A second shock, powerfully magnified, hit him then. Because he was personally involved?
For what seemed an interminable time, Cal's mind ceased to function rationally, and like an animal suddenly faced with the unknown he froze, shrank within himself, stood motionless. Yet far down within his mind, there was still detached observation, as if a part of him were removed from all this, still in the role of disinterested observer.
The crew behind him was likewise frozen in tableau. And the colonists in front of him. A balance in number, with himself in between, a still picture from a modernist ballet.
Or a charade. Guess what this is!
He felt laughter bubbling to his lips, recognized it for the beginning of hysteria, and the impulse was washed away.
With that portion of detached curiosity he watched his mind functioning, darting frantically here and there for rational explanation, and momentarily taking refuge in irrationality. It was all being done with trick photography! Such a sudden transition could take place in a motion picture, a transition from reality into a dream sequence lying discarded on the cutting-room floor.
Reversion to the primitive, accounting for the phenomena by devising a mind more powerful than his own. The childhood view of the omnipotent parent, reality's disillusionment, the parent substitute, the creation of a god in his parent's image without the weakness of his parent, so that he might go on in perpetual irresponsibility since he could now place responsibility outside himself.
Or this was a fairy story in which he lived. This was the spell of enchantment. This was magic. And at the first concept of magic, the first lesson of E sharpened into focus once more.
"Anything is magic if you don't understand how it happens, and science if you do."
In that odd, detached portion of his mind he deliberately used the statement as a foundation. Upon it he reconstructed the science of E. The universe and all in it is logical, logical at least to man because he is part of that universe, of its essence. There can be nothing in the universe that is wrong, or out of place, except and only as the limited interpretation of man who sees a force in terms of a threat to the ascendancy of himself-and-his at the center of things. This is the sole basis of morality, and prevents man's appreciation of total reality.
He had been trapped in the first concept, and was accepting these phenomena as a statement of Eminent Authority. But what if this were not the whole of reality, what then?
Once begun, his mind progressed rapidly through the seven stages of E science, and in the seventh he found rationality. If there is only one natural law, and we see it only in seemingly unrelated facets because of our ignorance, because we cannot apperceive the whole, then this, too, is no more than another facet.
Perhaps it was this which broke the spell. Perhaps it was the movement of the colonists. They were moving, withdrawing, walking backward step by step. Their faces were masks of despair, and in them Cal read the knowledge that what had just happened to him, his men, his ship, had previously happened to them.
Slowly they backed away, backed out of the open space, sought the shelter of a great and spreading tree at the edge of the clearing. There they paused.
It was a return to ballet, a gravely executed change in the proportions of the tableau. They stood, a drooped and huddled group, cowering beneath the tree, in nude dejection, in the suggestion of a wary crouch, uncertain whether to flee precipitously, or freeze to make themselves as small and inconspicuous as possible.
In the same grave choreography he turned to look at his crew. And at the turning, as if on signal, on musical cue, Tom and Frank began the pantomime of urging Louie to his feet. Louie looked at the two standing men alternately. With bloodless lips he tried to grin wryly, apologetically, for what his nervous system was doing to his body against his will.
The old flash of an expression which seemed to say, "This is just the kind of dirty trick life always plays on me," came back into his eyes for an instant, and he tried to grin. But the attempt was a grimace of terror. He cowered back down at their feet, his courage swamped in funk.
"Let's get him under the tree," Cal said, and wondered why he had spoken in such a low voice, almost a whisper. That, too, was a part of the classical pattern of fear, to make no noise. As was getting him under the tree, an animal's instinct to hide from the eyes of the unknown.
As the four of them approached the tree, with Tom and Frank half-carrying, half-dragging Louie--and he still trying to make his legs behave, support him--the colonists made a fluttering movement of uncertainty, as if to bolt, to run in panic, farther and farther back into sheltering protection of the deep forest.
But they stood their ground, in acceptance. The seven men came together under the protecting branches of the tree. Protection? From what?
Louie sank down gratefully, and clutched the trunk of the tree, as if, on a high place, he feared falling.
"Sorry," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Just can't help it."
One of the colonists answered first, the tall, leather-faced, spare-framed one. Stamped on his face was his origin, the imperishable impression of the West Texan, grown up in a harsh land that can be made responsive to man's needs only through strength, his will to survive against all odds.
"It figgers," the man said in his quiet drawl. "We've all been like that for days, maybe a week or more. Lost count. You're doin' all right. Better than some."
Cal drew a deep breath, consciously squared his shoulders, fought off the urge to like dejection.
"Then everybody's still alive?" he asked.
"Oh yeah, sure. Nobody's kill't. Just hidin' out in the woods, and mostly from each other. It's a turrible thing." He looked down at himself with a wry grimace. "Not outta shame," he added. "We've seen naked bodies before. Just plumb scared, I guess."
To talk, to hear himself talking, and that to strangers, to tell somebody about it, seemed to restore some confidence in himself. Something of quiet dignity came back over him, a knowledge of responsibility for leadership. He straightened, as if silently reminding himself that he was a man.
"I'm Jed Dawkins," he said. "Sort of the kingpin of the colony, I reckon you might say. Mayor of Appletree, or what was Appletree. I don't rightly know if I'm mayor of anything now. This here is Ahmed Hussein, and this miserable hunk o' man is Dirk Van Tassel. Manner of speakin'," he amended. "He ain't no more miserable than the rest of us."
"I'm Calvin Gray," Cal answered. He indicated his crew. "This is Tom Lynwood, Frank Norton, Louie LeBeau. They're all good men. Just under the weather right now."
"You should'a seen us when it first happened," Jed said with feeling. "I reckon you're the E? Come to find out why we didn't communicate?" He spread his open hands and waved them to indicate the area around him. "Now you see why we didn't. Hollerin' loud as we could wouldn't do the job, and that's all we got left."
Somehow the introductions relaxed them all a little, as if the familiar formality provided some kind of normalcy in an incredible situation.
"Don't seem right hospitable, just standin' here," Jed added with a shrug. "But there ain't no house, nor camp, nor fire to share with you."
"We're not suffering at the moment, except mentally," Cal reassured him. Involuntarily he glanced up at the spreading branches of the tree, as if to reassure himself also; then grinned in self-consciousness at the pantomime of fear. "First thing is to find out what happened."
"Might as well hunker down right here on the ground," Jed said. "One place is good as another right now."
The men all crouched or sat on the dead leaves which carpeted the ground. Cal suddenly realized he was glad to take the strain from his legs, as if he had been maintaining stance through sheer will.
"It is a poor greeting to visitors from home," Ahmed spoke up, then cleared his voice in surprise to hear himself speaking. "We cannot even provide a cup of coffee."
"Cain't have no fire," Dawkins explained. "See?"
He picked up two dead twigs laying on the ground near him. He began rubbing them together, in the ancient way of creating fire. The two sticks flew apart and out of his hands.
"Try it," he invited Cal.
Curious, even unbelieving, Cal picked up two broken branches. He started to rub them together. He felt them twisted, wrenched, and pulled out of his hands. He saw them flying through the air with a force he had not provided. He got up, picked them up again, sat back down, and held the sticks very tightly in his hands. He tried to bring them together. Suddenly, he simply lost interest.
"Oh to hell with it," he said unexpectedly, and dropped the sticks. His astonishment at himself was a shock.
There was a kind of chuckle from Van Tassel, one without mirth. "Kind of gets you, doesn't it?" he said.
Cal looked at his hands, and at the sticks laying beside him.
"Now why would I do that?" he asked. "All at once it seemed unimportant to start a fire, or even try. What's happened here? What's been going on?"
"Cain't explain it," Dawkins said. "Sort of hoped you bein' an E, and all ..."
"Maybe if you told me just what happened, started at the beginning when everything was normal...."
"Something else you should tell him, Jed," Ahmed spoke up. He looked at Cal, and explained himself. "We don't think easily," he added. "Can't keep our minds on anything for more than a minute or so. In fact, I'm a little surprised that we've been able to carry on the conversation this long. From the way we've been behaving, I would have expected more that we'd have wandered away back into the woods before now--simply left you to your own devices without interest in you. Strange."
"Yeah," Jed confirmed, "I was thinkin' that, too. Funny thing. Right now I feel like I could tell the whole yarn. I feel like ... Well, while I'm in the mood I'd better git it said. Don't know how long I can keep interested.
"Well, there we were, one day, seems like it ought to be about a week ago, give or take a couple of days. Anyway, I remember it was around noon...."
