Butler, Octavia - Clay's Ark

He wanted them all to start showing symptoms at about the same time, and he wanted that time to be soon. Left to themselves, infected people feeling their symptoms tended to huddle together in an us-against-the-world attitude. If everyone became ill at the same time, he would have less trouble keeping individuals from trying to go for help. He had started what could become an epidemic. Now, if he were going to be able to live with himself at all, he had to contain it.

He worked hard on the house that was intended for the son named Christian-Chris to everyone but his father. Christian's wife Gwyn was going to have a baby and Christian had decided that the house would be finished before the baby arrived. Eli did not know or care whether this was possible, but he liked Christian and Gwyn. He worried about what the disease might do to a pregnant woman and her child. Whatever happened would be his fault.

Sometimes guilt and fear rode him very nearly into insanity, and only the exhausting hard work of building kept him connected to the world outside himself. He liked these people. They were decent, kind, and in spite of the angry God they worshipped, they were remarkably peaceful and uncorrupted by the cynicism and violence outside. They were

good people." Yet it was inevitable that some of them would die.

The daughter Meda was doing her best to add to his burdens by seducing him. She had no subtlety, did not attempt any. "I'd like to sleep with you," she told him when she got her courage up. He had known since he met her that she wanted to sleep with someone, and would settle for him. He fended her off gently.

"Girl, what are you trying to do? Get yourself in trouble and get me shot? Your people have been good to me." "They wouldn't," she said, "if I told them who you are. They think heaven is only for God and his chosen."

He became serious. "Don't play games with me, Meda. I like your honesty and I like you, but don't threaten me."

She grinned. "You know I wouldn't tell." "I know."

"And if I can keep one secret, I can keep two." She touched his face. "I'm not going to let you alone."

Her touch produced an interesting tingle. She was coming into her time. He had apparently arrived just after her time of fertility the month before. That had been a blessing. He had been able to avoid the other two young women, but Meda would not let him avoid her. Now, she had no idea the trouble she was courting. She probably imagined a romantic

interlude. She did not imagine being thrown on the rocky ground and hurt-inevitably hurt.

"No," he said, pushing her away. She was still smiling when he turned from her and began hammering in siding nails. She watched for a while, and he discovered he enjoyed the attention. He had not believed women outside the crew would want to look at him with his body so changed. Meda was trouble, but he was sorry when she decided to leave. She looked as though she had lost a little weight, he noticed.

As she walked away, her brother Christian came out of the main house and stopped her. They were too far from Eli to worry about his hearing them, but he heard every word.

"That guy been talking to you, Mead?" Christian demanded. Eli could not recall having heard Christian refer to him as

"that guy" before. For Christian this was damned unfriendly.

"Sure he has," Meda said. "I came out here to talk to him. Why shouldn't he talk to me?" Blast her honesty! "What'd you say to him?"

"What did you do this morning, Chris? Look in the mirror and mistake yourself for Dad?" "What did he say to you?"

Eli looked at them and saw even over the distance that she smiled sadly. "Relax," she told her brother. "He said no. He said the family had been good to him and he didn't want trouble."

Christian gave an oddly brittle laugh. "Anybody who recognizes you as trouble has the right idea," he said. "If that guy were white, I'd tell you to marry him."

Meda watched her brother with visibly growing confusion. Living in the house, Eli had heard enough to know Christian

was her favorite brother. They had shared secrets since childhood. Christian knew how tired she was of being an isolated virgin, and she knew how nervous he was about becoming a father. Right now, she knew there was something wrong with him.

"Did you break down and buy some perfume?" he asked. "You smell good."

Eli put down his hammer and stood up. It was beginning. Meda had bathed and she smelled of soap, but she was not wearing perfume. She was simply coming into her time. If she and her brothers lived, they would have to learn to avoid each other at these times. Now, however, Eli might have to help them. He stood still, waiting to see whether Christian could control himself. He realized Meda might not be as much in control as she should be either. He would not let them commit incest. They would be losing enough of their humanity shortly.

Eli jumped down from the floor of the house and started toward them. At that moment, Christian reached up and touched Meda's face with one trembling hand. Then, with a strange, whining cry, he folded slowly to the ground, out cold.

PRESENT 10

When Eli and Keira were gone, Blake opened his bag and turned it on again. He punched in his identity code, then the words "TIMED SLEEP" and the number three. He hit the deliver button. Moments later, he had a capsule that would put him to sleep for three hours and let him awake fully alert. Next he ordered a much less precise dosage for Meda. This he ordered in injectable form-a sleep tab.

He placed Meda's dosage under the pillow he intended to use, then turned off the bag and closed it. He stripped to his shorts, and got into bed. Remembering Keira, he doubted that he could have slept at all without the capsule. And he had to sleep. If he did not, Meda would look at him and realize he was up to something. She might even figure out what it was. He did not underestimate her any longer.

He thought he heard her come in before he dozed off, thought she called his name. He may have muttered something before the drug took full effect.

He awakened on time, clearheaded, aware of what he must do. The room was full of moonlight and Meda lay snoring softly beside him. It amused him that she snored. It seemed utterly right that she should.

He was surprised to find himself feeling sorry for her as he eased the sleep tab from beneath his pillow and pressed it to

her thin, bare right arm. She repelled him, but she was not responsible for what she had become. There was no pain involved, but at his touch, she jumped, came awake, found him leaning over her. "What did you do?" she demanded, fully alert.

He touched her hair, thinking he would have to hit her again, not wanting to hit her, not wanting to hurt her at all. Perhaps that was what she saw in his expression-if she could see him well enough to read his expression. She smiled uncertainly, turned her face to meet his caressing hand.

Then the smile vanished. "Oh God," she said. "What have you done?" She reached for him, but her hands had no strength. She tried to get up and almost slid out of bed. Finally the drug stopped her. She moaned and slipped into unconsciousness.

Blake stared at her, feeling irrationally guilty. He straightened her body, placed her in a more comfortable-looking

position, and covered her. She would awaken in three or four hours.

He dressed, looked around the room, noticed at once that his bag was gone. He looked through the closet and in the bathroom, searched the bedroom, but the bag was not to be found. Finally, desperately, he forgot the bag and began searching for the key that would let him out of the room. Since he already knew where it was not, he began by searching the one place he had ignored: the bed and Meda herself. He found it on a chain around her neck. It hung down inside her gown where he could not have touched it normally without awakening her.