As if the violence of his angry thoughts had penetrated the thinning veils of the drug, Camilla’s blue eyes, fringed by heavy dark lashes, flicked open, and she looked around, in momentary bewilderment, at the translucent walls of the hospital dome, and MacAran by the side of her cot.
“Rafe?” A look of pain flicked over her face, and MacAran thought, at least she’s not calling me MacAran any more. He spoke as gently as he could. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, love. They asked me to come and sit with you a while.”
Her face hardened as memory came back; he could feel her anger and misery and it was like pain inside him, and it turned off his own resentment like a switch being turned.
“I really am sorry, Camilla. I know you didn’t want this. Hate me, if you’ve got to hate someone. It’s my fault; I wasn’t acting very responsibly, I know.”
His gentleness, his willingness to take all the blame, disarmed her. “No, Rafe,” she said painfully, “that’s not fair to you. At the time it happened I wanted it as much as you did, so there’s no point in blaming you. The trouble is, we’ve all gotten out of the habit of connecting pregnancy and sex, we all have a civilized attitude about it now. And of course none of us could have been expected to know that the regular contraceptives weren’t working.”
Rafe reached out to touch her hand. “Well, we’ll share the blame, then. But can’t you try to remember how you felt about it during the Wind? We were so happy then.”
“I was insane then. So were you.” The deep bitterness in her voice made him flinch with pain, not only for himself but for her. She tried to pull her hand free, but he held on to the slim fingers.
“I’m sane now–at least I think I am–and I still love you, Camilla. I haven’t words to tell you how much.”
“I should think you’d hate me.”
“I couldn’t hate you. I’m not happy that you don’t want this child,” he added, “and if we were on Earth I’d probably admit that you had a right to choose–not to bear it, if you didn’t want to. But I wouldn’t be happy about that either, and you can’t expect me to be sorry that it’s going to have a chance to live.”
“So you’re glad I’m going to be trapped into bearing it?” she flung at him, furious.
“How can I be glad about anything that makes you so miserable?” MacAran demanded in despair.
“Do you think I get any satisfaction out of seeing you unhappy? It tears me up, it’s killing me! But you’re pregnant, and you’re sick, and if it makes you feel any better to say these things–I love you, and what can I do about it, except listen and wish I could say something helpful? I only wish you felt happier about it, and I wasn’t so completely helpless.”
Camilla could feel his confusion and distress as if they were her own, and this persistence of an effect she had associated only with the time of the winds shocked her out of her anger and self-pity. Slowly, she sat up in bed and reached for his hand.
“It’s not your fault, Rafe,” she said softly, “and if it makes you so unhappy for me to act like this, I’ll try to make the best of it. I can’t pretend I want a child, but if I have to have one–and it seems I do–I’d rather it was yours than someone else’s.” She smiled faintly, and added, “I suppose–the way things were going then–it could have been anyone, but I’m glad it was you.”
Rafe MacAran found himself unable to speak–and then realized he didn’t have to. He bent down and kissed her hand. “I’ll do everything I can to make it easier,” he promised, “and I only wish it were more.”
Moray had finished work assignments for most of the colonists and crew by the time Chief Engineer Laurence Patrick found himself, with Captain Leicester, consulting the Colony Representative.
Patrick said, “You know, Moray, long before I became a M-AM drive expert I was a specialist in small all-terrain craft. There’s enough metal in the ship, salvaged, to create several such craft, and they could be powered with small converted drive units. It would be a tremendous help to you in locating and structuring the resources of the planet, and I’m willing to handle the building. How soon can I get to it?”