"Ah, no you don't!" Bud snarls and lunges for her. As his arm stretches out Judy claps him on the triceps.
Bud gives a yell that dopplers off, his limbs thrash and then he is floating limply, his face suddenly serene. He is breathing, Lorimer sees, releasing his own breath, watching them carefully straighten out the big body. Judy plucks her pants out of the vines, and they start towing him out through the fence. She has the camera and the specimen bag.
"I put this in the freezer, dinko?" she says to Connie as they come by. Lorimer has to look away.
Connie nods. "Kay, how's your face?"
"I felt it!" Andy Kay says excitedly through puffed – lips. "I felt physical anger, I wanted to hit him. Woo-ee!"
"Put that man in my wardroom," Dave orders as they pass. He has moved into the sunlight over the lettuce rows. Lady Blue and Judy Dakar are back by the wall, watching. Lorimer remembers what he wanted to ask.
"Dave, do you really know? They're all women?"
Dave eyes him broodingly, floating erect with the sun on his chestnut beard and hair. The authentic features of man. Lorimer thinks of his own father, a small pale figure like himself. He feels better.
"I always knew they were trying to deceive us, Lori mer. Now that this woman has admitted the facts I understand the full extent of the tragedy."
It is his deep, mild Sunday voice. The women look at him interestedly.
"They are lost children. They have forgotten He who made them. For generations they have lived in darkness."
"They seem to be doing all right," Lorimer hears himself say. It sounds rather foolish.
"Women are not capable of running anything. You should know that, Lorimer. Look what they've done here, it's pathetic. Marking time, that's all. Poor souls." Dave sighs gravely. "It is not their fault. I recognize that. Nobody has given them any guidance for three hundred years. Like a chicken with its head off."
Lorimer recognizes his own thought; the structureless, chattering, trivial, two-million-celled protoplasmic lump.
"The head of the woman is the man," Dave says crisply. "Corinthians one eleven three. No discipline whatsoever." He stretches out his arm, holding up his crucifix as he drifts toward the wall of vines. "Mockery. Abominations." He touches the stakes and turns, framed in the green arbor.
"We were sent here, Lorimer. This is God's plan. 1 was sent here. Not you, you're as bad as they are. My 'middle name is Paul," he adds in a conversational tone. The sun gleams on the cross, on his uplifted face, a strong, pure, apostolic visage. Despite some intellectual reservations Lorimer feels a forgotten nerve respond.
"Oh Father, send me strength," Dave prays quietly, his eyes closed. "You have spared us from the void to bring Your light to this suffering world. I shall lead Thy erring daughters out of the darkness. I shall be a stern but merciful father to them in Thy name. Help me to teach the children Thy holy law and train them in the fear of Thy righteous wrath. Let the women, learn in silence and all subjection; Timothy two eleven. They shall have sons to rule over them and glorify Thy name."
He could do it, Lorimer thinks, a man like that really could get life going again. Maybe there is some mystery, some plan. I was too ready to give up. No guts… He becomes aware of women whispering.
"This tape is about through." It is Judy Dakar. "Isn't that enough? He's just repeating."
"Wait," murmurs Lady Blue.
"And she brought forth a man child to rule the nations with a rod of iron, Revelations twelve five," Dave says, louder. His eyes are open now, staring intently at the crucifix. "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. "
Lady Blue nods; Judy pushes off toward Dave. Lorimer understands, protest rising in his throat. They mustn't do that to Dave, treating him like an animal for Christ's sake, a man-
"Dave! Look out, don't let her get near you!" he shouts.
"May I look, Major? It's beautiful, what is it?" Judy is coasting close, her hand out toward the crucifix.
"She's got a hypo, watch it!"
But Dave has already wheeled round. "Do not profane, woman!"
He thrusts the cross at her like a weapon, so menacing that she recoils in mid-air and shows the glinting needle in her hand.
"Serpent!" He kicks her shoulder away, sending himself upward. "Blasphemer. All right," he snaps in his ordinary voice, "there's going to be some order around here starting now. Get over by that wall, all of you."
Astounded, Lorimer sees that Dave actually has a weapon in his other hand, a small grey handgun. He must have had it since Houston. Hope and ataraxia shrivel away, he is shocked into desperate reality.
"Major Davis," Lady Blue is saying. She is floating right at him, they all are, right at the gun. Oh god, do they know what it is?
"Stop!" he shouts at them. "Do what he says, for god's sake. That's a ballistic weapon, it can kill you. It shoots metal slugs." He begins edging toward Dave along the vines.
"Stand back." Dave gestures with the gun. "I am taking command of this ship in the name of the United States of America under God."
"Dave, put that gun away. You don't want to shoot people."
Dave sees him, swings the gun around. "I warn you, Lorimer. Get over there with them. Geirr's a man, when he sobers up." He looks at the women still drifting puzzledly toward him and understands. "All right, lesson one. Watch this."
He takes deliberate aim at the iguana cages and fires. There is a pinging crack. A lizard explodes bloodily, voices cry out. A loud mechanical warble starts up and overrides everything.
"A leak!" Two bodies go streaking toward the far end, everybody is moving. In the confusion Lorimer sees Dave calmly pulling himself back to the hatchway behind them, his gun ready. He pushes frantically across the tool rack to cut him off. A spray cannister comes loose in his grip, leaving him kicking in the air. The alarm warble dies.
"You will stay here until I decide to send for you," Dave announces. He has reached the hatch, is pulling the massive lock door around. It will seal off the pod, Lorimer realizes.
"Don't do it, Dave! Listen to me, you're going to kill us all." Lorimer's own internal alarms are shaking him, he knows now what all that damned volleyball has been for and he is scared to death. "Dave, listen to me!"
"Shut up." The gun swings toward him. The door is moving. Lorimer gets a foot on solidity.
"Duck! It's a bomb!" With all his strength he hurls the massive cannister at Dave's head and launches himself after it.
"Look out!" And he is sailing helplessly in slow motion, hearing the gun go off again, voices yelling. Dave must have missed him, overhead shots are tough-and then he is doubling downward, grabbing hair. A har blow strikes his gut, it is Dave's leg kicking past hi but he has his arm under the beard, the big man bucking like a bull, throwing him around.
"Get the gun, get it!" People are bumping him, getting hit. Just as his hold slips a hand snakes by him onto Dave's shoulder and they are colliding into the hatch door in a tangle. Dave's body is suddenly no longer at war.
Lorimer pushes free, sees Dave's contorted face tip slowly backward looking at him.
"Judas-"
The eyes close. It is over.
Lorimer looks around. Lady Blue is holding the gun, sighting down the barrel.
"Put that down," he gasps, winded. She goes on examining it.
"Hey, thanks!" Andy-Kay-grins lopsidedly at him, rubbing her jaw. They are all smiling, speaking warmly to him, feeling themselves, their torn clothes. Judy Dakar has a black eye starting, Connie holds a shattered iguana by the tail.
Beside him Dave drifts breathing stertorously, his blind face pointing at the sun. Judas… Lorimer feels the last shield break inside him, desolation flooding in. On the deck my captain lies.