Silly question! The contours of the land were changing so drastically that no new feature should be surprising. She was lucky she wasn’t dead.
Yet.
Still, she had not found Thatch—physically. But emotionally—had she meant it? Had the truth come out at last, that she had twisted her way unwillingly into love with the father of her child? Was that why she had faced down Floy and braved Mindel to seek him out?
Now she wasn’t sure. It was easy to love, when there was no future in it. What about the reality, the giving of one’s whole being to another? Could she ever do that?
Of only one thing was she certain: she could no longer exist without him.
Now she just had to find him. She swam around the rocky edge of the pool, seeking a suitable place to climb out.
There was none. The stone was either slick underneath the flowing water, or covered with slimy lichen that broke away in handfuls, providing no purchase. The slope was too steep to permit her to climb out independently.
She was not hurt; a few stinging scrapes were all the wounds she had sustained in her tumble. She was not cold, or sick. But she was caught, and probably doomed, for she could not tread water forever.
She had caught hold of something, during her first flailings. Where was it now?
She swam back, rechecking carefully. Under the greenery was the root of a tree, invisible from the water but still solid. The tree itself was gone, but the root seemed firm. She hauled on it.
The thing came loose in her hand. It was only a half-buried piece, dislodged by her efforts.
“Zena!”
It was Thatch, out of sight but close by.
“Here!” she cried.
“In the pond?”
“Yes!”
“I’ll send down the rope.”
And the end of the rope came down; she located it by the faint splash into the water, hardly distinguishable from the continuous splash of rain. She caught and pulled herself up, hand over hand, sliding on her fat belly over the moss. It was not far; the same slipperiness that had trapped her, now made the travel easier. So long as her feet were able to punch through to find purchase.
Thatch caught her arm at the leveling of the bank. He stood her on her feet. “Floy said you had gone out,” he said.
“I was afraid—” But her fears seemed foolish, in the face of his obvious health. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad I found you! If anything had happened—”
“Aren’t you going to bawl me out? For getting in trouble?”
“I don’t understand.”
No, he wouldn’t. Thatch never blamed anyone for anything, however culpable others might be. “So you know why I came out?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “You do?”
“Floy told me.”
Zena suffered a flash of anger. “What did Floy tell you?”
“We’d better get back.”
“She told you that?”
“No.” Verbal plays were still wasted on him; he always answered literally. “But it isn’t safe for you to stay out here.”
“What did she tell you?”
He paused, but then answered. “That you love me.”
Zena clenched her teeth. Why couldn’t she have said it herself? Was it really easier to get pregnant by a man, than to tell him she loved him?
“I know the way back,” Thatch said.
She went with him, wordlessly.
Chapter 8: Labor
Karen was haggard. Her normally rounded body had turned gaunt, though she ate reasonably and drank insatiably. She seemed drowsy and very tired, and her breath smelled fruity. Often she retreated to the bathroom to urinate copiously—then gulped more water. This aggravated Zena almost intolerably, but she knew its cause and kept silent. The water was needed to dilute the rampant sugar in her blood—the sugar that could not get to the cells of the body where it was so badly needed. The diabetes was now uncontrolled, for the last of the insulin was gone.
Gus was now alarmed. “Snap out of it, Karen! Can’t I help you?” he asked plaintively, again and again.
Karen only shook her head. Her breathing was deep and labored, and her skin was flushed yet dry. She seemed to have aged, and not graciously; her beauty was gone.
“I’m going out and find some insulin,” Gus said, marching to the door. But there he stopped, balked by his fear of the rain. And as he paused uncertainly, there was a violent shudder in the ground that rattled the plates on the table and made everyone jump.
“Another fissure opening up,” Floy said. “Maybe a volcano.”
“Ridiculous!” Zena said. But it wasn’t really. Not any more. With the enormous pressure of the sea water building up, and the erosion of the counterweight of soil and gravel, intolerable stresses were building. The world, like Karen, was sick; like her, it was developing awful symptoms that seemed paradoxical.
Gus still stood by the door. “You can’t go out,” Zena told him, feeling like a hypocrite for justifying his inability to act. “Where in this flooded world would there be any insulin?”
There was another shudder, and this time they heard the boom of some great explosion. “Must be a volcano,” Floy said. “Crack Toe.”
Gus turned. “You mean Krakatoa.”
“Right. Crack Toe,” she repeated. “Smithereens.”
Even Karen smiled, wanly.
“It can’t make very much difference to us,” Zena said, though she knew that she was being unduly pessimistic, as they should be able to survive the rain, provided the tremors did not dump them all into a crevasse. But with Karen dying…
Karen rested quietly for a time. Then she sat up and vomited. Zena stifled her own nausea and cleaned up as well as she could. Another earth tremor made her take a spill, so that she had to do the job twice, but that seemed fitting. Maybe the world itself was sharing Karen’s suffering.
But the patient saw it another way. “You’re making me suffer,” Karen muttered as the heaves abated. “Just a little pressure on the carotid arteries—you know where to do it, Zena.”
“No!” Zena cried.
“Painless, out like a light,” Karen continued weakly. “After that, it doesn’t matter how. Cut my throat, catch the blood in a basin—”
“God!” Gus said.
“You’d be doing me a favor. And the meat would be better. It’s spoiling right now.” She took a breath. “Promise me you won’t waste the meat.”
“We won’t,” Zena said.
At last Karen lapsed into a tortured sleep. So did the others: it had not been possible while the woman agonized.
The loud rain continued—and so did the booms of the burgeoning volcano. Once Zena got heaved onto the floor, and the entire bus shifted position alarmingly. Zena merely crawled back onto the bed and slept again.
When she woke, someone had covered Karen’s face with a sheet.
“It is time to take her out,” Floy said.
Thatch stooped to pick up Karen’s body. “Let her be!” Gus said.
Thatch hesitated. “No,” Floy said. “She wanted it as it was with Gordon. To help the group, to preserve the baby. It would not be right to waste her. And we promised.”
“That’s right,” Zena agreed grimly. “I’ll help. It must be done.”
“Not with her!’ Gus protested, his body shaking. “I love her!”
“I loved Gordon,” Floy said. “But I ate him.”
Thatch made another motion to pick up the body. Gus lunged to stop him—and Floy leaped on Gus. He cried out in pain. Two bloody streaks appeared across his forehead. “Thatch!” he screamed. “I’m hurt!”
Zena put a hand on Thatch’s shoulder. “She knows what she’s doing,” she murmured. She remembered how Floy had refrained from fighting, when Zena herself had challenged her; that had been judgment, not fear.