Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"Are we still on course?" Hooper askd.

Fisher did not reply. The land below was scratched with old roads. It was empty and sunlit and wide-awake green. It seemed safe — Hooper felt he could put this jet-rotor down anywhere. But he was not navigator. The navigator was silent inside his helmet.

"Is there something wrong, Fizz?"

"Call me captain," the boy pleaded in his quacky voice.

"All yours, captain," Hooper said, and thought of Jennix at Coldharbor and his space-station dreams and the fantasy of his funeral on the moon. Was that normal?

None of Hooper's talk could rouse the boy. Fizzy had not blinked since they'd crossed the Red Zone. When they had received a sharp command at the perimeter to give details of their Access Pass, Fizzy had opened his mouth. But no sound came out. He breathed hard, like someone trying to steam up a window, and had a glum, laborious look on his face. Hooper had transmitted the details and they had been allowed to pass over that great shaved strip of land, with its upturned dishes and low-level gunship patrols.

Hooper was almost sure they were on course. They were using the flight program from the New Year's trip. But Hooper wanted Fizzy to relax, or at least to say something— anything to lessen the boy's apparent terror.

"We are filming, captain," Hooper said. It was still early in the O-Zone part of the trip, but they were speeding, and he did not want to miss the aliens' camp.

The horizon and the white sky were a shining reflection on the curve of Fisher's faceplate.

"I wish I knew where Murdick got this stuff," Hooper said. "Jet-rotor. Burp gun. Sonic stunner. Sealed video equipment. And that food of his was like slop, but you've got to admit it was unique." He glanced again at the boy. "It must be true about Godseye having government connections."

How could Fizzy sit there so long and say nothing? Hooper had never imagined that fear would make a person deaf, but rather the reverse — make him hear every crackle and whisper. Or was it something muscular? The boy was rigid in the bouncing rotor.

"I get mad when I realize I can't buy what I want with my money. Hah! Tell me what I'm supposed to use if I can't use money."

Now Hooper knew he was talking to himself, so he was brisker and friendlier.

"But it's humiliating — you bet it is. That a guy with my net worth and my credit can't buy Special Forces gear. That I have to blackmail Willis Murdick, so I can use it. That I have to take orders. No, sir, scrub that last objection."

He glanced again at Fizzy and hated the boy's helmet and found the padded suit unnecessary and the shoulder patch ridiculous: Mission Westwind Commander, it said. The boy was dressed for a moon landing. "Lunar suits" — that's what people called the temperature-controlled suit that Fizzy had chosen for this trip. And the boots made his feet look elephantine.

"We are still filming," Hooper said, and then remembered: "Captain."

There was a murmur on his earphones. He waited for more babble, but no clear words were uttered. It was grunting— Fizzy. The fact that the boy was grunting meant that he was thinking hard and might say something. Hardy had once said that Fizzy's farting was also an indication that the boy was deep in thought. Still, bursts of air were forced down the wire — no words. The boy's thought showed like the rumbling surface of a cooking stew.

"Viruses," he said at last.

Hooper looked hard at Fizzy's faceplate and tried to penetrate it to see his expression. Surely the craziness would show

220 Paul Theroux

on his face. But all Hooper saw was the tilting land and empty sky of O-Zone mirrored on the plate. "Psycho-killers," Fisher said. Then there was a long silence — fifty clicks or more. "You can't really do anything about either one." And he turned, the reflection slipped away from his faceplate. Fear had given him one mad eye and dry lips. "There's no remedy for bugs or wackos."

So that was it: he was still afraid of the risks. He had boasted about eliminating risks, but Hooper had noticed that he had come on the trip reluctantly. He had waited until Moura had left with her friends in the rotor, and had met Hooper on the rotor pad of Coldharbor looking like a moon-man — padded "lunar suit," stratospheric helmet, high boots, finger-assisted gloves, and a container of weapons and equipment so heavy the rotor had to kneel to receive it. Fizzy had struggled through the main hatch, looking sick.

"You all right, Fizz?"

"Call me captain." That was the first time. The boy's face was yellow.

Now they were in O-Zone airspace. They flew low over the green tufty fields and the hills of blue rock and the hardwood forests. The thin brown rivers were all loops and oxbows. The city-stains were like the ashes of vast fires. They were circular and gray, littered with scrub and untended trees, and there were scorched saucer patches where there had been explosions. These craters brimmed with stunted trees. The land was lumpier where there were caves, but from this height nearly everything else looked flat,

"I had forgotten it was so dry," Hooper said. "But spring breaks through nonetheless."

The bright hot dust showed through the mottled woods. They knew that the green on the rocks that gave them a soft appearance was a crust of lichens. They had started their long descent.

"Still filming."

Fisher had not looked once at the ground-screen. He was holding on, bracing himself on his safety clamp, his head bowed.

"There's Firehills," Hooper said, and saw that Fizzy's eyes were shut tightly.

The towers, the terrace, the whips of foliage, the empty swimming pool and its snaking vines, the oaks and hickories surrounding the complex, which was set secure!) on the stoollike hill — it all looked lovely to Hooper and he felt, hovering there, as if it belonged to him.

"I see a fire," Fisher said, glancing out.

"Wild azaleas," Hooper said.

The boy winced and withdrew to his helmet.

"We'll make a sweep around it to get it on film. Okay, captain?"

After a slow circuit of the buildings they dropped into the very spot they had vacated almost two months before and saw that the alarms were still in place.

"How long do we have to stay?" Fisher asked.

Hooper threw open the hatch and lifted his faceplate and breathed the clean air. It was a beautiful day in O-Zone. Then he turned toward the boy and deliberately did not smile.

He said, "You tell me, captain."

In silence, they verified that the alarms still worked and the power packs were still charging. They used scanners and sound equipment to search the interior of Firehills for intruders. Fisher followed Hooper, doing nothing but grunting and growling — thinking hard; he stayed very close to his uncle, and from time to time Hooper bumped him, or stepped on his toes, and several times Hooper himself was tripped by the boy. Hooper calmed himself and moved on.

He was reassured by Fizzy's anxiety and he knew that for his purposes the boy was the perfect companion here. He was so spooked by aliens he would be a genius at spotting them on the tape they had made. Fizzy had devised a complicated program for scanning the videotape.

They were outside the condo now, at the edge of the clearing. The wall of dense trees prevented them from going farther, but for the moment Hooper was satisfied. He loved the partially broken brickwork, the grass growing through the terrace cracks, the oxidized metal foxed by tiny lichens, the desolation of the place. It was like an ancient ruin of hot solitary stones, but one he understood, because it was not really ancient — it was only abandoned and entirely empty.

It was not until he heard the small flute notes of a bird that he said, "There aren't many birds here."