Paul Theroux - O-Zone

Hardy was apprehensive, but all the more eager to rescue the boy, because of the gratitude he now felt: Fizzy had led him here, by a circuitous route, to the edge of the past. It was as if he had reached the shore of an island.

"I don't like the looks of this," Murdick said.

It was always the most worrying remark: the nervous client meant trouble. Hardy was afraid that Murdick was on the point of firing his weapon.

Meesle said, "Set up the scanner."

They did so, and found no wires or alarms. The rotor was parked on the far side of the barn — they took its profile, but could not read any of its markings.

They crept closer, moving clumsily in their suits and bumping each other, and swearing.

"Two of them," Sluter grunted, his faceplate against the scanner.

Hardy had crawled ahead, his hope making him bold. He had discovered his need for Fizzy and he knew he would defend him — he would certainly not hesitate to shoot anyone if it meant saving the boy.

"I'm almost on top of them," he said. The harsh breathing of the three Godseye troopers filled his headphones. He knew they were fearful: they had let him go forward. The death squad!

He halted and dropped to his knees.

"Hold your fire," he said. He seemed to be speaking to himself as much as to the others. He forced his weapon down. He had seen enough.

Yet it was the strangest sight. Standing framed in the old wooden windows of this farmhouse — just behind the cobwebs and the cracked panes of dirty glass — were two travelers in silver flying suits, with their helmets off; Hooper and that girl.

What had amazed Fisher was seeing Mr. Blue stand up and move away from the breakfast fire and in a voice of quiet power say, "Shall we go then?" And the man set out that instant for New York with the others behind him kicking the dust — never mind it being fifteen hundred clicks and their first time. It was a show of strength that matched the effort of a great machine — everyone had obeyed and followed the slender man to the edge of the cliff and down, walking in old-style shoes.

Fisher had obeyed, following in his new boots: he was impressed by the man who had made him do that. He wanted to say: I've never followed anyone before! A month ago they had put him in a bag and slung him from camp to camp and pushed him and dragged him — even threatened him. Now he was scuffing along with the rest of them. He was reminded of the day he had left Coldharbor alone and walked around New York. He had felt brave; it had been an unusual outing. But this was extraordinary. They actually expected to make it!

They took little except what they wore, the cast-off clothes they had found in O-Zone, a little food, including some of the sealed provisions, and some old weapons that doubled as tools — axes, choppers, knives, billhooks. They rolled their pots and cups into their blankets and twisted these rolls into backpacks.

"You're a problem, Fish."

"What kind, Mr. B?"

They were descending the cliff wall, Fisher in his helmet and torn suit, carrying his particle beam. His helmet contained him like a room.

"Your people are Owners. I mean, they're really powerful. Even I've heard of the Allbrights. If we stayed there they'd come and destroy us, for snatching you." He was talking quietly and choosing his steps with long loping strides.

The day was hot and bright and buzzing, what Fisher had come to see as a typical day in O-Zone. The sky was blue and high, not a cloud in it, no moisture, no wind. There was hardly any dew on the ground. There were scrub oaks and cedars here, and the flakes of sunlight beneath them were green and gold. At each clearing there was such stillness and such sky it was as though they were walking through a bubble.

"We'll find them before they find us."

"You had no right to take me."

"I suppose you think they had a right to steal Bligh."

He could have said, But she's an alien — and yet that didn't help. The word did not have quite the same meaning for Fisher now.

He said, "She wasn't legal."

"You ain't legal here, Fish," Gumbie said.

He was right — snuffling, frog-eyed DeWayne Gumbie was right. It was that sort of remark that made him qualify the word "alien," and they were aliens, no question about it. You only had to see them eating to know that.

Soon they were all perspiring and moving without speaking, Fisher at the rear, scowling, with his faceplate propped up, and the legs of his suit making a loud scraping as they rubbed together. He had begun to hate his noisy suit — it was a flying suit, totally wrong for the ground, and he swore at it — but he was afraid to take it off for any length of time.

He had never envied anyone before, and he told himself that he did not envy these aliens now. But he admired their guts and their dumb strength and their lack of ceremony. They didn't complain: that was very restful. You could probably teach these people enough math and physics to get them going. Their spelling and handwriting were better than Fisher's, but so what? Yet he liked the easy way they lived off the land — they simply stretched out and found something to eat, and left him the sealed provisions. They could smell water. He decided that they had to be very stupid to be so brave, and he somewhat despised them for their obedience. But how else was it possible to live here?

For Mr. Blue he felt not envy but regret that the alien had such inner strength. Although he was skinny and balding and had a bony face and was probably thirty, the man was very strong. Perhaps his strength came out of his silence and his narrow shadow. Fisher saw in Mr. Blue the qualities he knew he himself lacked. He needed that self-assurance, and there was something graceful about the man that made him feel ungainly.

"Never mind here in O-Zone," Fisher said, abruptly worried at what they were attempting and lapsing back into himself. "Never mind the low-level mutagens here. But what about the Red Zone Perimeter? There's a twenty-four-hour patrol! There's commandos! Checkpoints! Scanners! Spotter planes! Attack rotors!"

He hated his shrieking, but he wanted someone to reply, because he didn't have the answers himself. He struggled on the path, thinking: I'm on the ground! It wasn't even a real path — just the trampings of the feet up ahead.

"You'll figure something out," Echols said. "You're a smart kid."

Gumbie said, "And we'll give you some help, Fish."

They trusted him: they really believed he had the answers. He had overcome his fear of them, but this made him feel friendly toward them. They expected him to get them out of here. Was that possible? He realized the complication of having to save them in order to save himself. But walking to New York!

The name of the city made him think of his room, and Pap blinking at him; clean clothes, his bed, the bath, and a jelly sandwich and Guppy-Cola on a tray. He thought of his high cameras, and the view west that was always layered blue and purple over the dust-haze — the horizon that looked like sediment. He had been looking in this direction. He was now on the ground, part of the dust and residue he had always frowned at.

By noon they were trailing along the lower edge of the pan, where there was hickory shade. They kept to a steady pace until, near a rockslide, Mr. Blue led them to a pile of sprouting leaves and stalks that was tangled in a black patch of earth. It was a spring, rising out of the ground and seeping back.

"You smelled it," Fisher said, wondering how.

He picked some purplish leaves while the rest were drinking.

"What's the name of these?" he said. He had folded them, making a sandwich of them, and was about to stuff them into his mouth — he was certain he had eaten this cabbage before.