sick.”
To which David could make no argument. He had been chosen by lot to be a preacher. His sermons were well thought out, I was told. I avoided Sundays, and sermons, and all that went with it. I could always easily be elsewhere. David and some of the other Elder preachers sensed that, but again, they usually made an allowance for me.
“I really must go,” I said.
“Thank you.”
When I walked out the door I looked around. Rebecca stood out on the porch, just beside the door.
She smoothed down her spotless white apron and smiled.
“Hi,” she said.
She had her mother’s honey-brown hair and hazel eyes.
I smiled back. “Hello, Rebecca.”
“It’s good to see you again.”
I could see David Yoder looking at me through the window. He was no fool. Someday soon I would
have to tell him that I had nothing but honorable intentions toward his daughter. Which was true: marrying Rebecca was about the only thing that would make all the unnecessary dead men and women bearable.
“I heard you say you might make the raising?” said Rebecca.
“Will you be there?”
“Of course,” Rebecca said with a shy smile. “I’ll be helping Mutter with the cooking.”
“Then I will do my best.”
“I hope you do make it,” Rebecca said. “There’s singing and dancing afterwards.”
Their notion of singing and dancing wasn’t about to put the dance halls of Earth and some of the colony worlds out of business, but it was better than nothing. Maybe, just maybe, for a few hours that day, no one would get hurt. No one would come down with a disease that I wasn’t permitted to cure. Maybe.
I checked my pocket watch. I would have to push Zeke faster than his usual meander to make it on time. But it was worth every delayed minute.
“I would really enjoy dancing,” I told Rebecca. “I have to leave now. I’m very late.”
She took my hand and shook it. Her skin was cool to the touch, and feathery.
I drove Zeke at a quick clip through the forest, my mind thinking fuzzy, pleasant things about Rebecca. I didn’t hear the distant rumble until Zeke began to perk his ears up.
It began low, but soon became a high pitch as I saw the triangular shape approach. Zeke slowed and sidestepped uneasily.
“Easy,” I said.
The sound jumped to earsplitting. The ship buzzed just over the treetops, thundering past on a flyby, the pilot and his companions sightseeing no doubt. I craned my head back and caught just a flash of the number on the side: DY-99. The buggy bounced as Zeke began moving off the road.
“Whoa!” I yelled, pulling on his reins.
Zeke veered back toward the road, then stopped. He whinnied and looked back down at the bushes. A long creeper held his rear left leg. Hundreds of yellow barbs along the vine punctured his stifle, and blood began to trickle down toward his hoof.
I looked down at the gray floorboards of the buggy. The creepers might move up for
“Come on, Zeke,” I shouted, snapping the reins.
He strained against the creeper, pulling, his muscles quivering. Then he started kicking and bucking, until
I heard a tearing sound, as he finally pulled free. Strips of torn flesh hung from his leg. He moved back away from the creeper, onto the road, but the buggy was still in the bush.
I snapped the reins again, and Zeke pulled at the buggy. We didn’t move.
“Whoa.”
I took my black bag and jumped out onto the road. Two long vines anchored the rear wheels. Zeke started straining at his harness again.
“
I started taking off his harness. My fingers slipped in under the buckle, and got caught as Zeke let up, then lunged forward again. Creepers began moving up the buggy toward Zeke. I waited for his next pause and lunge, then let go. I landed painfully, hitting my tailbone on a sharp rock.
I pulled a never-used scalpel out of my bag and tried to cut a vine away from Zeke’s legs, but it was too small and the vine was too thick, and Zeke wouldn’t hold still. He whinnied and kicked, but his efforts were becoming weaker, and finally he just stopped.
The vines wrapped around his legs and began to pull him down the side of the road. He pawed with his front legs at the road, dragging gravel and dirt in with him. Then he gave up with a snort.
The bushes rustled and sighed as they pulled Zeke in, and everything grew quiet.
Shaken, I stood up with my black bag.
The Andersons were a long walk away, but I could make it out of the forest road before dark. As long as I stayed in the middle of the road, I would be okay.
I limped off down the road, wondering what mad whim had made us come to this planet in the first place.
The Andersons were kind enough to give me a lift back to my house, though it meant a long drive. It was dark, and Mr. Anderson kept to the very middle of the road. I looked away as we passed the spot where Zeke had lost his battle for life.
Once I was back in my house I struck matches and held them over my gaslights. They lit the room with a
But instead someone thumped at the door.
I opened it to find David Yoder standing on my porch.
“What is it?” I asked. “Is it Esther?” Probably she was going into labor too soon. I turned, thinking about forceps, wondering how I could convince the old man to let me use them in his house.
“No,” David said. “It isn’t Esther. Rebecca collapsed…”
I stood there, dazed, until my mind caught up with the rest of me. I grabbed my bag in a daze and followed David out to his buggy.
“Creepers,” I explained.
David nodded. He’d lost a horse or two to them as well.
Rebecca sat in her bed. Esther stood over her with a sponge. They thought she had a fever of some sort, but Rebecca looked like she had recovered already. She smiled when she saw me and apologized.
“I’m feeling much better now,” she said. “I think it has passed.”
“Well, let’s make sure,” I said. “Have you had any other dizzy spells?”
Rebecca chewed her lip.
She had.
“Are there any strange lumps on your body?”
The quizzical look in return sank me. I ran through the questions. And then under the watchful eye of her father I ran my hands over her pale white body, looking for the intrusions. She sucked in her breath slightly when I
