lt. Harper had brought back from a solitary walk he had taken.
New Earth was truly a paradise--and all to be wasted if there were not Man to appreciate it truly.
A thought knocked at her mind, but she resolutely shut it out, refused it even silent verbalization.
Yet, while she stooped over again and busied her hands with stripping the rice from the stalks without cutting them on the sharp dry leaves, she found herself thinking about Mendelian law. Line breeding from father to daughter, or brother to sister--in domestic animals, of course--was all right in fixing desirable traits, providing certain recessives in both the dam and the sire did not thus become dominant.
"There, Katheryn Kittredge," she mumbled with satisfaction. "Assuming the responsibilities of domesticity has not made you forget what you learned."
But the danger of fixing recessives into dominants through inbreeding was even less with half-brothers and sisters. Now daughters by one--er--sire could be bred to another sire to get only a quarter relationship to a similar cross from the other father--er--sire. She must work it out with a stylus in smooth clay. The boys had preempted every scrap of paper for their pointless calculations. But she could remember it, and it would be valuable in breeding up a desirable barnyard stock.
Yet it was odd that she assumed two males and only one female!
* * * * *
Then and there, standing ankle deep in the bog of wild rice, muddy to her knees in her torn coveralls, slapping at persistent mosquitoes, she came to terms with herself. In the back of her mind she had known it all the time. All this was without meaning unless there was Man--and a continuity of Man. Even so little as this gathering of wild rice, before the migrating ducks got it, was without meaning, if it were merely to stave off death from a purposeless existence. If there were no other fate for them than eventually to die, without posterity, then they might as well die tomorrow, today, now.
The men were still living in a dream of getting back. No doubt their lusting appetites were driving them to get back to their brazen, heavy-breasted, languorous-eyed hussies who pandered to all comers without shame! Miss Kitty was astonished at her sudden vehemence, the red wave of fury which swept over her.
But of course she was right. That was their urgent drive. "A male human is nothing more than a sex machine!" Wasn't that what her roommate at college had once said? Or was it her maiden aunt who had dominated her widowed mother and herself through all the years she was growing up? What did it matter who said it? She knew it was true. No wonder they were so anxious to get back to Old Earth! Her lip lifted in cynical scorn.
"You don't dare leave a young girl alone with a boy for five minutes," her aunt had once complained bitterly. "All they ever think about is...." her voice had dropped to a whisper and she had given that significant look to Katheryn's mother. But Katheryn had known what she meant, of course.
And it was true of all men.
Women, back on Old Earth, had looked at her with pity and a little contempt, because she had never, she had never.... But you didn't have to have first hand experience to know. She had authoritative knowledge gleaned from reading between the lines of the very best text books on abnormal psychology. She hadn't had to read between the lines of sundry surveys and reports. And if there had been no organized study at all, the movies, the TV, the published better fiction--all of it centered around that one theme--that one, alone, romanticize it or obscure it though they might.
It was all men ever thought about. And many women pandered to it--those sultry, shameless, undulating....
But Sam and Lt. Harper? It had been almost two months now since they had left Earth and those vile blondes. How had they restrained themselves during all this time!
Her fuming anger was suddenly overwhelmed by a warm rush of gratitude, a sympathy which brought a gush of tears into her eyes to stream down her cheeks. How blind she had been. Of course! They were still bound by their gentleman's Word of Honor, given to her on that first night in the lifeship.
What splendid men! All right, so they had their faults; a little impractical, dreamers all, but with such nobility of character, truly they were fit to be the fathers of a proud and noble race. And, in time, with herself to shape and guide them....
She straightened her aching back from bending over the rice reeds, thrust out her scrawny chest, and breathed deeply. She lifted her chin resolutely.
"Katheryn Kittredge," she said firmly. "A woman's place is more than merely cooking and cleaning and mending!"
* * * * *
Supper, that evening, was a dinner, a special dinner. She set before the two men a whole roast young tom turkey, with a touch of frosted persimmons mixed with wild honey to enliven the light meat. There was a dressing of boiled maise and wild rice, seasoned with wild onion and thyme. There were little red tomatoes, tough but tasty. There were baked yams. There was a custard of goat milk and turkey eggs sweetened with honey.
Instead of the usual sassafras tea to which their digestion had finally adjusted, there was grape wine in their cups. It wasn't a very good wine, still green and sharp, but the occasion called for it.
Both of them looked at her with wonder, when they came in at her call and saw the table. But they didn't ask any questions. They just started eating and, for once, they forgot to talk about warp theory.
She, herself, ate little. She was content to look at them. The lieutenant, tall and strong, big-boned, dark-complexioned, square-faced, white even teeth. Sam, smalled-boned, fair-complexioned, hair bleached straw from the outdoor sun. He had been inclined to be a little stout when she first saw him, but now he had that muscular wiriness which comes with hard physical work--and clean living. His daughters would be delicate, lovely, yet strong. The lieutenant's sons....
She watched, in a kind of rapture, the ripple of muscles beneath their shirts, the way the pillar of the neck arose from strong shoulders to support a well-shaped head, the way the muscles of jaws rippled under their lean cheeks as they chewed. The way their intelligent eyes flashed appreciation at each savory mouthful.
"It occurs to me, Sam," Lt. Harper said as he washed down some turkey with a healthy quaff of wine. "We could give a little more attention to scraping up food for Miss Kitty to cook. Now you take this brown rice, for example, we could rig up a polishing mill so she'd have white rice...."
"Nonsense," Miss Kitty said firmly. "All the proper food value lies in the brown covering. I will not have the children's eating habits spoiled from the beginning...."
Appalled, she realized what she had said. Both men stopped chewing and stared at her.
"What children, Miss Kitty?" Lt. Harper asked, and he was looking at her intently.
She dropped her eyes to her plate. She felt the red flush arising around her neck, up into her face. She couldn't face him. Yet, it had to be done. It must be made quite clear to him, both of them, that....
"Our children," she said distinctly, and felt their eyes boring into the top of her head. "And I wish you both would stop calling me Miss Kitty, as if--as if you were kindergarten children and I was the old maid school teacher! All three of
us are adults, men and a woman. In spite of what you may think, I am not a great deal older than either of you. There will be children! If it works out the way I plan, I believe I do have time for at least six sons and daughters before I reach ... before my barren years."
She heard Sam's fork clatter down on the table top as he dropped it. She heard Lt. Harper's feet scrape, as if he had been about to leap to his feet. Without seeing it, she almost felt them look at one another.
Well, she had made it plain enough.
But they didn't say anything.
Suddenly she could stand it no longer. Slowly, in dignity, she arose to her feet and without looking at them she walked, head down, to her door. Then she realized she had perhaps been too crisp, too businesslike about it all. A vision of the kind of women they must have known, the kind which would arouse their passion, the kind which would make it all unmistakable....
She had a flashing memory of a girl back in college, one smitten with a football hero, trying to captivate the hero, draw him to her. On impulse, Miss Kitty imitated that girl now, and a little tableau she remembered.
At her doorway she turned, and looked at them over her shoulder. She lifted her shoulder so that it touched her chin. She drooped her eyes half shut.
"My name is Katheryn," she said, and she tried to make her voice husky instead of tremulous and frightened. "Call me Kathy, call me Kate, call me Kay."
Both men were staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths as she closed her door. She made sure there was no sound of a latch turning to discourage them.
* * * * *
She undressed herself slowly, and, for the first time other than for bathing, completely. She felt grateful for the time they were giving her. No doubt they were talking it over, man to man, in the way of civilized, educated.... She crawled in between the blankets, fresh and smelling of sunshine from being washed in the clear water of the lake. She was a little regretful she had no perfume; that was something they didn't put into lifeboats.
She waited.
She heard the low rumble of male voices in the other room. They were undoubtedly discussing it. She felt grateful relief that their voices had not risen. They were not quarreling over her--not yet. She did hope they would continue to be sensible.
She heard one of the stools scrape on the rough split log floor. She caught her breath in a gasp, found her hands were clutching the covers and pulling them tightly up to her chin. She willed her hands to relax. She willed the tenseness out of her rigid body.
She heard the other stool scrape. Surely they were not both....
She heard their feet walking across the floor, the heavy steps of the lieutenant, the lighter, springier steps of Sam. She gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes tight shut.
And then she heard the outer door close softly.
Which one? Which had remained behind?
She waited.
Then she heard footsteps outside. She tried to identify, by sound, which man was making the noise, but the shuffling of leaves was confusing, as if more than one person were walking outside. And where was the other man? Why had he made no sound in the outer room? Was he quietly drinking up the wine--first? Then, distinctly, she recognized two pairs of feet outside, going farther away, in the direction of the men's bunkhouse.
She could not bear the suspense. She sprang out of bed clutching one of the blankets about her. Slowly, soundlessly, she opened her door a crack. She could see no one in the flickering firelight of the room. They had turned out the lights. Or--he had. She opened the door wide.
It had been they, not he. Both men had gone.
* * * * *
Inadvertently something between a sob and a hiccough rattled her throat. She choked back another. She would not give way to ... rage? ... frustration? ... relief? ... fear?
Fear!
She had seen the movies, she had read the stories, she had overheard boys. "I'll fix you when we get outside! You meet me in the alley and I'll show you!"
These two men. Were they going off into the darkness to settle a conflict which they had not been able to resolve through sensible agreement? There, under the trees in the moonlight, would they, denying all the progress of the sacred centuries, would they revert to the primitive, the savage; and like two rutting male animals rend and tear and battle with one another for the only female?
Oh, no! No, they must not! There was no doubt that the lieutenant with his great, massive strength.... But the human race of New Earth must have the fine sensitivity, the lithe grace of Sam's kind, also!
She tugged the blanket around her shoulders and ran toward the door. She must reach them, step in between them, even at the cost of receiving some of the blows upon herself, make them realize....
She felt herself shivering as she opened the door, shivering as if with an ague. She felt her face burning, as if with a fever. Her teeth were chattering in anguish. She tried to still the noise of her teeth, to listen for those horrible sounds of silent men in a death conflict somewhere out there in the moonlight.
Then she saw a chink of light through a crack in the wall of the bunkhouse, where the clay had dried and fallen away from the logs.
In there? What were they doing in there?
Instead of their fists and crushing arms, were they stalking one another with knives? She remembered scenes from Western movies, the overturned tables, the crash of things thrown. Had some sense of chivalry still remained in the lieutenant, and he, knowing Sam wouldn't stand a chance in hand to hand conflict, devised some contest which would be more fair?
There need be no contest. If only they would be sensible, work out an equitable schedule....
Barefooted, she ran across the ground toward the bunkhouse. She had visions of herself throwing open the door, shocking them to stillness in a tableau of violence. She was close now. She should be able to hear the crashing of their table and chairs.
She could hear nothing at all. Was she too late? Even now, was one of them standing above the other, holding a dripping knife? What horrors might she run into, even precipitate, if she threw open the door? Caution, Katheryn!
Instead, she crept up to the crack in the wall. Her teeth were chattering so hard, she had difficulty in holding her head still enough to peer through the slit of light. With her free hand, her shoulders were shaking so hard she had difficulty in clutching the blanket about her with the other, she grabbed her jaw and held on, to still her shaking. Her eyes focused on the scene inside the room.
* * * * *
She had a three-quarter vision of each man and the table between them. They were dealing a greasy pack of cards! Were they going to gamble for her? Relief and shame intermingled in her reaction. She would have preferred they settle it with more elemental.... It would have made it less.... Yet, this way neither would be killed. Sons and daughters from both....
"How are we going to tell her now?" Sam asked, as he picked up his cards. His voice came distinctly through the wall crack.
"We should have told her about our wives and families right at the start," Harper answered morosely. "I don't know why we didn't. Except that, well, none of us have talked about things back home. She didn't, and so we didn't either."
"But I never dreamed Miss Kitty would start getting ideas," Sam said in a heartsick voice. "I just never dreamed she...."
"We're going to have to tell her," Harper said resolutely. "We'll just have to tell her that, well, there's still hope and as long as there's hope...."
Blindly, in an anguish of shame such as she had never known, Miss Kitty crept away from the bunkhouse, and stumbled back to the cabin. Now she was shivering so violently she could hardly walk. The exposure to the night air, the nervous tension, overwrought emotions....
She could not remember getting back into the cabin, crawling into bed. She knew only that a little later she was in bed, still shaking violently with a chill, burning with fever.
She was awakened in the morning with the sound of the axe chopping on wood. She dragg
ed herself out of bed, forlorn, sick, filled with shame. Her head spun so wildly that she sank to her knees and lay it on the bed. Then her pride and her will forced her to her feet, and she drove herself to dress, to go into the big room, dig out glowing coals from beneath ashes, put them in the little cook stove, pile fine slivers of resin-rich kindling on top of them, blow on them.
Between painful breaths, she heard herself sobbing. Her teeth started chattering again, and there was a ringing in her ears. She heard the blows of the axe falling on the wood, and each blow transferred itself to the base of her skull. The ringing in her ears grew louder and louder.
She heard one of the men shout. It sounded like Sam. Had he hurt himself with the axe, gashed his leg or something? She'd always been afraid of that axe! She'd told them and told them to be careful!
She pulled herself up from her knees there at the stove where she had been blowing on the coals. She must get out there, help him! That terrible buzzing in her head, that ringing in her ears. No matter, she must get out there to help him.
She threw open the door and saw Sam running toward the lifeship. Had he lost his mind? The bandages were here. She had them here! She saw Lt. Harper come to the door of the bunkhouse. He was still pulling on his pants. He started running toward the lifeship, too, cinching his belt as he ran.
Then she realized that at least part of the ringing in her ears came from the lifeship. At first it had no meaning for her, then she remembered them talking about fixing up some kind of alarm, so that if they got a signal through....
She started running toward the lifeship. She stumbled, fell, got up, felt as light as a feather, as heavy as mercury. She crawled up the steps of the lifeship, she clutched at the door. She heard Sam speaking very slowly, carefully.
"Do you read me? Is this Earth?"
She saw his face. She knew the answer.
And that was the last she knew.