"Why do there have to be men?" Judy asks him, being jerked to and fro.
"Why, you stupid bitch." He doesn't look at her, thrusts furiously. "Because, dummy, otherwise nothing counts, that's why… There's some men, some good old buckaroos- Buddy's a good old buckaroo-"
"Is he going to emit sperm now?" Connie whispers.
"Very likely," Lorimer says, or intends to say. The spectacle is of merely clinical interest, he tells himself, nothing to dread. One of Judy's hands clutches some. thing: a small plastic bag. Her other hand is on her hair that Bud is yanking. It must be painful.
"Uhhh, ahh," Bud pants distressfully, "fuck away, fuck-" Suddenly he pushes Judy's head into his groin, Lorimer glimpses her nonplussed expression.
"You have a mouth, bitch, get working!… Take it for shit's sake, take it! Uh, uh-" A small oyster jets limply from him. Judy's arm goes after it with the bag as they roll over in the air.
"Geirrl"
Bewildered by the roar, Lorimer turns and sees Dave-Major Norman Davis-looming in the hatchway. His arms are out, holding back Lady Blue and the other Judy.
"Geirr! I said there would be no misconduct on this ship and I mean it. Get away from that woman!"
Bud's legs only move vaguely, he does not seem to have heard. Judy swims through them bagging the last drops.
"You, what the hell are you doing?"
In the silence Lorimer heard his own voice say, "Taking a sperm sample, I should think."
"Lorimer? Are you out of your perverted mind? Get Geirr to his quarters."
Bud slowly rotates upright. "Ah, the reverend Leroy," he says tonelessly.
"You're drunk, Geirr. Go to your quarters."
"I have news for you, Dave-o," Bud tells him in the same flat voice. "I bet you don't know we're the last men on Earth. Two million twats down there."
"I'm aware of that," Dave says furiously. "You're a drunken disgrace. Lorimer, get that man out of here."
But Lorimer feels no nerve of action stir. Dave's angry voice has pushed back the terror, created a strange hopeful stasis encapsulating them all.
"I don't have to take that any more…" Bud's, head moves back and forth, silently saying no, no, as he drifts toward Lorimer. "Nothing counts any more. All gone. What for, friends?" His forehead puckers. "Old Dave, he's a man. I'll let him have some. The.: dummies… Poor old Doc, you're a creep but you're a better'n nothing, you can have some too… We'll y3 have places, see, big spreads. Hey, we can run drags, there has to be a million good old cars down there. We can go hunting. And then we find the wild men."
Andy, or Kay, is floating toward him, wiping off -j blood.
"Ah, no you don't!" Bud snarls and lunges for her. As his arm stretches out Judy claps him on the triceps.
Bud gives a yell that dopplers off, his limbs thrash and then he is floating limply, his face suddenly serene. He is breathing, Lorimer sees, releasing his own breath, watching them carefully straighten out the big body. Judy plucks her pants out of the vines, and they start towing him out through the fence. She has the camera and the specimen bag.
"I put this in the freezer, dinko?" she says to Connie as they come by. Lorimer has to look away.
Connie nods. "Kay, how's your face?"
"I felt it!" Andy Kay says excitedly through puffed – lips. "I felt physical anger, I wanted to hit him. Woo-ee!"
"Put that man in my wardroom," Dave orders as they pass. He has moved into the sunlight over the lettuce rows. Lady Blue and Judy Dakar are back by the wall, watching. Lorimer remembers what he wanted to ask.
"Dave, do you really know? They're all women?"
Dave eyes him broodingly, floating erect with the sun on his chestnut beard and hair. The authentic features of man. Lorimer thinks of his own father, a small pale figure like himself. He feels better.
"I always knew they were trying to deceive us, Lori mer. Now that this woman has admitted the facts I understand the full extent of the tragedy."
It is his deep, mild Sunday voice. The women look at him interestedly.
"They are lost children. They have forgotten He who made them. For generations they have lived in darkness."
"They seem to be doing all right," Lorimer hears himself say. It sounds rather foolish.
"Women are not capable of running anything. You should know that, Lorimer. Look what they've done here, it's pathetic. Marking time, that's all. Poor souls." Dave sighs gravely. "It is not their fault. I recognize that. Nobody has given them any guidance for three hundred years. Like a chicken with its head off."
Lorimer recognizes his own thought; the structureless, chattering, trivial, two-million-celled protoplasmic lump.
"The head of the woman is the man," Dave says crisply. "Corinthians one eleven three. No discipline whatsoever." He stretches out his arm, holding up his crucifix as he drifts toward the wall of vines. "Mockery. Abominations." He touches the stakes and turns, framed in the green arbor.
"We were sent here, Lorimer. This is God's plan. 1 was sent here. Not you, you're as bad as they are. My 'middle name is Paul," he adds in a conversational tone. The sun gleams on the cross, on his uplifted face, a strong, pure, apostolic visage. Despite some intellectual reservations Lorimer feels a forgotten nerve respond.
"Oh Father, send me strength," Dave prays quietly, his eyes closed. "You have spared us from the void to bring Your light to this suffering world. I shall lead Thy erring daughters out of the darkness. I shall be a stern but merciful father to them in Thy name. Help me to teach the children Thy holy law and train them in the fear of Thy righteous wrath. Let the women, learn in silence and all subjection; Timothy two eleven. They shall have sons to rule over them and glorify Thy name."
He could do it, Lorimer thinks, a man like that really could get life going again. Maybe there is some mystery, some plan. I was too ready to give up. No guts… He becomes aware of women whispering.
"This tape is about through." It is Judy Dakar. "Isn't that enough? He's just repeating."
"Wait," murmurs Lady Blue.
"And she brought forth a man child to rule the nations with a rod of iron, Revelations twelve five," Dave says, louder. His eyes are open now, staring intently at the crucifix. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. "
Lady Blue nods; Judy pushes off toward Dave. Lorimer understands, protest rising in his throat. They mustn't do that to Dave, treating him like an animal for Christ's sake, a man-
"Dave! Look out, don't let her get near you!" he shouts.
"May I look, Major? It's beautiful, what is it?" Judy is coasting close, her hand out toward the crucifix.
"She's got a hypo, watch it!"
But Dave has already wheeled round. "Do not profane, woman!"
He thrusts the cross at her like a weapon, so menacing that she recoils in mid-air and shows the glinting needle in her hand.
"Serpent!" He kicks her shoulder away, sending himself upward. "Blasphemer. All right," he snaps in his ordinary voice, "there's going to be some order around here starting now. Get over by that wall, all of you."
Astounded, Lorimer sees that Dave actually has a weapon in his other hand, a small grey handgun. He must have had it since Houston. Hope and ataraxia shrivel away, he is shocked into desperate reality.