Paul Theroux - O-Zone

He was now in sole charge. He had demanded that each pilot hand over his audio-log and flight program. Both the Murdicks and the Eubanks had recorded domestic squabbling on the tape, and they hated giving this unpleasant boy access to their privacy. What would he do with them? Yet their recorded outbursts only annoyed Fisher. He wasn't curious about the shouts and accusations; they were an interruption of his work. He frowned and muttered when something abusive was aired.

"What did you say?"

Fisher did not look up at the questioner. "I said I find foul language very relaxing."

He screened the incomplete charts of O-Zone and ran the tape of the flight back and forth, timing it and scanning it for speed and direction.

"How long do you think it will take?" Murdick asked.

"What are you doing now?"

"Do you really think there's aliens here?"

Fisher let the questions accumulate. He was absorbed in building a system; it was too early for answers. Fisher's relationship with computers and machines was physical — you could see it in the way he moved his lips. And there was an intimacy in the delicate touch of his hands stroking the keys. He used his fingertips on them, and when he was lost in concentration he had a way of salivating. He spoke in a slow satisfied drawl, with juice in his mouth.

"I'm feeding it raw data."

And he lightly scratched the keys, as if tricking his fingers into an arpeggio, and consoling the machine that way. Then he gave the whole mainframe a benevolent smile, as if this thing were animate and regarding him with hunger and gratitude.

Hardy found his brother at the window shortly after that. They did not speak immediately. Each glanced at the other's reflection in the glass and saw a distortion of his own face. There was a family resemblance — the faceplate showed enough of the broad nose and heavy jaw, the bright close-set eyes. Each man was just over six feet tall, and physically strong. They believed themselves to be the healthiest in the party.

As brothers they were not made uneasy by long silences. Each knew that the other was only pretending to be looking out of the window, but was in fact comparing the reflected faces. They were fascinated by the possibility that as brothers they might be interchangeable.

At last Hooper said, "I never expected the Eubanks to let us down. They're supposed to be so sophisticated and well-traveled. What a pair of shitters."

"I don't blame them for wanting to leave," Hardy said. "We should all leave."

"You mean run away before our pass expires?"

"If there are aliens here we can get data on them without hunting them down. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." But Hooper winced as he said it, because there was so much to explain, and Hardy's mind seemed made up.

"Murdick wants to burn them," Hardy said.

Hooper merely stared in acknowledgment. Only minutes ago, Murdick had come to him with a plan for mounting guns and beacons on the upper floors of these buildings, Firehills, and luring the aliens out of the woods with food or loud music (he believed the creatures were nearby and breathing hard), and gassing them.

"You know me," Hooper said. "I've never burned anyone in my life. I don't use my iron in New York. As for my warehouses and depots — when they're looted I just file an insurance claim and fix the hole in the fence."

"You sound so passive."

"That's the sound of money," Hooper said. "Money makes some people helpless. No one listens when I complain, because I'm Hooper Allbright of Allbright Cable Sales. A man of my net worth has no excuses."

Hardy was embarrassed hearing Hooper talk about his wealth — especially wealth making him feel weak. He resented it, and felt Hooper was merely indulging himself and overplaying the role of victim. But Hardy felt victimized himself and he decided that it was the time and place that had produced the feeling — it was O-Zone, it was this empty building standing in the darkness; it was the conclusion that everyone had reached: they were trapped here.

Hooper took a shallow breath — it was as if he were sipping at a thought.

He said, "I don't want to burn down those aliens, whoever they are."

"Why are you so gloomy all of a sudden?"

Because we might have to burn them down, Hooper.thought.

The beauty of a mask was that it gave you whatever expression you wanted, and you could hide behind that face. As long as Hooper didn't talk, his brother would never know what was on his mind.

The thought of killing those people deadened him and made him feel half-human. He tried to rationalize it. When they're burned they're gone. It was merciful, in a way— better burning someone than injuring him and leaving him struggling for the rest of his life against that damage, and suffering yourself with his lasting reproach. No, that was just hunters' logic.

Hardy filled him with buoyant light by saying, "Maybe there's no one here."

Hooper was still concealing himself in his mask, wondering what to say.

Then he did not have to reply.

"I found them!" It was Fizzy, yelling from what he had begun to call "the Operations Unit."

There were eleven of them, he said, big and small, in a large circular depression near wooded hills they had taped, eighty-two clicks east-northeast of Firehills.

"It's a valley?"

"It's a down-thrown massif," Fisher said.

The aliens had no vehicles, he said. Even if they were in perfect health it would take them three days to walk to Firehills. Amazingly they had no village; there were no huts on the tape, no active dwellings.

"These bastards just keep moving," Murdick said.

"They have no discernible pastoral features," Fisher said in his slow juicy way. He had the maddening habit of making intelligent comments in moronic, slurring speech.

"This kid belongs in a rubber room."

"Who said that?" Fisher cried. And trembling at the computer terminal he went on, "If you say those things about me I'll leave you here. I'll unplug this system! You'll be stuck! You'll die! Those aliens will get you!"

When his honking stopped, the room went very quiet.

"I want a drink," Fisher said into the submissive silence.

"Get him some water," Hardy said.

"I want a bottle of Guppy-Cola."

The bottle was quickly brought, and as Fisher refused to leave his terminal Murdick was obliged to kneel and fit the nozzle of the Guppy-Cola bottle to Fisher's suckhole.

And then, a great deal calmer, Fisher described how he had made projections of travel time, and located obstacles, and roughed out a strip map of the land that lay between Firehills and the aliens. He had plotted the irregular flight path of the afternoon. He calculated the exact quantities of fuel consumed, and all the other critical measurements— elevations, altitudes, temperatures, wind speeds. From his scan of the tape he sketched a profile of the aliens: they were clothed, most wore shoes of some kind. Three profiles were still pending, and of the rest five were men and three women. They had dogs. Several of the men were capable of running very fast.

"They're blacks?" Holly said, and frowned in disgust.

"No," Fisher said.

"That could be worse," Murdick said. "That could mean they have technology."

Two might be black, Fisher said, but that didn't mean anything. They were all carrying what seemed to be simple weapons, and as none had food packs or other bundles he had assumed they either lived nearby or else camped there.

"What were they doing?"

"Chasing some big birds," Fisher said. "Wild turkeys, I think."

"Them turkeys must be sick," Willis said.

"Not as sick as them aliens," his wife replied.

Hooper said to Fisher, "You actually saw the birds?"

"Yes, and that's not all. I saw some deer, and a small bear and a bobcat, and some other stuff — rabbits and raccoons, I guess."