In the morning, Helward sensed a growing jealousy between Lucia and Caterina, and so he broke camp as early as possible.
He led them across the stream and up to the higher land to the south. Following the left outer track they continued their journey. The surrounding countryside was now familiar to Helward, as this was the region through which the city had been passing when he first worked outside. Up ahead, some two miles to the south, he could see the ridge of high ground that the city had had to climb during the first winching he had witnessed.
They stopped for a rest half-way through the morning, and then Helward remembered that only two miles to the west of where they were was a small local settlement. It occurred to him that if food could be obtained there, the problem of what the girls could eat would be solved. He suggested this to them.
The problem arose of who was to go. He felt he should go himself because of his responsibility, but would need one of the girls because she could speak the language. He did not wish to leave just one of the girls alone with the baby, and he felt that if he went with either Caterina or Lucia, the one left behind would show more obviously what he had guessed was their shared jealousy over him. In the end, he suggested that Rosario should go with him, and by the reception with which this was greeted Helward felt it was the right choice.
They set off in the approximate direction Helward remembered the village to be, and found it without difficulty. After a long conversation between Rosario and three of the men in the village, they were given some dried meat and some green, raw vegetables. Everything went remarkably smoothly — Helward wondered what kind of persuasions she had used — and soon they were returning to the others.
Walking along a few yards behind Rosario, Helward noticed something about the girl he had not seen before.
She was built rather more heavily than the other two girls, and her arms and face were round and well-fleshed. The girl did have a slight tendency to plumpness, but it suddenly seemed to Helward that this was much more noticeable than before. With casual interest at first, and greater attention later, he saw that the fabric of her shirt was stretched tightly across her back. But her clothes had not been as tight as that before… they had been given to her in the city, and had fitted her well. Then Helward noticed the trousers she was wearing: they were tight across the seat, but the legs scuffed against the ground as she walked. True, she was without shoes, but even so he did not remember them being as long as this before.
He caught up with her, and walked at her side.
The shirt was tight across her chest, compressing her breasts… and the sleeves were too long. Also, the girl seemed to be far shorter than he remembered her from even the day before…
When they joined the others, Helward noticed that their clothes too were now fitting them badly. Caterina had her shirt knotted across her stomach as before, but Lucia’s was buttoned and the tightness of the fit caused the fabric to part between the buttons.
He tried to put the phenomenon out of his mind, but as they continued southwards it seemed to become more and more obvious… and with comic results. Bending down to attend to the baby, Rosario split the seat of her trousers. One of Lucia’s buttons popped off as she raised the canteen of water to her lips, and Caterina tore the fabric of her shirt down both seams below her armpits.
A mile or so further down the track, and Lucia lost two more buttons. Her shirt was now open down most of its front, and she knotted it as Caterina had done. All three girls had turned up the hems of their trousers, and it was clear they were suffering considerable discomfort.
Helward called a halt in the lee of the ridge, and they set up camp. Once they had eaten the girls took off their tattered clothes and went into the tent. They teased Helward about his own clothes: were they not going to be torn up too? He sat outside the tent on his own, not yet sleepy and not wishing to sit inside the tent with the girls.
The baby started to cry, and Rosario came out of the tent to get it some food. Helward spoke to her, but she did not reply. He watched her as she added water to the dried milk, looked at her naked body in a wholly unsexual way. He had seen her naked only the day before, and he was certain she had not looked like this. She had been almost as tall as he was, yet now she seemed to be more squat, more plump.
“Rosario, is Caterina still awake?”
She nodded wordlessly, and went back into the tent. A few moments later Caterina came out, and Helward stood up.
They faced each other in the light from the camp-fire. Caterina said nothing, and Helward did not know what to say. She too had changed… A moment later Lucia joined them, and she stood at Caterina’s side.
Now he was certain. Some time during the day the girls’ physical appearance had changed.
He looked at them both. Yesterday, naked beside the stream, their bodies had been long and lithe, their breasts round and full.
Now their arms and legs were shorter, and more thickly built. Their shoulders and hips were broader, their breasts less round and more widely spaced. Their faces were rounder, their necks were shorter.
They came across to him, and stood before him. Lucia took the clasp of his trousers in her hands. Her lips were moist. From the entrance to the tent, Rosario watched.
7
In the morning Helward saw that the girls had changed even further during the course of the night. He estimated now that none of them stood more than five feet high, they talked more quickly than before, and the pitch of their voices was higher.
None of them could get into the clothes. Lucia tried, but could not get her legs into the trousers, and split the sleeves of her shirt. When they left the camp, the girls’ clothes were left too, and they continued on their way naked.
Helward could not take his eyes off them. Every hour that passed seemed to reveal a more obvious change in them. Their legs were now so short that they could only take small steps, and he was forced to dawdle so that he would not leave them behind. In addition, he noticed that as they walked their posture was bedoming more and more at an angle, so that they appeared to be leaning backwards.
They too were watching him, and when they stopped for water there was an uncanny silence as the strange group passed the canteen from one to the other.
Around them there were outward signs of an inexplicable change in the scenery. The remains of the left outer track, which they still followed, were now indistinct. The last clear impression Helward had seen of one of the sleeper-pits had been more than forty feet in length, and less than an inch in depth. The next set of tracks, the left inner, could not be seen; gradually the strip between the two had widened until it was over to the east by half a mile or more.
The incidence of stay-emplacements had increased. Already that morning they had passed twelve, and by Helward’s calculations there were only nine more to go.
But how would he recognize the girls’ settlement? The natural scenery of the area was flat and uniform. Where they were resting was like the hardened residue of a lava flow: there was no shade or shelter to be seen. He looked more closely at the ground. If he moved his fingers through it firmly he could still make shallow indentations in the soil, but although it was loose and sandy soil it felt thick and viscous to the touch.
The girls were now no more than three feet tall, and their bodies had distorted even further. Their feet were flat and wide, their legs broad and short, their torsos round and compressed. In this perception of them they became grotesquely ugly, and he found that in spite of his fascination with the physical changes coming over them the sound of their twittering voices was irritating him.