"What do you think of this weather?" he asked her, the old habit from Earth asserting itself. When in doubt talk about the weather. Well, there's plenty of weather on this planet to talk about, and it's all so bad.
"I don't like it," Heather said seriously, "I haven't forgotten what happened on the mountain when we had a few clear days."
You too? MacAran thought, but he demurred. "How could the weather be responsible, Heather?"
"Airborne virus. Airborne pollen. Dust-borne chemicals. I'm a microbiologist, Rafe, you'd be surprised what can be in a few cubic inches of air or water or soil. In the debriefing session Camilla said the last thing she remembered before freaking out was smelling the flowers, and I remember that the air was full of their scent." She smiled weakly. "Of course what I remember may not be any kind of evidence and I hope to God that I don't find out by trial and error again. I've just found out for certain that I'm not pregnant, and I never want to go through that again. When I think of the way women must have had to live before the really safe contraceptives were invented, from month to month never knowing…." She shuddered. "Rafe, is Camilla sure yet? She won't talk to me about it any more."
"I don't know," MacAran said sombrely, "she won't talk to me at all."
Heather's fair mobile face registered dismay. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Rafe! I was so happy about you two, Ewen and I both hoped--oh, here, I think maybe Moray's ready to see you." The door had opened and the big redhead Alastair bumped into them as he came barging out; he turned and half shouted, "The answer is still no, Moray! We're pulling out--all of us, our whole Community! Now, tonight!"
Moray followed him to the door. He said, "Selfish crew, aren't you?
You talk about community, and it turns out that you mean only your own little group--not the larger community of mankind on this planet. Did it ever occur to you that all of us, the whole two-hundred-odd of us, are perforce a commune? We are humanity, we are society. Where's that big sense of responsibility toward your fellow man, laddie?"
Alastair bent his head. He muttered, "The rest of you don't stand for what we stand for."
"We all stand for common good and survival," Moray said quietly. "The Captain will come around. Give me a chance to talk to the others, at least."
"I was appointed to speak for them--"
"Alastair," said Moray gravely, "you're violating your own standards, you know. If you're a true philosophical anarchist, you have to give them an opportunity to hear what I have to say."
"You're just trying to manipulate us all--"
"Are you afraid of what I'll say to them? Are you afraid they won't stick to what you want?"
Alastair, maneuvered into a corner, burst out, "Oh, talk to them and be damned to you, then! Much good may it do you!"
Moray followed them out, saying to MacAran as he passed, "Whatever it is, it'll have to keep, lad. I have to talk these young lunatics into trying to see us all as one big family--not just their little family'!'
Out in the open space, the thirty members or so of the New Hebrides community were gathered. MacAran noticed that they had put aside the ship-issued surface uniform and were wearing civilian clothing and carrying backpacks. Moray went forward and began to harangue them. From where he stood at the door of the Recreation Hall MacAran could not hear his words, but there was a lot of shouting and argument. MacAran stood watching the small swirls and eddies of dust blow up across the plowed ground, the backlog of wind in the trees at the edge of the clearing like a sea-noise that never quieted. It seemed to him that there was a song in the wind. He looked down at Heather beside him, and her face seemed to gleam and glow in the dark sunlight, almost a visible song.
She said hoarsely, "Music--music on the wind…"
MacAran muttered, "In God's name what are they doing out there? Holding a dance?"
He moved away from Heather, as a group of the uniformed Security guards came across from the ship. One of them faced Alastair and Moray and started to speak; MacAran, moving into range, heard "put down your packs. I have the Captain's orders to take you all into custody, for desertion in the face of an emergency."
"Your Captain hasn't any power over us, emergency or otherwise, fuzz-face;" the big redhead yelled, and one of the girls scooped up a handful of dirt and flung it, evoking screams of riotous laughter from the others.
Moray said urgently to the Security men, "No! There is no need for this! Let me handle them!"
The officer hit by the thrown dirt unslung his gun. MacAran, gripped by a surge of all too familiar fear, muttered, "That's torn it," and ran forward just as the young men and women of the communes threw down their rucksacks and charged, howling and screaming like demons.
One Security officer threw down his rifle and burst into wild manic laughter. He flung himself on the ground and rolled there, screaming. MacAran, in split--second awareness, ran forward. He grabbed up the thrown-down gun; wrested another away from the second man, and ran toward the ship as the third Security man, who had only a handgun, fired. In MacAran's rocking brain the shot sounded like an infinite gallery of echoes, and with a wild high scream, one of the girls fell on the ground, rolling where she lay in agony.
MacAran, dragging the rifles, burst into the Captain's presence in the computer dome; Leicester raised his beetling brows, demanding explanation, and MacAran watched the eyebrows crawl up like caterpillars, take wing and flutter loose in the dome…no. NO! Fighting the spinning attack of unreality, he gasped, "Captain, it's happening again! What happened to us all on the slopes! For the love of God, lock up the guns and ammo before someone gets killed! One girl's already been shot--"
"What?" Leicester stared at him in frank disbelief. "Surely you're exaggerating…"
"Captain, I went through it," MacAran said, fighting desperately against the urge to fling himself down and roll on the floor, to grab the Captain by the throat and shake
him to death.....It's real. It's--you know Ewen Ross. You know he's had careful, complete Medic training-and he lay in the woods fooling around with Heather and MacLeod while a dying patient ran right past him and collapsed with a burst aorta. Camilla--Lieutenant Del Rey--threw away her telescope and ran off to chase butterflies."
"And you think this--this epidemic is going to strike here?"
"Captain, I know it," MacAran pleaded, "I'm--I'm fighting it off now--"
Leicester had not become Captain of a starship by being unimaginative or by refusing to meet emergencies. As the sound of a second shot erupted in the space before the clearing, he ran for the door, hitting an alarm button as he ran. When no one answered he shouted, running across the clearing.
MacAran, at his heels, sized up the situation in the flicker of an eye. The girl shot by the officer was still lying on the ground, writhing in pain; as they burst into the area Security men and the young people of the Commune were grappling hand to hand, shouting wild obscenities. A third shot rang out; one of the Security officers howled in pain and fell, clutching his kneecap.
"Danforth!" the Captain bellowed.
Danforth swung round, gun leveled, and for a split second MacAran thought he would pull the trigger again, but the years-long habit of obedience to the Captain made the berserk officer hesitate. Only a minute, but by that time MacAran's flying body struck him in a rough tackle; the man came crashing to the ground and the gun rolled away. Leicester dived for it, broke it, thrust the cartridges in his pocket.