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.
Danforth struggled like a mad thing, clawing at MacAran, grappling for his throat; MacAran felt the surge of wild rage rising in him too, with spinning red colors before his eyes. He wanted to claw, to bite, to gouge out the man’s eyes…with savage effort, remembering what had happened before, he brought himself back to reality and let the man rise to his feet. Danforth stared at the Captain and began to blubber, wiping his streaming eyes with doubled fists and muttering incoherently.
Captain Leicester snarled, “I’ll break you for this, Danforth! Get to quarters’!’
Danforth gave a final gulp. He relaxed and smiled lazily at his superior officer. “Captain,” he murmured tenderly, “did anybody ever tell you that you got beautiful big blue eyes? Listen, why don’t we–“straight-faced, smiling, in perfect seriousness, he made an obscene suggestion that made Leicester gasp, turn purple with rage, and draw breath to bellow at him again. MacAran grabbed the Captain’s arm urgently.
“Captain, don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for. Can’t you see he doesn’t know what he’s doing or saying?”
Danforth had already lost interest and ambled off, idly kicking at pebbles. Around them the nucleus of the fight had lost momentum; half the combatants were sitting on the ground crooning; the others had separated into little clumps of two and three. Some were simply stroking one another with total animal absorption and a complete lack of inhibitions, lying on the rough grass; others had already proceeded, totally without discrimination–man and woman, woman and woman, man and man–to more direct and active satisfactions. Captain Leicester stared at the daylight orgy in consternation and began to weep.
A surge of disgust flared up in MacAran, blotting out his early concern and compassion for the man. Simultaneously he was torn between reeling, struggling emotions; a rising surge of lust, so that he wanted to fall to the ground with the crowded, entwined bodies, a last scrap of compunction for the Captain–he doesn’t know what he’s doing, not even as much as I do… and a wave of rising sickness. Abruptly he bolted, sick panic blotting out everything else, stumbled and ran from the scene.
Behind him a long-haired girl, little more than a child, came up to the Captain, urged him down with his head on her lap, and rocked him like a baby, crooning softly in Gaelic…
Ewen Ross saw and felt the first wave of rising unreason…it hit him as panic….and simultaneously, inside the hospital building, a patient still shrouded in bandages and comatose for days rose, ripped off his bandages and, while Ewen and a nurse stared in horrified consternation, tore his wounds open and laughing, bled to death. The nurse hurled a huge carboy of green soap at the dying man; then Ewen, fighting wildly for control of the waves of madness that threatened to overcome him (the ground was rocking in earthquake, wild vertigo rippled his guts and head with nausea, insane colors spun before his eyes…) leaped for the nurse and after a moment’s struggle, took away the scalpel with which she was ripping at her wrists. He resisted her entwining arms (throw her down on the bed now, tear her dress off…) and ran for Dr. Di Asturien, to gasp out a terrified plea to lock up all poisons, narcotics and surgical instruments. Hastily drafting Heather (she had, after all, some memory of her own first attack) they managed to get more of them locked away and the key safely hidden before the whole hospital went berserk…