Paul Theroux - O-Zone

"Is that Africa?" Bligh asked.

She was alarmed by the laughter — it was sudden and very sharp and full of wordless worry.

"Owners, Owners, Owners!" the porter cried, preceding them with a handcart of their luggage.

The Murdicks were waiting at the departure checkpoint— Holly in goggles and a semitransparent one-piece, Willis in a flying suit and helmet. He was cross, he said: they had made him hand over his weapons and he wouldn't see them until he arrived. "Some stupid new rule," he said. And Willis was the first to say, "If only Fizzy were here—"

The boy was missed at the luggage check: he would have known which bags to bring aboard and which to send to the cargo hold. He was missed on board when the captain made his rounds: Fizzy would have known which questions to ask regarding flight times and traffic and wind speeds. He was missed in the compartment: there was a built-in computer but no one in the party was sure which flight data should be fed into it.

"If Fizzy had come we could have leased a bird and gone in on our own," Murdick said. "I've always wanted to go transatlantic in my own big bird. Fizzy'd be navigator. He'd drive the computer."

They were seated in a private compartment that they had approached through tunnels and gangways and down the narrow corridors of the plane.

Bligh said, "Are we on the plane yet?"

The others laughed, but it was appreciative laughter this time, not the hysteria of the expressway.

"Bligh's used to smaller units," Hooper said. He loved her wonderment and her capacity for surprise. And she was wise enough in her innocence not to be a danger to him.

"Not only are we on board, but we're about to take off," Hardy said.

"I love your hair, sweetie," Holly said, and leaned forward, tightening her suit against her body. She was damp and very white, like meat wrapped in cellophane. "I want to know how you get it that way."

You live fifteen years in O-Zone, Hooper thought, seeing Bligh smile at Holly. Her hair was chopped short and sun-streaked, and her eyes were pale gray in her tanned face. She was young and rangy, she had small breasts and stubby fingers and smooth fleshy lips. She wore one of Hooper's suits— she said she preferred it to buying a new one, and it was attractively loose on her. Today she was looking even lovelier, Hooper thought — her face softened by the weeks in New York, the food and good living.

"Over a thousand people in the belly section alone," Murdick said, praising the plane. "And there's three more levels. It can be pretty crappy in those central areas," he said. He was smiling, because he was relieved that he did not have to endure it. "All those slobs. But you'll be real comfortable in here. We've got all the facilities,"

After takeoff, a steward pushed a hot table in and served the dinner. There was an argument over whether the meat was real or woven, whether the potatoes were powdered or just-peeled, was it spinach or processed seaweed, and what flavor were those fiber chips supposed to have?

"It smells right, but it don't chew right," Holly said.

"It tastes right if you cook it right," Murdick said.

"Fizzy would know," Moura said. "He's always so funny about his food. Jelly sandwiches and Guppy-Cola."

She had begun to miss him, and missing him, had begun to pity both him and herself. Now that he was gone she felt she knew him better; he did not seem so much a stranger. She chewed the food without tasting it, in a quiet and forlorn way.

"I feel lost without the little monster!" Hardy said, reading his wife's expression.

Hooper held his breath and waited for more, and dreaded it, because his explanation was so thin. But nothing more was said. There were nods and glances that said, yes, they too felt lost without the little monster. But no one said: Where is the beast?

They were all subdued in the plane. It was late and dark. But also none of them now wore a mask. They had become used to traveling in masks, and wearing helmets, and they were shy without them.

They finished eating to the low roar of the slipstream against the windows of the enormous plane. Bligh flicked a screen up and saw it was black outside. Hardy said, "We're at twenty clicks. That mean anything to you?" Then they wheeled the table with the remains of their meal into the corridor and extended their chairs into recliners. Hooper yawned and said, "We've only got about three hours more."

Bligh was the first to wake. She put her eye against the window screen and through the crack saw the sweep of the bay and the irregular crusty reef. Then she worked the shade up, and the rest of them woke, dazzled by Africa. The sun burned in a cloudless sky, and beneath was water — green and blue — and a mottled seabed of sand and coral was visible. The plane banked and turned: now they crossed a gleaming green strip of savanna. They flew on and got glimpses of a light brown desert crisscrossed with the dry veins of stony riverbeds, and tumbling hills and great dark cracks in the ground; and turned again over pale patches of dying trees, and blue boulders, and wide orange cones of earth — mountains shaped like anthills; and were flying low over the blue-green sea again.

"The coast," Hooper said. "That's where we're staying."

"I'm going hunting up north," Murdick said. "There's an awful lot of action there. Real wicked trouble" — but he was smiling. "You can shoot poachers on sight." He became solemn and certain. "No questions asked."

After the landing, the loud brake-blasts, and the tow to the terminal, they transferred to a waiting bug, an eight-seater that Murdick had chartered and was piloting.

The copilot was African — the first one they had seen. In his lapel was a gold rocket-pin.

"He's a Pilgrim," Holly said. "Imagine!"

"They're all Pilgrims," Hardy said. "It figures. There's nothing for them here."

Murdick said, "You got a name, fella?"

"Navigator Jimroy," the African said.

Holly put her mask on and faced the African. She said, pointing, and speaking in a little girl's voice, "Mr. Jimroy, are you going up in a big rocket to a space station or a lunar base?"

The African said nothing. He had a gentle apologetic smile — it was the enameled smile of the Pilgrim — and he kept his eyes on the ground-screen.

"With Fizzy along we could have done without this fucking Astronaut," Murdick said. "Anyway, where is he?"

But the question was lost in the noise of the rotor whirling them to the ground.

They had seen from the air that the green ribbon of coast was thick with hotels. Theirs was Earthworks Lodge, at the edge of the sea and under the rattling coconut palms. It was arranged in a number of connecting villages — a dozen or more. Each village was a cluster of thatched-roof huts. They only seemed primitive from the outside: they were air-conditioned and had four rooms apiece and were set in gardens among fountains and flowers. The grass was a moist carpet of green and the entire lawn was continually watered by a system of sprinklers that cast forth a glassy mist, like a hologram that contained a number of dim rainbows. In the sky, big slow birds circled without moving their wings.

The other guests hardly seemed to notice the visitors from New York. Most of the guests were naked, and many of these were painted. They slept under the trees; they lay on lounge chairs, wearing video masks; they walked slowly through the heat, the sun gleaming on their oiled nakedness.

"You're in here," Hooper said to Bligh, inside their hut, and he showed her to her bedroom.

He could not make out her expression. Did she want more than this? Was she disappointed, or was she relieved by the way they always slept separately?

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll keep an eye on you."

It always stopped him, the thought that she was an alien. He was afraid, but his fear excited him, too. It made him hover intensely near her. It kept him from touching her; it made her fascinating to him. For now, he was content to watch. But his was not a glance now and then: it was a burning scrutiny. He wanted to know everything about her— to see everything — which was why, even here, he had requested a one-way mirror on the wall that divided his room from hers.