Butler, Octavia - Clay's Ark

Meda brought Eli to him. When Eli was able to think past shock, past sadness, past the terrible knowledge that Zeriam would eventually have to be replaced, he examined the man's neck.

"I wouldn't have made it," he said. "Made what?" Meda asked.

"I wouldn't have died-even if I had managed to cut my throat. I'd heal all the way." "From a cut throat without a doctor? I don't believe you."

"I was in a couple of dominance fights aboard ship." He paused, remembering, shuddered inwardly. "The first time, I

was stabbed through the heart twice. I healed. The second time, I was beaten literally to a pulp with a chunk of metal. I

healed. Barely a scar. It takes a lot to kill us."

She helped him clean up the blood. It was she who found the letters. They were sealed in envelopes and marked "To

Lorene" and "To my son."

Meda stared at them for several seconds, then looked toward the bedrooms. "I'm going to wake Lorene," she said. He caught her shoulder. "I'll do it."

She looked down and away from Zeriam. He felt her tremble and knew she was crying. She never liked him to see her when she cried. She thought it made her look ugly and weak. He thought it made her look humanly vulnerable. She

reminded him that they were still humanly vulnerable in some ways.

For once, she let him hold her, comfort her. He took her out of the kitchen, back to their room and stayed with her for a few minutes.

"Go," she said finally. "Talk to Lorene. God, how is she going to stand this a second time?" He did not know, did not really want to find out, but he got up to go.

"Eli?"

He looked back at her, almost went back to her; she looked so uncharacteristically childlike, so frightened. He did not understand why she was afraid.

"No, go," she said. "But . . . take care of yourself. I mean ... no matter how strong you think this thing has made you, no matter what's happened to you . . . before, don't do anything careless or dumb. Don't . . ."

Don't die, she meant. She rubbed her stomach, looked at him. Don't die.

PRESENT 22

Blake regained consciousness in darkness.

He lay still, realizing that he was no longer in his car. He was lying on something flat and hard-a carpeted floor, he thought after a moment. His head ached-seemed to pulsate with pain. And he was cold.

His discomfort kept him from realizing immediately that his hands and feet were bound. Even when he tried to rub his head and discovered he had to move both arms, he did not understand why at once. He thought there was something more wrong with his body. When, finally, he understood, he struggled, tried to free himself, tried to stand up. He

managed only to writhe around and sit up.

"Is anyone here?" he said. There was no answer.

He squinted, trying to penetrate the darkness, fearing that he might be blind. He remembered hitting his head as he sheared into the oncoming car. He probably had a concussion. And what else?

Finally, dizzily, he managed to turn around, see dim light outlining draperies. He could still see, then. "Thank God," he muttered.

"Dad?"

He started. "Rane?" he said. "Is that you?"

"It's me." She sounded half awake. "Are you okay?" "Fine," he lied. "Where the hell are we?"

"A ranch house. Another ranch house."

"Another . . . ?"

"It wasn't Eli's people, Dad. I mean, they were chasing us, too, but they didn't catch us. A car gang caught us." That took a moment to sink in. "Oh God."

"They think they can get a ransom for us. I made them look at your identification. Meanwhile, they've been exposed to the disease."

"If there was no break in their skins-"

"There was. I scratched one myself. He tore my shirt open and I tore some skin off his arm." That shook Blake from one kind of misery to another. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. A few bruises, that's all. Before anyone could rape me, they decided I might be worth more . . . intact." "And Keira?"

"They let her alone too. She's right here. She was awake for a while-said she felt awful. Said she'd left all her medicine at Eli's."

"Is she tied?" "We both are."

He tried to see them, thought he could see Rane sitting up.

"Shall I wake Keira?"

"Let her sleep. That's the only medicine she has left now. How long was I unconscious?"

"Since last night. But you weren't always unconscious. Every now and then you'd mumble and move around. And you threw up. They made me clean it with my hands still tied."

Concussion. And he had lost a day. He had also lost his freedom again. Worst of all, he had spread the disease. He had failed at all he had attempted. All. . . .

"There's going to be an epidemic," Rane whispered. Blake inched over toward her, groped for her.

"What are you doing?" "Give me your hands."

"Dad, we're not tied with ropes. That's probably why I can still feel my hands and feet. We're wearing cuffs-choke-

cuffs."

Blake lay down again heavily. "Shit," he muttered. Everything the car family did to hold them sealed its doom and increased the likelihood of an epidemic. He tested the cuffs, doing what he could first to slip them, then to pull their bands apart. They were plastic, but felt surprisingly soft and comfortable as long as he did not try to get rid of them. Once he began to struggle, however, they tightened until he thought they would cut off his hands.

Pain stopped him. And the moment he relaxed, the cuffs eased their grip. People could be left hobbled as he was indefinitely. Choke-cuffs were called humane restraints. Blake had heard that in prisons-inevitably overcrowded-order was sometimes maintained by the threat of hobbling with such humane restraints. Hobbled prisoners were not isolated.

They were left in with the general prison population-fair game. They frequently did not survive.

Lying on his back, helpless, eaten alive with frustration and fear, Blake knew how they must have felt.

Would it be possible to talk to the car family? Would there be even one member intelligent enough to understand the danger? And if there were one, what evidence could Blake show him? The bag was gone. Neither he nor the girls had symptoms yet. If Meda was right, there would be symptoms in a few days, but how far could a car family spread the disease in a few days?

"Is this their base?" he asked Rane. A true car family had no base, he knew, except their vehicles.

"This place isn't theirs," Rane said. "They took it. They killed the men and raped the women. I think they're still keeping some of the women alive somewhere else in the house."

Blake shook his head. "God, this is a sewer. There's only one source of help that I can think of-and I don't want to think of it."

"What? Who?" "Eli."

"Dad ... Oh no. His kind . . . they aren't people anymore."

"Neither are these, honey."

"But, please, I gave these all the information they needed to convince Grandmother and Granddad Maslin that we're prisoners. They'll ransom us."

"What makes you think people as degenerate as these will let us go after they get what they want?"

"But they said ... I mean, they haven't hurt us." She groped for reassurance. "Let's face it. Grandmother and Granddad would ransom us if we were alive at all-no matter what had been done to us, but the car people haven't done anything." Blake sat up, tried to see her in the darkness. "Rane, don't say that again. Not to anyone." If only she thought before she opened her mouth. If only she hadn't opened her mouth at all. If only no other listener had heard!

Unexpectedly, Keira spoke into the silence. "Dad? Are you there?"

Blake shifted from anger at Rane to concern for Keira. "We're both here. How do you feel?"

"Okay. No, lousy, really, but it doesn't matter. We were worried about you. You took so long to regain consciousness. But now that you're awake, and it's night . . . what would you think about one of us hopping over to one of those windows and signaling Eli's people?"