Clay's Ark (20 page)

could not really hurt him at all. Now she feared she had killed him.

She checked quickly to see that he was still breathing, still had a strong pulse. She found blood on his head, but not

much of it. He was probably all right.

She got off the bed, pulled on her caftan, and stepped into her shoes, then she tore into his scattered clothing. She found

the car keys at once, but could not find the one for the room. The door was definitely locked, though she could not

remember him stopping to lock it. And there was no key.

She went to one of the larger of the four windows. It was not locked with a key, but it was closed so tightly she could

not budge it. She could break it, of course, but that would bring any number of people running.

On the bed, Eli made a whining sound, and she tore at the window. It opened inward rather than upward, but it had

apparently been painted shut.

She tried the other large window and found the same thing.

Finally she tried the two smaller center windows. When one of them opened, she dragged a chair to it, thankful for the

rug that muffled the sound. She spent long desperate seconds trying to get the screen open.

In the end, she broke the catch, pushed the screen out, and jumped.

PART 4: REUNION

PAST 19

"I feel like hell," Andrew Zeriam whispered. "Everything stinks. Food tastes like shit. Light hurts my eyes ..." He

groaned.

"You want me to go away?" Eli asked. He spoke very softly. Zeriam sat in a darkened room-he had refused to lie

down-and held his ears in this silent desert place, trying to shut out sounds he had not noticed before. What, Eli

wondered, would happen if the disease spread to the cities? How would newly sensitive ears endure the assault of

noise?

"Hell no, I don't want you to go away," Zeriam whispered. "I asked you to come in, didn't I?"

Silence.

"Can you see me, Eli? I can see you, and that's some trick."

"I can see you."

"It's pitch dark in here. It must be. It's night. The windows are shut. The lights are out. It's dark!"

"Yeah."

"Talk to me, Eli. Tell me what the hell is going on."

"You know what's going on. Lorene told you yesterday."

More silence. Then: "What are you that you can sit there and admit what she said is true?"

"I'm what you are, Andy-host to millions, or more likely billions, of extraterrestrials."

Zeriam lunged at him, swinging. Zeriam was faster and better coordinated then he had been, but he was not yet

significantly stronger. Eli caught him, held him easily.

"Andy, if you don't sit your ass down or lie down, you're going to make me hurt you."

Zeriam stared at him, then burst into bitter laughter. "Hurt me? Man, you've killed me. You've killed . . . Shit, you may

have killed everybody. Who knows how far this plague of yours will spread."

"I don't think I've killed you," Eli said. "I think you're going to live."

That stopped Zeriam's words and his struggles. "Live?"

"Your symptoms are like mine-weird, nerve-wracking, but not devastating. People who don't make it can't even stand

up when they're as far along as you are. Hell, you're not even shaky."

"But... people die of this. Lorene's husband, Gwyn's..."

"Yeah. Some people do. The women didn't. I didn't. You probably won't."

"But you did this to me. You, ultimately, because you did it to Lorene. You're worse than a goddamn Typhoid Mary!"

"A what?" Eli asked. Zeriam had just become a history teacher a few months before his capture by the car family. Eli

was used to either questioning or ignoring his historical allusions.

"A carrier," Zeriam said. "A disease carrier so irresponsible she had to be locked up to keep her from spreading her

disease."

"It's not irresponsibility," Eli told him. "It's compulsion. You don't know anything about it yet-though you will. If I

brought you an uninfected person now, you wouldn't be able to prevent yourself from infecting him. If you were

without a mate the way Lorene was, nothing short of death could stop you from infecting a woman."

"I don't believe you!"

"You believe every word. You feel it. And you can't hide your feelings from us."

Zeriam turned away, paced across the room, then back. He glared at Eli. He looked around like a trapped animal.

"Andy?"

Zeriam did not answer.

"Andy, there's something you haven't noticed yet. Something that might help you realize you can have a life here."

"What?"

"Lorene is pregnant."

"She's what? Already? I've only been here three weeks."

"You two didn't waste any time."

"I don't believe you. You can't be sure."

"You're the one who can't be sure. I noticed the change because I've seen it before."

"What change in only three weeks?"

"She smells different," Eli said.

"You're crazy. She smells fine. She-"

"I didn't say she smells bad. Just different. It's a difference you'll learn to recognize."

"Hell, I ought to tell you how you smell."

"I know how I smell, Andy-especially to you. I've been through all this before. And you should keep in mind that

you're beginning to smell as threatening, as wrong to me as I do to you. Later, we'll have to get used to each other all

over again. The organism seems to pull women together and push men apart- at least at first." Eli sighed. "Now we can

be men and work this out, work the ranch with the women and keep the disease to ourselves as much as possible, or we

can let the organism make animals of us and we can kill each other-for nothing."

"We get a choice? It's not another compulsion?"

"No, just a strong inclination. But it will rule you if you let it. Lay back, and it will drive you like a car."

"So what are you doing? Holding it all at bay by sheer willpower? You're so full of shit, Eli!"

He was giving in to the organism, letting the smell of a "rival" male enrage him. No doubt it was easy. Anger was so

much more satisifying than the uncertainty he had been feeling. He did not yet understand how easily his anger could

get out of hand.

Eli stood up. "I'll send Lorene in," he said as he moved toward the door. Zeriam was bright. He would learn to handle

inappropriate passions eventually. Meanwhile, Eli decided it was his responsibility to avoid dominance fights Zeriam

could lose so easily and so finally.

Eli did not quite make it to the door. Zeriam grabbed his arm. "Why should you send her in here?" he demanded. "Keep

her! You had her before. For all I know, it's your kid she's carrying!"

He was not saying what he believed. He had given himself over to the organism for the first time. There was no thought

behind his words-nor behind his swing a moment later.

Eli caught his hand in mid-swing, held it, hit him open-handed before Zeriam could swing again. Eli struck twice more.

He was in control because he knew Zeriam could not hurt him. If he had let the organism control him, if he had acted as

though he were truly threatened, he would have killed Zeriam, and perhaps not even realized it until later, when he

regained control.

As it was, Zeriam was not seriously hurt. He would have fallen, but Eli caught him and put him in a chair. There, he

sat, nursing a split lip and coming out of a rage that had probably surprised even him.

"Eli," he said after a while, "how much of what you do is what you really want to do-or at least, what you've decided on

your own to do." He paused. "How much of you is left?"

"You're asking how much of you will be left," Eli said.

"Yeah."

"A lot. Most of the time, a lot."

"And sometimes . . . insanity."

"Not insanity, Andy. Now is the most irrational time you'll have to face. Get through this, and you'll be able to deal

with the rest."

Zeriam stared at him, then looked away. He was frightened, but he said nothing.

Later that night, he sat at the kitchen table and wrote Lorene a long, surprisingly loving letter. There was no bitterness

in it, no anger. He wrote a longer letter to his unborn child. He had convinced himself it would be a son. He talked

about the impossibility of spending his life as the carrier of a deadly disease. He talked about his fear of losing himself,

becoming someone or something else. He talked about courage and cowardice and confusion. Finally, he put the letters

aside and cheated the microbe of the final few days it needed to tighten its hold on him. He took one of Meda's sharp

butcher knives and cut his throat.

PRESENT 20

Blake worried about having to use lights to stay on the poorly marked dirt trail. He had night glasses-glasses that

utilized ambient light-but he was afraid to trust them in this dangerous, unfamiliar place. Yet he knew he was giving

Eli's people a beacon to follow-and he had no doubt they were following.

"I saw something," Rane said, right on cue. She had climbed into the back because the seats in front were intended for

only two. "Dad, they're coming. Three or four of them. You can see them when the mountains aren't directly behind

them. They're running without lights."

"They can see in the dark," Keira said.

"So they say," Rane answered contemptuously. "Anyway, unless their cars are as different as they are, I don't see how

they can catch us."

"Keep your head down," Blake told her. "They could have guns with night scopes. If they do, they can see in the dark

all right. And they know these roads."

"Where will we go?" Keira asked.

Blake thought about that, glanced at his dashboard compass. They were heading due north. To reach the mountaintop

ranch, they had traveled southeast, then south. "Kerry, take a look at the map," he said. "Use I-Forty as your

northernmost point and the Colorado River bed as your easternmost. Give it fifty miles west of the river bed and south

of the highway. Look for towns and a real road. We'll probably have to go all the way back to Needles, but at least

there should be a road."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Keira said as she turned on the map and keyed in the area he had specified. He glanced over,

saw Needles in the upper right hand corner of the screen and nodded.

"I didn't think any place could be as isolated as that ranch seemed to be," Keira said. "U.S. Ninety-five runs north to

Needles. The problem is, I don't know where we are-how far we are from it. It might be to our advantage to stay on this

road until we reach I-Forty."

Blake glanced at the map again. "Since we didn't cross Ninety-five on the way to the ranch, it has to be east of us."

Keira nodded. "Yes, maybe six or seven miles east, and maybe a lot more."