Paul Theroux - O-Zone

And because they were blind, Hooper's shooting was easy. He used the starlight scope to find them, and he shot them with Murdick's heat-sensitive camera. Fisher had identified all of them. There were nine aliens. Monkeys, Fisher called them — Herberts, dongs, tools, wackos, jigs. He hated and feared them. But he described them minutely for the data base; he knew all their movements, which ones were scavengers and berry-pickers and diggers, which were hunters and sentries. Without realizing it — he still thought they were shooting for Hardy — he had helped Hooper isolate the girl. There were hours of her on the tape. Hooper had her hunting, he had her standing guard and burying food. That food business was interesting — the other aliens did not seem to know anything about it. Hooper watched the tapes after Fisher sealed himself into his sleep capsule for the night. This secret food-burying fascinated him, but there was another in which she washed in a shallow pool that was fed by a spring. Hooper had shot that one at some risk, because dawn was just breaking and until then he had always traveled in the darkness. But seeing her stripping off her clothes, he was not about to sneak away in his rotor simply because the sun was coming up. In fact, the light dazzling between the saplings gave the moment a powerful poignancy as she tossed her clothes aside and stood, as slender as a taper. The girl's nakedness and the rapid, splashing way she washed made her seem like a creature of the forest.

Her name was Bligh — that was the spelling Hooper gave it. He learned it by shooting her in whispered conversation with two men, one she called Gumbie, and another she called Rooks. Rooks was black. Fizzy analyzed their lip movements.

"They probably saw you. They probably want to kill you. Especially that jig,"

As he muttered — this was back at Firehills — he inserted the lip-reading program into the computer.

"They're hungry," he said. The data was coming through now. "They're talking about food."

"Hunger makes people irritable," Hooper said.

"You know all about it, don't you, herb? You and Hardy are such big talkers when you've got me to do all the work!"

The boy's fear made him quarrelsome, and quarrels upset him further.

"I appreciate your help," Hooper said.

"I'm the captain — you're the helper!"

"What are they saying?" Hooper asked, not daring even to try to calm the boy anymore.

"I'll tell you, but just stop giving speeches. 'Hunger makes people irritable.' I can't bear listening to shit like that."

"Right, captain."

Hooper was always surprised that Fizzy did not take offense when he spoke to him in this ludicrous way — the boy even seemed to like it.

"They're arguing," Fisher said. "'Listen, Bligh, if I find out you've been hiding food I'll kill you'—correction, 'kick you.' She says, 'Don't you threaten me.' The jig says, 'Don't make problems.' He should talk!"

That was last night, a typical night. Hooper had stayed near her and she had taken the same path to the shallow pool. He wondered whether she would remove her clothes again and wash; but she didn't — perhaps it was too cold. She waited, and when she seemed satisfied that no one was watching her, she foraged in the trees.

Hooper had been on the point of stunning her when he saw she was not foraging — she was hiding food. He was so fascinated by her deception that he allowed her to get away. So he had not isolated her: she had isolated herself. Perhaps she was planning her escape; perhaps she did not trust the others; perhaps she was merely hungry. He shot her going.

Usually, just before dawn the aliens hid themselves, to sleep. They had been frightened into new habits. And when they vanished, Hooper returned to Firehills. He watched the video he had made; but it was more than watching — it was like a form of prayer. It was sometimes worship. His desire for the girl, Bligh, dominated him totally. He told himself that he needed her, and that it was urgent. He believed it might make him strong. Instead, he felt sick. If he did not have her he would die. He reflected that he could have just about everything else on earth and it became a greater urgency that he should have her, because none of those other things mattered.

But it was not simply a reaching out and clutching her: he wanted her to possess him too. He wanted her to feel the same desire. She did not even know he existed! It was all like old magic, and he thought he sounded like a savage when he mumbled to himself that he loved her.

"We didn't come here for this," Fisher said.

He meant watching the tapes and drowsing all day and kicking around this old condo, Firehills. He also meant that they were too close to the aliens. He meant everything, because he was so frightened.

"It's what Hardy wants us to do," Hooper said.

"Hardy's got a secret weather scheme here," Fisher said. "I know all about it. I hacked his computer wide open."

"What's the scheme?"

"I don't know — the fucking tool stopped using his computer! But I'm sure it's one of those thermal mountains. He wants to get a contract, so that he's the only one in O-Zone."

"Except there's some people who got here ahead of him."

"I mean, he wants to be the only human being."

Hooper marveled at how all of Fizzy's reading and intelligence had failed to persuade him that aliens were human. His fear had made them into wolves and monkeys.

Hooper said, "We agreed to Hardy's terms, captain."

"That porker."

"And we can't shoot these ground elevations until we've isolated the aliens."

He meant Bligh — without her there would only be misery in his mouth.

All this time, Fisher had stayed at Firehills, behind the blacked-out windows and the wires and alarms and infrared sensors. Hooper had allowed it. But tonight, their fifth night at Firehills, Hooper needed the boy with him.

"Negative," Fisher was saying as he rolled his head in refusal.

Hooper said, "I think a couple of them could have just slipped under our wires."

He regretted the lie when he saw the effect it had on the boy's face: Fizzy was drowning.

"So we're moving camp, Fizz. Leave the hardware and follow me. I've already loaded the food."

But in the end Fisher said he was too weak to follow. Hooper helped him up and half-carried him into the rotor. And then they were on their way, heading for the forward base.

"Did you say something?"

There had been a murmur in Hooper's phones.

Fisher was whimpering. "You fucking herbert."

The landing spot for the jet-rotor was a sinkhole, ten clicks from the aliens' camp. It was a wide hole and deep enough to hold and hide the rotor. These sinkholes, Fisher said, were caused by the collapse of the limestone caverns that were so numerous in O-Zone. The roof fell in and a bowl was formed. Everyone talked about the sabotage that might have caused the radiation leak, or was it a ransom attempt, or blackmail that had contaminated O-Zone for so long? Fisher's own theory was that it was none of these. It was an earth tremor, like the one that had created Landslip in California, and simultaneous collapse of these caverns all over the Ozark Plateau. The weight of this rock had ruptured the drums of nuclear waste that had been hidden in the caverns; and so the place was poisoned.

Hooper was doubtful. "Then why did the Feds make a mystery of it and imply that a dark foreign power had made a mess of O-Zone?"

"Because the Feds didn't want to admit that they had been hiding nuclear waste in Missouri for twenty years. It was a blunder, so they invented a conspiracy."

"And it never occurred to anyone that it was the roof falling in?"

"How could it? No one was allowed to enter O-Zone. It was evacuated and sealed/'

"Smart kid," Hooper said.