A Woman's Place Part 3

Instead of the usual sa.s.safras tea to which their digestion had finally adjusted, there was grape wine in their cups. It wasn't a very good wine, still green and sharp, but the occasion called for it.

Both of them looked at her with wonder, when they came in at her call and saw the table. But they didn't ask any questions. They just started eating and, for once, they forgot to talk about warp theory.

She, herself, ate little. She was content to look at them. The lieutenant, tall and strong, big-boned, dark-complexioned, square-faced, white even teeth. Sam, smalled-boned, fair-complexioned, hair bleached straw from the outdoor sun. He had been inclined to be a little stout when she first saw him, but now he had that muscular wiriness which comes with hard physical work--and clean living. His daughters would be delicate, lovely, yet strong. The lieutenant's sons....

She watched, in a kind of rapture, the ripple of muscles beneath their s.h.i.+rts, the way the pillar of the neck arose from strong shoulders to support a well-shaped head, the way the muscles of jaws rippled under their lean cheeks as they chewed. The way their intelligent eyes flashed appreciation at each savory mouthful.

"It occurs to me, Sam," Lt. Harper said as he washed down some turkey with a healthy quaff of wine. "We could give a little more attention to sc.r.a.ping up food for Miss Kitty to cook. Now you take this brown rice, for example, we could rig up a polis.h.i.+ng mill so she'd have white rice...."

"Nonsense," Miss Kitty said firmly. "All the proper food value lies in the brown covering. I will not have the children's eating habits spoiled from the beginning...."

Appalled, she realized what she had said. Both men stopped chewing and stared at her.

"What children, Miss Kitty?" Lt. Harper asked, and he was looking at her intently.

She dropped her eyes to her plate. She felt the red flush arising around her neck, up into her face. She couldn't face him. Yet, it had to be done. It must be made quite clear to him, both of them, that....

"_Our_ children," she said distinctly, and felt their eyes boring into the top of her head. "And I wish you both would stop calling me Miss Kitty, as if--as if you were kindergarten children and I was the old maid school teacher! All three of us are adults, men and a woman. In spite of what you may think, I am not a great deal older than either of you. There will be children! If it works out the way I plan, I believe I do have time for at least six sons and daughters before I reach ...

before my barren years."

She heard Sam's fork clatter down on the table top as he dropped it. She heard Lt. Harper's feet sc.r.a.pe, as if he had been about to leap to his feet. Without seeing it, she almost felt them look at one another.

Well, she had made it plain enough.

But they didn't say anything.

Suddenly she could stand it no longer. Slowly, in dignity, she arose to her feet and without looking at them she walked, head down, to her door.

Then she realized she had perhaps been too crisp, too businesslike about it all. A vision of the kind of women they must have known, the kind which would arouse their pa.s.sion, the kind which would make it all unmistakable....

She had a flas.h.i.+ng memory of a girl back in college, one smitten with a football hero, trying to captivate the hero, draw him to her. On impulse, Miss Kitty imitated that girl now, and a little tableau she remembered.

At her doorway she turned, and looked at them over her shoulder. She lifted her shoulder so that it touched her chin. She drooped her eyes half shut.

"My name is Katheryn," she said, and she tried to make her voice husky instead of tremulous and frightened. "Call me Kathy, call me Kate, call me Kay."

Both men were staring at her with wide eyes and open mouths as she closed her door. She made sure there was no sound of a latch turning to discourage them.

She undressed herself slowly, and, for the first time other than for bathing, completely. She felt grateful for the time they were giving her. No doubt they were talking it over, man to man, in the way of civilized, educated.... She crawled in between the blankets, fresh and smelling of suns.h.i.+ne from being washed in the clear water of the lake.

She was a little regretful she had no perfume; that was something they didn't put into lifeboats.

She waited.

She heard the low rumble of male voices in the other room. They were undoubtedly discussing it. She felt grateful relief that their voices had not risen. They were not quarreling over her--not yet. She did hope they would continue to be sensible.

She heard one of the stools sc.r.a.pe on the rough split log floor. She caught her breath in a gasp, found her hands were clutching the covers and pulling them tightly up to her chin. She willed her hands to relax.

She willed the tenseness out of her rigid body.

She heard the other stool sc.r.a.pe. Surely they were not both....

She heard their feet walking across the floor, the heavy steps of the lieutenant, the lighter, springier steps of Sam. She gritted her teeth and clenched her eyes tight shut.

And then she heard the outer door close softly.

Which one? Which had remained behind?

She waited.

Then she heard footsteps outside. She tried to identify, by sound, which man was making the noise, but the shuffling of leaves was confusing, as if more than one person were walking outside. And where was the other man? Why had he made no sound in the outer room? Was he quietly drinking up the wine--first? Then, distinctly, she recognized two pairs of feet outside, going farther away, in the direction of the men's bunkhouse.

She could not bear the suspense. She sprang out of bed clutching one of the blankets about her. Slowly, soundlessly, she opened her door a crack. She could see no one in the flickering firelight of the room.

They had turned out the lights. Or--he had. She opened the door wide.

It had been they, not he. Both men had gone.

Inadvertently something between a sob and a hiccough rattled her 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 overheard boys. "I'll fix you when we get outside! You meet me in the alley and I'll show you!"

These two men. Were they going off into the darkness to settle a conflict which they had not been able to resolve through sensible agreement? There, under the trees in the moonlight, would they, denying all the progress of the sacred centuries, would they revert to the primitive, the savage; and like two rutting male animals rend and tear and battle with one another for the only female?

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

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

She felt herself s.h.i.+vering as she opened the door, s.h.i.+vering as if with an ague. She felt her face burning, as if with a fever. Her teeth were chattering in anguish. She tried to still the noise of her teeth, to listen for those horrible sounds of silent men in a death conflict somewhere out there in the moonlight.

Then she saw a c.h.i.n.k of light through a crack in the wall of the bunkhouse, where the clay had dried and fallen away from the logs.

In there? What were they doing in there?

Instead of their fists and crus.h.i.+ng arms, were they stalking one another with knives? She remembered scenes from Western movies, the overturned tables, the crash of things thrown. Had some sense of chivalry still remained in the lieutenant, and he, knowing Sam wouldn't stand a chance in 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 an equitable schedule....

Barefooted, she ran across the ground toward the bunkhouse. She had visions of herself throwing open the door, shocking them to stillness in a tableau of violence. She was close now. She should be able to hear the cras.h.i.+ng of their table and chairs.

She could hear nothing at all. Was she too late? Even now, was one of them standing above the other, holding a dripping knife? What horrors might 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 were chattering so hard, she had difficulty in holding her head still enough to peer through the slit of light. With her free hand, her shoulders were shaking so hard she had difficulty in clutching the blanket about her with the other, she grabbed her jaw and held on, to still her shaking. Her eyes focused on the scene inside the room.