"Get away!" he tries to call to the boy.
But Bud's head turns, he has seen. "You little pissass." His long arm shoots out and captures Andy's shirt, his legs still locked around Judy.
"I've had it with you." His fist slams into Andy's mouth, the camera goes spinning away. But this time Bud doesn't let him go, he is battering the boy, all of them rolling in a tangle in the air.
"Stop!" Lorimer hears himself shout, plunging at them through the beans. "Bud, stop it! You're hitting a woman." The angry face comes around, squinting at him.
"Get lost, Doc, you little fart. Get your own ass."
"Andy' is a woman, Bud. You're hitting a girl. She's not a man."
"Huh?" Bud glances at Andy's bloody face. He shakes the shirtfront. "Where's the boobs?"
"She doesn't have breasts, but she's a woman. Her real name is Kay. They're all women. Let her go, Bud."
Bud stares at the androgyne, his legs still pinioning Judy, his penis poking the air. Andy puts up his/her hands in a vaguely combative way.
"A dyke?" says Bud slowly. "A goddam little bull dyke? This I gotta see."
He feints casually, thrusts a band into Andy's crotch.
"No balls!" he roars. "No balls at all!" Convulsing with laughter he lets himself tip over in the air, releasing Andy, his legs letting Judy slip free. "Na-ah," he interrupts himself to grab her hair and goes on guffawing. "A dyke! Hey, dykey!" He takes hold of his hard-on, waggles it at Andy. "Eat your heart out, little dyke." Then he pulls up Judy's head. She has been watching unresisting all along.
"Take a good look, girlie. See what old Buddy has for you? Tha-aat's what you want, say it. How long since you saw a real man, hey, dog-face?"
Maniacal laughter bubbles up in Lorimer's gut, farce too strong for fear. "She never saw a man in her life before, none of them has. You imbecile, don't you get it? There aren't any other men, they've all been dead three hundred years."
Bud slowly stops chuckling, twists around to peer at Lorimer.
"What'd I hear you say, Doc?"
"The men are all gone. They died off in the epidemic. There's nothing but women left alive on Earth."
"You mean there's, there's two million women down there and no men?" His jaw gapes. "Only little bull dykes like Andy… Wait a minute. Where do, they get the kids?"
"They grow them artificially. They're all girls."
"Gawd…" Bud's hand clasps his drooping penis, jiggles it absently until it stiffens. "Two million hot little cunts down there, waiting for old Buddy. Gawd. The last man on Earth… You don't count, Doc. And old Dave, he's full of crap."
He begins to pump himself, still holding Judy by the hair. The motion sends them slowly backward. Lorimer sees that Andy-Kayhas the camera going again. There is a big star-shaped smear of blood on the boyish face; cut lip, probably. He himself feels globed in thick air, all action spent. Not lucid.
"Two million cunts," Bud repeats. "Nobody home, nothing but pussy everywhere. I can do anything I want any time. No more shits." He pumps faster. "They'll be spread out for miles begging for it. Clawing each other for it. All for me, King Buddy.
I'll have strawberries and cunt for breakfast. Hot buttered boobies, man. 'N' head, there'll be a couple little twats licking whip cream off my cock all day long… Hey, I'll have contests! Only the best for old Buddy now. Not you, cow." He jerks Judy's head. "U'1 teenies, tight li'1 holes. I'll make the old broads hot 'em up while I watch." He frowns slightly, working on himself. In a clinical corner of his mind Lorimer guesses the drug is retarding ejaculation. He tells himself that he should be relieved by Bud's self-absorption, is instead obscurely terrified.
"King, I'll be their god," Bud is mumbling. "They'll make statues of me, my cock a mile high, all over. His Majesty's sacred balls. They'll worship it. Buddy Geirr, the last cock on Earth. Oh man, if old George could see that. When the boys hear that they'll really shit themselves, woo-ee!"
He frowns harder. "They can't all be gone." His eyes rove, find Lorimer. "Hey, Doc, there's some men left someplace, aren't there? Two or three, anyway?"
"No." Effortfully Lorimer shakes his head. "They're all dead, all of them."
"Balls." Bud twists around, peering at them. "There has to be some left. Say it." He pulls Judy's head up. "Say it, cunt."
"No, it's true," she says.
"No men;" Andy/Kay echoes.
"You're lying." Bud scowls, frigs himself faster, thrusting his pelvis. "There has to be some men, sure there are… They're hiding out in the hills, that's what it is. Hunting, living wild… Old wild men, 1 knew it."
"Why do there have to be men?" Judy asks him, being jerked to and fro.
"Why, you stupid bitch." He doesn't look at her, thrusts furiously. "Because, dummy, otherwise nothing counts, that's why… There's some men, some good old buckaroos- Buddy's a good old buckaroo-"
"Is he going to emit sperm now?" Connie whispers.
"Very likely," Lorimer says, or intends to say. The spectacle is of merely clinical interest, he tells himself, nothing to dread. One of Judy's hands clutches some. thing: a small plastic bag. Her other hand is on her hair that Bud is yanking. It must be painful.
"Uhhh, ahh," Bud pants distressfully, "fuck away, fuck-" Suddenly he pushes Judy's head into his groin, Lorimer glimpses her nonplussed expression.
"You have a mouth, bitch, get working!… Take it for shit's sake, take it! Uh, uh-" A small oyster jets limply from him. Judy's arm goes after it with the bag as they roll over in the air.
"Geirrl"
Bewildered by the roar, Lorimer turns and sees Dave-Major Norman Davis-looming in the hatchway. His arms are out, holding back Lady Blue and the other Judy.
"Geirr! I said there would be no misconduct on this ship and I mean it. Get away from that woman!"
Bud's legs only move vaguely, he does not seem to have heard. Judy swims through them bagging the last drops.
"You, what the hell are you doing?"
In the silence Lorimer heard his own voice say, "Taking a sperm sample, I should think."
"Lorimer? Are you out of your perverted mind? Get Geirr to his quarters."
Bud slowly rotates upright. "Ah, the reverend Leroy," he says tonelessly.
"You're drunk, Geirr. Go to your quarters."
"I have news for you, Dave-o," Bud tells him in the same flat voice. "I bet you don't know we're the last men on Earth. Two million twats down there."
"I'm aware of that," Dave says furiously. "You're a drunken disgrace. Lorimer, get that man out of here."
But Lorimer feels no nerve of action stir. Dave's angry voice has pushed back the terror, created a strange hopeful stasis encapsulating them all.
"I don't have to take that any more…" Bud's, head moves back and forth, silently saying no, no, as he drifts toward Lorimer. "Nothing counts any more. All gone. What for, friends?" His forehead puckers. "Old Dave, he's a man. I'll let him have some. The.: dummies… Poor old Doc, you're a creep but you're a better'n nothing, you can have some too… We'll y3 have places, see, big spreads. Hey, we can run drags, there has to be a million good old cars down there. We can go hunting. And then we find the wild men."