Part 16 (1/2)

”And keep taking pictures!”

16

”After everything disappeared, the buildings, the escape s.h.i.+p, everything,” Cal reviewed, ”and you, with your wife, found yourself crouching under the trees in what had been your front yard, without any clothes on--what then?”

”That was the beginning of it,” Jed Dawkins answered. He looked toward his two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the three crewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at the edge of the clearing. ”We thought it was the end of everything,” he said in retrospect, ”but we found out quick that things had just begun.”

Cal nodded. Dawkins had told his tale simply, without fict.i.tious emotionalism, without straining to get the horror of it across--and thereby succeeded. He glanced at his three crewmen, to see how they were faring. Louie seemed to have gained some control over his nerves, and yet the way he sat there staring at nothing showed he was enduring some special horror of his own. Frank Norton s.h.i.+fted his position, pulled a dry stick from beneath the leaves, looked at it resentfully, and tossed it aside. He settled back down and indicated by his expression that now he could be more comfortable.

One grateful fact, the day was warm, the breeze under the tree was gentle, the ground on which they sat was not too wet for comfort.

Except for custom, for modesty, clothes weren't really needed; and perhaps the shock of being without them would pa.s.s. Nudists, on Earth, claimed that one very quickly lost all self-consciousness if no one were clothed; that such was part of the value; that s.e.x, for instance, became less of an issue instead of more because, without concealment, one could see instead of imagining, and the sight more often discouraged than enticed. Cal wondered what the militant moralists would make of the idea that clothes encouraged immorality.

”It was a hard thing to believe,” Jed was saying. ”It wasn't like a natural thing--like a cyclone, or earthquake, or fire, or flood. Nothin'

like that. Them things a man can understand. Even if he's dyin', at least he knows, he understands, what's killin' him. I never thought I'd hear myself say it would be a comfort to know what you was dyin' of, but, believe me ...”

He broke off and stared in front of himself. His voice took on a note of perplexity.

”Only n.o.body died. n.o.body even got hurt. We was like little kids screamin' at the top of their lungs when they ain't hurt at all--only scared.” He looked abashed. ”I got to tell you, real truthful,” he said, ”most of the yellin' came from the men. The women, by and large, was real swell.

”Fact is,” he continued, ”come to think of it, I don't recollect ever seein' a woman in real hysterics. Plenty of fake, of course. Say she's tryin' to hook some man into protectin' her; or lay public blame on him for not doin' it. Other times, in real danger, womenfolks, our kind of womenfolks, anyhow, they pitch right in and help. It takes a man to make a jacka.s.s outta himself at the wrong time.”

Cal nodded and smiled. There was an attempt at a hollow laugh from Louie, as if the shoe had fit. Jed didn't seem to realize it, and made no apology about present company being excepted.

”It wasn't like the aftermath of a storm, either,” Jed said, ”where you begin pickin' up the pieces to start over. We--we couldn't pick up any pieces.”

They couldn't pick up any pieces. In a way, that was worse than the disappearance of things. In a catastrophe, after taking care of those that are hurt, first thing a man does is gather the materials and tools to fix things up again. The women, after soothing them that's hurt, taking care of them as much as possible, first thing they think of is making hot coffee, maybe hot soup.

That was when they began to realize this was more than the desolation following a cyclone or other freak of nature.

Cal wanted to know what happened? Well, there he was, still sort of hiding behind his tree. It was Martha who snapped out of it first, who insisted that clothes or no clothes it was their plain duty to get down to the village where they could help somebody. He'd need other men to help him get things back in shape; she could help the other women take care of the needy.

And still he hung back, ashamed of his nakedness. She scolded him then, pointed out that if everybody was naked, their being naked too wasn't likely to start up a pa.s.sel of gossip.

He gave in to her scolding, because she was right, and came out from behind his tree. It seemed more than pa.s.sing strange to be walking down that slope naked, in plain sight of everybody. Thing that helped was that n.o.body seemed of a mind to stop and stare at them.

Everybody had his mind on his own problems, and then a funny thing happened. Maybe, Jed reasoned, it was seeing that everybody else was naked too. Anyway, the self-consciousness disappeared all of a sudden, and they didn't think any more about it--not right then, anyhow.

By the time they'd got to the foot of their hill and into the crowd of people, he forgot all about it. There was plenty of other things to think about. Martha pitched right in, the way he ought to have done. She was the one who thought of giving the men something to do, get them over their hysterics.

”Why don't some of you men get a fire going!” she called out, as soon as they got to the edge of the crowd. ”Something hot to drink is what we need most. Hot water, in case anybody is hurt.”

Of course she wasn't thinking straight, not entirely. They didn't have a pot to heat water in. Or maybe she was, because right away he heard her asking other women if any of them knew where there might be some dried gourds. He remembered then an old pioneer trick--cutting open a gourd, scooping out the seed, filling it with water, dropping hot stones into it until it boiled, Indian style.

It might seem funny to city women, always protected against everything, that Martha wasn't more excited, and helpless. First place, she had her man already, and didn't need to put on such a show. Second place, she was a colonist woman, an experimental colonist woman, trained all her life to take care of the unexpected; and for the experimentals something unexpected was always happening.

Under her influence, and maybe a little under his, Jed acknowledged, now that he'd been set straight by Martha's example, everybody began to settle down a little, like they would after the first shock of a fire or flood. It was all over. Now it was time to start picking up the pieces, rebuilding.

Only it wasn't all over.