To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga (67 page)

“Shut up!” she snarled.

“Forgive me for thinking. . . .”

“You needn’t think out loud. And don’t forget that this is as hard on me as it is on you. Harder, perhaps.”

He said, “There are methods, you know, besides immunization shots. Old methods. Isn’t there something called the Safe Period?”

“Period, shmeriod.” she sneered.

“It must have worked, or it would never have been used.”

“
If
it had worked, quite a few of us wouldn’t be here. Good night.”

“Good night.”

She went into her shelter. Grimes got up from the grass and went towards his. He delivered a vicious kick at his bicycle, which was lying on the ground just outside the low doorway. He cursed and flopped down on his buttocks, massaging his bruised toes.
That bloody, useless machine!
It was a constant reminder that somewhere there was a world enjoying all the benefits of an advanced technology, including infallible methods of contraception. He crawled into the humpy, arranging his body as comfortably as possible on the bed of dried grass, pulling some of it over him as a blanket of sorts. He tried to get to sleep (what else was there to do?) counting down from one hundred and, when that didn’t work, from two hundred, then from three hundred. He knew what he could do to relieve his tensions and to induce tiredness—but masturbation, with an attractive, naked woman only a few feet distant from him, would be an admission of defeat. If the safety valve blew during his sleep, that would be different.

He dropped off at last.

It seemed that he had been asleep for minutes only when he was awakened. That pattering noise. . . . What was it? A large, cold drop fell from the low roof, fell on to his nose and splashed over his face. He jerked into a state of full consciousness.

Rain.

Well, he supposed that it had to rain some time. Tomorrow he would have to do something to make the roofs of the shelters watertight. Turf? Yes, turf. It was a pity that he did not possess any suitable digging and cutting tools.

The very dim light—starlight seeping through clouds—at the entrance to the humpy was blotted out. Dry grass rustled under bare feet.

“It’s
cold,
”
complained Una. “And my roof is leaking.”

“So is mine.”

He got up, brushed past her. Her naked skin was cold and clammy. He went out into the steady rain, wincing as it hit his body. He picked up his bicycle, found the stud switch for the headlamp, pressed it. He adjusted the light to high intensity and the beam turned the falling rain to shafts of silver. He put the machine down again, on its side, so that the lamp shone into the hut.

She cowered there, her right arm over her breasts, her left hand covering her pudenda. Her wet skin glistened brightly. He was acutely conscious of the almost painful stiffening of his penis, took a decisive step toward her.

“What the hell are you playing at?” she demanded crossly. “Turn that bloody spotlight off me! I’m not an ecdysiast!”

He said, “I want some light to work.”

Shivering in the downpour he squatted, scrabbled with his hands, managed to pull up some grassy clods. He got up and went to the humpy, shoved them over and into the cracks in the roof through which the bright light was shining. He hammered them home with the flat of his hand. He got some more clods and repeated the process. And some more.

He put out the light, crawled back into the shelter. He said, hoping that she would not take him at his word, “You stay here for the night. I’ll fix up your pad, and sleep there.”

She said, “You stay here, John. It’s
cold
. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“All right,” he agreed, without reluctance.

So he stayed with her, in his own shelter. But after a few seconds she decided, firmly, that the only safe way to sleep was spoon fashion, with his back to her belly.

It could have been worse.

It could have been very much better.

But at least his back was warm.

Chapter 22

The rain stopped
in the small hours of the morning, and with sunrise the sky was clear again. The world was newly washed and sparkling. The herds of six-legged herbivores came out from their shelter under the bushes to resume their grazing. The birds flew, and sang and whistled and squawked. Insects chirruped. Everything in the garden was lovely.

Even Grimes was feeling surprisingly cheerful, glad to be alive. He took it as a good omen that he had slept again with Una, even though nothing had happened. There must be methods whereby they could continue to enjoy themselves without running the risk of conception. Now, perhaps, after he had exhibited his power of self restraint, the girl would be willing to discuss the matter without any emotionalism, would be prepared to consider ways and means. Grimes dreaded parenthood almost as much as she did—but he was not cut out to be a monk, any more than she was to be a nun.

Meanwhile, the hot sunlight was good on his skin and physical activity in the open air was more refreshing than tiring. He sang as he worked on the roofs of the humpies.

“Oh, I was a bachelor and lived by myself,

And worked at the thatcher’s trade . . .”

“
Must
you make that vile noise?” demanded Una, who was not so cheerful.

“Music while you work, my dear,” he replied. “Nothing like it.” He carried on trying to make a watertight roof, then burst into song again.

“She cried, she sighed, she damn’ near died . . .

Ah me, what could I do?

So I took her into bed, and covered up her head

To save her from the foggy, foggy dew . . .”

“Foggy dew be buggered! That was no dew; it was a bloody downpour. I hope you’re making a good job of those roofs. Last night’s effort was just asking for trouble.”

“
You
came to me,” he pointed out. “And, in any case, nothing happened.”

“It could have done, Buster, very easily. Far too easily. If you’d turned around in your sleep . . .”

“Look, Una, I’ve been thinking. We still could make love, you know, quite safely. We shall just have to be
very
careful.”

She snapped, “I don’t want to talk about it.” She picked up her bicycle. It seemed to have come to no harm from having been out in the rain all night. “I’m off to make a tour of the estate.” She mounted gracefully, rode off.

Grimes, his initial cheerfulness having evaporated, worked sullenly until midday, then went to the lake to get clean and to cool off. While he was munching a lunch of fruit and nuts she returned. She dismounted from her machine, let it fall with a subdued clatter, dropped to the grass beside him, their bodies almost touching.

She waved away the offer of one of what they had come to call apples. She said, “While I was away I was noticing things. . . .”

“Such as?”

“I rather think quite a few of those imitation sheep are in the family way. And the birds have started building nests in the trees and bushes.”

“Oh?”

“
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth,
” she quoted. “It looks as though the process is under way. Too, I think that the borders of this oasis are beginning to expand. There are tendrils of a sort of creeping grass extending out into the desert. And—I can’t be sure, without binoculars—there seems to be a sizeable patch of green near the horizon, out to the west. I suppose that Panzen—or even that marvelous Zephalon—will be checking up on progress at any moment now.” She laughed shortly. “Everything’s being fruitful but us.”

“And,” said Grimes, “without a resident obstetrician on the premises we shan’t be.”

“You can say that again, Buster.” She pulled a stem of grass, nibbled it between her strong, white teeth.

“If we are, somehow, being watched,” said Grimes, “it might be as well to—er—go through the motions now and again.”

She said, her voice pleading, “Don’t tempt me, John. Please don’t tempt me. I’ve been thinking on the same lines as you have—but the risk is far too great. It’s a risk I wouldn’t want to take even if there were a fully equipped and staffed maternity hospital here. Do
you
want me to take that risk, to bear a child in these primitive conditions with only you to bumble around uselessly, trying to help and only making things worse?”

Grimes shuddered away from a vision of a future that might be. In his mind’s eye he saw Una sprawled on her rough bed of dried grasses, writhing in agony, her belly grossly distended. He envisaged, with frightening clarity, the whole bloody business of parturition, without anesthesia, without analgesics, without instruments, without even a supply of boiling water. . . . He had read, somewhere, that certain primitive peoples use their teeth to cut the umbilical cord. A spasm of nausea tightened his throat.

And what if Una should die, leaving him literally holding the baby?

To hell with that,
he told himself roughly. Stop
thinking about yourself. Think about her for a change. What if she dies? There’d be a very good chance, too good a chance, of that.

She said, “We have to think of some way of getting back to our own Universe, John. If that Zephalon is as bloody marvelous as Panzen tries to make out he should be able to arrange it. I doubt if Panzen’d be much help. He’s strictly from Nongsville. Tell Zephalon that we have no intention of multiplying, that he’ll have to find somebody else for the Adam and Eve act.”

“How do we get in touch with him?” murmured Grimes, more to himself than to her. He added, half facetiously, “Smoke signals?”

She laughed. “You still haven’t gotten around to making a fire.” She got gracefully to her feet. “Come on, get off your fat arse! There’s work to do.”

For the remainder of the day she helped Grimes with his primitive thatching.

Chapter 23

I
t rained again
that night, but Grimes and Una stayed each in his own humpy.

It rained the following night, but the newly thatched roofs were practically watertight.

The third night there was hail instead of rain, driven by a bitter wind, but Grimes had added sod walls to the shelters and reduced the size of the doorways, so that body heat kept the interiors quite warm.

On the fourth night it did not rain, and the only precipitation was of a most unusual kind. Grimes was awakened from a crudely erotic dream by what sounded like the whirring of wings, a noise that was definitely mechanical. When he opened his eyes he thought at first that it was already morning; light was streaming through his low, narrow doorway. He realized then that it was not sunlight but some sort of harsh, artificial illumination. He got up from his bed, crawled cautiously to the entrance, poked his head outside. Somebody—or something—had switched on the headlamps of the two bicycles, had moved the machines so that the beams fell directly on to a small, gleaming object on the grass.

It was a prosaic enough article—but here, in these circumstances, it was a not so minor miracle. It was an artifact. It was a bottle.

Grimes emerged from his humpy, walking slowly and carefully. He looked down at the almost cylindrical flask.
Glass!
he wondered. If it were glass it could be broken, and the shards would make cutting tools. He would be able to fashion firesticks, and once he had fire to play with, to work with, he would be able to make life in the garden so much more comfortable for Una and himself. Cooking would be possible. He thought of baked fish, of roast mutton. . . .

Glass, or plastic?

No matter. Even a plastic bottle would have its uses. This one looked to be transparent. Perhaps it could be used to focus the sun’s rays. There are more ways of making a fire than rubbing two sticks together.

Una came out to join him, her body luminous in the lamplight. She asked, “What is it?”

“We’ve had a visit from Santa Claus,” he told her. “But I didn’t notice you hanging your stockings up last night . . .”

“Don’t be funny. What
is
it?”

“A bottle.”

“I can see that. But what’s in it?”

“There’s no label,” said Grimes stupidly.

“Then there’s only one way to find out,” she said.

Grimes stooped and picked it up. Its weight told him that it must be full. He held it in the beam of one of the lights. It was, as he had thought, transparent and its contents were colorless. He turned it over and over in his hands. It had the feel of glass rather than of plastic. It had a screw stopper. This turned easily enough once he realized that the thread was left-handed. He removed the cap. He sniffed cautiously at the open neck. Whiskey . . . ? Brandy . . . ? Rum . . . ? Gin . . . ? No, he decided, it was nothing with which he was familiar, but the aroma was definitely alcoholic.

Where—and what—was the catch?

She practically snatched the bottle from him. “Let me have a smell! Oh, goody, goody! After all these weeks with nothing but water!”

“Don’t!” he cried, putting out a restraining hand.

She danced back and away from him. “Just try to stop me, Buster!” She lifted the bottle to her mouth, tilted it. Its contents gurgled cheerfully as they went down. She sighed happily, passed the container to him, saying, “Here. It’s your turn, lover boy. But leave some for me.”

He asked coldly, “Was that wise, Una?”

“Don’t be so stuffy. Who’d want to poison us? Go on, it’s
good.
It won’t kill you.”

Suddenly she was pressing against him, wrestling with him, trying to force the neck of the bottle to his lips. Her skin was smooth and hot, her body soft and pliant. He was wanting her badly, very badly, and she was there for the taking. The musky, animal scent of her was overpoweringly strong in the still night air.

She was there for the taking—but he knew that he must not take her. Again there flashed through his mind that horrible picture of childbirth without skilled aid, in appallingly primitive conditions. She was wanting him as much as he was wanting her, but he had to protect her against herself.