Edmund Cooper - Transit

They lifted her with difficulty. When she tried to put some weight on her injured foot, she winced but did not cry out.

‘She needs a stick to lean on,’ said Avery.

‘Maybe we ought to go the whole hog, make a stretcher and take her home,’ retorted Tom with sarcasm. ‘Let’s leave her now. She’s O.K. And you never know, the boy friend may turn up.’

‘We’ve got to find something for her to lean on.’

In the end, Tom went off to cut a branch from a less difficult tree than the bird-cage. While he was away, Avery got the woman to practise taking a few steps leaning upon him. By the time Tom returned, she was managing reasonably well.

Tom had found a very sturdy piece of wood. He even trimmed the top to make a handle. ‘This should hold her up,’ he said drily. ‘It’s guaranteed tested for half a ton.’

‘I think she might make it home under her own steam now,’ said Avery. ‘She’s got a lot of stamina.’ He watched her hobbling experimentally with the aid of the staff.

Suddenly, Tom had an idea. ‘If we follow her at a discreet distance, we’ll find out where their camp is. It might come in rather useful.’

Avery considered the idea, then finally decided against it. ‘If she finds out she’s being followed, she’ll either lead us away or try to get us into some sort of trap. And if she doesn’t find out, she may still lead us too near her playmates for comfort. Their philosophy seems to be shoot first and ask questions afterwards.’

Tom shrugged. ‘We shan’t get another opportunity like this—but you’re supposed to be the brains.’ Suddenly, he lifted his tomahawk and brought it crashing down on the woman’s cross-bow. He kicked the wreckage away. ‘That will teach her not to be anti-social…

Now, we might as well collect the doctor’s fee.’ He began to pick up the remaining bird-cage fruit. ‘They aren’t any use to her. She’ll have enough of a problem getting herself back to base.’

By an elaborate system of signs, Avery indicated to the woman that he and Tom were about to depart and that she was free to make her way back to wherever she lived.

Finally, as an irrational afterthought, Avery pointed to himself and said: ‘Richard.’ Then he pointed to Tom and gave his name, too.

The woman seemed to comprehend. She touched herself, and said something that sounded like: ‘Zleetri.’ Her voice was hard, almost masculine.

Then, with a curiously shy smile, she placed two extended fingers on her forehead and briefly touched Avery’s forehead with the same two fingers. She turned to Tom, glanced momentarily at the debris of her crossbow, and again touched her forehead. But she did not attempt to repeat the gesture on his. Gripping the staff tighdy, she began to hobble away. She did not look back.

‘Exit golden girl,’ observed Tom, ‘slightly battered and with food for thought.’ He picked up Avery’s tomahawk and gave it to him. ‘Here, don’t forget the old life-preserver. I hope you feel better now we’ve done our good deed for the day…. Incidentally, I wouldn’t bank on her undying gratitude, if I were you. Those kind of people strike me as having short memories and long prejudices. You can tell from the way they react that they think they’re God’s chosen.’

Avery was not in the mood for argument. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.

‘So am I. Let’s push off back to camp…. I’ll tell you another thing. When they hear about this, Mary and Barbara aren’t going to give any awards for gallantry. We have just helped to restore a potential enemy to active service.’

But Tom was wrong about Mary and Barbara. Regardless of what might or might not happen in the future, they both felt that Avery and Tom had taken the only course possible for civilized people. Instinctively, they knew it was important to maintain the basic ethics of civilization. And instinctively, they knew that, in the end, all worthwhile ethics could be reduced to that ancient principle: Do unto others….

That evening, there was a heated discussion on the incident—Barbara, Mary and Avery versus Tom. Eventually, Tom retired in a sulk.

His attitude puzzled Avery. Although he had not cared much for the idea of trying to help the golden woman— particularly since she had done her best to kill them both —he had certainly been of as much practical assistance as Avery, if not more. What made the matter even more puzzling was that Tom had been positively eager to help when, some time ago, the other woman (or perhaps it was the same one) had been in danger from the crocodile in the pool.

Avery wondered what had caused the change. Perhaps the incident at the pool was itself responsible. It had certainly shown both of them that the golden people were formidable specimens. Perhaps, then, logically, Tom’s present attitude was the right one—especially if it ever came to a question of open conflict between the two groups.

For then another principle would come into operation —more ancient than any ethical precept ever devised. A principle commonly known as Survival of the Fittest….

For no reason that he could consciously appreciate, as time went by the desire to explore grew into an obsession with Avery. It started a few days after he and Tom had found the golden woman at ‘their’ bird-cage tree. Oddly —and inexplicably—at first he tried to ignore it. But as the days added themselves up into uneventful weeks, so the pressure grew, until it could be contained no longer. He wanted suddenly and impossibly to explore in all directions, to find out as much as he could about the world they were living on.

At night the two moons and the strange pattern of stars tantalized him. By day, he stared at the seaward horizon, or along the shore, or at the long green phal anxes of trees and bush as if he would force them to yield their secrets by sheer will-power.

There were plenty of ways in which he could rationalize the urge to explore. He told himself that he and Tom, Barbara and Mary were slowly sinking into an insidious and primitive lethargy, they were becoming too content with the simple (and infuriatingly satisfying) routines of existence. They had been thrust into a strange situation and they had adapted too readily. Camp Two represented security. Unless they made a conscious effort to extend their knowledge and their dominion, both would ultimately, inevitably, shrink. If they continued to exist in the same old way, they would get to know intimately the small area of territory in which they now operated. By contrast, the unknown tracts of land would be regarded as dangerous. In the end, they might even become tabu….

There were many arguments for exploration—all of them good ones, some of them even dramatic ones. But they were still rationalizations. The plain fact, he told himself moodily, was that he was getting bored with the so-called idyllic life. He was still infected with all the restlessness and discontent of an allegedly civilized mind.

He did not say anything to the others. They seemed happy enough and contented enough with what they already had. In the few months that they had been thrown together, there had been enough excitement, danger and minor crises to make them feel thankful for what they had managed to achieve. And it was certainly no mean achievement for four strangers to mould themselves into a fairly harmonious group.

Because he was busy repressing the thoughts that had begun to dominate him, Avery became taciturn and took to indulging in long solitary strolls when the others were bathing or just spending a lazy afternoon on the seashore. He always went armed on these expeditions, but fear of wild animals and the golden people had diminished. He was no longer the same person whom They had picked up, ill and flabby, one cold and dismal afternoon in another world of space and time. He was lean, weathered, muscular—and, he thought complacently, a fairly reasonable kind of hunting/fishing machine. He had despatched many animals that would formerly have sent him running; and had even wounded then ultimately finished off a small rhinotype by getting it groggy from a distance, then rushing in to tomahawk its head to a bloody pulp. Even Tom had not managed a rhinotype so far. Avery was proud of the distinction.