16
"After everything disappeared, the buildings, the escape ship,everything," Cal reviewed, "and you, with your wife, found yourselfcrouching under the trees in what had been your front yard, without anyclothes on--what then?"
"That was the beginning of it," Jed Dawkins answered. He looked towardhis two companions as if for confirmation. He looked at the threecrewmen, at Cal, all sprawled or crouched there beneath the tree at theedge of the clearing. "We thought it was the end of everything," he saidin retrospect, "but we found out quick that things had just begun."
Cal nodded. Dawkins had told his tale simply, without fictitiousemotionalism, without straining to get the horror of it across--andthereby succeeded. He glanced at his three crewmen, to see how they werefaring. Louie seemed to have gained some control over his nerves, andyet the way he sat there staring at nothing showed he was enduring somespecial horror of his own. Frank Norton shifted his position, pulled adry stick from beneath the leaves, looked at it resentfully, and tossedit aside. He settled back down and indicated by his expression that nowhe could be more comfortable.
One grateful fact, the day was warm, the breeze under the tree wasgentle, the ground on which they sat was not too wet for comfort.Except for custom, for modesty, clothes weren't really needed; andperhaps the shock of being without them would pass. Nudists, on Earth,claimed that one very quickly lost all self-consciousness if no one wereclothed; that such was part of the value; that sex, for instance, becameless of an issue instead of more because, without concealment, one couldsee instead of imagining, and the sight more often discouraged thanenticed. Cal wondered what the militant moralists would make of the ideathat clothes encouraged immorality.
"It was a hard thing to believe," Jed was saying. "It wasn't like anatural thing--like a cyclone, or earthquake, or fire, or flood. Nothin'like that. Them things a man can understand. Even if he's dyin', atleast he knows, he understands, what's killin' him. I never thought I'dhear 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 ofperplexity.
"Only nobody died. Nobody even got hurt. We was like little kidsscreamin' at the top of their lungs when they ain't hurt at all--onlyscared." 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, wasreal swell.
"Fact is," he continued, "come to think of it, I don't recollect everseein' a woman in real hysterics. Plenty of fake, of course. Say she'stryin' to hook some man into protectin' her; or lay public blame on himfor not doin' it. Other times, in real danger, womenfolks, our kind ofwomenfolks, anyhow, they pitch right in and help. It takes a man to makea jackass outta himself at the wrong time."
Cal nodded and smiled. There was an attempt at a hollow laugh fromLouie, as if the shoe had fit. Jed didn't seem to realize it, and madeno apology about present company being excepted.
"It wasn't like the aftermath of a storm, either," Jed said, "where youbegin pickin' up the pieces to start over. We--we couldn't pick up anypieces."
They couldn't pick up any pieces. In a way, that was worse than thedisappearance of things. In a catastrophe, after taking care of thosethat are hurt, first thing a man does is gather the materials and toolsto 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 ismaking hot coffee, maybe hot soup.
That was when they began to realize this was more than the desolationfollowing a cyclone or other freak of nature.
Cal wanted to know what happened? Well, there he was, still sort ofhiding behind his tree. It was Martha who snapped out of it first, whoinsisted that clothes or no clothes it was their plain duty to get downto the village where they could help somebody. He'd need other men tohelp him get things back in shape; she could help the other women takecare 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'tlikely to start up a passel of gossip.
He gave in to her scolding, because she was right, and came out frombehind his tree. It seemed more than passing strange to be walking downthat slope naked, in plain sight of everybody. Thing that helped wasthat nobody seemed of a mind to stop and stare at them.
Everybody had his mind on his own problems, and then a funny thinghappened. Maybe, Jed reasoned, it was seeing that everybody else wasnaked 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 ofpeople, he forgot all about it. There was plenty of other things tothink about. Martha pitched right in, the way he ought to have done. Shewas the one who thought of giving the men something to do, get them overtheir hysterics.
"Why don't some of you men get a fire going!" she called out, as soon asthey got to the edge of the crowd. "Something hot to drink is what weneed most. Hot water, in case anybody is hurt."
Of course she wasn't thinking straight, not entirely. They didn't have apot to heat water in. Or maybe she was, because right away he heard herasking other women if any of them knew where there might be some driedgourds. He remembered then an old pioneer trick--cutting open a gourd,scooping out the seed, filling it with water, dropping hot stones intoit 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 herman already, and didn't need to put on such a show. Second place, shewas a colonist woman, an experimental colonist woman, trained all herlife to take care of the unexpected; and for the experimentals somethingunexpected was always happening.
Under her influence, and maybe a little under his, Jed acknowledged, nowthat he'd been set straight by Martha's example, everybody began tosettle down a little, like they would after the first shock of a fire orflood. It was all over. Now it was time to start picking up the pieces,rebuilding.
Only it wasn't all over.
That's when they found out they couldn't build a fire.
Easiest way, without matches, is to string a bow and twirl a stick in ahole punched into another stick. Next easiest way is to find a piece offlint, strike two pieces together to make sparks and hope one will set awad of punk on fire. If no other way, rubbing two dry sticks togetherwill do it if you can rub them fast enough, get them hot enough to makethe powdered fibers burst into flame. Or if they'd had some of thosequartz crystals from the top of the mountain to focus sun rays....
But they couldn't make a bow, or strike two stones together, or rub twosticks together. It couldn't be done. Well, Cal had seen for himselfwhat happened when it was tried. All the men were trying it, and for alittle bit everybody thought it was only happening to him, that he musthave lost the knack, or something. For a little bit there the men weremore worried about how their wife would bring it up for weeks ormonths, how he had let the rest of the men show him up when it came tobuilding a fire.
One of the men tore it then.
He yelled out that somebody he couldn't see was watching him over hisshoulder, that it wasn't meant they should have fire.
Cal looked quickly at Louie at that point of the story. Louie wasstaring, with mouth open, at Jed; and in his eyes was confirmation ofthat same feeling. But Jed didn't notice the effect, and went on withthe telling.
Everybody stopped and listened to the man, because they were having thesame feeling. Jed knew it. Him, too. The crowd might have panicked rightthere if the man had let it rest, but he started explaining it, the waya man does, and makes himself ridiculous.
He kept on yelling how the men shouldn't listen to the women. That itwas in the first Garden of Eden that man had made the mistake oflistening to woman; that it was Eve who had egged Adam into eating thatapple because a woman was never satisfied to leave well enough alone.And now, he said, in this new Eden, ma
n was being given another chance.If he was smart, if he's learned anything at all, this time he wouldn'tlisten to no woman.
Somebody bust out laughing when he said that, and it kind of eased thetension a little.
A woman said, real disgusted, that if the men was too helpless to starta little fire, least they could do was scrape up some dry leaves becausein a few hours it would get dark. Magic or no magic, watchers or nowatchers, night would fall, and she for one liked a soft bed. Thatcaused them to look up at the sky, and sure enough the sun, Ceti, wasalready half way down the sky from where it had been at noon. At leastthe world was turning and time was moving. That, at least. About threehours had passed in what seemed like minutes.
Somebody else, one of the men this time, said why didn't they go alittle farther than scraping up some leaves. Why didn't they get busyand knock together some shelters in case it rained during the night--theway it often did.
Now any one of them, man or woman, ought to have been able to put up asmall shelter in less time than it takes to tell about it, even withoutno tools. Break off a limb, or take a sharp stone, dig holes in theground with it. Take straight saplings, trim them, stick them upright inthe ground, tamp in the dirt good and hard, lash them together withvines, lash other poles together to make the frame of the roof, liftthat onto the poles and lash them all together with braces. Thatch itwith grass, and there you were.
But there they weren't. They couldn't do it.
Things just wouldn't behave. They dug a hole, and it filled right upagain. They couldn't cut down a sapling, because the sharp stone, theonly tool they had, would fly out of their hands. They even triedlashing some saplings together where they grew, and the saplings werelike things alive. They wouldn't be bound. The vines slithered out oftheir hands and dropped to the ground, and the saplings sprang up againstraight.
Not only that. They could scrape together some leaves into a pile, allright, but when anybody tried to lie down in them the leaves wouldscatter as if blown by a wind. Only there wasn't any wind.
Some of the women got pretty disgusted with their menfolks. They triedit themselves, and the same things happened. After that, they was alittle more forgiving.
A couple more hours had passed while they were trying that. The sun gotlow. People began to realize they were getting hungry, and they began torealize there wasn't any way to cook supper.
Now there wasn't any real hardship, not physical. Nobody'd been hurt.Shook up a little, scared for sure. But not hurt.
The river was still flowing good, clean water. All they had to do was godown to the river bank and cup the water in their hands, lift it totheir lips; or even better, lie down on the bank and lower their facesinto the water. They could do that. It helped a little to know theycould.
The wild bushes and trees all around had plenty of fruit and nuts toeat. One thing you could say for Eden, the fruit didn't seem to dependon seasons. There was always something ripe, and plenty of it.
The people wandered off from the village site then, to forage theirsupper, for all the world like animals grazing in a pasture. They sortof hung together, in herds, glad to be together--then.
By dark they all came back and sat around in a circle, the way people inthe wilds sit around a campfire. It seemed funny without a campfire. Thedarker it got, the funnier it felt. The more you thought about it, thestranger it got. The excitement had begun to wear off, and people werestarting to think a little. It got stranger and stranger. In the duskyou could see the same thought in all the gleaming eyes.
They couldn't have fire!
Maybe the strangest thing of all, nobody was trying to explain what hadhappened. Now you take mankind, he's always right in there with anexplanation for everything. Maybe it's not the right one, maybe, lookingback, it's a silly one--but at the time he believes it, and that's acomfort.
But this was like being in a dream, knowing it's a dream, knowing itcan'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'shappening 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 wasone of the hardships of being an experimental colonist, you couldn'thave children. Wouldn't be right to expose children to hardships they'dhave to suffer helpless. Only here, the way kids were, he wouldn't havebeen surprised if kids would have taken to it a lot easier than thegrown folks.
The people sort of bedded down all together, the way a herd of animalstake shelter, each, even in its sleep, taking comfort from the presenceand protection of the others. They bedded around on the ground, makingthemselves comfortable as possible. One thing you could say,experimental colonists might not be long on brains, the way scientistsare, 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 kindhardly notices. Far as endurance went, physical, this wasn't bad.
Up through the leaves, and in between the trees, the stars were asbright 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 tolook for Sol. There it was, a tiny little spot of light in itsconstellation. It was still there.
Somebody said into the darkness that it was only two more days until theregular 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 nothingflat. 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 upthrough the leaves, to see Sol in the sky, to know they weren'tforgotten back home; that on Earth people would soon be buzzing aroundlike a disturbed hive of hornets, with stingers cocked and ready as soonas the message didn't get through.
Yep, somebody said, just like the museum collection of Western movieswhere the U.S. cavalry always got there in time. At least they weren'tbeing attacked by no Indians, somebody said.
Or were they? Maybe everybody asked that to themselves, but nobody saidit.
Most everybody got some sleep. No one really suffered, any discomfortjust showed them how soft they were getting with easy living.Considering everything, they were coming along just fine. And in a fewdays everything would be all right again. They went to sleep thinkingthat even if there was some equivalent to the old-time Indians attackingthem, 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 whoslept better, awoke with a start; looked around themselves wildly,realized they were lying out in the open plumb naked in front of otherpeople; maybe wondered for an instant what kind of party they'd been tothe 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 takestime for folks to realize--things.
Not having a hot drink for breakfast was another little hardship, areminder of how soft they'd got. But nobody complained. Seemed likeeverybody had woke with a determination to make the best of things andhelp one another do the same. Everybody was pitching in together to makethe best of things. Once they bit into the cool fruit on the treesaround them, even not having a hot drink to start the day didn't seem tomatter.
Some of the women got together and decided it would help things get backto normal if the people covered their nakedness, or least parts of it.It might be all right just among themselves, they said, becauseeverybody was in the same fix and knew what happened--but how would theyfeel when the rescue ship landed and they had to walk out in front ofstrange men with nothing on?
They picked some big green leaves without any trouble. But when theystrove to pin them together with thorns, the thorns just slipped out andfell to the ground. Then they tried sewing the leaves together w
ithbindweed. Same thing. The bindweed slithered out and fell to the ground.
One woman figured to stick some leaves together with thick mud from theriver 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 withoutleaves, just cover himself with mud. He lay down in a muddy pool and gothimself covered with wet clay.
He was a sight. All at once he looked vulgar, obscene. And nobody had,before. That did it. Somebody said they were humans, not pigs, and ifthe men on the rescue ship had never seen a naked body before it wastime they did. What was so wrong about the human body, anyhow?
They made the muddy man go bathe himself in the river, and gave uptrying to cover themselves. All at once the desire to cover themselveswas a nasty kind of thinking, something to be ashamed of.
Midmorning somebody got to wondering if the ten colonists who'd brokenoff from the main colony and moved across the ridge were all right.
Soon as he reminded them, everybody began to laugh. What fools they'dall been. Showed you how a bit of trouble could keep a man from thinkingstraight. Here they'd been eating and sleeping like animals when, allthe while, just across the ridge there'd be houses and beds, fires andclothes. Sure, those folks might differ in some opinions, but humansalways stood ready to help one another in distress, differencesforgotten.
In a body, they started for the ridge. Everybody knew just where thedissidents had built their homes. But when they got to the top of theridge there weren't no houses there. Nothing but virgin woods, same asthis side. That shook them up. They'd been so sure.
Maybe it was the jolt of that, maybe it was a measure that we stillweren't thinking straight, something--they didn't go on down and joinforces. Nobody thought of it, somehow. They went back down andcongregated around where the village had been. Maybe it was thebeginning of something that would come later, something Cal would seefor himself. That they were already not thinking the way humans do.Thinking and behaving more the way dumb animals do.
Nothing else worth mentioning happened that day, nor the next. In someways it was still like a dream. The way people were just acceptingthings, without question, maybe without curiosity. Jed remembered onetime an E had said there was a wider gap between the thinking man andthe average man than there was between that average man and the ape.He'd resented it at the time, of course, but now he thought of it againand began to realize what the E had meant.
Two or three people commented on how easy it was to go back to nature,wondered why they hadn't all done it before. How stupid it was for manto knock himself out chasing all over the universe, undergoing suchhardships, when all a man could ever want was right here.
Jed tried to put down this kind of talk when it came up. He remindedthem it was Lotus Land thinking, and would be the ruination of a primebunch of colonists. He reminded them they'd been through hardships worsethan this, and had ought to keep their wits about them.
Funny thing, though. He couldn't get very excited about it. Just did itbecause it was his duty. Maybe not even that strong, maybe because onceupon a time, long ago, hardly remembered, it had been his duty.
It was the next day that things got real rough.
Somebody, in a clearer-thinking moment, said they couldn't be sure whenthe rescue ship would get here; that when the rescuers came and didn'tsee any village they wouldn't know what to think--maybe they'd just goaway. Shows we weren't thinking so straight after all, to believe thatyou'd go away just because you didn't find our village.
Anyhow, hadn't we ought to work out some kind of a message? Maybe scrapesome kind of a message on the ground? They decided the smooth sand abovethe tide line down on the sea shore was the best place for it.
Nobody had anything else to do, so the whole colony, all forty of them,walked the couple of miles down to the seashore. They picked out a nicestretch of white sand, and with a broken piece of driftwood they startedto scratch a message, just a big SOS. The driftwood wriggled out oftheir hands like a snake. Nobody could hold it. Several men triedtogether, made no difference.
Somebody started scooping out a furrow with his hands. The furrowclosed up and smoothed out right behind him. Somebody tried piling upsand, first in letters, then in code signals. Made no difference. Sandsmoothed right out again.
Then somebody got a bright idea. All right, he said. Didn't need to usea stick, or scoop out a furrow, or pile up the sand. They had their barefeet, didn't they? They could tromp out the letters that way.Footprints, close together, would be as good as a furrow.
That's when it happened.
Jed tried it himself. And his footprints disappeared. They just weren'tthere. Everybody looked behind himself, where he'd been walking. Nobodywas leaving any footprints.
That's when they bolted in panic.