Part 18 (2/2)
”When the village disappeared, no one was hurt. A lot of people were caught in awkward positions and fell, some of them several feet. There should have been at least a few broken bones, pulled ligaments. There weren't. Our s.h.i.+p landed safely. We were a long time in the atmosphere of Eden, and for a few minutes there on the ground we were still using tools of a high order. It was only when danger of real harm to us was past that the s.h.i.+p disappeared.”
”I reckon it's comfortin' to know we ain't meant to be hurt,” Jed said, and looked at his two companions. ”I guess it is,” he repeated doubtfully. ”Maybe it ain't something as nice and familiar as a cyclone, or a den of rattlesnakes, something you could understand, but you got to admit we ain't been hurt yet.” It was as if he were arguing the point with his companions.
”Something I've been noting, Jed,” Ahmed spoke up. ”A discrepancy of a sort that has me puzzled. Sun reckoning, we've been able to keep our minds on this subject for over two hours now. As if, whatever this is manipulating natural laws can also manipulate the way our minds work.”
”Yeah,” Jed admitted slowly, his face thoughtful. He turned to Cal.
”Like I said at the start. Our minds have sort of wandered of late.
Start to do something, and first thing y'know, we're doin' something else. Can't keep our minds on one thing very long--like animals.”
”That might be no more than the aftermath of deep shock,” Cal said.
”It's for a purpose!”
Startled at the outburst, they all turned and looked at Louie.
”It's for a purpose,” Louie repeated in a kind of rapture. ”They want us to understand we are being watched over, cared for. That colonist you all laughed at was right. This is the first Garden of Eden, where man lived in complete innocence. Now man has been returned to it, to live again in complete innocence. You do not think straight because there is no reason. You will be cared for. Woe unto him who seeks to despoil it again by seeking vain knowledge!”
His eyes were wild, his face contorted with a mixture of exaltation and condemnation.
”Shut up, Louie,” Tom said in a low, firm voice.
”We understand,” Jed said tolerantly. ”Some of the colonists are talkin'
the same way. He's got plenty of company.”
18
All the rest of that day, and throughout the following, Cal and Tom worked with Jed in trying to round up the colonists, get them living together again.
By agreement, Ahmed and Dirk stayed with the small band of colonists that had overcome their fears enough to mingle together again. Louie frankly deserted his s.h.i.+pmates, and spent all his time with the colonists. Frank, as if reverting to his childhood farming days, occupied himself with trying to round up the stock. He tried to keep the cows separated from their calves so the colonists would have milk to drink, but without ropes or corrals it was hopeless. He finally gave up his attempt to husband the stock, and he too seemed content then to mingle with the colonists.
The marked change in Louie could not be ignored, for he was not idling away his time in lazy feeding and sleeping. He had dropped his lifelong pose of superficial complaint that the fates always gave him the dirty end of the stick, and now he spent his time preaching to the little band of colonists. Or wandering through the forests and undergrowth calling, praying, comforting.
Cal felt no condemnation for him. He was not the first man, seemingly dedicated to science, who, confronted with mysteries beyond his power to comprehend, reverted to childlike superst.i.tious awe for an explanation.
In the face of mystery or catastrophe, it takes a faith beyond the capacity of most to continue believing that the universe has a rational order to its laws that can be comprehended if man persists. It is temptingly easy for man to revert back to the irresponsibility of childhood, a.s.suming that the control of phenomena is in the hands of those stronger, wiser than he. It takes a strength, in the face of this temptation, to go on believing that man _can_ know, that it is not morally wrong for him to know.
No blame then for Louie.
Tom was torn in his loyalties. He frequently remembered that away from E.H.Q. the crew become the E's attendants, and that their first duty is always to the E. But separation from the other two men of his crew was like the loss of a part of himself. To these also he had a duty. He tried to solve his problem by alternating his time, spending part of it with Cal, the remainder with his crew.
Cal and Jed made a trip the following morning across the ridge, and found the dissident group huddled together in abject terror. They had seen the s.h.i.+p coming down through the atmosphere and, all together, they had climbed the ridge, where one of their scouts had recently gone, to watch the s.h.i.+p's landing--and its disappearance.
Once they were found, it took little persuasion to convince them they should return to the other colonists, that differences of opinion meant nothing now as against the need of human beings to cling together in the face of catastrophe.
But they too were having trouble thinking in a straight line, and even though they first appeared eager to join the other colonists, it took some doing to keep them all together and moving forward to cross the ridge, to come down the other side, to a.s.semble again at the site of the village with the others.
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