Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"You get used to it," he said, exulting.

Once, long ago on that New Year's trip, someone had said that aliens had technology — it was Starkies with rockets. And Fisher had denied it — how could they? Naked people with matted hair and dirty feet and yellow teeth — who didn't even build houses! It was impossible to imagine them with missiles, or irons of any kind. They were fairly dangerous with their fires and their knives, but they had no technology — nor had Diggers, nor Skells, nor Trolls, nor Roaches, nor any aliens. If they had, they might have lived interesting lives; but, no, they survived by hiding. Mr. Blue and his people knew how to evaporate, but who except Hooper had ever bothered them in O-Zone?

Yet what this boxcar trip — and really, the journey from O-Zone — had shown Fisher was that aliens were tough. They were not the shaggy pathetic creatures they were always depicted as being — accident-prone and diseased. They were strong; they had to be strong to survive; and if they had technology they would have been superb. It was weapons that made Owners seem strong. Without them, they were naked. They weren't tough, they had no cunning, their senses were deficient. But an alien with technology hardly seemed like an alien at all.

Fisher said, "Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you," and saw himself in the boxcar as unique. He had the wealth of an Owner and the strength of an alien.

They were watching the smoke rise.

He said, "A little technology has taken us halfway across the country. You would never have made it without me."

And they were still relying on him, in a place he had always feared. Looking across at it from Coldharbor or from Hooper's rotor, he had sensed a tightening in his throat, and he felt he would suffocate if he had to go on looking at it. He became a stupid animal and blamed Moura for choosing such an inadequate pedigree. My ears, my teeth, he thought. And he had been reminded of the size of the world, and how New York was surrounded by misery and danger.

"I like it on the ground!" he said.

Though it was awful here, and no one had succeeded in getting rid of these peripheral zones of gutted buildings. The attempts to burn them down had only made them more dangerous and uglier, and deepened the wasteland, and thickened the soupy air, like something out of the Jurassic Age — black rocks and big greasy birds. But he had conquered his fear and so he felt a wild affection for the place and a tenderness for these strangers who were still afraid.

"Bet you're glad you came!"

He had never imagined this: his standing in the boxcar, rattling through the smoke, frowning at the alienation out the door, and giving these O-Zonians encouragement. They had stolen him! They had not brought him here — he had brought them. And what had begun as his dependency had turned into his leadership. He wasn't leaning on them anymore, he was propping them up. He marveled at the change, and then thought: I am Fisher Allbright!

"I used to sit at Pap — remember I told you that's my computer? — and I was all hunched over. My membranes used to get all dried out because I never left the room. A flake of snot would drop out of my nose and hit the keys and I'd screech at it. My uncle saw me do it once. I didn't even care."

They were anxious and so they did not simply laugh but let go and screeched themselves hoarse, as if mimicking his terror.

"They thought I was a willy!"

They laughed again, the boxcar echoed with their shouts, and Fisher thought: They're mine. Their laughter proved that. But it also proved something else: they were good people.

He said, "If I ever took a spasm and decided to stay with you people, it wouldn't be because you're simple and primitive and wonderful, but because you're smart, and you learn fast, and you can use technology. And you know how to evaporate."

The laughter made them very quiet after that, and in the silence of the boxcar they heard voices outside — the cruel-sounding whoops of wild children.

Gumbie whispered, "Get me out of here."

The door crack widened as the train lurched, and a chevron of daylight passed across the faces of the aliens. They were pale, exhausted from their cross-country push. Heaped there in the boxcar they looked brave and defeated.

"We'll have to get out of this freight car pretty soon. They scan these things at the checkpoint and then seal them. If they find us we'll get cooked."

He wanted them to react. No one spoke.

"You'll get cooked."

He wasn't needling them, he was warning them. But they were waiting for him to say more.

"There's no communications here — there's nothing. But I've got my helmet and I'm within range. I'll radio my mother pretty soon."

Rooks said in his whimpering voice, "He'll radio his mother!"

"How will she find Bligh?" Valda said.

"She'll call my uncle," Fisher said. "Hooper Allbright— remember?"

Kylie startled everyone by saying the jingle, "Allbright's for all bright things."

"Shut up," Rooks said.

They were quiet again, thinking: Then what?

"We'll get out of here," Echols said.

He was already thinking that far ahead. They hadn't arrived and he wanted to leave!

"Wherever we are," Gumbie said in a tone that meant nowhere.

Fisher said, "Don't you worry," and liked the way it made them purr.

"— the hell's that?" Valda asked suddenly, jerking herself around and then slowly backing away from the half-open door.

It was a tall shimmering vision, like a whole mirage, sky-high. Beyond the black earth and twisted wire and the fires and the junked cars of the foreground, which was both smoldering and wet — soot and steam mingled — was a towering island of bright metal and stone, across the water. Although it was about noon, the lights were on — windows and skylights; and the thin pale rain made it glitter in half a rainbow.

It rose, wreathed and sparkling in the haze like a city of crystal.

"New York," Fisher said, and he pushed up his scratched faceplate to see it better.

He had left it. He had been a child then, and had thought that New York was the center of everything. The rest of the country was primitive and insignificant, and the world was dark and dangerous. He smiled at the memory of his stupidity. It was not the world but New York that was dangerous. He was headed for that trap — these people intended to deliver him back into his old delusion. He would be shut up in it and kept ignorant. He would be a child in that room with Pap, and afraid again.

They were all staring at the city through the open door.

Fisher was behind them, zipping his suit, tightening his gloves, adjusting his helmet.

He turned to Mr. Blue, who had not spoken for hours— and his last words hadn't been much use. Silence always seemed to make him skinnier and more intense. He looked tough but unprepared.

"What I want to know is," Fisher said softly — and he loved the power in his whisper—"who's in charge of this mission now?"

Fisher, yelling into the bubble on his head, was the first to jump from the boxcar; and the others followed close behind. They took cover in a burned-out building away from the tracks. When they were inside, breathing hard from the effort, Echols remarked on how lucky they were that they had not been spotted by a security patrol.

"There are no patrols on the ground here," Fisher said. "It's all aliens."

They stared at him: they knew what the word meant now.

"I mean, real aliens," he said. "Dangerous ones. Skells. Roaches. Trolls."

They looked around as if expecting to see fangy faces with yellow eyes and spiky hair.

"Hey, the security patrols are dangerous too," he said.

He felt he was now between two worlds — the drooling aliens, the sky-diving Owners. He could think evenly in this in-between space — it was everything that he had seen since O-Zone, and it had seemed fabulous, like an undiscovered valley that had lain undisturbed and unchanged; like O-Zone itself. But he had explored the unknown and felt safe there, and already he longed to return to it.