Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"Then we'll have to hand you over," Mr. Blue said.

"And they'll eat you alive," Martlet said.

Fisher said, "It shouldn't be too hard to fix,"

"You can fix it," Gumbie said. "You've got the creative juices."

"I hate that expression, 'creative juices.'"

"Get them flowing."

"Flowing!" Fisher said. "That's worse. That's disgusting."

Toward dawn they plodded more slowly, picking their steps, until, just at sunup, when the red edge of the horizon blazed at them and bulged from behind the blue plain, they seemed to grow tired, as if the light was making them stagger. They lay down in pairs, except for Fisher, who covered his head and muttered until he was asleep. They were woken hours later by the sizzling insects and bright heat of midday.

Echols handed Fisher the long tube of the particle beam.

"Better be careful with that thing," Fisher said. "It's not a spear, you know. It's not an ax. It's not some kind of net."

Echols was smiling. Their yellow smiles were worse than anything, Fisher thought. It was an animal sneer — a hairy alien face showing its bony fangs.

And Fisher squawked when the savage said, "It's probably a fault in the transducer."

"I hate know-it-alls," Fisher said. "Especially ignorant alien know-it-alls," and snatched the beam from him. "Anyway, the fault might not be there, because the transducer in this unit is a coil, not a clip, and it's self-regulating. This delivers a dozen kilojoules per square centimeter. Get it, dong-face?"

Echols had not lost his smile. He said, "What are those marks on your hands?"

They were circles drawn in green ink on Fisher's skin, and there was a small red swelling in the center of each one. Fisher pushed up his sleeve — more circled swellings covered his arm.

"That's what happens when you get rips in your gloves," Fisher said. "They're bites, of course. Haven't you ever seen bug bites?"

"I mean those green loops."

"I circled the bites with a marker."

Echols nodded, saying nothing more, and so Fisher chattered to fill the silence.

"That way I know just where to scratch when they itch. That way I get the right spot. Otherwise—"

Was Echols, that fuck-wit, smiling again? Fisher suspected that he was, but the alien said in a horribly solemn voice, "That's a very sensible measure. Oh, yes. Circle your bites so you know just where to scratch. Oh, yes."

"I think they're under us," Mr. Blue said. He spoke suddenly, as if revealing an inspiration. "I think they know we're here. They're waiting for nightfall."

"We'll blast them with the beam," Fisher said. "As soon as I've fixed it,"

"He still hasn't fixed it!"

"If you're so smart, you fix it!" Fisher said. "Anyway, I thought you said that Diggers don't go out in the daytime."

"They don't have to. They have special scopes. They can detect warm bodies—"

"Thermal imaging," Fisher said impatiently.

"Right. And I think they're sitting under us."

"How do you know that?" Fisher asked.

"I can feel it."

Fisher laughed his jeering hee-hawing laugh.

"When you don't have high tech you tend to listen a little more sharply," Mr. B said.

Although it was only midafternoon, Fisher imagined that it was growing dark. He too sensed the Diggers stirring now. He was still testing the circuits in the beam's transducer. As he worked he mumbled, "Dingle-dangle, peeny-winkle," speaking to the weapon. "Open up, Where's your clasp? Wonky-works!"

Echols saw him and said, "You're using a high-energy scan. They have ways of detecting that emission and tracing it."

"Your nose has a magnetic field, porky, so don't tell me I'm doing anything risky, because they can hear you blowing it."

"I think they're monitoring you heating those circuits."

"Let them listen. Let them find us. At least we'll have something to burn them with."

"You look a little worried, kid," Echols said. "Are you afraid it doesn't work?"

"How do I know if it works?" Fisher said. "If I test it the Diggers will certainly hear."

"That's interesting," Echols said. "We can't test it until we see them." He spoke to the others, who had taken up positions on the ridge. From this vantage point they could see the hollows on both sides, and there was no movement.

Fisher had dug himself in between two boulders and was listening to the others murmuring, "Nothing. . nothing." Except for this, they remained silent. Fisher knew that they feared the onset of nightfall, when the Diggers might emerge from their hiding places.

Martlet put his head between Fisher's boulders and breathed and stared.

"Why don't we run?" Fisher said.

"We live here," Martlet said. "This is our quarter."

"Then why is everyone so scared?"

"It's you," the man whispered. "Why don't you creep down there and hand yourself over?" Martlet moved, and the purple firelight of sunset flashed across him and lit his lumpy face. "You're just trouble for us."

Then it was dark and Fisher was fully awake, thinking: What if it's not Diggers — what if it's Hooper, or a search party? He still did not believe that Hooper or anyone else was capable of tracking through O-Zone — not without Fizzy himself as navigator. They would be flying blind. And yet what disturbed him in the aliens gave him a little hope for his rescue. The aliens showed flashes of intelligence, and if they were capable of understanding the basic structure of particle beam — certainly Echols seemed to — then might not some Owner be capable of making sense of O-Zone and perhaps finding him? It was possible that searchers might have located his signal, and that within a very short time they would be springing him — and flinging shit and misery down on the aliens. But it was also possible that the Diggers were lurking in the darkness, and that was why he did not budge. Who was out there?

Every sound upset him, the dry crackle of leaves, the purr of grass blades sieving the wind, and the way this same freshening wind wrapped itself round the rocks with a sigh. Among the rat-tat of insects he felt a peculiar nakedness. It was not irrational fear — these aliens, these savages, were afraid, and they were wild men, and strong, too.

He had rebuilt the weapon and in doing so had practically reinvented it. But having heated every circuit in the beam, he had risked being detected by the Diggers, or whoever was out there. It had been a necessary risk. And so he had done everything except fire the thing. The aliens thought he was a fool. He wanted to tell them that the last test might be a matter of life or death.

He longed for the time to pass. He searched the black sky for signs of dawn; he put his eye against his watch. Time seemed to stand still. He had always been afraid of the dark.

Sleep had helped him through it before, but now sleep seemed a different kind of death.

The indignity of his fear shamed him and made him feel like an animal. It was not self-contempt — it was not his fault that he had been stolen by these savages! But it made him feel stupid. He was like a turtle torn out of his shell to bleed here. It brought a raw ferocity to his feelings. He wanted to destroy first the Diggers, then these people, for his humiliation.

He thought: I'm dying because I don't belong here! .

Had he gone to sleep just then? He must have, briefly, because he heard Mr. Blue's voice in his dreams and when he woke up the dream was still draining away like daylight leaking from a room and then the cracks themselves vanishing as the last door closed for the night — something about New York without electricity, the whole place turned into dark hills and valleys, for wasn't O-Zone New York without lights? The dream was gone but there was still the voice, and black night gave it the crispness of command.

"Put on your helmet, Fish."