Part 17 (1/2)

They couldn't have fire!

Maybe the strangest thing of all, n.o.body was trying to explain what had happened. Now you take mankind, he's always right in there with an explanation for everything. Maybe it's not the right one, maybe, looking back, it's a silly one--but at the time he believes it, and that's a comfort.

But this was like being in a dream, knowing it's a dream, knowing it can't happen this way, and so it doesn't have to be explained. And yet, isn't that the worst part of a bad dream? No explanation for what's happening in it? Nothing you can do about it, either?

Somebody said, it being dark and all, they should get some sleep.

Somebody mentioned being thankful there weren't any children. That was one of the hards.h.i.+ps of being an experimental colonist, you couldn't have children. Wouldn't be right to expose children to hards.h.i.+ps they'd have to suffer helpless. Only here, the way kids were, he wouldn't have been surprised if kids would have taken to it a lot easier than the grown folks.

The people sort of bedded down all together, the way a herd of animals take shelter, each, even in its sleep, taking comfort from the presence and protection of the others. They bedded around on the ground, making themselves comfortable as possible. One thing you could say, experimental colonists might not be long on brains, the way scientists are, but they weren't picked for that. They were picked for endurance, and the brainy will often crack up under a strain that the enduring kind hardly notices. Far as endurance went, physical, this wasn't bad.

Up through the leaves, and in between the trees, the stars were as bright as ever--brighter because there wasn't no fire to dim their glow.

They couldn't see Earth, of course, but everybody knew right where to look for Sol. There it was, a tiny little spot of light in its constellation. It was still there.

Somebody said into the darkness that it was only two more days until the regular monthly communication with Earth was due. That as soon as E.H.Q.

didn't hear from them, there'd be a rescue party out here in nothing flat. So, at worst, it meant living this way only five or six more days.

That made everybody feel better. It was a comforting thing to look up through the leaves, to see Sol in the sky, to know they weren't forgotten back home; that on Earth people would soon be buzzing around like a disturbed hive of hornets, with stingers c.o.c.ked and ready as soon as the message didn't get through.

Yep, somebody said, just like the museum collection of Western movies where the U.S. cavalry always got there in time. At least they weren't being attacked by no Indians, somebody said.

Or were they? Maybe everybody asked that to themselves, but n.o.body said it.

Most everybody got some sleep. No one really suffered, any discomfort just showed them how soft they were getting with easy living.

Considering everything, they were coming along just fine. And in a few days everything would be all right again. They went to sleep thinking that even if there was some equivalent to the old-time Indians attacking them, rescue would soon be here and they would be safe.

Because man always wins.

Most people were wide awake by dawn. Some had slept in little bits, waking often enough to keep a sense of continuity. Others, those who slept better, awoke with a start; looked around themselves wildly, realized they were lying out in the open plumb naked in front of other people; maybe wondered for an instant what kind of party they'd been to the night before; and nearly bolted in panic before they remembered.

Most everyone felt sort of surprised that things weren't back to normal, with yesterday being something soonest forgot soonest mended. It takes time for folks to realize--things.

Not having a hot drink for breakfast was another little hards.h.i.+p, a reminder of how soft they'd got. But n.o.body complained. Seemed like everybody had woke with a determination to make the best of things and help one another do the same. Everybody was pitching in together to make the best of things. Once they bit into the cool fruit on the trees around them, even not having a hot drink to start the day didn't seem to matter.

Some of the women got together and decided it would help things get back to normal if the people covered their nakedness, or least parts of it.

It might be all right just among themselves, they said, because everybody was in the same fix and knew what happened--but how would they feel when the rescue s.h.i.+p landed and they had to walk out in front of strange men with nothing on?

They picked some big green leaves without any trouble. But when they strove to pin them together with thorns, the thorns just slipped out and fell to the ground. Then they tried sewing the leaves together with bindweed. Same thing. The bindweed slithered out and fell to the ground.

One woman figured to stick some leaves together with thick mud from the river and paste them with more mud on her body. It wouldn't stick, peeled right off like she was oiled. One man said he could do it without leaves, just cover himself with mud. He lay down in a muddy pool and got himself covered with wet clay.

He was a sight. All at once he looked vulgar, obscene. And n.o.body had, before. That did it. Somebody said they were humans, not pigs, and if the men on the rescue s.h.i.+p had never seen a naked body before it was time they did. What was so wrong about the human body, anyhow?

They made the muddy man go bathe himself in the river, and gave up trying to cover themselves. All at once the desire to cover themselves was a nasty kind of thinking, something to be ashamed of.

Midmorning somebody got to wondering if the ten colonists who'd broken off from the main colony and moved across the ridge were all right.

Soon as he reminded them, everybody began to laugh. What fools they'd all been. Showed you how a bit of trouble could keep a man from thinking straight. Here they'd been eating and sleeping like animals when, all the while, just across the ridge there'd be houses and beds, fires and clothes. Sure, those folks might differ in some opinions, but humans always stood ready to help one another in distress, differences forgotten.