The Broken Cycle - A. Bertram Chandler [43]
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 dear 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