Except for a number erecting rather crude huts or lean-tos without stone tools at the edge of the plains, and for a number swimming in the river, the plain was deserted. The bodies from last night’s madness had been removed. So far, no one had put on a grass skirt, and many stared at Alice or even laughed and made raucous comments. Alice turned red, but she made no move to get rid of her clothes. The sun was getting hot, however, and she was scratching under her breast garment and under her skirt. It was a measure of the intensity of the irritation that the, raised by strict Victorian upper-class standards, would scratch in public.
However, when they got to the river, they saw a dozen heaps, of stuff that turned out to be grass dresses. These had been left on the edge of the river by the men and women now laughing, splashing, and swimming in the river.
It was certainly a contrast to the beaches he knew. These were the same people who had accepted the bathing machines, the suits that covered them from ankle to neck, and all the other modest devices, as absolutely moral and vital to the continuation of the proper society – theirs. Yet, only one day after finding themselves here, they were swimming in the nude. And enjoying it.
Part of the acceptance of their unclothed state came from the shock of the resurrection. In addition, there was not much they could do about it that first day. And there had been a leavening of the civilized with savage peoples, or tropical civilized peoples, who were not particularly shocked by nudity.
He called out to a woman who was standing to her waist in the water. She had a coarsely pretty face and sparkling blue eyes.
“That is the woman who attacked Sir Robert Smithson,” Lev Ruach said. “I believe her name is Wilfreda Allport.”
Burton looked at her curiously and with appreciation of her splendid bust. He called out, “How’s the water?”
“Very nice!” she said, smiling.
He un-strapped his grail, put down the container, which held his chert knife and handaxe, and waded in with his cake of green soap. The water felt as if it was about ten degrees below his body temperature. He soaped himself while he struck up a conversation with Wilfreda. If she still harbored any resentment about Smithson, she did not show it. Her accent was heavily North Country, Perhaps Cumberland.
Burton said to her, “I heard about your little to-do with the late great hypocrite, the baronet. You should be happy now, though. You’re healthy and young and beautiful again, and you don’t have to toil for your bread. Also, you can do for love what you had to do for money.” There was no use beating around the bush with a factory girl Not that she had any.
Wilfreda gave him a stare as cool as any he had received from Alice Hargreaves. She said, “Now, haven’t you the ruddy nerve? English, aren’t you? I can’t place your accent, London, I’d say, with a touch of something foreign.”
“You’re close,” he said, laughing. “I’m Richard Burton, by the way. How would you like to join our group? We’ve banded together for protection; we’re going to build some houses this afternoon. We’ve got a grailstone all to ourselves up in the hills” Wilfreda looked at the Tau Cetan and the Neanderthal “They’re part of your mob, now? I heard about “em; they say the monster’s a man from the stars, come along in A.D. 2000, they do say.”
“He won’t hurt you,” Burton said. “Neither will the subhuman. What do you say?” “I’m only a woman,” she said. “What do I have to offer?” “All a woman has to offer,” Burton said, grinning.
Surprisingly, she burst out laughing. She touched his chest and said, “Now ain’t you the clever one? What’s the matter, you can’t get no girl of your own?”
“I had one and lost her,” Burton said. That was not entirely true. He was not sure what Alice intended to do. He could not understand why she continued to stay with his group if she was so horrified” and disgusted. Perhaps it was because she preferred the evil she knew to the evil she did not know. At the moment, he himself felt only disgust at her stupidity, but he did not want her to go. That love he had experienced last night may have been caused by the drug, but he still felt a residue of it. Then why was he asking this woman to join them? Perhaps it was to make Alice jealous. Perhaps it was to have a woman to fall back upon if Alice refused him tonight. Perhaps … he did not know why.
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