Butler, Octavia - Clay's Ark

The ship had died, the three people he had come to love. most had died with it to prevent the epidemic he had probably just begun. He should have died with them. But of the four, only his enhanced survival drive had saved him-much against his will. He had been a prisoner within his own skull, cut off from conscious control of his body. He had watched himself running for cover, saving himself, and thus nullifying the sacrifice of the others. To his sorrow, to his ultimate shame, he, and he alone, had brought the first extraterrestrial life to Earth.

What could he do now? Could he do anything? Was not the whole matter literally out of his hands? Had it ever been otherwise?

A woman came into the room. She was tall and rangy and about fifty-too old to attract his interest in any dangerous

way.

"So," she said, "you're among the living again. I thought you might be. Are you hungry?" "Yes," he croaked. He coughed and tried again. "Please, yes."

"Coming right up," the woman said. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Jake," he lied. "Jacob Moore." Jake Moore had been his maternal grandfather, a good man, an old-style, shouting Baptist preacher who had stepped in and taken the place of his father when his father died. It was a name he would not forget, no matter how his body distracted him. His own name would send this woman hurrying to the nearest phone or radio or whatever people in this desolate place used to communicate with the world outside. She would call the would- be rescuers he had hidden from for three days after the destruction of the ship, and she would feel that she had done him a great favor. Then how many people would he be driven to infect before someone realized what was happening? Or was he wrong? Should he give himself up? Would he be able to tell everything he knew and dump the problem and himself into the laps of others?

The moment the thought came to him, he knew it was impossible. To give himself up would be an act of self- destruction. He would be confined, isolated. He would be prevented from doing the one thing he must do: seeking out new hosts for the alien microorganisms that had made themselves such fundamental parts of his body. Their purpose was now his purpose, and their only purpose was to survive and multiply. All his increased strength, speed, coordination, and sensory ability was to keep him alive and mobile, able to find new hosts or beget them. Many hosts. Perhaps three out of four of those found would die, but that magical fourth was worth any amount of trouble.

The organisms were not intelligent. They could not tell him how to keep himself alive, free, and able to find new hosts. But they became intensely uncomfortable if he did not, and their discomfort was his discomfort. He might interpret what they made him feel as pleasure when he did what was necessary, desirable, essential; or as pain when he tried to do what was terrifying, self-destructive, impossible. But what he was actually feeling were secondhand advance-retreat responses of millions of tiny symbionts.

The woman touched him to get his attention. She had brought him a tray. He took it on his lap, trying, and in the final, driven instant, failing to return the woman's kindness. He could not spare her. He scratched her wrist just hard enough to draw blood.

"I'm sorry," he said at once. "The rocks . . ." He displayed his jagged nails. "Sorry."

"It's nothing," the woman said. "I'd like to hear how you wound up out here so far from any other settlement. And here." She handed him a linen napkin-real linen. "Wipe your hands and face. Why are you perspiring so? It's cool in here."

PRESENT 6

In surprisingly little time, Meda served a huge meal. There was a whole ham-Blake wondered whether it was homegrown -several chickens, more salad than Blake thought six people could possibly eat, corn on the cob, buttered carrots, green beans, baked potatoes, rolls . . . Blake suspected this was the first meal he had eaten that contained almost nothing from boxes, bags, or cans. Not even salt on most of the food, he realized unhappily. He wondered whether the food was clean and free of live parasites. Could some parasite, some worm, perhaps, be responsible for these people's weight loss? Parasitic worm infestations were almost unknown now, but these people had not chosen to live in the present. They had adopted a nineteenth-century lifestyle. Perhaps they had contracted a nineteenth-century disease. Yet they were strong and alert. If they were sharing their bodies with worms, the worms were damned unusual. Blake picked at the barely seasoned food, eating little of it. He wasn't concerned about any possible worm infestation. That could be taken care of easily once he was free. And since everyone took food from the same serving dishes, selective drugging was impossible. He let the girls eat their fill. And he watched the abductors-especially Eli-eat prodigious amounts.

Keira tried to talk to him during the meal, but he gave the impression of being too busy eating to listen. Blake thought he tried a little too hard to give that impression. Eli was attracted to Keira; that was obvious. Blake hoped his ignoring her meant he was rejecting the attraction. The girl was sixteen, naive, and sheltered. Like most enclave parents, Blake

had done all he could to recreate the safe world of perhaps sixty years past for his children. Enclaves were islands

surrounded by vast, crowded, vulnerable residential areas through which ran sewers of utter lawlessness connecting cesspools-economic ghettos that regularly chewed their inhabitants up and spat the pieces into surrounding communities. The girls knew about such things only superficially. Neither of them would know how to handle a grown man who saw them as fair game. Nothing had ever truly threatened them before.

Meda was staring at Blake.

She must have been doing it for some time now. She had eaten her meal-a whole, roasted chicken plus generous helpings of everything else. Now she nibbled at a thick slice of ham and stared.

"What is it?" he asked her.

She looked at Eli. "Why wait?" she asked.

"God knows I almost didn't," he said. "Do what you want to."

She got up, walked around the table, stood over Blake, staring down at him intently. Sweat ran down her thin, predatory face. "Come on, Doc," she whispered.

Blake was afraid of her. It was ridiculous, but he was afraid.

"Get up," she said. "Come on. Believe it or not, I don't like to humiliate people."

Sweat ran into her eyes, but she did not seem to notice. In a moment, she would take hold of him with her skinny claws. He stood up, stiff with fear of the woman and fear of showing it. He bumped the table, palmed a knife, secretly, he thought. The idea of threatening her with it, maybe using it on her, repelled him, but he gripped it tightly.

"Bring the knife if you want to," she said. "I don't care." She turned and walked to the hall door. There she stood, waiting.

"Dad," Keira said anxiously. "Please ... do what they say." He looked at her, saw that she was frightened too.

She looked from him to Eli, but Eli would not meet her eyes. She faced Blake again. "Dad, don't make them hurt you." What was it about these people? How were they able to terrify when they did nothing? It was as though there were

something other than human about them. Or was it only their several guns? "Dad," Rane said, "do it. They're crazy."

He looked at Eli. If the girls were hurt in any way-any way at all-Eli would pay. Eli seemed to be in charge. He could

permit harm or prevent it. If he did not prevent it, no circus trick would save him.

Eli stared back, and Blake felt that he understood. Eli had shown himself to be unusually perceptive. And now he looked almost as miserable as Blake felt.

Blake turned and followed Meda. He kept the knife. Everyone saw it now, and they let him keep it. That alone was almost enough to make him leave it. They managed to make him feel like a fool for wanting a weapon against armed