Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"And now we're sitting in one," Fisher said, looking out of the rotor at the steeply sloping sides of the hole. "It's probably hot!"

"It's safe. I've checked it for radiation levels."

"I hope it's hot. I hope your knob drops off!"

The hole was perfectly situated for Hooper's purposes. He had flown from Firehills with the rotor's muffler engaged — it was almost noiseless, its sound was something like the thin whine of a nighttime mosquito, and didn't carry: it was the pelting of the rotor blades. In the hole, it was hidden. This was Hooper's forward base.

Fisher said, "I hate it here."

The base of the hole was soft and silty, probably from soil that had washed down, and on its upper edge were trees, many of them withered and bent down.

"You think it's pretty on the ground-screen," the boy said. "But it's just smelly green rock."

The false barren green of O-Zone covered the exposed limestone here. It was a crumbly, scaly green, the fungus crust of lichens. From a distance it was velvety and ravishing; up close it was hard and ugly and very dry, and every surface was thick with it. Beneath this layer of scrubby lichen was solid rock. At night, in the darkness, it seemed to have a sweetish stink.

They had traveled in the dark. The landscape had showed crimson and gray on the ground-screen, the woods mottled, the hills had been blotches and black holes.

"Lights are dangerous," Hooper said. "They make you overconfident."

"You dong," Fisher said. "You're supposed to be responsible for my safety. How did those Skells get under the wire?"

"There are no Skells out here," Hooper said, amazed at the boy's ignorance of this simple fact. "You only find Skells in cities. You saw them yourself on the tape. They're not tramps and bagmen and cannibals."

"You tool."

"They're sort of ordinary people," Hooper said, persisting.

"Grubbing in caves. Climbing trees. Chewing branches. Oh, sure, ordinary people!"

"We drove them out of their camp. We killed two of them! They're scared — wouldn't you be? They're hungry. They're desperate."

"You feel sorry for those monkeys!" Fisher said. "What a fucking porker. It's a good thing I'm captain. If you were captain you'd probably be making contact with them. Chewing branches with them! 'Okay, jigaboo, pass me a branch'" — Fisher was honking, because it was all so preposterous—"And there's Hooper and his monkeymen, all having a feeding frenzy! Boy, am I glad I'm captain."

He stopped talking as the rotor shut itself off — something in its whine had kept him talking. But now he sat in the darkness, simply breathing. Hooper said nothing. The boy bitched and breathed hard when he was afraid.

"What about — me?" Fisher cried finally. "I'm hungry. I'm desperate. And I'm not a monkey!"

But it was so hard to reassure this ranting kid. Hooper was calm because he was certain of success — certain of its necessity, too. He saw the three of them in the rotor — Fizzy navigating, Bligh in the rumbleseat, and flying east with a tailwind in a clear sky. It was a lovely vision but it was so complete he could not describe it — he had gone too far in imagining it, given it too many specific details. He had let it accumulate around him so that he was already living within it. And he knew that it was his own vision, not Fizzy's; so the boy might find no consolation in it at all.

"Let's stick to the plan," Hooper said. He meant his own plan. "And then we can go home."

"I'm not leaving this rotor."

"It's only ten clicks to the camp," Hooper said.

"I'm completely hidden in this sinkhole. I ain't leaving, porky."

"I'm telling you, you're safer with me."

"Walking in the dark up a hill in monkey land!"

"Suit yourself, sonny." Hooper was too angry to risk saying anything more.

"Herbert!" Fisher called out. "Don't go! Don't leave me!"

But Hooper had already pushed away his safety clamp and lifted himself free of the hatch. The darkness poured past him. He did not think of the risks but only of the urgency of this mission. He was not worried about these blind aliens. He only thought how much easier this whole business would be with Fizzy's cooperation. And now the stubborn boy had wedged himself in the rotor and wouldn't leave.

Hooper dropped to the ground. Outlined against overlapping masses of stars, the rotor — parked on its long crooked-out legs-looked like a monster insect. There was a breath of wind tonight. No, it was a suffocated voice in the rotor crying, I'm captain. A little gnat shriek. I'm captain.

Over these past days it had become Hooper's practice to climb the hill quickly and descend the other side more slowly, scanning for aliens. He had safe stopping-places where he crouched and listened for voices or footsteps. He had discovered that people who hunt at night establish regular routes and never deviate from them. Night hunters were the most predictable creatures, and they all behaved like raccoons, blindly treading paths that were clearly visible by day as worn-away grooves on the floor of the woods-Darkness was the cover for their routine; but Hooper also had a night routine, and he could see their paths in his starlight-scope. He always knew at which point in the trek he would hear Bligh stealthily toeing the leaves, and where he would see her foraging, and where bathing or waiting. He had become accustomed to watching her when she was alone, like a bird on a branch. He felt he had come to know her well. He loved her face. When she was alone her face was real.

But he was surprised tonight at not finding her in any of the usual places. For an hour he trekked and stopped, and for another hour he scanned — nothing in the imager, nothing on the scope or the phones. He went to the spring. Because of the water, it was the only dense greenery around, the only seclusion. Hooper did not want to be trapped by daylight. Bligh was not there. Hooper waited, listening to his own breath in his ears, and the rattle of the dry leaves.

What he first took to be voices were running feet, closing in on him quickly. He had heard Bligh running before — she was fast; but these were swifter echoey steps. He decided that it was two people, one just ahead of the other.

He set his scanner at those sounds and waited for an image. He was always excited by the rising image — a pinprick became a seed-shape, and swelled to a wavering blob, grew legs and arms, and was whole and human. It was a kind of birth in seconds.

So he saw Bligh, like this, growing out of a point of light; and then saw an unformed thing behind her. In the imager it became a bearded man in a heavy coat. Bligh outran her pursuer and then the man stumbled among so many trees.

"I can see you!" the man yelled. But it was Bligh's own territory. She knew it in the dark, and it was the man — this stranger — who was lost. Yet he was not that far away. Bligh might not be able to hear him, but Hooper monitored his gasps at thirty meters.

Crouched, and with just the imager and the mike raised in the dark, Hooper could see them both, Bligh and her pursuer.

"It will be light soon," the man called out. Who was it? Fizzy would know. He had identified them all. The kid even had nicknames for them, like the Jig, and Dimbo, and Beaver-Face. "I'll get you then, when it's light!"

With this the man was silent and still, watting for the night to lift. Bligh lay against a fallen tree, her hands on her face, her knees drawn up.

The man remained a melted shape, a swatch of pink, pulsing on Hooper's small screen. Hooper wanted to do something, but what could he do without alarming Bligh? He might lose her in that attempt. It was past four-thirty and the sky was changing from a starry blackness to a murky blue, like deep ocean overhead. In one quarter, the sky was lighter but the wooded land here was still dark, and the hillsides like black walls with cold shadows.