Ewen’s voice was hard, but with the heightened sensitivity he had known ever since the first Wind blasted him wide open to the emotions of others, he realized the hideous pictures that were spinning in Camilla’s mind:
not a person, just a thing, a walking womb, a thing used for breeding, my mind gone, my skills useless… just a brood mare…
“It won’t be that bad,” he said in deep sympathy. “There will be plenty for you to do. But that’s the way it’s got to be, Camilla. I’m sure it’s worse for you than it is for some others, but it’s the same for everyone. Our survival depends on it.” He looked away from her; he could not face the blast of her agony.
She said, her lips tightening to a hard line, “Maybe it would be better not to survive, under conditions like that.”
“I won’t discuss that with you until you’re feeling better,” Ewen said quietly, “it’s not worth the breath. I’ll set up a prenatal examination for you with Margaret–”
“–I won’t!”
Ewen got quickly to his feet. He signaled to a nurse behind her back and gripped her wrist in a hard grip, immobilizing her. A needle went into her arm; she looked at him with angry suspicion, her eyes already glazing slightly.
“What–”
“A harmless sedative. Supplies are short, but we can spare enough to keep you calmed down,” Ewen said calmly. “Who’s the father, Camilla? MacAran?”
“None of your affair!” she spat at him.
“Agreed, but I ought to know, for genetic records. Captain Leicester?”
“MacAran,” she said with a surge of dull anger, and suddenly, with a deep gnawing pain, she remembered… how happy they had been during the Winds.. .
Ewen looked down at her senseless form with deep regret. “Get hold of Rafael MacAran,” he said, “have him with her when she comes out of it. Maybe he can talk some sense into her.”
“How can she be so selfish?” the nurse said in horror.
“She was brought up on a space satellite,” Ewen said, “and in the Alpha colony. She joined the space service at fifteen and all her life she’s been brainwashed into thinking childbearing was something she shouldn’t be interested in. She’ll learn. It’s only a matter of time.”
But secretly he wondered how many women of the crew felt the same–sterility could be psychologically determined too–and how long it would take to overcome this conditioned fear and aversion.
Could it even be done, in time to bring them up to a viable number, on this harsh, brutal and inhospitable world?
Chapter TWELVE
MacAran sat beside the sleeping Camilla, thinking back over the hospital interview just past with Ewen Ross. After explaining about Camilla, Ewen had asked him only one further question:
“Do you remember having sex with anyone else during the Wind? I’m not just being idly curious, believe me. Some women, and some men, simply can’t remember, or named at least half a dozen. By putting together everything that anyone does remember, we can eliminate certain people; that is, for genetic records later on. For instance, if some woman names three men as possibly responsible for her pregnancy, we only need to blood-test three men to establish–within rough limits, that is–the actual father.”
“Only Camilla,” MacAran said, and Ewen had grinned. “At least you’re consistent. I hope you can talk that girl into some sense.”
“I can’t somehow see Camilla as much of a mother,” MacAran said slowly, feeling disloyal, and Ewen shrugged. “Does it matter? We’re going to have plenty of women either wanting children and unable to have them, miscarrying during pregnancy, or losing them at birth. If she doesn’t want the child when it’s born, one thing we’re not going to be short of is foster mothers!”
Now that thought stirred Rafael MacAran to a slow resentment as he sat watching the drugged girl. The love between them, even at best, had arisen out of hostility, been an up-and-down thing of resentment and desire, and now the anger got out of control. Spoiled brat, he thought, she’s had everything her own way all her life, and now at the first hint she might have to give way to some consideration other than her own convenience, she starts making a fuss! Damn her!