A Woman's Place Read online

throat.She choked back another. She would not give way to ... rage? ...frustration? ... relief? ... _fear?_

  Fear!

  She had seen the movies, she had read the stories, she had overheardboys. "I'll fix you when we get outside! You meet me in the alley andI'll show you!"

  These two men. Were they going off into the darkness to settle aconflict which they had not been able to resolve through sensibleagreement? There, under the trees in the moonlight, would they, denyingall the progress of the sacred centuries, would they revert to theprimitive, the savage; and like two rutting male animals rend and tearand battle with one another for the only female?

  Oh, no! No, they must not! There was no doubt that the lieutenant withhis great, massive strength.... But the human race of New Earth musthave the fine sensitivity, the lithe grace of Sam's kind, also!

  She tugged the blanket around her shoulders and ran toward the door. Shemust reach them, step in between them, even at the cost of receivingsome of the blows upon herself, make them realize....

  She felt herself shivering as she opened the door, shivering as if withan ague. She felt her face burning, as if with a fever. Her teeth werechattering in anguish. She tried to still the noise of her teeth, tolisten for those horrible sounds of silent men in a death conflictsomewhere out there in the moonlight.

  Then she saw a chink of light through a crack in the wall of thebunkhouse, where the clay had dried and fallen away from the logs.

  In there? What were they doing in there?

  Instead of their fists and crushing arms, were they stalking one anotherwith knives? She remembered scenes from Western movies, the overturnedtables, the crash of things thrown. Had some sense of chivalry stillremained in the lieutenant, and he, knowing Sam wouldn't stand a chancein hand to hand conflict, devised some contest which would be more fair?

  There need be no contest. If only they would be sensible, work out anequitable schedule....

  Barefooted, she ran across the ground toward the bunkhouse. She hadvisions of herself throwing open the door, shocking them to stillness ina tableau of violence. She was close now. She should be able to hear thecrashing of their table and chairs.

  She could hear nothing at all. Was she too late? Even now, was one ofthem standing above the other, holding a dripping knife? What horrorsmight she run into, even precipitate, if she threw open the door?Caution, Katheryn!

  Instead, she crept up to the crack in the wall. Her teeth werechattering so hard, she had difficulty in holding her head still enoughto peer through the slit of light. With her free hand, her shoulderswere shaking so hard she had difficulty in clutching the blanket abouther with the other, she grabbed her jaw and held on, to still hershaking. Her eyes focused on the scene inside the room.

  * * * * *

  She had a three-quarter vision of each man and the table between them.They were dealing a greasy pack of cards! Were they going to gamble forher? Relief and shame intermingled in her reaction. She would havepreferred they settle it with more elemental.... It would have made itless.... Yet, this way neither would be killed. Sons and daughters fromboth....

  "How are we going to tell her now?" Sam asked, as he picked up hiscards. His voice came distinctly through the wall crack.

  "We should have told her about our wives and families right at thestart," Harper answered morosely. "I don't know why we didn't. Exceptthat, well, none of us have talked about things back home. She didn't,and so we didn't either."

  "But I never dreamed Miss Kitty would start getting ideas," Sam said ina heartsick voice. "I just never dreamed she...."

  "We're going to have to tell her," Harper said resolutely. "We'll justhave to tell her that, well, there's still hope and as long as there'shope...."

  Blindly, in an anguish of shame such as she had never known, Miss Kittycrept away from the bunkhouse, and stumbled back to the cabin. Now shewas shivering so violently she could hardly walk. The exposure to thenight air, the nervous tension, overwrought emotions....

  She could not remember getting back into the cabin, crawling into bed.She knew only that a little later she was in bed, still shakingviolently with a chill, burning with fever.

  She was awakened in the morning with the sound of the axe chopping onwood. She dragged herself out of bed, forlorn, sick, filled with shame.Her head spun so wildly that she sank to her knees and lay it on thebed. Then her pride and her will forced her to her feet, and she droveherself to dress, to go into the big room, dig out glowing coals frombeneath ashes, put them in the little cook stove, pile fine slivers ofresin-rich kindling on top of them, blow on them.

  Between painful breaths, she heard herself sobbing. Her teeth startedchattering again, and there was a ringing in her ears. She heard theblows of the axe falling on the wood, and each blow transferred itselfto the base of her skull. The ringing in her ears grew louder andlouder.

  She heard one of the men shout. It sounded like Sam. Had he hurt himselfwith the axe, gashed his leg or something? She'd always been afraid ofthat axe! She'd told them and told them to be careful!

  She pulled herself up from her knees there at the stove where she hadbeen blowing on the coals. She must get out there, help him! Thatterrible buzzing in her head, that ringing in her ears. No matter, shemust get out there to help him.

  She threw open the door and saw Sam running toward the lifeship. Had helost his mind? The bandages were here. She had them here! She saw Lt.Harper come to the door of the bunkhouse. He was still pulling on hispants. He started running toward the lifeship, too, cinching his belt ashe ran.

  Then she realized that at least part of the ringing in her ears camefrom the lifeship. At first it had no meaning for her, then sheremembered them talking about fixing up some kind of alarm, so that ifthey got a signal through....

  She started running toward the lifeship. She stumbled, fell, got up,felt as light as a feather, as heavy as mercury. She crawled up thesteps of the lifeship, she clutched at the door. She heard Sam speakingvery slowly, carefully.

  "Do you read me? _Is this Earth?_"

  She saw his face. She knew the answer.

  And that was the last she knew.

  * * * * *

  Consciousness came back in little dribbles like a montage--half realityand half nightmare of the insomniac. Lt. Harper's voice shouting at herwith a roar like a waterfall, "My God, Miss Kitty, are you sick?"Blackness. More shouting, Sam calling the lieutenant, something about ared flare in the sky. A lucid moment, when Sam was explaining to herthat Earth had been given the warp coordinates, and had sent a red flareto see if they could get through. Then another gap. A heavy trampling offeet, a great many feet. Some kind of memory of a woman in white,sticking a thermometer in her mouth. The prick of a needle in her arm.The sense of being carried. A memory of knowing she was in a ship. Aflash that was more felt than seen.

  Nightmares! All nightmares! She would wake up in a moment. She would getup, dress, go out and start a fire to heat water on the cookstove. Shehad planned to have coffee, a special treat from their almost exhaustedstore. She would have coffee. The men would come in sheepish, evadingher glance.

  Very well, she would simply tell them that she had misunderstood, savethem the embarrassment of telling her. She would not be the womanscorned.

  She moved her hands to throw back her blankets, and froze. Her fingershad not touched blankets, they had touched cool, slick sheets! Her eyespopped open.

  It had not been a nightmare, a wish fulfillment of escape. She was in ahospital room. A nurse was standing beside her bed, looking down at her.A comfortably motherly-looking sort of woman was speaking to her.

  "Well, now, Miss Kittredge, that's much better!" the woman said. "So youwill go gather wild rice in the swamp and get your bloodstream full ofbugs!" But it was a professional kind of chiding, the same way she hadtalked to her kindergarten children when they'd got themselves intotrouble.

  "Still," the nurse chatted, "it's made our pathologists m
ighty happy.They've been having themselves a ball analyzing the bugs you threemanaged to pick up. You got something close to malaria. The two men,healthy oxen, didn't get anything at all. We had to let 'em out ofquarantine in three days."

  * * * * *

  Miss Kitty just looked at her in a sort of unthinking lassitude. She wasstill trying to make the reality seem real. The nurse helped a little.She turned to her cart and produced a white enamel, flat container. Sheslid it under the top sheet.

  "Upsy-daisy now, Miss Kittredge," she said firmly. "It's time youstarted cooperating a little."

  Yes, that brought her back to reality. But she still didn't sayanything.

  "Although we might as well not have let 'em out of quarantine," thenurse grumbled. "They've just been living out there in the waiting roomfor a solid week,