Paul Theroux - O-Zone

No one spoke up. Moura suspected that it was not their determination to stay that kept them quiet but rather that they were ashamed to say out loud that they wanted to go. In their small timid hush was their anger at being asked the question that way.

"We should get some data on them," Hardy said. "What's wrong, Willis?"

There was steam on Murdick's faceplate.

"Nothing's wrong," Murdick said, and his tone said everything — it was a perfect lie-detector phrase. Murdick spoke quickly and tried to shrug. He looked lost in his bright suit and oversized mask. He was panting as he added, "But don't you think we should have gotten some data on them before we came all this way?"

"This is O-Zone — it's empty," Barry said. His shrill sarcasm betrayed all his terror. He was perspiring inside his mask; and he was pacing — keeping away from the windows. "There's no one here!"

"And those are just the ones we happened to see," Rinka said, speaking for everyone, accepting everything that Fisher had said. She was whispering and staying near Barry — their common fear had made them a married couple once again; their terror was a kind of agreement and bond. "There could be lots more," she said, "right out there in the dark."

Hooper said, "Hardy's right — we should get some data on them."

"Who wants data? I don't care who they are," Rinka said. "If I had irons I'd kill every one of them."

Murdick said, "I've got the irons."

But no one asked him more. He was pathetic about his new equipment and when he mentioned his weapons he seemed frightened rather than strong.

Hardy's hands lay in his lap, his palms turned up, his thumbs out — they were more telling than a facial expression, and they signified futility. He said, "The only thing is…"

He did not finish the sentence — did not have to. The same worry was in everyone else's mind: Where were these aliens?

"We'll never find where they are," Hooper said. "We weren't flying straight. And if they were running when Fizzy saw them, they're probably still running. The calculation is impossible."

"That's just" — Fisher was squawking and stuttering—"just exactly the kind of stupid thing those aliens would say. 'Impossible' is another idiot word! If you start talking like them you'll never find them. Look at all the data we have—"

They hated his voice. It was bad enough having to overhear his talk, but it was so much worse being lectured by him. Yet they listened, because there was nothing else they could do, and because he was explaining what he planned to do with his computer. But his voice was so harshly unpleasant it made his plans sound desperate and unpromising.

"I'm pretty sure I can locate their position to within three clicks," Fisher was saying.

"I don't want to know their position," Moura said.

"I do," Murdick said, but without conviction. "Then I could show them my irons."

They all felt foolish in their masks and with all this clumsy equipment. And the litter of tubes from that ridiculous meal! And the complicated alarm and the sealed units in this Firehills condo, and the talk: "Our bubble-dome is a totally dust-free environment." But nothing they had brought with them on this trip could prevent them from being afraid now.

They decided not to move — not to go to their units or to sleep or stray outside — until Fisher did what he said he could and established the approximate position of the aliens. But they doubted that the boy could really help. What if the creatures were just outside in the darkness — squatting there and gurgling and waiting with the rockets everyone said they had? There was no more terrifying image than a hairy filthy alien — an Arab, an African, an illegal Hispanic — poised in the darkness clutching a heat-seeking missile; it was an ape with a deadly weapon.

Even if the aliens were not outside the condo — if they were east of that last large city-stain that had no name — how many clicks was that, and was it possible for these marauders to get here on foot before dawn? The travelers did not think their fears were unreasonable: most aliens moved on foot, and they often traveled at night, since none of them had passes. "I'm standing watch," Murdick said. "We should post someone on the roof to guard the aircraft. I'm not saying go on the ground, but someone's got to watch it." He rocked on the heavy treads of his boots and said, "They're not getting near my bubble! I've wired it! They'll blow themselves up! Raw meat!"

But it was a haphazard vigil — it was a glancing at windows and a peeping over balconies. They were too apprehensive to be efficient. They felt naked and isolated on this lighted hill — it was too late to douse the lights — and they felt peculiarly threatened by the darkness. They prowled inside Firehills, discovering cracks and old furniture and tattered curtains. Using remote control, they set the alarms on their rotors. But who would rescue them when the rotors were snatched and flown away? They imagined the alarms screeching and the lights flashing as the thieves took off into the night.

They climbed to the roof of Firehills and looked blindly down upon the great blackness that surrounded them. The humiliation was that in this darkness they were both blind and naked. They wanted to save themselves. It maddened them to think they had no remedy except this squawking boy. Murdick startled everyone with his weapons and his threats. Just the sound of him was a worry. He clanked his irons and muttered his confused plans. He was a small man, and because of his obsession with complex equipment and uniforms he always looked overdressed and somewhat top-heavy. He said he had the best irons, and they asked him what kind exactly. He told them rockets and gas-guns.

"We might be shooting into the dark. With these you don't have to aim. And we're wearing masks, so there's no problem."

"I thought gas-guns were against the law," Hardy said.

"They're against the law where there's a law," Murdick said. "But this is O-Zone."

"You frighten me," Hardy said.

"There's a shoot-on-sight rule that applies in places like this," Murdick said. "They might be right down there, steaming and stinking under those bushes."

"Why are you so eager?" Hardy said.

The man did not reply. But it was not the eagerness in Murdick's attitude that worried Hardy. It was the man's stupid fear and wild talk — all those horrible promises. It committed him to action and made him capable of anything. When Hardy left him, Murdick went looking for Hooper.

In the glaring light of the party unit, Fisher wired his computer terminal to the video screen where they had reviewed their trip. The aliens' malevolence still seemed printed there in small smudges, and the travelers had only to glance at the screen for their fears to intensify.

All except Fisher, who was calmed by his data-search. He set his keyboard on the big oak table and began to issue orders in his quacking voice. He had no authority, and he was very clumsy — his arms too long, his feet and hands much too big — yet everyone obeyed him. He had the Eubanks dragging cables for him. They believed that any activity, even this menial work for Fizzy, would soothe their nerves. At the very least it would help them kill time until dawn, when they planned to flee this dangerous place.

Hooper ran up and down stairs, first trying to avoid Murdick, who was raving and stamping, and then trying to keep away from the others, who were watching Fisher seated at his terminal, tapping tock-tock with "infuriating pauses, and snorting at the screen.

Hooper was gabbling. Finally he said, "What are you doing, sonny?"

Someone mumbled wonder boy: the name had never fitted him better. He was in his element. His youth and intelligence, and most of all his conceit — his importance! he alone could dispel the confusion! — plus the weight of his own drowsy fear, made him tyrannical.