Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"Wait till you see this kid," Murdick said.

Meesle said, "If they put up any resistance, burn them all down."

"A shower of flechettes!"

"No. You'll be putting Fizzy in danger."

"Get him out of here," Sluter said. "That's an order, Willis."

"Sorry, Allbright," Murdick said, and took hold of Hardy's arm. But Hardy immediately yanked himself out of the flimsy grasp and shoved Murdick aside. And when Meesle came toward him, Hardy dodged, let the fat man stumble, and went for Sluter. He intended only to jostle him — to arrest their nosedive — but Hardy realized too late that he had shoved Sluter very hard against the console of controls, causing the gunship to stall.

A sputtering and a hesitant chug of the rotor blades preceded a violent tilt of the ship, and it went lopsided, falling flat, with Sluter gasping obscenities and snatching at the console.

And then the engine started, the rotor began chopping, and the ship swung sideways in a pendulum arc. At its highest point it shuddered, spilling Hardy and the others onto the rubber deck. Then the gunship lifted itself farther with a roar, and it buzzed in flight.

"They're gone!" Meesle said, clawing at the ground-screen. "We lost them!"

Sluter said nothing. He steadied the ship and slowed the rotor, and using thrusters he brought them to where they could see individual leaves beating under them in the tree-tops.

Murdick said, "Are we going on the ground for them?"

He was always frightened by the prospect of ground searches, and had been terrified even in the harmless farming town of Guthrie. Hardy had long ago decided that all their fears of the ground — they were seldom on it: they made a fetish of flying — had given them dangerous fantasies.

"No. Your friend is."

Hardy had been bruised by the struggle, and by the stall and roll of the gunship. He had hit his elbow and thigh. His mask had been pushed hard against his face. He guessed his nose was leaking — he could taste the drab syrup of blood in the corners of his mouth.

With a springy stop they were on the ground and rocking gently, the rotor still spinning. The sun had just left the sky, and Hardy sensed darkness and a chill rising from the damp earth.

"We don't need you anymore," Sluter said. "Get out. We should have dumped you long ago."

Murdick and Meesle eagerly tipped Hardy through the hatch onto the ground.

They had seen the toppling gunship and heard its roaring straight overhead, and without thinking, Fisher clapped his hands over the earpieces of his helmet and began screaming at the noisy ship falling from the sky onto their heads.

He was rigid — stiffened by the unearthly noise and the sight of the black gunship plunging toward him. His throat ached as he tried to scream it away.

"Move!" Mr. Blue said, and hurried Fisher down the embankment.

The boy felt himself rising and being carried in the same toppling, lopsided way as the gunship was falling. And when he stopped screaming there was only a distant hum in the sky. He sensed that he had silenced the thing: he had repelled it.

"I did it," he said in an exhausted voice. The screams had taken all his strength. How had he gotten under this bridge?

Echols said, "Think we should dig in here?"

He was talking to Mr. Blue, who shook his head.

Rooks said, "That ship came straight down — I think someone jumped out."

"They're after us," Fisher said in a hoarse voice.

In the pause his words produced, the sky darkened and the great gusts of smokelike cloud that had been building up in the east began to crowd the whole sky with night.

"Let's stop a vehicle," Gumbie said.

"They won't stop for us," Fisher said, then showed his teeth and said, "I just said 'us' again." But it did not seem odd anymore. Returning to them, he had proved he was not their hostage.

"If we burn off a wheel it'll stop."

"How will we drive the wonky vehicle on three wheels?"

"Everyone carries spares, Batfish."

"Yeah."

They ambushed a small pickup truck just beyond the bridge, blowing out one of its tires with a silent rifle and an exploding shell. The burst tire caused the vehicle to swerve and stop, and they swarmed over it, hooting and showing their weapons, and terrifying the driver.

"He's an Astronaut," Fisher said, seeing the man's cap and insignia and finding it ridiculous on his faded farmer's clothes. "Hey, this dong's going into orbit!" He poked his old iron into the man's face and said, "Okay, Rocketman, change the tire!"

The man limped and set up his jack.

"He's probably in spinal shock," Fisher said.

After the man had finished, Gumbie said, "Can we drop you anywhere, mister?"

The man said no, and winced as they drove away.

"How did you know he was an Astronaut?" Valda said.

"I live here!" Fisher said, and liked hearing the confidence in his voice, for he had always thought that he lived in a room in Coldharbor. "I know these people!" But he was sorry he had frightened the man in order to prove it.

"What's this?" Gumbie said, and showed Fisher a plump copy of a paperback book, The Tropes of Planet Alpha.

"His bible," Fisher said, and threw it out of the window. "Nuke it?"

They drove on narrow back roads, heading east, until Fisher tuned into the frequency of a live roadblock near the settlement of Greensburg. It was shit-wits, he said, carrying out spot checks. He picked up the drone of their scanners and some of their talk.

"We'll walk it," Mr. Blue said, after they had abandoned the truck and eaten the Astronaut's sandwiches. "Let's go."

Fisher liked hearing this even more than before, in O-Zone, because now he shared the impulse. The simple statement of determination showed confidence and strength — like hatching and flying out of the shell — airborne as soon as the egg cracked open. Let's go. And look how far they had gone!

"Security's terrible out here," Fisher said. "It's really bad."

"That's what worries me," Echols said.

"Hey, stop worrying — it's lousy. Just dongs at roadblocks. They check vehicles, but if you walk through the woods no one bothers you. What kind of security is that?"

They were cutting across a field, but slowly, because there was no light. The moon and stars were hidden by the dense cloud. And Valda was limping, dragging her injured foot. The darkness made Fisher imagine he was in a forest, with masses of black boughs above his head.

"As if all aliens travel in vehicles — the dongs!"

They kept walking, and from the swallowed sound of their footsteps they sensed they were near another embankment.

"No one's safe here, except us!"

"Keep it down, Fish," Mr. Blue said, but he was laughing softly.

"I mean, that kind of security wouldn't make me feel safe if I lived here," Fisher said, and he felt even sorrier for the Astronaut in the pickup truck. No wonder they planned trips to the moon and read those stupid books and believed all that trash. "Hey, I'd get a dog!"

They sat on the embankment, listening to Fisher; then they slid down.

"I smell tadpoles," Gumbie said,

"And where's the security here?" Fisher said. "There's nothing in position. We just traveled halfway across America and no one killed us. And look at this — pathetic! An unguarded signal box! That doesn't inspire my confidence at all. Hey, you're better off being an alien!"

"It's a road," Rooks was saying.

"This tool thinks it's a road!"

Then they saw the dim light of the distant train.

Hooper had been certain of the spot. Fizzy's brief message had given him Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh security had briefed him on the various sightings. "Missing person," Hooper had said, and he had found the people on the ground very helpful.

Following the bus route, he had picked up an emergency bleep which, strangely, had fallen silent moments after it had begun..