Clay's Ark

He held the door open for her and she went in. "There are bobcats in these mountains, aren't there?" she asked. "And coyotes?"

"Jacob's in no danger from animals," Eli said. "His senses are keener than those of the big animals and he's fast. He's literally poison to most of the smaller ones-especially those that are supposed to be poison to him. No, it's the stray

humans out there that I worry about." He stopped, looked at his son who was listening somberly. "Keira, you take your

medicine, then go back to your room. There are some books in there if you want to read. I'm going to put this one to bed."

She obeyed, never thinking there might be anything else she could do. She caught herself feeling grateful to him for not hurting her, not even forcing the disease on her, though she didn't know how long that could last. Then she realized she was feeling gratitude to a man who had kidnapped her family. Her problem was she liked him. She wondered who

Jacob's mother was. Meda? If so, why was Meda trying so hard, so obviously to get Blake Maslin into her bed. Perhaps

he was there now. No, Jacob's mother must be someone else. She sat staring at the cover of a battered old book- something from the 1960s-written even before the birth of her father: Ishi, Last of his Tribe. She had intended to read, but she had no concentration. Finally, Eli appeared again to take her to her father.

That meeting was terrible. It forced her to remember that her liking for Eli could not matter. The fact that she was not afraid for herself could not matter. She had a duty to help her father and Rane to escape-and that terrified her. She did not underestimate the capacity of Eli's people to do harm. Her escape, her family's escape would endanger their families. They would kill to prevent that. Or perhaps they would only injure her badly and keep her with them in agony. She had had enough of pain.

But she had a duty.

"I shouldn't have let you see him," Eli said.

She jumped. She had been walking slowly back to her room, forgetting he was behind her. "I wish you hadn't," she whispered. Then she realized what she had said, and she was too ashamed to do anything but go into her room and try to shut the door.

He would not let the door shut.

"I thought it would be a kindness," he said, "to both of you." And as though to explain: "I liked the way you got along with Jacob and Zera. They're good kids, but the reactions they get sometimes from new people ..."

She knew about ugly reactions. Probably Jacob knew more, or would learn more, but walking down a city street between her mother and her father had taught her quite a bit.

She reached out and took Eli's hands. She had been wanting to do that for so long. The hands first pulled back from her, but did not pull away. They were callused, hard, very warm. How insane to expose herself to the disease now that she

knew she must at least try to escape. Yet she almost certainly already had it. Eli and her father had deluded themselves into believing otherwise, but she knew her own particular therapy-induced sensitivity to infection. Her father knew it

too, whether or not he chose to admit it.

The hands closed on her hands, giving in finally, and in spite of everything, she smiled.

PAST 17

Ironically, Eli, Meda, and Lorene interrupted someone else's attempted abduction. Off Interstate 40, they found a car family or a fragment of a car family raiding a roadside station. There were few stations in the open desert these days. They offered water, food, fuels from hydrogen to fast-charge for electric cars, vehicle repairs, and even a few rooms for tourists.

"Stations help everyone," Meda said as they watched the fighting. "Even the rat packs usually leave them alone." "Not this time," Eli said. "Hell, this isn't our fight. Let's see if I can get us out of here."

He could not. The Ford had apparently been spotted. Now, as Eli swung it around, the car people began to shoot at it. The Ford's light armor and bulletproof windows were hit several times, harmlessly. The bullet that hit the left front tire

should have been equally harmless. Instead, the tire exploded. At the same moment, a high-suspension, tough Tien

Shan pickup came across the sand from the station to cut the Ford off. They could not get back to the highway.

Eli stopped the Ford, and grabbed Gabriel Boyd's old AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. It wasn't the newest of old Boyd's collection of antiques, but Eli liked it. He slipped off the safety, and looked the Tien Shan over. Its too-large, crudely

cut gunports presented the best targets. He aimed through one of the Ford's own custom crafted gunports. The Tien

Shan's big openings were bull's-eyes. The barrel that emerged from one of them seemed to move in slow motion.

Eli fired. The rifle barrel in the Tien Shan jerked. Eli fired twice more, rapidly. The barrel in the Tien Shan slid backward, stopped, then remained still, pointed upward. Eli held back his last two rounds, waiting to see what would happen.

The Tien Shan sat silent. An instant later, Meda fired her rifle. Eli looked around, saw a man fall only a few feet from the Ford. On the opposite side of the car, Lorene fired her husband's rifle at a nearby rise. At first, it seemed she had done nothing more than kick up a puff of dust. Then a woman staggered from concealment, arms raised, one hand clutching her rifle by its barrel. As they watched, she fell face down into the sand.

Meda, who had probably been the best shot of the three of them before the disease, took aim at one of the other cars. She fired.

Again, nothing seemed to happen, but Eli swung the Ford around and charged the two cars. He had literally seen the bullet go through a window that was slightly open. And he could see through the tinted glass of that window well

enough to know that Meda had made another kill. Others in the car had apparently had enough. The car turned and fled into the desert, followed by the third, unscathed vehicle.

"Amateurs!" Meda muttered, watching them go. "Why'd they have to come to us to get themself killed?"

Eli glanced at her, saw that she was actually angry at the car family for forcing her to kill. She was almost crying. "Idiots!" she said. "Big holes cut for shooting! Open windows! Kids!"

"Probably," Eli said, reaching for her hand. She avoided him, would not look at him. "What they were doesn't matter," he said. "They meant to kill us. We stopped them."

"You should be glad they were amateurs," Lorene told her. "If they were more experienced and better equipped, they

would have killed us."

Eli shook his head. "I doubt it. We don't die that easily. And did you notice not one of them got off a shot at us after they blew our tire?"

"Yeah," Meda said. "Amateurs!"

"More than that," Eli told her. "We scared the hell out of them. We moved so fast we seemed to be anticipating them. If they're amateurs, they must have thought we were pros." He sighed. "Whoever's in the station might think that, too, so I don't think we'd better hang around here to change that tire."

"A stationmaster, Eli," Lorene said hungrily. "A station man."

He glanced at her. "Maybe it's a station woman or a family like Gwyn's." "We could see."

"No, Meda's right about these places. They help everyone. We might need them more than most people eventually. No sense closing this one down."

To their surprise, the stationmaster ended their argument for them by poking his head out the station door, then stepping out and making a perfect target of himself.

"I don't believe this," Meda said.

"He's crazy," Eli said. "He doesn't know what we might be -and he doesn't know whether there's anyone left alive in the

Tien Shan."

Meda shook her head. "Well, he'll find out for us."

The man drew no fire. He went to the Tien Shan and looked into the cab. He smiled at what he saw there-which must have taken a strong stomach and strong hatred.

"I don't think he's the stationmaster," Eli said. "Stationmasters can be tough and solitary, but they're usually not suicidal."

"And not stupid," Meda said. "He could have held out in that station and yelled for help that would have wiped us and

the car people out. This area is still patrolled."

Lorene got out of the car, Meda realized too late what she meant to do, reached out to stop her, but Lorene was too quick. She had shut the door and was exposed to the stranger. Eli and Meda moved in unspoken agreement to cover her. Later, if she survived, they could tell her what an ass she had been.

The man and anyone still inside the station could see both Lorene and her protectors. For the moment, this was another kind of stand-off.

"Can you believe she would risk her life for an ordinary little guy like that?" Meda asked.

Eli took a good look at the man. He was shorter than average, young-mid twenties, perhaps-overweight, though not grossly fat. His hair was a dull black with no hint of any other color even in the bright sunlight.

"She could have done worse," Eli said. "He hasn't got anything wrong with him. And that extra fat is a good thing, believe me." Her leaner brothers could have used it. "And for her, he's doubly attractive-uninfected and male. Hell, I

hope she likes him once she has him."

Meda glanced at Eli. "She will. She won't be able to help herself." "Is that so bad?" he asked.

She shrugged, said with bitter amusement, "How would I know? I'm as crazy as she is." She rested her hand on his shoulder, finally.

He kept the hand comfortably captive as he watched the man and Lorene. The man was clearly afraid-not of Lorene, but of the two rifle barrels he could see protruding from the Ford. But he was also determined. Either he would live or

he would die, but he would not do any more hiding.

"She's got him," Meda said.

Eli had seen. Lorene, clearly unarmed, had offered to shake the man's hand. With a look of uncertainty and dawning relief, the man had given his hand, then jumped as she scratched him. He jerked his hand away, but let her catch it again as she apologized. To Meda's visible disgust, Lorene kissed the hand. Thin as she was now, Lorene was still pretty. The black-haired man was obviously impressed with her-and confused and still suspicious.

"I think it's okay," Eli said. "I'm going over there." "She doesn't need your help," Meda protested.

He ignored her, got out of the car, opened her door, and waited for her to get out. "Come on," he said. "Seeing an old pregnant woman like you will help keep him calm. Maybe we won't have to hurt him."

For a moment, she looked as though she might punch him, but he grinned at her. She sighed and shook her head, then walked with him to Lorene and her stranger.

"It's okay," Lorene said. "His name is Andrew Zeriam. He was a prisoner. That Tien's his truck."

"Is it?" Eli wanted to see the man's face when he answered. He did not trust Lorene's quick acceptance. The organism and her glands were doing too much of her thinking for her just now. "The car family kept you alive?" he asked Zeriam.

The man stared at him hostilely. "They did," he said. "And the truck's mine." He looked ready to fight if he had to. Not eager, but ready. "They would have killed me soon," he said. "They were planning to."

He was soft and plump and young. One of the car people had probably taken a liking to him. They might not have killed him at all if he had cooperated. His voice, his face, his posture said he had not. He was not a homosexual, then-

fortunately for Lorene. And if no one dug too deeply into what had been done to him during his captivity, Lorene might

be able to convince him to come with her willingly.

"I'm going to get that sewage out of my truck and get out of here," he said suddenly. "No!" Lorene said quickly.

Zeriam looked at her. There was no softness in his eyes. He looked from her to Eli, questioning. Eli shrugged. "She likes you."

"Who are you people?"

"Not another car family, man, don't worry. Shit, we just pulled in here to pick up some auto supplies. Tried to get out when we saw what was going on, but those fools wouldn't let us."

"I saw. I hate to say it, but I'm glad they wouldn't. You probably saved my life." He hesitated. "Listen . . . can I help you fix that tire?"

"Thanks," Eli said. "What happened to the stationmaster?"

Zeriam turned away. "God, I managed to forget about her for a couple of minutes. One of the women from the car family decoyed her out. The car rat limped in all alone, pretended to be having car trouble. She had to go through a half hour of pretending to try to fix the car and crying and giving a performance that should have been on TV before the

stationmaster would come out to help. This is strictly a self-service station, you know. Stick in your cash or card and

push the button. But the stationmaster took pity, came out, and the gang came in and grabbed her. While they were busy with her, I made it into the station."

"Did they kill her?" Eli asked.

"No. They get more fun out of killing people slowly."

"You don't look like they've done much to you," Lorene said.

Zeriam turned without looking at her and walked away toward his truck.

"Look," Eli told Lorene, "you lay oft that one subject and show him how much you like him and we won't have to use force. You'll have him willing now as well as later."

"But why-'

"Lori," Meda said with more understanding than Eli would have expected. "That's not asking much. Don't you want him enough to do that?"

Lorene wet her lips and went after Zeriam.

Meda came to stand beside Eli. "The guy's nothing to look at," she said, "but there may be more to him than I thought." "Yeah."

"Want me to help change that tire?"

"Hell no. What do you want to do? Have the kid early? Why don't you go in the station and see what's there that we can use. Without the stationmaster, this place is finished, anyway."

"There should be a Highway Patrol copter out here sooner or later," she said. "The stationmaster probably had a check- in schedule with them that she won't be keeping now."

"So we'll hurry."

Still she hesitated. "Eli, what do you think of that guy, really?"

Eli shrugged. "I think he's okay. And I think he might not want to go home right now. I think he might start to see

Lorene as just what he needs."

She nodded. "That was the impression I got." She went into the station, finally. That was when Zeriam came over without Lorene to talk to Eli.

"You know she's trying to get me to join you," he said bluntly. "I know," Eli told him.

"What the hell would I be joining?"

Eli smiled. "A little nineteenth-century ranch in mountains you can't even see from here. Chickens, hogs, rabbits . . . The place will work your ass off. So will she, I expect."

The man did not smile. "How many others?" "One other. A woman."

"Three women? How the hell did you wind up with three women?"

Eli's smile vanished. "Accidentally," he said. "The way you wound up here accidentally."

They stared at each other for several seconds, Zeriam clearly not liking Eli's evasion, but not quite as willing to probe it as he had been. "So you live on a ranch with your harem. What do you need me for?"

"Nothing," Eli said. He jerked a thumb toward Lorene who waited beside the Tien Shan. "She needs you." "What about you?"

"I don't care. You're welcome as long as you'll share the work." "What about Lorene?"

"What about her?"

Silence.

Eli gave a short laugh. "I don't own anybody, man. People do what they want to. If she likes you, she likes you."

Zeriam spent several seconds squinting at him in the sun. "Why do I believe you?" he said finally. "After that shit with the car gang, why should I believe anybody?"

"You dump your garbage?" Eli asked. "The body? Yeah. Good shooting."

"Why don't you fuel up then. The ranch is a long way from here over a lot of lonely dirt roads."

They stared at each other for a moment longer, then Zeriam looked over at Lorene. She stood where she had been, waiting beside his truck, watching intently, and, though Zeriam did not realize it, listening.

Finally Zeriam went to her. She got into the truck with him and they drove around to the fuel lot.

PRESENT 18

Keira knew what she wanted.

She was afraid Eli would leave without giving it to her because she was young and ill. She was afraid touching would be enough for him. But he showed no signs of wanting to leave.

"Why?" he asked her, rubbing her bare arms beneath the caftan's loose sleeves. "I never tried so hard to spare someone. Why did you do it?"

She liked the way his hands felt. Not bruising or scratching. Just rubbing gently. If everything he'd told her was true, he

was enjoying it more than she was. She closed her eyes for a moment, wondering whether he really wanted his question answered. She did not think he did.

"I didn't want to be alone," she said. That was true, as far as it went. "And you. Why didn't you aim that guy Kaneshiro at me when he asked about me?"

His expression hardened and his hands closed around her arms. She smiled. "I think I want to answer your question honestly," she said. "I think I can say it to you."

She hugged him, then backed away, escaping his hands. The hands twitched and he took a step toward her. "Wait," she said. "Only for a moment. Bear it for a moment while I tell you."

He stood still.

She took a deep breath, met his eyes. "I think . . ." she began, "I know part of the reason I want you is that I'm ... dying. But it is you I want. Not just a warm body. Before you I didn't want anyone. There were some guys who wanted me, even after I got sick, but I never ... I thought I would never . . ." She floundered helplessly, unable to finish, wishing she had not begun. At least he did not laugh at her.

"You might die," he said. There was no conviction in his voice. "Stephen Kaneshiro needs a woman whose chances are better. And you ... I wanted you with me."

She let out a breath she had not known she was holding and tried to go back to him.

"Wait a minute," he said, holding her at arm's length. "Maybe I have a couple of things to say to you, too. I want you to know me. God knows why. It's always been to my advantage not to have people know me that well at first."

"You know why," she said quietly.

He could not keep his hands off her so he settled for holding one of her hands. "You have a son," she said. "Who's his mother?"

"Meda." "Meda?"

"She and I have two sons." "You're married then?"

He smiled. "Not formally. Besides, I have four more kids by other women."

She stared at him, first in surprise, then imagining what her mother would have said about him. "I've heard about . . . men who do that," she said.

He smiled grimly. "Your mama told you to keep the hell away from sewer rats like that, didn't she?"

"At least." She wondered why she did not pull her hand away from him. Six children by five different women. Good

God. "Why?" she demanded.

"Young women survive," he said. "Right now, we have the best balance we've ever had between men and women. Kaneshiro is the only extra man we've ever had. Now he's not extra any longer."

"But I am."

"You and your father, because you're related." "So when women are extra, you get them."

"That's exactly right. And when men are found for them, I give them up. We began that way out of biological necessity. I was alone with three women. The organism doesn't permit celibacy for any reason other than isolation."

"But . . . What about Meda?"

"What about her?"

"Why do you have two kids with her?"

"She's as close to a wife as I'm ever likely to get." He looked a little wistful. "We always get back together." "But . . . right now, she's with my father."

"Yes."

"You don't care?"

"I care-though not as much as I would if she weren't already a couple of months pregnant. She's taking care of your father and I'm taking care of you."

And Rane was alone, Keira thought. At least Eli had said she was. Keira wondered why she tended to believe him so easily. She wondered why the things he was telling her were not more disturbing. He was everything her mother had warned her against and more. And she did not doubt that her mother had been right. Yet all she regretted was that she

would not be able to keep him. Her own feelings were so irrational, they frightened her.

"If I told you I didn't want to be part of your harem," she said, "would you go away?" She felt the hand that held hers stiffen. "I don't think so," he said. "I don't think I could."

She thought if she were ever going to be afraid of him, now would be the time. "Let go of me," she whispered.

His grip on her tightened, became painful, then was suddenly released. His hands were shaking. He looked at them with amazement. "I didn't even think I could do that." He swallowed. "I can't keep doing it."

"That's okay," she said. She took his hand again and felt the shaking stop. He gave her a slow smile that she had not seen before. It confused her, warmed her. She gave him her other hand, but felt utterly foolish because she could no

longer look directly at him.

Because he did nothing for a while, apparently felt no need to hurry, she regained her composure. "You like what you are, don't you," she said.

"I didn't care much for it today."

"Because of me." She managed to look at him again. "But you like what you are most of the time. You think you shouldn't like being a majority of one, but you do like it."

He held her by the shoulders. "Girl, if you convert okay and get even more perceptive, you're going to be spooky."

She laughed, then looked at his hands. "Don't you have to scratch me or something?" "I would if I weren't so sure I didn't have to."

"What?"

He drew her to him, kissed her until she drifted from surprise at the thrust of his tongue to pleasure at the way he warmed her with his hands.

"You see," he said. "Who the hell needs biting and scratching?" She laughed and let him lift her onto the bed.

She expected to be hurt. She had read enough and heard enough not to expect the first time to be romantic and beautiful. And there was her illness to make things worse. She had never known it to make anything better. At least her

medicine was still working.

Somehow, he managed not to hurt her much. He handled her like a fragile doll. She did not think she could have stood that from anyone else, but from him, it was a gift she readily accepted. She had some idea what it cost him.

Eventually, pleased and tired, they both slept.

It was ten to two when Keira awoke. She stumbled off to the bathroom, her mind barely awake until she saw the clock on the bookcase. Ten to two. Two. Oh God.

Eli himself had given her reason to go. If she stayed and somehow lived, he would pass her on to some other man. She did not want to be passed on.

And she did not want her father to leave without her-or try to leave and be killed because she could have helped and

had not.

By the time she came out of the bathroom, she had made up her mind. But how to get away from Eli? The door was locked. She had no idea where the key was. In his clothing, perhaps.

But if she went searching through his clothing, then unlocking the door, he would awaken, stop her, and she would not get another chance.

She would have to hurt him.

She cringed from the thought. He had gone to some trouble to avoid hurting her. He was not exactly a good man, but she liked him, could have loved him, she thought, under other circumstances.

Yet for her father, she had to hurt him. After all, he had not only the key to the room door, but the keys to the

Wagoneer. Without the car keys, her father might have to spend too much time getting into the car and getting it started. He would be caught before he drove a foot.

There was the clock-a nondigital antique with a luminous dial. It ticked loudly and needed neither batteries nor electricity. If she hit Eli with it, he could probably be hurt, but would he be knocked unconscious or would he wake up

and knock her unconscious? The clock was heavy, but awkward and big. The elephant bookend would be better. She

had noticed it when she put away the book she had tried to read. The space between the elephant's trunk and its body offered a good handhold. The base was flat and would do less damage, less gouging and cutting when she hit him. It was unpainted cast iron, dull gray, heavy, and already just above Eli's head on the headboard bookshelf.

She went back to the bed, climbed in.

"Hey," Eli said sleepily. He reached for her. The gentleness of his hands told her he probably wanted to make love again. She would have given a great deal to stay there with him.

Instead, she reached for the elephant, gripped its trunk, and brought it down with all her strength on his head.

He gave a cry not much different from the one he had given at orgasm. Frightened, she hit him again. He went limp.

She had hurt her own hands and arms with the force of her blows. She knew she was weak, had feared at first that she could not really hurt him at all. Now she feared she had killed him.

She checked quickly to see that he was still breathing, still had a strong pulse. She found blood on his head, but not

much of it. He was probably all right.

She got off the bed, pulled on her caftan, and stepped into her shoes, then she tore into his scattered clothing. She found the car keys at once, but could not find the one for the room. The door was definitely locked, though she could not remember him stopping to lock it. And there was no key.

She went to one of the larger of the four windows. It was not locked with a key, but it was closed so tightly she could not budge it. She could break it, of course, but that would bring any number of people running.

On the bed, Eli made a whining sound, and she tore at the window. It opened inward rather than upward, but it had apparently been painted shut.

She tried the other large window and found the same thing.

Finally she tried the two smaller center windows. When one of them opened, she dragged a chair to it, thankful for the rug that muffled the sound. She spent long desperate seconds trying to get the screen open.

In the end, she broke the catch, pushed the screen out, and jumped.

PART 4: REUNION PAST 19

"I feel like hell," Andrew Zeriam whispered. "Everything stinks. Food tastes like shit. Light hurts my eyes ..." He groaned.

"You want me to go away?" Eli asked. He spoke very softly. Zeriam sat in a darkened room-he had refused to lie down-and held his ears in this silent desert place, trying to shut out sounds he had not noticed before. What, Eli wondered, would happen if the disease spread to the cities? How would newly sensitive ears endure the assault of noise?

"Hell no, I don't want you to go away," Zeriam whispered. "I asked you to come in, didn't I?" Silence.

"Can you see me, Eli? I can see you, and that's some trick." "I can see you."

"It's pitch dark in here. It must be. It's night. The windows are shut. The lights are out. It's dark!" "Yeah."

"Talk to me, Eli. Tell me what the hell is going on."

"You know what's going on. Lorene told you yesterday."

More silence. Then: "What are you that you can sit there and admit what she said is true?" "I'm what you are, Andy-host to millions, or more likely billions, of extraterrestrials."

Zeriam lunged at him, swinging. Zeriam was faster and better coordinated then he had been, but he was not yet significantly stronger. Eli caught him, held him easily.

"Andy, if you don't sit your ass down or lie down, you're going to make me hurt you."

Zeriam stared at him, then burst into bitter laughter. "Hurt me? Man, you've killed me. You've killed . . . Shit, you may have killed everybody. Who knows how far this plague of yours will spread."

"I don't think I've killed you," Eli said. "I think you're going to live." That stopped Zeriam's words and his struggles. "Live?"

"Your symptoms are like mine-weird, nerve-wracking, but not devastating. People who don't make it can't even stand

up when they're as far along as you are. Hell, you're not even shaky." "But... people die of this. Lorene's husband, Gwyn's..."

"Yeah. Some people do. The women didn't. I didn't. You probably won't."

"But you did this to me. You, ultimately, because you did it to Lorene. You're worse than a goddamn Typhoid Mary!" "A what?" Eli asked. Zeriam had just become a history teacher a few months before his capture by the car family. Eli was used to either questioning or ignoring his historical allusions.

"A carrier," Zeriam said. "A disease carrier so irresponsible she had to be locked up to keep her from spreading her disease."

"It's not irresponsibility," Eli told him. "It's compulsion. You don't know anything about it yet-though you will. If I brought you an uninfected person now, you wouldn't be able to prevent yourself from infecting him. If you were without a mate the way Lorene was, nothing short of death could stop you from infecting a woman."

"I don't believe you!"

"You believe every word. You feel it. And you can't hide your feelings from us."

Zeriam turned away, paced across the room, then back. He glared at Eli. He looked around like a trapped animal. "Andy?"

Zeriam did not answer.

"Andy, there's something you haven't noticed yet. Something that might help you realize you can have a life here." "What?"

"Lorene is pregnant."

"She's what? Already? I've only been here three weeks." "You two didn't waste any time."

"I don't believe you. You can't be sure."

"You're the one who can't be sure. I noticed the change because I've seen it before." "What change in only three weeks?"

"She smells different," Eli said. "You're crazy. She smells fine. She-"

"I didn't say she smells bad. Just different. It's a difference you'll learn to recognize." "Hell, I ought to tell you how you smell."

"I know how I smell, Andy-especially to you. I've been through all this before. And you should keep in mind that you're beginning to smell as threatening, as wrong to me as I do to you. Later, we'll have to get used to each other all over again. The organism seems to pull women together and push men apart- at least at first." Eli sighed. "Now we can be men and work this out, work the ranch with the women and keep the disease to ourselves as much as possible, or we can let the organism make animals of us and we can kill each other-for nothing."

"We get a choice? It's not another compulsion?"

"No, just a strong inclination. But it will rule you if you let it. Lay back, and it will drive you like a car." "So what are you doing? Holding it all at bay by sheer willpower? You're so full of shit, Eli!"

He was giving in to the organism, letting the smell of a "rival" male enrage him. No doubt it was easy. Anger was so much more satisifying than the uncertainty he had been feeling. He did not yet understand how easily his anger could

get out of hand.

Eli stood up. "I'll send Lorene in," he said as he moved toward the door. Zeriam was bright. He would learn to handle inappropriate passions eventually. Meanwhile, Eli decided it was his responsibility to avoid dominance fights Zeriam could lose so easily and so finally.

Eli did not quite make it to the door. Zeriam grabbed his arm. "Why should you send her in here?" he demanded. "Keep her! You had her before. For all I know, it's your kid she's carrying!"

He was not saying what he believed. He had given himself over to the organism for the first time. There was no thought behind his words-nor behind his swing a moment later.

Eli caught his hand in mid-swing, held it, hit him open-handed before Zeriam could swing again. Eli struck twice more.

He was in control because he knew Zeriam could not hurt him. If he had let the organism control him, if he had acted as though he were truly threatened, he would have killed Zeriam, and perhaps not even realized it until later, when he regained control.

As it was, Zeriam was not seriously hurt. He would have fallen, but Eli caught him and put him in a chair. There, he sat, nursing a split lip and coming out of a rage that had probably surprised even him.

"Eli," he said after a while, "how much of what you do is what you really want to do-or at least, what you've decided on your own to do." He paused. "How much of you is left?"

"You're asking how much of you will be left," Eli said. "Yeah."

"A lot. Most of the time, a lot." "And sometimes . . . insanity."

"Not insanity, Andy. Now is the most irrational time you'll have to face. Get through this, and you'll be able to deal

with the rest."

Zeriam stared at him, then looked away. He was frightened, but he said nothing.

Later that night, he sat at the kitchen table and wrote Lorene a long, surprisingly loving letter. There was no bitterness in it, no anger. He wrote a longer letter to his unborn child. He had convinced himself it would be a son. He talked about the impossibility of spending his life as the carrier of a deadly disease. He talked about his fear of losing himself,

becoming someone or something else. He talked about courage and cowardice and confusion. Finally, he put the letters

aside and cheated the microbe of the final few days it needed to tighten its hold on him. He took one of Meda's sharp butcher knives and cut his throat.

PRESENT 20

Blake worried about having to use lights to stay on the poorly marked dirt trail. He had night glasses-glasses that utilized ambient light-but he was afraid to trust them in this dangerous, unfamiliar place. Yet he knew he was giving Eli's people a beacon to follow-and he had no doubt they were following.

"I saw something," Rane said, right on cue. She had climbed into the back because the seats in front were intended for only two. "Dad, they're coming. Three or four of them. You can see them when the mountains aren't directly behind them. They're running without lights."

"They can see in the dark," Keira said.

"So they say," Rane answered contemptuously. "Anyway, unless their cars are as different as they are, I don't see how they can catch us."

"Keep your head down," Blake told her. "They could have guns with night scopes. If they do, they can see in the dark all right. And they know these roads."

"Where will we go?" Keira asked.

Blake thought about that, glanced at his dashboard compass. They were heading due north. To reach the mountaintop ranch, they had traveled southeast, then south. "Kerry, take a look at the map," he said. "Use I-Forty as your northernmost point and the Colorado River bed as your easternmost. Give it fifty miles west of the river bed and south of the highway. Look for towns and a real road. We'll probably have to go all the way back to Needles, but at least there should be a road."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Keira said as she turned on the map and keyed in the area he had specified. He glanced over, saw Needles in the upper right hand corner of the screen and nodded.

"I didn't think any place could be as isolated as that ranch seemed to be," Keira said. "U.S. Ninety-five runs north to

Needles. The problem is, I don't know where we are-how far we are from it. It might be to our advantage to stay on this road until we reach I-Forty."

Blake glanced at the map again. "Since we didn't cross Ninety-five on the way to the ranch, it has to be east of us." Keira nodded. "Yes, maybe six or seven miles east, and maybe a lot more."

"Damn!" Blake grunted as the car bounced into and out of a hole. "I'm going to turn off as soon as I get the chance." "We could wind up going twice as far as necessary," Rane said.

"Take another look behind you," Blake told her.

Both girls looked. Keira gasped when she saw how much closer the pursuers were. "Watch for a turnoff," Blake said. "Any turnoff. I need a road I can see."

Keira leaned back in her seat, eyes closed. "Dad, Ninety-five has 'travel at your own risk' signs all over it." He glanced at her. She knew what she was saying could not matter, but she had had to say it.

" 'High crime area,' " Rane read over Keira's shoulder. "It's a sewer! I didn't know they existed in the desert."

Blake said nothing. He had treated patients from city sewers -people so mutilated they no longer looked human, would never look human again in spite of twenty-first-century medicine. What the rat packs did to each other and to unprotected city-dwellers was not something he wanted to expose his daughters to. They knew about it, of course. The small armies of police who guarded enclaves kept out intruders, but they could not keep out information. Still, for sixteen years, he had managed to shield his daughters from the contents of sewers and cesspools. Now he was taking them into a sewer.

The turnoff they had been hoping for materialized suddenly out of the night, marked only by a dead Joshua tree. Blake turned. The new road was better-smooth, graded, straight. He increased his speed, slowly pulling away from the pursuers. The Wagoneer could travel. With it's modified engine it was much faster now than it had been when it was made-as long as it was not running a half-seen obstacle course.

Just over six miles later, the second dirt road ran into a paved highway-U.S. 95. They had gone from north to northeast. Now they were headed north again on a road that would take them to Needles-to safety.

Abruptly there were headlights directly in front of them- two cars coming toward them on the wrong side of the highway. Two cars that clearly did not intend to let him pass.

Reacting without thinking, Blake swung right. To his amazement, he discovered he was turning onto a road he had not

noticed-another paved surface that headed him back almost in the direction from which he had come. Back toward the ranch.

He was being herded, Blake realized. They were on the eastern side, the wrong side of 95 now, but it had not taken much to force him to turn the first time. He could be turned again, made to recross the highway. All his effort so far could be for nothing.

How had Eli's people gotten ahead of him?

He switched out the lights and turned off the road onto a dry wash. At almost the same moment, Keira shut off the glowing screen of the map. Now, let Eli's people prove how well they could see in the dark. Nothing, nothing would force Blake back to the ranch-force him out of the profession of healing and into a life of spreading disease. Nothing! Lights.

A dirt road, smooth and level, cut across the wash just ahead.

And along that road came a car. Only one. It could be a coincidence-some rancher going home, some hermit, a fragment of a car family, even lost tourists. But Blake was in no mood to take chances with anyone.

He turned onto the dirt road toward the oncoming car. Abruptly, he switched on his lights and accelerated. The other car braked, skidded through the dust, swerved off the road into a thick, ancient creosote bush. Blake sped on, knowing the dirt road must lead back to 95. He switched out his lights again, praying.

"That was a van," Rane said. "Eli's people have cars and trucks, but I didn't see any vans."

"You think they let us see everything?" Keira asked. "I don't think that van was one of Eli's."

"I don't care whose it was," Blake said tightly. "I'm not stopping until I reach either a hospital or the police. We're not giving this damned disease to anyone else!"

"When Eli comes," Keira said softly, "it will be to kill us, recapture us, or die trying. He won't be frightened into a ditch by lights."

Blake glanced at her. He could hear certainty and fear in her voice. For once, he realized, he agreed with her. Eli and his people would do absolutely anything to prevent the destruction of their way of life. He could understand that. The

life they had at their nearly self-sufficient desert enclave was better than what most people had these days. But there

was the disease-no, call it what it was, the invasion. And that had to be stopped at any cost.

He remembered the thing running alongside his car on all fours. Running like an animal, a cat. Jacob. It was possible if this insanity spread, it was possible that he could have grandchildren who looked like Jacob. Things. Christ!

The highway was ahead, down a slope. It looked empty and safe. Blake felt if he could reach it, he would have a chance.

He accelerated, swung onto the highway, headed north again.

"We've made it!" Rane shouted.

Keira looked around. "Someone's back there. I can see them." "Sewage. I don't see any-"

Lights again. Lights behind them, then abruptly, lights in front.

Blake was not aware of making the choice not to slow down. Apparently that choice had been made before, once and for all. He thought he saw a human shape leap from one of the cars, but the car kept coming. At the last instant, Blake tried to swerve up the slope and around. He did not quite make it. The front left corner of the Wagoneer hit the other car and Blake's head hit the steering wheel.

There was nothing else.

PAST 21

Zeriam made it.

He almost failed, almost survived. He had done a thorough job on his neck, but it was half-healed when Meda found him dead. The front of his throat was gaping, but the sides were merely bloody and scarred.

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?"

Silence.

"Rane wouldn't let me do it," Keira added.

Blake touched Rane. "So you had thought of it."

"Not me. I would never have thought of that. Keira did. Dad, please. Eli's people ... I couldn't stand to go back to them. I'd rather stay here."

"Why?" Blake asked. He thought he knew the answer, and he did not really want to hear her say it, but it needed to be said. She surprised him.

"I can't stand them," she said. "They're not human. Their children don't even look human. . . . Yet they're seductive. They could have pulled me in. That guy, Kaneshiro . . ."

"Did he hurt you?"

"You mean did he rape me? No! There'd be nothing seductive in that. Nobody raped me. But in a little while, a few days, he wouldn't have had to. I'm afraid of those people. I'm scared shitless of them."

"That's the way I feel about these car people!" Keira said. "Rane ... so what if you were sort of... seduced by Eli's people. I was, too. All it meant to me was that they weren't really bad people-not the way rat packs are bad. They're different and dangerous, but I'd rather be with them than here."

Blake began to inch across the room, making as little noise as possible. Hopping would have been too noisy.

"Dad, don't!" Rane begged.

He ignored her. If any of Eli's people were outside, he wanted them to know where he was. It was possible, of course, that they would simply shoot him, but he did not believe they would-they could have done that long ago. The Clay's Ark people wanted their captives-their converts-back. Perhaps by now they also wanted any salvageable members of

the car gang and the ranch family. Mainly, they wanted to keep the disease from spreading, keep it from destroying

their way of life. They had been totally unrealistic to think they could go on hiding indefinitely, but at the moment

Blake was on their side.

He reached the window, managed to stand up, almost pulling down the drapes in the process. The leg restraints tightened as he stood.

The moon was waning, but still bright in the clear desert air. It was possible that someone outside might be able to see him in the moon and starlight, but he hoped Eli's people had told the truth when they claimed to be able to see in the

dark. He pushed the draperies to one side and stood in plain view of anything outside. He could see hills not far distant. Before them was a shadowy jumble of huge rocks-as though there had been a slide -or perhaps merely weathering away

of soil. The rocks could provide excellent cover for anyone out there.

Off to one side was a building that might have been a barn. From the barn extended a corral. The barn looked spare and modern. The people of this ranch had not lived in the nineteenth century. It was possible that even the cuffs had been theirs. A car family would not care whether restraints were humane or not.

Scanning as carefully as he could, Blake could see no sign of anyone. Still, he stood there, at one point holding up his hands to show that they were bound. He felt foolish, but he did not sit down until he felt he had given even an intermittent watcher a chance to see him.

Finally, he hopped away from the window and let himself down quietly so that he could roll back to where the girls

were. He had not quite made it when the door opened and someone switched on a light. He found himself squinting upward into the face of a squat, burly man in an ill-fitting, new shirt and pants that were almost rags.

"Looks like you're going to live," he said to Blake. Blake rolled onto his back and sat up. "I'd say so." "Your people want you. Big surprise."

"I'm sure most of your victims have people who want them."

The man frowned at Blake as though he thought Blake might be making fun of him. Then he gave a loud, braying laugh. "Most of you walled-in types don't give a piss for each other, Doc. You don't know family like we do. But the hell with that. What I want to know is who else wants you?"

Blake sat up straighter, staring at the man. "What do you mean?"

The man pushed Blake over gently with his foot. "Those your own teeth, Doc?"

Blake writhed back into a sitting position. "Look, I'll tell you what I know. I just wanted to find out what's happened since I've been unconscious."

"Nothing. Now who else wants you?"

Blake wove a fantasy about Eli's people, made them just another rat pack with ideas no loftier than this one's. Ransom. He said nothing about the disease. There was nothing he could say to a man like this, he realized. Nothing that would not get his teeth kicked in. Or if the man believed him, he might shoot Blake and both girls, then run-on the theory that if he got away fast enough, he could escape the disease. Blake had known men like him before; confronting them with unfamiliar ideas was dangerous even in controlled, hospital surroundings.

He got absolutely no response from the man until he mentioned the mountaintop ranch. The moment he said it, he knew he was talking too much.

"Those people!" the burly man muttered. "I been planning for a long time to bury them. Maybe not bother to kill them first. Bony, stripped-down models. Shit, you're a doctor. What's the matter with those guys?"

"They never gave me a chance to find out," Blake lied. "I think they're taking something." Drugs. That was something a sewer rat could understand.

"I know they're taking something," the man said. "One time I saw a couple of them running down jack rabbits and

eating them. I mean like a coyote or a bobcat, tearing into them before they were all the way dead." Blake blinked, repelled and amazed. "You saw them do that?"

"I said I did, didn't I? What have they got, Doc, and what do you think it's worth?" "I tell you, I don't know. We were prisoners. They didn't tell us anything."

"You got eyes. What did you see?"

"Dangerous, bone-thin people, faster than average, stronger than average, and close." "What close?"

"They give a piss for each other. Listen, who are you, anyway?" "Badger. I head this family."

He looked the part. "Well, Badger, I didn't get the impression these people knew how to forgive or forget. They probably see us as their property. They probably want us back-or maybe they'll settle for a share of our ransom."

"Share? You've got too much sun, man. Or they have. What are they doing, growing something?" "I don't know!"

"I gotta know. I gotta find out! Shit, it must be good stuff."

"They look like a strong wind would blow them away, and you think they have good stuff?"

Badger kicked Blake again, this time less gently. Blake fell over. "You're a doctor," Badger said. "You ought to know! What the hell is it?" Another hard kick.

Through a haze of pain, Blake heard one of the girls scream, heard Badger say, "Get away from me, cunt!" heard a slap, another scream.

"Listen!" Blake gasped, sitting up. "Listen, they have a garden!" His head and his side throbbed. What if his ribs were

broken? Meda had said broken bones would be fatal to him now. "Those people have a big garden," he said. "They never really let us see what they grew there. Maybe if you could-"

He was cut off by the crack of a shot. The sound echoed several times into a world that had otherwise gone silent. Another shot. It hit the window near them, somewhere near ceiling level, then ricocheted with an odd whine. More bulletproof glass. A house located where this one was was probably hardened as much as possible against any form of attack.

Someone outside had perhaps seen or heard Blake. Someone outside was either a bad shot trying to kill him or a good shot trying to protect him.

"Shit!" Badger muttered. He turned and ran from the room, slamming the door behind him.

"If we could break the windows," Keira said when he was gone, "Eli's people might come in and get us." And Rane: "If bullets couldn't break them, we sure can't with our bare hands."

"But we've got to get out! That guy Badger is crazy. If he kicks Dad's ribs in, Dad will die!"

Blake lay listening to them, thinking he should say something reassuring, but now that the danger was less immediate, he could not make the effort. His side and head were competing with each other to see which could hurt more. He lay still, eyes closed, trying to breathe shallowly. He was desperately afraid one or more ribs were already broken, but he could do nothing. He felt consciousness slipping away again.

"I'm going to try something," he heard Keira say. "There's nothing to try," Rane told her.

"Shut up. Let me do something for a change." She paused, then spoke in an ordinary voice. "Eli or whoever's out there, if you can hear me, fire three more times."

There was nothing.

"What did you expect?" Rane demanded. "All that stupid talk about seeing in the dark and being able to hear better than other people-"

"Will you shut up!" Keira tried again. "Eli," she said, "maybe we can distract them. We can help you get them. You'll want them now that they've been exposed to the disease. Help us and we can help you."

More silence.

Keira spoke again softly. "I'm sorry I had to hit you." She hesitated. "But I did have to. You told me I couldn't have you, then you made me choose between the little I could have and my father and sister. What would you have done?" For a long while, there was no sound at all. Then it seemed to Blake in his pain, in his confusion at what he had heard his daughter say, he heard three evenly timed shots.

PART 5: JACOB PAST 23

Meda wanted a girl.

Eli merely wanted Meda to survive and be well. When that was certain, he would concern himself with the child.

He worried about her in spite or his confidence in the organism's ability to keep its hosts alive. This was something new, after all. None of the Ark's crew had been able to have children during the mission. Their anticonception implants had been timed to protect them and had worked in spite of the organism since no doctor had survived to remove them. Before the Ark left, there had been discussion of the unlikely possibility (emphasized by the media and de-emphasized by everyone connected with the program) that the crew might find itself stranded and playing Adams and Eves on some alien world. Thus, the effectiveness of the implants was intended to last only through the time allotted to the mission and the quarantine period scheduled to follow it. In spite of everything, Eli had been pleased to discover that his had worn off right on time.

Another fear played up by the media and down by everyone in the program was the possibility that faster-than-light travel might have some negative effect on conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. The Dana Drive that powered the Ark involved an exotic combination of particle physics and psionics. Parapsychological mumbo jumbo, it had been called when Clay Dana presented it. Even when he was able to prove everything he said, even when others were able to duplicate his work and his results, there were outspoken skeptics. After years of tedious, uncertain observation of so- called psychic phenomena, after years of trickery by "psychic" charlatans, some scientists in particular found their prejudices too strong to overcome.

But the majority were more Hexible. They accepted Dana's work as proof of the psionic potential-specifically, the psychokinetic potential-of just about everyone. Some saw this potential in military terms-the beginnings of a weapons delivery system as close to teleportation as humanity was likely to come. Others, including Clay Dana himself, saw it as a way to the stars. Clay Dana and his supporters demanded the stars. They had clearly feared turn-of-the-century irrationality-religious overzealousness on one side, destructive hedonism on the other, with both heated by ideological

intolerance and corporate greed. The Dana faction feared humanity would extinguish itself on Earth, the only world in the solar system that could support human life. There were always hints that the Dana people knew more than they were saying about this possibility. But what they said in Congress, in the White House, to the people by way of the media, turned out to be enough-to the amazement of their opposition. The Dana faction won. The Ark program was begun. The first true astronauts-star voyagers-began their training.

Because of the psychokinetic element, a human crew was essential. The Dana drive amplified and directed human psychokinetic ability. Surprisingly, some people had too much psychokinetic potential. These could not be trusted with the drive. They over-controlled it, affected it when they did not intend to, made prototypes of the Clay's Ark "dance" off course. Only strange, old Clay Dana tested out as having too much ability, yet was able to control his drive with a psionic feather touch. Both Eli and Disa had been able to pilot the prototypes and later the Ark itself. This meant they were psionically ordinary. And for some reason, old Dana had taken a liking to them, though Disa admitted to being a little afraid of him. And what she felt about Dana, was what a lot of people watching their TV walls felt about the Ark crew and backup crew. People were curious, but a little afraid-and envious. Earth was becoming less and less a comfortable place to live. Thus it was necessary that the crew have weaknesses and face serious dangers. People knew children had been born on the moon and in space safely, but the gossip networks with their videophone-in shows and their instant polls, their interviews and popular education classes, jacked up their ratings with hours of discussion of whether or not faster-than-light travel could be dangerous to pregnant women and their children. There was even a retrogressive women's protection movement intended to keep women off the Ark.

Eli and Disa were too busy to pay much attention to TV nonsense, as they thought of it, but they went along when the implants were proposed. And Eli left frozen sperm behind-just in case-and Disa left several mature eggs.

Now, Eli wished somehow that his frozen sperm could have been used to impregnate Meda. He knew this was not a

reasonable wish, under the circumstances, but he was not feeling very reasonable. He watched Lorene walk Meda back and forth across the room. Meda did not want to walk, but she had tried both sitting and lying down. These, she said, made her feel worse. Lorene walked her slowly, said it would not do her any harm. Lorene had had some nursing experience at a birth center before she married. She had trained to be a midwife to women too poor to go to the better hospitals and too frightened to go to the others.

Meda stopped for a moment beside Eli's chair, rested her hand heavily on his shoulder. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Feeling guilty and helpless?"

He only looked at her.

She patted his shoulder. "Men are supposed to feel that way. They do in the books I've read."

He could not help himself. He laughed, stood up, kissed her wet forehead, then walked with her a little until she wanted to sit down in the big armchair. He was surprised she did not want to lie down, but Lorene did not seem surprised so he said nothing. He pulled another chair over and sat beside her, holding her hand and listening as she panted and sometimes made low noises in her throat as the contractions came and went. He was terrified for her, but he sat still, trying to show strength and steadiness. She was doing all the work, after all, pushing, enduring the pain and risk, giving birth to their child without the medical help she might need. If she could do that and hold together, he could hold together, too.

She never screamed or used any of the profanity she had picked up from him. In fact, she seemed surprised that the birth happened so easily. The baby, when it came, looked like a gray, hairless monkey, Eli thought. By the time Lorene had tied and cut the cord and cleaned the baby up, it was not gray any longer, but a healthy brown. Lorene wrapped it in a blanket and handed it to Meda, still in her chair. Meda examined it minutely, touching and looking, crying a little and smiling. Finally, she handed the child to Eli. He took it eagerly, needing to hold it and look at it and understand that this was his son.

The baby never cried, but it was clearly breathing well. Its eyes were calm and surprisingly lively. Its arms were long and slender-without the baby pudgyness Eli had expected, but he had no real idea how a newborn should look. Maybe they grew pudgy later, or maybe Clay's Ark babies never grew pudgy. It was enough that this baby seemed healthy and

alert. Its legs were doubled against its body, but freed of the blanket, they straightened a little and kicked in the air.

They were as long and slender as the arms. And the feet were long and narrow. Eli looked at the little face and the child seemed to look back curiously. He wondered how much it could see. It had a full head of thick, curly black hair and large ears. When it yawned, Eli saw that it already had several teeth. That could make nursing hard on Meda.

Eli reached for a tiny, thin hand and the boy grasped his finger surprisingly tightly. After a moment, Eli grinned.

The child startled him by smiling back at him. Somehow, it did not seem to be mirroring his grin. Its smile seemed almost sly -the unbabylike gesture of one who knew something he was not telling.

PRESENT 24

Somehow, Blake lost track of time. He was aware of sporadic shooting, aware that the house was under siege, that Rane and Keira were first with him, then gone. He worried about them when he realized they were gone, wondered where they were. He worried about his own helplessness and confusion.

Once the man called Badger came in to see him, bringing several other people along. The group shouted and stank and made Blake feel sicker than ever-all but one woman. She was no cleaner than the others, but her scent was different, compelling. She was just another car rat, but he found himself reaching out to her, groping for her with his cuffed hands. He heard shouts of laughter, then her voice, low and mocking.

"Hey there," she said, taking his hands. "You're not going to die on us, are you? Nobody'11 buy you back dead." She had a deep, throaty voice that would have been sexy had it not been so empty of caring. He knew she was laughing at him-at his pain, at his helplessness, even at his interest in her. He knew, but all he could think about was that he wanted her. He could not help himself. Her scent drew him irresistibly. He tried to pull her down beside him. She laughed and pulled away.

"Maybe later, wallie," she whispered. At least she had the kindness to whisper, not shout like the others. He was confused for a moment by her calling him "wallie." She knew his name. They all did. Then, murkily, he realized she was referring to the fact that he lived in a walled enclave. He wondered whether he would ever see it again.

The woman nudged him with her foot. "How about that?" she said. "Want me to come back when you're feeling better?"

Her friends brayed out their laughter.

But she did come back that night. And this time she only pretended to mock him as she unbound his hands and feet. "Don't do anything dumb now. You hurt me or get outside this room, Badger will cut your head off."

He opened his eyes and saw that she was nude, kneeling down beside him on the rug of his bare room. She fumbled with his belt. "Let's see what you've got, wallie. Big old rifle or little handgun."

For a moment, he thought she was Meda, but her hair, now free of the scarf she had worn before, was a startling white.

She was a tall, sun-browned woman, plump, but not really fat. Her scent was incredible. It so controlled him, he could not focus on whether she was pretty or not. It did not matter.

He could not have thought he had the strength to hold her as he did with his newly freed hands and make love to her once and again and again. In the end, the woman seemed surprised herself, and pleased, willing to drop some of her car-rat emotional armor. Without being asked, she got him a blanket from somewhere. He remembered Rane and Keira

trying to beg one for him, and being refused. They had tried to get extra food for him, too, and failed. When he asked

the woman for food, she brought him a cold beer and a plate of bread and roast beef left over from the car gang's dinner. The gang, sealed in as it was, had been living off the ranch family's large pantry and freezer.

The meat was too well-done and too highly seasoned for Blake's newly sensitive taste, but he ate it anyway. The gang fed him as well as they ate themselves, but it was not enough. It was never enough. He consumed the extra meal ravenously.

"You eat like a damn coyote," the woman complained. "You want some more?"

He nodded, his mouth full.

She got him more and watched while he ate. He wondered why she stayed, but he did not mind. He did not want to be alone. The food made him feel much better-less totally focused on his discomfort. "Who the hell are you, anyway?" he asked.

"Smoke," she said, touching her hair.

"Smoke," he muttered. "First Badger, now Smoke."

"Those are our family names," she said. "We don't keep the same names once we're adopted into a family. My name before was Petra."

He smiled. "I like that better. Thank you, Petra." To his surprise, she blushed.

"Are my daughters all right?" he asked

She looked surprised. "They're okay. They say you screamed at them to get out. Hell, we heard you screaming. And with what you were calling them, we didn't figure they were your blood daughters. We thought you might hurt them." Screaming? He did not remember. Screaming at Rane and Keira? Why?

Fragments of what seemed to be a dream began to drift back to him. But it was a dream of Jorah, his wife, not of the girls. Jorah, smooth and dark as bittersweet chocolate, soft and gentle, or so people thought when they saw her or heard her voice. Later they discovered the steel the softness disguised.

The dream recaptured him slowly, and he could see her as she had been with the cesspool kids she taught. The kids liked her or at least respected her. They knew she cared about them. The bigger, more troublesome ones knew she had a gun. She was too idealistic for her own good, but she was not suicidal.

He saw her as she had been when he met her at UCLA. He was going to fight diseases of the body and she, diseases of a society that seemed to her too shortsighted and indifferent to survive. She preached at him about old-fashioned, long- lost causes -human rights, the elderly, the ecology, throwaway children, corporate government, the vast rich-poor gap and the shrinking middle class. . . . She should have been born twenty or thirty years earlier. He could not get particularly involved in her causes. He did not believe there was anything he could do to keep the country, the world from flushing itself down the toilet. He meant to take care of his own and do what he could for the others, but he had few illusions.

Still, he could not keep away from her. She was an earlier, happier compulsion. He let her preach at him because he was afraid if he did not, she would find someone else with open ears. He knew her family did not like her interest in him. They were people who had worked themselves out of one of the worst cesspools in the southland. They had nurtured Jorah's social conscience too long to let it fall victim to a white man who had never suffered a day in his life and who thought social causes were passe.

He married her anyway, had two daughters with her, even acquired something of a social conscience through her. Eventually, he began putting in time at one of the cesspool hospitals. It was like trying to empty the Pacific with a spoon, but he kept at it-as she kept at her teaching until a young sewer slug blew away most of the back of her head

with a new submachine gun. The slug was thirteen years old. He did not know Jorah. He had just stolen the gun and

wanted to try it out. Jorah was handy.

Why had Blake dreamed of her, then recalled her so vividly? And what did she have to do with his driving Rane and

Keira away?

"Are they really your kids?"

He jumped, looked around, was surprised to see that Petra was still there. "The two girls. Are they your kids?"

"Of course."

"Shit, I felt sorry for them. You were calling them sluts and whores and slugs and sewage-everything you could think of. One of them was crying."

"But . . . why would I do that?"

"You asking me? Hell, who knows? You hit your head pretty hard against the steering wheel. Maybe you just went crazy for a while."

"But. . ." But why had he dreamed of Jorah? Such a realistic dream-as though she were with him again. As though the utterly senseless killing had never happened. As though he could touch her, love her again.

Keira.

His mind flinched away from thinking of her. She was a too-thin, too-frail, younger version of Jorah. She had that same incredible skin. And she had, Blake knew, more of her mother's steel than most people realized.

Christ, had he tried to rape Keira? Had he?

The girl was so weak. Could he have tried and failed? "Jesus," he whispered.

"You okay?" Petra asked.

He looked at her, realized she was only a few years older than Rane and Keira. A young girl, still able to drop the car- rat identity and take pleasure in doing so.

"I'm all right," he lied. "Listen, now that you've told me about the girls, I have to see them. One of them, at least. I have to apologize."

She looked away. "I don't know if I can bring them."

He understood her, and wished he had not. The girls might not be alone. "Try," he said, "please."

"Okay." But she stopped to kiss him and he was caught up again in the scent and feel of her. She giggled like a delighted child and lay down with him again.

By the time she went away and came back with Keira, he was badly frightened. He was no longer in control of himself. Tiny microbes controlled him, had forced him to have sex with a young girl when an instant before, sex had been the

farthest thing from his mind. What had they made him do to his daughter?

Keira came into the room much as she had come into another room-how many days ago? Eli had released her then for a few painful minutes. Who had released her this time? God, what would Jorah think of the way he was taking care of their children?

"Dad?"

She had a bruise on the side of her face. It was swollen and puffy. She could not conceal the fact that she did not want to get near him. And, heaven help him, her scent was as good as Petra's had been.

"Did I hit you?" he asked, looking at her swollen face. She shook her head. "Rane did."

"Why?"

She stared at him for several seconds. "You don't remember, do you?" She took a step farther back from him. "Jesus, I

wish I didn't."

He said nothing, could not make himself speak.

She went to the window, pushed the drape aside, and seemed to examine the frame. "This house won't burn," she said. "Light it and it will smolder a little, then go out. Eli's people have tried lighting it a few times. I think one of them was shot in the attempt."

"They tried to burn the house with us in it?"

"Badger called for help on his radio. They heard him. Or if they didn't hear him, they heard me when I repeated what he said next to the kitchen window." She turned to face him. "I can hear them sometimes, Dad. When the car people aren't making too much noise, I can hear them talking. I heard Eli."

"Saying what?"

"That if everything goes okay, the car people will go over to him when their symptoms begin. If it doesn't, if the help

Badger called for actually comes, Eli might have to sacrifice us." "Sacrifice . . . ?"

"They have some explosives already planted. They don't want to do it, but . . . well, they can't let anyone in the house leave."

"Kerry, did I rape you?" He had said the words. And somehow, they had not choked him. She swallowed, went to the door and stood beside it. "Almost."

"Oh God. Oh God, I'm sorry." "I know."

"Rane stopped me?"

"Yes." She hesitated. "Rane stopped us. I ... I wasn't exactly fighting." He frowned, repelled and uncomprehending.

"Don't look at me like that," Keira said. "I know how I smell to you-and how you smell to me. I had to see you to be sure you were okay. But. . . I'm afraid of you-and of myself. It's so crazy. Rane hit me mostly to get my attention so I'd

stop fighting her when she tried to pull me away. She said when she hit you, you didn't seem to feel it." Keira rubbed

her face. "I sure felt it."

Blake moved away from her because he wanted to move toward her so badly. "Were you hurt otherwise?" "No."

"How do you feel?"

She stared past him, surprising him with the beginnings of a smile. "Hungry," she said. "Hungry again."

Keira believed she was going to live. She felt stronger and hungry. Her hearing was startlingly keen. That was enough for her. The fact that she was still a captive, still the carrier of a dangerous disease, still caught between warring gangs had almost ceased to matter to her. Those things could not cease to matter to Blake.

When Petra had taken Keira away, he went over the bare room as he could not have with bound hands and feet. He peeled back the rug, looking for loose flooring. He examined the walls, even the ceiling. Finally, he examined the closetlike bathroom- a toilet, a sink, and a tiny window that did not open. None of the windows opened. The air conditioning was good. The air stayed fresh and probably would until Eli decided to foul it, but the air-conditioning ducts were too small to be of use to Blake.

Because he was desperate, Blake tried pushing at the glass -or the plastic-in the window. It was only one small pane. It might be breakable.

It did not break. But the frame gave a little. Blake took off his shirt, wrapped his right hand in it, and as quietly as he

could, began trying to pound the entire window out. Even if he knocked it loose, the hole would be almost too small to crawl through. But he felt stronger now, and anything would be better than sitting around like a caged animal, waiting for someone else to decide his fate.

When his right hand tired, he continued the pounding with his left. The muffled sound was loud to him, but no one else seemed to notice. He realized now that he could not trust his hearing to tell him what sounds might be reaching normal people.

Finally, the window fell out onto the ground. The noise that it made when it hit and bumped against the house was loud. Blake heard someone call out, then heard the sound of approaching motors. Frightened, he hesitated. Keira had said Badger had called for reinforcements. What if he escaped from one group into the hands of another? On the other hand, if he stayed where he was, the window would be discovered and he would be shackled again. They would take no more chances with him.

As the sounds of approaching motors grew louder, he made up his mind. He was at the rear of the house. He could not see the road or the approaching cars or cycles so he was certain the newcomers would not be able to see him. Eli's people might see him, but he did not think they would shoot. He hoped he could escape them too and get real help. Medical help, finally. Meanwhile, he prayed they would rescue the girls and keep them safe -since he could no longer trust himself near them.

He feared that if he reached a town, a hospital, his chances of seeing the girls again would be slim. They would be going into Eli's world, going underground, becoming whatever the organism would make of them. He would be beginning a war against the organism.

He managed to squeeze out of the window, leaving a little skin behind, and drop quietly to the ground. He ran toward the rocks, expecting at every moment to be shot in the back or accosted from the rocks by Eli's people. But in front of the house, the approaching cars had arrived and the shooting had begun. All the hostilities were there.

Blake ran on. From the rocks, he could climb into the hills and get a look around. He could find out where the road was, figure out which way was north. He could head for Needles-on foot this time. He could do the necessary things- give his warnings, get the research started.

He moved quickly, but with no feeling of triumph this time.

He wondered whether Rane and Keira would understand his leaving them. He wondered whether they would forgive him. He knew better than to suppose he would forgive himself.

A jack rabbit leaped into his path, and without thinking, he leaped after it, caught it, snapped its neck. Before he could reflect on what he had done, he heard human footsteps. And before he could take cover in the rocks, someone shot him.

He felt a burning in his left side. Terrified, he dropped the dead rabbit and fled to shelter among the rocks. Moments later, frightened and hurting, he stopped. Someone was following him noisily, perhaps trying to get another clear shot.

He concealed himself behind a jagged wedge of rock and waited.

PAST 25

By the time it was certain Jacob Boyd Doyle was not normal, there were two more babies with the same abnormalities. Jacob never crawled. At six months, he humped along like a big inchworm. Two months later, he began to toddle on all fours, looking disturbingly like a clumsy puppy or kitten. He walked on his hands and feet rather than crawling on hands and knees. With the help of an adult, he could sit up like a dog or cat begging for food. As time passed, he grew strong enough to do this alone. He learned to sit back on his haunches comfortably while using his hands.

He was a beautiful, precocious child, but he was a quadruped. His senses were even keener than those of his parents and his strength would have made him a real problem for parents of only normal strength. And he was a carrier. Eli and Meda did not learn this for certain until later, but they suspected it from the first.

Most important, though, the boy was not human.

Eli could not accept this. Again and again, he tried to teach Jacob to walk upright. A human child walked upright. A

boy, a man, walked upright. No son of Eli's would run on all fours like a dog.

Day after day, he kept at Jacob until the little boy sprawled on his stomach and screamed in rebellion.

"Baby, he's too young," Meda said not for the first time. "He doesn't have the balance. His legs aren't strong enough yet."

Chances were, they never would be, and she knew it. She tried to protect the boy from Eli. That shamed and angered

Eli so that he could not talk to her about it. She tried to protect his son from him!

And perhaps Jacob needed her protection. There were times when Eli could not even look at the boy. What in hell was

going to happen to a kid who ran around on all fours? A freak who could not hide his strangeness. What kind of life could he have? Even in this isolated section of desert, he might be mistaken for an animal and shot. And what in heaven's name would be done with him if he were captured instead of killed? Would he be sent off to a hospital for "study" or caged and restricted like even the best of the various apes able to communicate through sign language? Or would he simply be stared at, harassed, tormented by normal people? If he spread the disease, it would quickly be traced to him. He would definitely be caged or killed then.

Eli loved the boy desperately, longed to give him the gift of humanity that children everywhere else on earth took for granted. Sometimes Eli sat and watched the boy as he played. At first, Jacob would come over to him and demand attention, even try, Eli believed, to comfort his father or understand his bleakness. Then the boy stopped coming near him. Eli had never turned him away, had even ceased trying to get him to walk upright. In fact, Eli was finally accepting the idea that Jacob would never walk on his hind legs with any more ease or grace than a dog doing tricks. Yet the boy began to avoid him.

Eli was slow in noticing. Not until he called Jacob and saw that the boy cringed away from him did he realize that it had been many days since Jacob had touched him voluntarily.

Many days. How many? Eli thought back.

A week, perhaps. The boy had ceased to come near him or touch him exactly when he began wondering if it were not a cruelty to leave such a hopeless child alive.

PRESENT 26

Rane sat frightened and alone among members of the car family. They had put her on the floor against a wall in what had been the living room of the ranch house. She was still shackled, feeling miserable and tired. Her arms, legs, and back ached with wanting to change position. Once she had inched away from the wall and lain down. The instant she closed her eyes, there was a hand on her left breast and another on her right thigh.

She had sat up quickly and squirmed away from the hands. The car rats had only laughed. They could have raped her. She thought they might eventually. At that moment, they were preoccupied with the ranch women-a mother and her thirteen-year-old daughter. There was also a twelve-year-old son. Rane had heard some of the car rats had raped him, too. She didn't doubt it. They had placed her opposite an open hall door that was directly across from the door of the bedroom-cell of what was left of the ranch family. She could not help seeing occasional car rats going in or out, zipping or unzipping their pants. She could not help hearing moaning, pleading, praying, weeping, screaming whenever the room door was opened. The ranch house was solidly built. Sounds did not carry well unless doors were open. Rane suspected the car rats had put her where she was so that she could see and hear what was in store for her.

They were watching a movie from the ranch family's library -a 1998 classic about the Second Coming of Christ. There had been a whole genre of such films just before the turn of the century. Some were religious, some antireligious, some merely exploitive-Sodom-and-Gomorrah films. Some were cause-oriented-God arrives as a woman or a dolphin or a throwaway kid. And some were science fiction. God arrives from Eighty-two Eridani Seven.

Well, maybe God had arrived a few years late from Proxima Centauri Two. God in the form of a deadly little microbe that for its own procreation made a father try to rape his dying daughter-and made the daughter not mind.

Rane squeezed her eyes shut, -willing the tears not to come again, failing. What was worse? Being raped by three or four car rats before she was ransomed or submitting to Eli's people and microbe? Or were the two the same now that

the car gang was infected? No, she would probably have been safer back with Stephen Kaneshiro, who could have hurt

her but had not, who had tried to share part of himself with her even though she had not understood.

But there was Jacob to think of. All the Jacobs. Stephen Kaneshiro could not give her a human child. It did not matter what the car gang gave her. They would free her as soon as they had the ransom money. Then she could have a doctor take care of the disease and any possible pregnancy. If only the car family did not kill her before the ransom was paid. Somehow, in spite of the noise from across the hall, in spite of its effect on her, she fell asleep sitting up. If there were more hands, she did not feel them.

When she awoke, she was intensely hungry. The movie was over, and the car rats were shooting and shouting and stinking with sweat so foul she could almost taste it. Her first impulse was to try to drag herself away from them, but her hunger was too intense. Even her head throbbed with it.

She begged the nearest car rat for food, but he shoved her aside with one foot and kept reloading guns as they were passed to him. Most were not passed to him. Their users reloaded them themselves in a couple of seconds. Others were older, slower, more likely to jam. These the reloader handled.

Helplessly, automatically, Rane inched toward the kitchen. She knew where it was. She and Keira had been left in it when they were rescued from their father.

Rane shook her aching head, not wanting to think about that. She did not know where Keira was or what was happening to her. She cared, but she did not want to think about it now. She was not even sure where her father was.

She worried about him because he was obviously sick. He might hurt himself and not even know it. The car rats might

hurt him because he could not respond to their orders. But as worried as she was about him, she could not keep her mind on him. She was so weak, so sick with hunger, and the kitchen seemed so far away.

She was not sure how far she had gone across the vast room when someone stopped her. "Where the hell do you think you're going, sis? What's the matter with you?"

"I'm hungry," she gasped.

"Hungry? Shit, you're sick. You're soaking wet."

Rane managed to look up, see that it was a deep-voiced woman who had stopped her, not a man as she had thought. Of course. She smelled like a woman. Rane shook her head, trying to remember whether men and women had always smelled noticeably different. But she could not keep her mind on the question.

"Please," she begged, "just give me some food." "You're probably not even strong enough to eat."

"Please," Rane wept. She had done more crying in the past few days than she had in the past several years. She could not recall feeling so utterly helpless before. What would happen if the woman prevented her from reaching food? She was already in more pain than she thought could result from hunger.

"You get back to your place and keep from underfoot," the woman said. She was large and blocky. Rane at her best could not have gotten past her. Now, all but helpless, Rane felt herself dragged back to her place at the wall.

"Stay put!" the woman said, then stomped away in her heavy boots. Immediately, Rane began crawling toward the kitchen again. She could not help herself.

She had her hand stepped on once, painfully, and someone shouted at her and cursed her, but no one stopped her again.

She reached the kitchen, noticed peripherally that someone had found a gunport there alongside the sink. A bald, shirtless man stood before it, firing mechanically. The man had enough hair on his body to cover several heads.

A gorilla, Rane thought. No more human than the things he was firing at. Jesus, was anyone negotiating with her grandparents or were they all here trying to kill Eli's people? How long had the siege gone on? Two days? Three? More? She could not remember.

She managed to drag herself upright by using the handles of the large refrigerator, then stand while she pulled one of

the doors open. There was little food to be found. A few fresh vegetables -tomatoes, a limp carrot, two cucumbers, green onions, green beans.

She ate everything she could find. By the time the shooting let up and the hairy man on the other side of the kitchen had time to pay attention to her, she had opened the other side of the refrigerator and found several steaks probably

intended for the night's dinner. The steaks were raw, some of them still icy. There was some cooked meat, too-what

was left of a pair of large roasts scraped together onto one platter.

Without thinking, Rane chose the raw meat. Its coldness disturbed her but the fact that it was raw did not even penetrate her consciousness until she had cleaned the bone of the first steak and was beginning the second. Raw smelled better than cooked, that was all.

Finally she began to feel stronger, aware enough for her bloody hands and the bloody meat she held to startle her. She had never liked her meat even medium rare, had always eaten it well-done or, as Keira said, burned. But this meat, except for its coldness, was the best thing she had ever tasted.

Now the car rat saw what she was doing, and, amazed, came to take the second steak from her. She did her best to bite off one of his fingers. If her bound hands and feet had not restricted her movement, she would have succeeded. As it was, her unexpected swiftness and ferocity drove the car rat back.

"Goddamn," he said staring at her as she tore off a piece of steak. "Goddamn, you and your whole family are crazy."

He was an ape. Heavy brow ridges, flattened, broken nose, body hair no one would believe. But now that she had eaten, now that she felt stronger, she realized he smelled interesting.

She finished her steak while he watched, repelled and fascinated. Then she wiped her mouth and smiled. "I won't hurt you," she said, knowing he would laugh.

He laughed humorlessly. "Damn right you won't, sis." "I was hungry."

"You were crazy-are crazy."

He liked her. She could see it as clearly as though that wary face of his were leering.

"So?" she said, shrugging. "Who the hell isn't crazy these days?" One of her father's patients had said that to her-a young thief with skin as smooth as Keira's except where acid had scarred him. He had been brought to the enclave hospital for special treatment and had laughed at her when she tried to talk him out of leaving the hospital and going back to his gang. He could not get even with the acid thrower, he said, until he was with his own again. This in spite of the fact that his own had run away and left him writhing on the ground.

"You're crazy!" she had screamed at him.

"So who isn't crazy these days?" he had demanded.

"I'm. not," she had said. "And I never will be. Co ahead and flush yourself down the toilet if you want to!"

Her father had only just begun letting her volunteer at the hospital. The boy's self-destructive stubbornness had upset her, but she had comforted herself with the knowledge that she was stronger than he was. He could have healed completely and gotten work in one of the enclaves. She had told him she would talk her father into helping him. But he had chosen the sewers. She was stronger and smarter.

Or was she merely untested?

She knew the disease organisms were pushing her toward this repulsive man. And she was yielding to them mindlessly. Stephen Kaneshiro had resisted, had not raped her. She could resist, too.

Deliberately, she took another steak. She was not very hungry now, but the meat still smelled good. It was not hard for her to tear into it as messily as possible. She let blood run down her chin and arms, chewed with her mouth open, occasionally smacking her lips. Eventually, she heard the ape make a sound of disgust and stomp away.

The shooting had stopped. Rane was alone in the kitchen- happy to be alone. She thought she might be able to get out the back door if she could get free of her cuffs. She bit pieces of fat from the steak and rubbed them on her wrists. Nothing in the kitchen would be likely to cut the cuffs. Very likely, nothing in the house would cut them. The plastic

only looked flimsy. But she thought if she did not fight them, she might be able to slip them. She had seen her father try

to do this and fail. But it seemed to her he had not used his muscles effectively, and he had had no fat to help him. She had to try. Anything was better than just sitting and waiting to see what her captors or the disease organism would do to her next.

Several minutes later, as she was freeing one hand through flexibility and control that amazed even her, a young white- haired woman caught her.

If Rane had had time to free her feet, she might have been able to silence the woman before the woman shouted an alarm. As it was, all Rane could do was hop toward her, only to be stopped by the ape who came running to see what was wrong.

The ape grasped her wrists and held them. "Son of a bitch," he said, grinning. "That's the first time I've seen anybody

get out of the jail cuffs. Shit, I've tried to get out of a few pair myself. What'd you do, sis?"

He was too close to her. Too close! He smelled almost edible. Irresistible. She pressed herself against him. "Jesus," the white-haired woman said. "What is it with these people?"

"You tell me," the ape said, holding Rane. She rubbed herself against his hairy body, smiling outside and screaming inside. It was as though she were two people. One wanted, needed, was utterly compelled to have this man-perhaps any

man. Her hands fumbled with his belt.

Yet some part of her was still her. That part screamed, soundlessly weeping, and clawed with imaginary fingers at the ape's ugly, stupid face.

Her true fingers quivered, hesitated for a moment at his belt. Then the organism controlled her completely. Her body moved only under its compulsion and her feelings were abruptly reconciled with her actions. Part of her seemed to die.

"Let her alone," the white-haired woman said. "You can see she's running on empty. Who knows what crazy thing she

might do? Besides, we've got to keep her in good shape for the ransom."

And the ape growled, "You worry about yours, Smokey. The buyers for this one will just have to take her back a little used." The ape lifted Rane off her bound feet. "At least this kid is young. What the hell do you want with that sick old man you've got?" He laughed as he carried Rane away into another room.

The new room was not empty. There were people there, writhing together, moaning, making other sounds that Rane paid no attention to. The ape threw her onto an empty bed. There seemed to be several beds in the room. The ape freed her feet, then casually tore her clothing off. Finally, he climbed onto her and hurt her so badly she screamed aloud. But even as she screamed, she knew that what she was doing was necessary. She could have hurt him back. He did not realize how vulnerable he was, hunching between her thighs; she could kill him. There was a time, she recalled dimly, when she would have used her advantage. But that time was past. His throat, his eyes, his groin were safe from her. She bore the pain somehow, and when he finished, she lay bleeding, uncaring as he shackled her again. This time he bound her, spread-eagle, to the bed.

Sometime later, there was another man. She did not know him, did not recall having seen him before. He did not hurt her as much. Before he touched her, her body felt almost healed. She did not mind what he did, did not mind the man who came after him. By then, she was aware of her body repairing itself. The organism was taking care of her.

She lost track of time, of the men. Once when she began to feel hungry, she asked the man who was with her for food. He laughed at her, but later he brought her food-raw meat and raw vegetables. He unshackled her and watched in amazement and disgust as she ate. Several people had come to watch. They smelled unwashed and wary, but since they did not bother her, she ignored them.

When someone tried to shackle her again, she resisted. There was, it seemed to her now, too much danger in being tied to a bed-or tied at all. She was stronger now, more aware of what was going on around her.

In one corner, a young boy, naked, covered with blood, lay like discarded trash. He did not move. He had clearly been tortured, mutilated. His hands were still shackled. She was certain he was dead, had probably bled to death. His ears

and his penis had been cut off.

The woman on the bed near her had been crying hoarsely. Now, filthy, bound spread-eagle across a small bed, she was unconscious. Rane could see and hear her breathing shallowly.

A young girl, tied across another bed, lay watching what happened to Rane. The girl's wrists and ankles were bleeding in spite of the relative gentleness of the security cuffs. Her body was bruised and bloody and there was something

wrong about her eyes.

Abruptly, the girl gave a long, shrill scream. No one was touching her or paying any attention to her, but she continued to scream until one of the men went over and slapped her. Then she was abruptly, completely silent.

"I don't want to be tied," Rane said gravely to the man who was struggling to hold her arms. She realized that she was having no trouble avoiding the cuffs. The man seemed weaker than the others who had handled her-though he did not look weaker. Perhaps she was stronger.

Other people laughed when she spoke, but the man trying to tie her did not. "Help me," he said. "She's as strong as a goddamn truck! She's playing with me!"

She was not playing. Abruptly, as a second man seized her, she thrust both away and got up. She was still naked, as dirty and bloody as the young girl. But she was beginning to understand that she was stronger. Perhaps she was not as

strong as she would be. She thought not. But she was stronger than anyone would expect her to be-strong enough to

escape. Even getting away naked would be better than staying here, having her organisms keep her alive while the car rats thought up new things to do to her.

A black woman with red hair leveled one of the newer automatic rifles at her as she fought off a second attacker. When she saw the gun, she thought she was dead. But at that moment, she heard shouts through the open door.

"Hey, Badger," someone yelled, "the old man is gone. He kicked out his window!"

"Huh!" the red-haired woman said. "Nobody could kick out one of these windows alone. He'd have to kick out half the wall. Somebody must have helped him!" And as an afterthought, "Where's Smoke?"

Her father was gone.

He had escaped! He had used his new strength and gotten away! And what about Keira? Perhaps she had gotten away, too. People tended not to pay much attention to her because she looked too frail to try anything. But maybe . . .

Rane lunged at the redhead. The woman's attention had been drawn away from Rane. Now, she seemed to react in slow

motion as Rane moved.

Rane seized the gun, swatted the woman on the side of her head with the stock, then swung the gun around on the other car rats. Two-hundred-round magazine, fully loaded, set on automatic. A couple of seconds passed, then someone laughed. Maybe a naked girl holding a rifle looked funny. Let them laugh.

Someone made a grab for the barrel. That was a degree of stupidity Rane had not expected. She fired, managed to shoot only the man whose hand had brought the gun to bear on his own belly. She resisted the urge to spray the whole group. The wounded man screamed, doubled over, fell to the floor. Rane stepped back from him quickly, looking to see whether anyone else was feeling suicidal. As it happened, no one else was armed. People did not come to this room with their guns. Nobody moved.

"Get your clothes off," Rane told one of the smaller women.

The woman understood. She stripped quickly, threw her clothing to Rane, glanced sideways at the rat bleeding and groaning on the floor. The red-haired woman had knelt beside him, trying to stop the bleeding with direct pressure.

"Get the hell out of here," Rane said. "All of you, out!"

They spilled through the doorway ahead of her and she followed close behind, hoping her speed would give her an edge over their numbers and organization. She barely paused to snatch up the discarded clothing. She could dress when she was safe, when she had joined her father and they were on their way to Needles again.

She darted out the door, across the hall, across the large living room. She could see reaction around her, but it was so slow, she knew how fast she must be moving.

But there was noise outside. Motors, vehicles approaching, people shouting. This was what she had distracted attention from. New car people arriving. New car rats on the outside where she had to go. They were already shooting, fighting

with Eli's people. More crossfire for her to be caught in.

She put her back against the wall near the front door and aimed her gun at one of the car rats. "Open this door," she said.

"I can't," he lied. "It needs a special key." It could not have been more obvious to her that he was lying if he had worn a sign.

She fired a short burst, and he fell. Now the screaming inside her returned. She was shooting people, killing people.

She was going to be a doctor someday. Doctors did not kill people; they helped people heal. Her father had carried a gun for years and never shot anyone. He had escaped without shooting anyone.

But she could not.

The instant she showed indecision, weakness, mercy, these people would cut her to pieces. In this room several were as formidably armed as she was. All she had going for her was terrifying speed and perhaps their belief that they would soon be rid of her one way or another without anyone playing hero. Nothing she had ever heard about rat packs gave any indication they were heroic. At best, they mistook ruthlessness for heroism.

"Open the door," she said to a second man. He stumbled quickly to obey.

"You!" she chose a third. "Help him!" "He doesn't need any hel- No!"

She had come within a hair of shooting him. He scurried to the first man, then stood by while the first opened the door. Of course, the instant the door moved, Eli's people opened fire at it. Someone-one of the new group of car rats, perhaps- managed to run onto the porch, but did not quite make it to the door.

Rane heard all this as she ran from the room. She had never intended to step into the battle at the front of the house. She would never have headed for the front if she had known what was going on there. Once there, however, she had to create a diversion so that she could get to the back door.

Someone shot at her as she ran, but she was too quick. In the kitchen, she stopped, turned, fired a short burst at the door she had just run through. That should stop any pursuit. She hesitated, saw a flash of color at the door, sprayed the doorway again. Then she went to the back door. If it required a key, she might be trapped. That depended on how thoroughly bulletproof the house was.

Her hand flew over the various locks that did not require keys. She had to shoot the last one off, though at least it came off. As she fired, however, someone else fired at her, hit her in the lower back.

She fell to her knees, tried to swing around, but was shot again. This time, the impact of the bullet spun her around. She held on to her rifle somehow and managed to spray the other side of the room. She heard screaming, knew she had hit

something.

She released the trigger only when, briefly, through a haze, she thought she saw her sister staring at her over a counter, through a doorway. Then, because she was propped up against the door, unable to move her legs-unable even to feel her legs, she sprayed the last of her bullets into the car rats as they showed themselves. She had the satisfaction of seeing the ape fall before someone shot her again.

The disease organism was merciless. It kept her alive even when she knew she must be almost cut in half. It kept her conscious and aware of everything up through the moment someone stood over her, shouting, then seized her by the hair and held her head up as he began to saw slowly at her throat with something dull.

PAST 27

The women had become frightened of Eli-frightened for their children. Gwyn's daughter by Eli was beginning to toddle around on all fours and Lorene's daughter by Zeriam clearly had the same physical abnormalities. She would be another quadruped, another precocious, strong, beautiful, little nonhuman. Eli could see that. He watched the children in grim silence.

The women sat Eli down and talked to him. Gwyn spoke for them all for a change while Meda sat withdrawn and silent.

"We don't like being afraid of you," Gwyn said, leaning forward against the dining table around which they had gathered. "We need you." She glanced sideways at Meda. "And we love you. But we're afraid."

"Afraid of what?" he demanded harshly. He did not care what the women had to say. His own misery over the children consumed him.

"You know of what," Gwyn said. "Even the kids know. They don't understand, but they're scared to death of you."

He stared at her in bitter anger. She had brought the others together against him. They had never united against him before. He was father or foster father to all three kids-all three hopelessly nonhuman kids. No one had the right to tell him how he should reel about them.

"Eli, you love them," Meda whispered finally. "You love them all. You'd have to go against your deepest feelings to hurt them."

"We won't let you hurt them," Lorene said.

"We can't change them," Gwyn said. "And no matter how you feel ... if you try to hurt them, we'll kill you."

Eli stared at her, amazed. She was the gentlest of the three women, the one most likely to need reassurance and want protection.

"We will kill you," she repeated very softly. She did not flinch from his gaze. He looked at Meda and Lorene and saw

Gwyn's feelings mirrored in their faces.

He reached across the table, took Gwyn's hands. "I can't help what I feel," he said. "I know it hurts you. It hurts me. But-"

"It scares us!"

"I know." He paused. "What in this world is going to happen to kids with human minds and four legs? Think about it!" "Who says they have human minds?" Meda asked.

Eli glared at her.

"They're obviously bright," she said, "but their minds may be as different as their bodies. We can teach them, but we can't know ahead of time what they'll become."

"No," he said. "We can't. But we know the world they'll have to spend their lives in. And I know what their lives will be like if they can't fit in-and, of course, there's no way they can fit in. You think sewers and cesspools are bad? Try a cage. Bars, you know. Locks."

"Nobody would-"

"Shit! They're not going to be cute little kids forever. To other people, they wouldn't look like cute little kids now. And we're not going to live forever to protect them."

The women stared at him bleakly.

"I'll tell you something else," he said. "These kids are only the first. You know there'll be more. If anything happened to me, you'd go out and find yourselves another man or two. Hell, you'll do that even if nothing happens to me. We'll probably bring in more women, too. Our organism won't let us ignore all those uninfected people out there completely."

No one contradicted him. The women could feel the truth of what he was saying as intensely as he could.

"What are we doing?" Lorene whispered. "What are we creating?"

Eli leaned back, eyes closed. "That's what I've been asking myself," he said. "I've got an answer now."

They all faced him, waiting. He realized then that he loved them. He wondered when he had begun to love them-three plain women with calluses on their hands. Answering them would not be an act of love, but it was necessary. If anyone deserved to know what he thought, they did. "We're the future," he said simply. "We're the sporangia of the dominant

life form of Proxi Two-the receptacles that produce the spores of that life form. If we survive, if our children survive, it

will be because we fulfill our purpose-because we spread the organism." "Spread the disease?" Lorene asked

"Yes."

"Deliberately? I mean ... to everybody? After you said-"

"I didn't say we should spread it deliberately. I didn't say we should spread it at all. I said we won't survive, and the kids won't survive, if we don't. But I'll tell you, I don't think they or we are in any real danger. Once we knew what to look for on Proxi Two, we found the organism in almost every animal species alive there. Some were immune-herbivores

tended to be immune-and though I can't prove it, I suspect a lot of species had been driven into extinction."

"Some would be here," Lorene said. "Dogs."

Eli nodded. "Dogs, yes, maybe coyotes, wolves, any canine. I wouldn't give much for the chances of cats either, and some snakes-maybe all snakes, rats, most rodents. Heaven knows what else."

"What about the people?" Lorene whispered. "They'll die, too. Four out of seven died here. Five, if you count Gwyn's baby. Ten out of fourteen in your crew died. And what about Andy? How many more Andy Zeriams, Eli?" She had

begun to cry. "How goddamn many?"

He got up and went to her. She pushed him away angrily at first, but then reached out and pulled him to her. "What about the people?" she repeated against him.

After a moment, he put her aside and sat down next to Meda. "What do you want to do?" Meda asked.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Just go on as we have." "But-"

"What else? You're right about the kids. They are what they are. I'm right too. They can't make it in the world as it is. But I'm not going to make a move to spread the disease beyond the ranch, here. Not even for them. We'll have to bring

people here now and then, but that's all."

"You're talking about leaving everything to chance," Meda said.

"No," he told her, "not quite. I'm talking about stifling chance, doing every damn thing I can to keep the disease right here. Everything. And I'll need all three of you with me."

"But the kids," Meda said.

"Yeah." He sighed. "I couldn't hurt them. Even without the three of you ganging up on me, I couldn't have. But ... in this one way, I can't help them, either. Can you?" He looked from one of them to the other. No one answered. "What happens happens," Eli continued. "I won't make it happen. Dead people, dead animals, no more cities because we'd go

crazy in cities. No more of a lot of things I probably haven't even thought of." He stared at the table for several seconds.

"It will happen, though," he said. "Sooner or later, somehow, it will happen. And ultimately, I'll be responsible." PRESENT 28

Keira had just eaten a large meal-overcooked, overseasoned, but filling. She was feeling well until the white-haired girl came to take her to her father. She was feeling well! She could not remember how long it had been since she had last felt truly well.

The car family had locked her in a walk-in hall closet. She had been in pain and Badger had demanded to know why. When she told him she had leukemia, he had shrugged.

"So?" he had said. "There's a cure for that-some kind of medicine that makes the bad cells turn back to normal." "I've had that," she told him. "It didn't work."

"What do you mean, it didn't work? It works. It worked on my mother. She had the same shit you do." "It didn't work on me."

So he had locked her in the closet. Some of his people, ignorant and fearful, could not quite believe her illness was not

contagious. Badger locked her away from them for her own safety. She had seen for herself how eager they were to get her out of their sight. She wondered what they would do if they knew what she and her family had really given them- what they were really doomed to. They would begin to find out soon enough. That was what Eli was waiting for. That was why he was keeping them boxed in. He did not have to do anything more than that to win. She had heard him talking about explosives, but then the car family had begun showing a noisy movie and the faint voices from outside were drowned.

Yet there were explosives. Eli would do anything necessary to stop the car people if they threatened to break free before they were ready to join him. He certainly would not let the friends they had called reach them. Keira did not know what would happen to her, but somehow she was not afraid. She sat on the closet floor with bound hands and feet, reading from cardboard boxes of old magazines. The lavish use of paper fascinated her. A one-hundred-and- twenty page magazine for only five or six dollars. A collector's item. Computer libraries like her father's made more sense, occupied less space, could be more easily updated, but somehow, weren't as much fun to look at.

The light in the closet was dim, but Keira preferred it dim. She thought she might not be able to tolerate it if it were normally bright. She was looking through an old National Geographic when the white-haired girl opened the door. "Your father wants to see you," the girl said in her low, throaty voice.

Keira looked up from her magazine, stared at the girl, wondered what it might be like to be her-dirty, knowing, tough, headed nowhere, but still young and not bad-looking. The girl's dark-tanned skin contrasted oddly with her white hair. "He might want to see my sister," Keira said, "but I don't think he wants to see me."

"You the one he had the fight with?" the girl asked. Keira did not hesitate. "Yes."

"Doesn't matter. He just wants to see one of you to make sure we haven't shot you. Come on." She unfastened Keira's hand and leg restraints.

Keira started to refuse. She did not think the girl would force her. Then she realized that in spite of what had happened

between them, she wanted to see her father-probably for the same reason he wanted to see her. Just to be sure he was all right. He had seemed so weak and sick when she saw him last. The organism seemed to be making her strong and him weak. That was all that had permitted her to get away from him when Rane made her realize what was happening.

It occurred to her that as things stood now, each time she saw him might be the last. The thought frightened her and she tried to reject it, but it had taken hold.

"All right," she said, standing up.

The girl watched her intently. "Is he really your father?" "Yes."

"Is he part black, then, or is it just your mother?" "My mother was black. He's white."

The girl nodded. "My mother was from Sweden. God knows why she came here. Got raped her first week here. That's

where I came from."

Shocked, Kiera spoke the first words that occurred to her. "But why didn't she have an-" Keira stopped, glanced downward. There was something wrong with asking someone why she had not been aborted. She wondered why ttie girl would tell her such a secret, shameful thing.

"She couldn't make up her mind," the girl said unperturbed. "She wanted to get rid of me, then she didn't, then she wasn't sure, then I was born and it was too late. She kept me 'til I was fourteen, though. Then she went nuts and when they took her away to cure her, I left." The girl sighed. "After that, life was shit until I got adopted into the family. How old are you?"

"Sixteen," Keira told her. "Really? How old is he?"

Keira looked at her sharply. The girl looked away. For a moment, Keira hated her, wanted to get awasy from her. Her rage surprised her, then shamed her because she c"ould not help understanding its cause: jealousy. The girl had slept

with Blake-as Keira herself almost had. His scent was on her like a signature. For a moment Keira wondered how she cou Id distinguish such a thing. His scent. . . Yet there was no doubt in her mind, and she was almost stiff with jealous rage.

Then came the shame.

"Forty-four," she said softly. "He's forty-four" Neither she nor the girl said anything more. The girl let Keira in to see her father, then minutes later, let her out again. Only then could she look at the girl and realize her father needed an ally among the car people. The girl liked him and she could be useful to him in ways Keira certainly could not.

"Forty-four isn't old," Keira said as the girl took her back to the closet.

The girl glanced at her. "What'd you do? Decide it was okay for me to fuck him?"

Keira jumped. Not for the first time, she was grateful she was not as light-skinned as Rane. Nothing made Rane blush. Everything would have made Keira blush.

"I just thought you liked him," Keira muttered.

"What if I do? He's your father, not the other way around."

Keira tried once more. "Did you bring him the blanket?" she asked. "And food?" She had seen an empty plate on the floor near him.

"Yeah, so what?"

"Thank you," Keira said sincerely. She went back into the closet, waited to see whether the girl would put the cuffs back on her. But the girl only looked at her, then closed the door. Keira waited for the soft click of the lock, but did not hear it. Moments later, she heard the girl's footsteps going away.

Keira was almost free. With her enhanced senses, she might be able to slip out of the house, escape. Alone.

But the white-haired girl had given her a choice she did not want-to challenge the car family by attempting to escape, to desert her own family, or to remain in dangerous captivity. Here, she certainly could not help her family. At any time,

Badger might decide to kill his captives, rape them, use them as shields, anything. He had kicked her father almost into

unconsciousness for no reason at all. He and his people were unpredictable, ruthless, and, worst of all, cornered. What would happen when they began to realize they were sick as well?

And whatever they decided to do, how would her staying affect them? Would it stop them from doing harm? Of course not.

But if she escaped, the gang might take their anger and frustration out on her father and Rane. She hooked her arms around her knees, pulled her knees up close to her chest. There she sat miserably as though she were still bound, still

locked in.

Each time she thought of her father, her mind flinched away, then fastened onto him again, forcing her into memories of the thing that had almost happened-into confusion, fear, shame, loss, desire. . . .

Then she would remember the way Eli had looked at her, the feel of his body along the length of her own and inside her, hurtful, but good somehow. That would not happen again. Meda would be there and Keira's father would not. Eli

would steer her toward someone else; he had warned her. That hurt, but it could not matter.

She listened intently for several seconds, heard the movie end, heard the shooting flare up and die down. Down the hall, people were making love-or the ranch women were being raped. She had heard a little of that before and did not want to hear more. There were people wandering around, talking, firing occasionally at targets they probably could not see. Someone was talking about eating raw meat.

The words made her mouth water. Her hunger was not painful yet, but it would be soon. Nothing else was hurting her body now, but hunger could change that quickly. If she waited much longer, let herself be locked in again, she could starve. The car gang would not understand. It might ignore her. This closet could become her tomb.

She grasped the knob, turned it slowly, noiselessly. She heard nothing nearby-not even breathing.

Yet the instant she opened the door, something small, silent, and incredibly quick leaped into the closet with her. Only her speeded-up reaction time saved her. Her moment of confusion and terror passed so quickly, she was able to keep herself from screaming. Instead, she shut the closet door quickly, quietly, and turned to face Jacob.

He was naked and trembling. Before she realized what he meant to do, he leaped again, this time at her.

To her amazement, she caught him. He was heavy, but she had no trouble holding him. A few days before, she did not think she could have lifted him from the ground, let alone caught him in midair. He clung to her, utterly silent, but clearly terrified.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, hugging him and rubbing his trembling shoulders. She was surprised to realize how glad she was to see him-and how frightened she was for him in this deadly place. "Jacob, you could get hurt! You could get-" She stopped. "You have to get away!"

"You do, too," he said. "Nobody knew where you were in the house so I came to find you. Everybody from home is outside."

"Do your parents know you're inside?"

"No!" He drew back from her a little, his trembling quieted. "Don't tell them. Okay?" "I won't tell them a thing. Just let's get out of here. How did you get in?"

"There's a room with a hole instead of window glass. You were in there before. It smells like you-and like other people."

"A room with a hole?"

Distantly, Keira heard shooting and running feet. It sounded like fighting within the house. Car people fighting among themselves.

Jacob glanced toward the door. "They were hurting her," he said. "She's got a gun and shot one of them. Now she's shooting more."

"Who?"

"Your sister. She's getting away." "Is she? My God, let's go!"

"Your father's gone, too, I think. I smelled the room where he was back at home. His same smell was in the room with the hole."

God, while she had sat worrying about leaving them, they were leaving her. She opened the door, crept out of the

closet, still holding the boy.

"I'll show you where the hole is," he said. He squirmed against her, leaped soundlessly to the floor, sped down the hall toward her father's room. Of course the hole would be there. But how had her father broken out the glass?

And Rane. Was she all right? Could she make it alone? Keira turned, crept back up the hall to the family room. This room adjoined the kitchen and the dining room. From the hall door of the family room, Keira could see car people

crouched behind the counter, occasionally looking around or over it into the kitchen. Keira could see over the counter and into the kitchen, could see Rane sitting at the back door, cradling an automatic rifle. For an instant, Rane's eyes met

Keira's. Then Jacob was tugging at Keira's dress.

"Go!" Keira whispered. "Get out!"

"You come too," the boy pleaded. "The whole house smells like blood. People are dying."

Rane began firing again, and people did die. Keira saw one of them raise his head at the wrong time and get the top of it blown off.

Terrified and repelled, Keira snatched up Jacob and fled. Doctor's daughter that she was, sick as she had been, she had never seen anyone die before. She ran almost in panic, reached her father's bare room and looked around wildly.

"There!" The boy pointed to another door. The bathroom -no bigger than the closet she had been shut in, but it had a window.

She ran into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it, then lifted the boy to the windowsill. He was over it and down

in an instant. She pulled herself up after him, no longer marveling at the return of her strength, no longer marveling at anything. She had *o get out of the house, get back to Eli and safety. Her father was probably already safe, and Rane soon would be.

She dropped to the ground and ran.

Keira ran through the rocks, hoping they would conceal and protect her as she circled around the house. She was halfway around and already aware of the distinctive scent of Eli's people when she recognized another familiar scent. The new scent confused her for a moment because of its clarity. She was so utterly certain it was her father's that for a moment she thought she had actually seen him.

The wind favored her. It blew toward her from Eli's people and across the path of her father. She looked down the slope through the rocks. Her nose told her this was the way her father had gone-away from the house and Eli's people, toward the highway.

Of course.

Her enhanced sense of smell led her to spots of his blood, some of them still wet on the rocks. In one place near a brown wedge of rock, blood had actually pooled-an alarming amount of blood. Before finding this, she had thought she would go on to Eli and say nothing about her father. Jacob, running ahead and back to her like an eager puppy, might

notice the scent and he might not. If he spoke of it, she would have to admit what she knew, but perhaps by then her

father would have made good his escape. She would have let him escape, even knowing what that would mean to Eli and his people. This was all she could do for her father. And in his way, he was not wrong. He was taking the long view, trying to prevent a future epidemic. Eli and his people were trying to live from one day to the next, trying to raise their strange children in peace, trying to control their deadly compulsion. Eventually, inevitably, they would fail. They must have known it. If not for the blood, Keira would have deliberately permitted that failure to happen now.

But the blood was there, slowly drying in a natural depression in the rock. Her father had been hurt, needed help. Eli had the medical bag, maybe even had it with him here to treat his own people. He should not be able to use it, but Keira suspected he could-and her father might die before he could reach other help.

She turned aside to follow the blood trail. The next time Jacob raced back to her, approaching in utter silence, and concealed except for his scent until the last instant, she stopped him.

"Come on," he said. "I'll take you to where Daddy is."

"You go," she said. "Tell him my father's hurt and I have to find him. Tell him to send someone after me with my father's bag. Okay?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now go. And be careful."

The boy bounded away, leaping among the rocks as though they presented no obstacle at all. Her children would do that someday. They would have four legs and be able to bound like cats, and they would be beautiful. Perhaps she was already pregnant.

Somehow, when she found her father, when Eli helped him, he had to be convinced to stay and be quiet. He had to be! Living day to day, free on the desert was better than being a quarantined guinea pig in some hospital or lab, better than watching Jacob and Zera treated like little animals, better than perhaps being sterilized so that no more children like them could be born. Better than vanishing.

She ran down the rocky slope with new speed and agility she hardly noticed. It seemed she could always see a place for her feet, always find a handhold when one was necessary. She felt as secure as a mountain goat. Once she stopped to examine the body of a red-bearded, balding man. He was not one of Eli's people, not one of Badger's. Most likely, he was one of the new group Badger had called. He was newly dead of a broken neck. Her father's scent was especially strong near him, and she realized her father had probably killed this man. It was even possible that this was the man who had wounded her father-though she saw no gun. Perhaps her father had taken it. That would mean she had to be careful. If he were wounded and armed, he might be panicky enough to shoot without waiting to see who he was shooting at.

She continued down the slope with greater care. She did not have Eli's or Jacob's ability to move in complete silence, but she moved as quietly as she could, missing the rock and sand she could have knocked loose, avoiding the dry plants that would crackle underfoot, quieting her own panting.

She paused briefly to listen. The wind, now blowing toward her from her father, brought her the sound of his uneven footsteps. He was limping slightly. His breathing, though, was even, not labored. She marveled for a moment that she could actually hear his breathing over such a distance. The organism had given her a great deal. It must have given him something too. How else could he survive being shot and losing so much blood? How else could he keep going? If only something could be done to stop it from killing so many people while it helped others.

She became aware of a low rumble behind her. Looking back, she saw a truck-a big private hauler-probably carrying something illegal if it were daring to use a map-identified sewer. She dove for cover as the truck came over a rise. Perhaps the driver was in his living quarters and would not see her or her father. Perhaps. But what driver would leave his rig on automatic in a sewer? He would be at the wheel. And his truck would be armed and armored to fight off gangs and the police.

The truck rumbled past her, not even slowing in spite of the fact that the rock she had crouched behind was not large enough to conceal her completely. Unmoving as she was, perhaps the driver had seen her as just another lump of rock. But up ahead, beyond the hill that now concealed her father, the truck slowed and stopped. Frightened, she walked

toward the truck, then ran toward it. People traveling legitimately did not stop to pick up strays, did not dare. Her father

had told her of a time when a person could stand with his thumb held in a certain position, and cars and trucks would stop and offer rides. But Keira could not remember such a time. All her life, she had heard stories of strays being decoys for car families and bike gangs. Real strays were people with car trouble and without working phones or people thrown out of cars by friends who suddenly became less friendly. People who picked them up might be only dangerously naive or they might be thieves, murderers, traffickers in prostitutes, or, most frighteningly, body-parts dealers-though according to her father, involuntary transplant donors were more likely to come from certain of the privately run, cesspool hospitals. But for a freelancer, strays were fair game.

Keira ran, not knowing what she would do when she reached her father and the hauler, not thinking about it. All she could think was that her father might be shot with a tranquilizer gun and loaded onto a meat truck.

Suddenly, as she ran, there was an explosion, then several explosions. For a moment, she stopped, confused, and the ground shook under her feet.

The ranch house. Eli had done what she had feared he would do: triggered his explosives, blown up the car people-even the white-haired one who had been kind.

And Rane? Had she gotten out? Was that why Eli had decided to settle things? Or was it because Keira and her father had escaped so easily? Eli almost certainly did not have enough people to surround the house and fight the new gang. Were two escapees all he was willing to risk?

Black smoke and dust boiled up over the hills. Keira stared at it, frightened, wondering. Then she heard the hauler start and saw it begin to pull away.

Again, she ran toward her father, pushing herself, fearing to find nothing where he had been. Instead, she found her father half-crushed by the wheels of the truck. His legs, the whole lower half of him looked stuck to the broken

pavement with blood and ruined flesh. He could not possibly be alive with such massive injuries.

Her father groaned. Keira dropped down beside him, sickened, revolted. She could barely look at him, yet he was alive. "God," he whispered. "My God!"

Weeping, Keira took his hand. It was wet with blood and she touched it carefully, but it was uninjured. Clutched in it was a piece of blue cloth-a bloody sleeve, not his own.

"I did it," he moaned. "Oh Jesus, I did it."

"Daddy?" She wanted to put his head on her lap, but she was afraid she would hurt him more. "Kerry, is that you?" He seemed to be looking right at her.

"It's me."

"I did it. Jesus!"

"Did what?" She could not think. She could hardly talk through her tears.

"He was looking for my wallet ... or something to steal. He hit me deliberately . . . had to swerve to hit me. Just wanted to steal."

She shook her head in disbelief. She had never heard of haulers running people down to rob them. Car families were

more likely to do that. But in a sewer, anything could happen.

"I grabbed him," her father said. "I couldn't help it, couldn't control it. He smelled so ... I couldn't help it. God, I tore at him like an animal."

So like the blue sleeve, the blood on his hand was not his. He had spread the disease.

"Please," he pleaded. "Go after him. Stop him."

"Stop who?" Eli asked.

She had not heard him coming. Enhanced senses or not, she stood up, startled. Then she saw her father's bag in his hand. She knew how utterly useless it would be and she broke down.

Crying, she permitted Eli to take her by the shoulders and move her aside. He knelt where she had been. When she was able to see clearly again, she saw that he was holding her father's bloody hand. She felt that something happened

between them, a moment of nonverbal communication.

Then, with a long, slow sigh, her father closed his eyes. Eventually he opened them again widely. His chest ceased to move with his breathing. His body was still. Eli reached up .and closed the eyes a final time.

Keira knelt beside her father, beside Eli. She looked at Eli, not able to speak to him, not wanting to hear him speak, though she knew he would.

"He's dead," Eli said. "I'm sorry."

She knew. She had seen. She bent forward, crying, all but screaming in anguished protest. With her eyes closed, she could not imagine her father dead. She did not know how to deal with such an unimaginable thing.

Eli took off his shirt and covered the most damaged parts of her father's body. Blood soaked through at once, but at least the horrible injuries were hidden.

Eli stood up, took her hands, and drew her to her feet. Her hands tingled, almost burned where he touched her. Confused, she tried to pull away, but somehow her desire to pull away did not reach her hands. They did not move.

"Be still," he said. "I just went through this with your father. His organisms 'knew' something mine want to know. So do yours."

That made no sense to her, but she did not care. She was not being hurt. She did not think she would have noticed if he

had hurt her. She was still trying to understand that her father was dead. Eli kept talking. Eventually, she found herself listening to him.

"When we've changed," he said, "when the organism 'decides' whether or not we're going to live, it shares the differences it's found in us with others who have changed. At least that's what we've decided it's doing. We had a woman who had had herself sterilized before we got her-had her tubes cauterized. Her organisms communicated with

Meda's and her tubes opened up. She's pregnant now. We had a guy regrow three fingers he'd lost years ago. You . . .

There's no precedent for it, but I think you may be getting rid of your leukemia. Or maybe the organism's even found a way to use leukemia to its advantage-and yours. You're going to live."

"I should die," she whispered. "Dad was strong and he died."

"You're not going to die. You look healthier than you did when I met you." "I should die!"

"Jesus, I'm glad you're not going to. That makes up for a lot." She said nothing.

"Kerry?"

"Don't call me that!" she screamed.

"I'm sorry." He put his arm around her as soon as he could free his hands from hers-as soon as the organisms had finished their communication. How the hell could microorganisms communicate anyway, she wondered obscurely.

Eli answered as though she had asked the question aloud. Perhaps she had. "We exchanged something," he said. "Maybe chemical signals of some kind. That's the only answer I can come up with. We've talked about it at home and

nobody has any other ideas."

She did not understand why he was talking on and on about the organism. Did he think she cared? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the column of smoke from the ranch house and she thought of something she did care about.

"Eli?" "Yeah?"

"What about Rane?"

Silence.

"Eli? Did she get out?" More silence.

"You blew up the house with her inside!" "No."

"You did! You killed my sister!"

"Keira!" He turned her, made her face him. "I didn't. We didn't."

She believed him. She did not understand why she believed so quickly, why watching him speak the words made her know he was telling the truth. She resented believing him.

"What happened to her?" she demanded. "Where is she?" Eli hesitated. "She's dead."

Another one. Another death. Everyone was dead. She was alone. "The car people killed her," Eli said.

"How could you know that?"

"Keira, I know. And you know I'm not lying to you." "How could you know she was dead?"

He sighed. "Baby . . ." He drew another breath. "They cut her head off, and they threw it out the front door." She broke away from him, stumbled a few steps down the road.

"I'm sorry," he said for the third time. "We tried to save all of you. We ... we work hard not to lose people in the middle of their conversions."

"You're like our children at that stage," another voice said.

She looked up, saw that a young oriental man had come over the hill behind her. The man spoke to Eli. "I came to see if you needed help. I guess not."

Eli shrugged. "Take her back to the camp. I'll bring her father."

The man took Keira's arm. "I knew your sister," he said softly. "She was a strong girl."

Not strong enough, Keira thought. Not against the car family. Not against the disease. Not strong at all.

She started to follow the new man back to the ranch house, then stopped. She had forgotten something-something important. It must have been important if it could bother her now. Then she remembered.

"Eli? she said.

He was bending over her father. He straightened when she spoke.

"Eli, someone got away. The hauler who hit my father. He was headed north." "It was a private hauler?"

"Yes. He got out and tried to rob my father. My father scratched him."

"Oh, Jesus," Eli whispered. He sounded almost the way her father had at the end. Then he turned and spoke to the other man. "Steve, tell Ingraham. He's our best driver. Give him some grenades. Tell him no holds barred."

The man called Steve went leaping up the slope as agilely as Jacob could have.

"Jesus," Eli repeated. Somehow, he managed to lift her father and carry him back as though he were merely wounded, not half-crushed. He had fashioned a kind of sack of his shirt. Keira walked beside him, hardly noticing when a car sped by down on the highway.

Up the hill, Steve-Stephen Kaneshiro, he told her-joined her again. He brought her food and she ate ravenously, guiltily. Apparently nothing would disturb her appetite.

Stephen kept her away from the ruin of the house. He stayed with her, silent but somehow comforting. He found an empty car and sat with her in it. Eli's people had apparently driven away or killed all of the second, uncontaminated group of car people. Now they were cleaning up. Some were digging a mass grave. Others were loading their newly appropriated cars and trucks with whatever they thought their enclave could use.

"Take a couple of radios," Stephen told a woman who passed near them. "I think for a change we'll be needing them." The woman nodded and went away.

Jacob found Stephen and Keira sitting together in the car. Without a word, he climbed into Keira's lap and fell asleep. She stroked his hair, accepting his presence and his youth and thinking nothing. It was possible to endure if she thought

nothing at all.

Sometime later, Ingraham returned. He had driven all the way to the edge of Needles, but found no private hauler. Everyone had gathered near him to hear about his chase. When they had heard, they all looked at Eli.

Eli closed his eyes, rubbed a hand over his face. "All right." He spoke so softly, Keira would not have heard him without her newly enhanced hearing. "All right, we knew it would happen sooner or later."

"But a private hauler," Stephen said. "They go all over the country, all over the continent. And they deal with people

who go all over the world."

Eli nodded bleakly. He looked years older and agonizingly weary. "What are we going to do?" Ingraham asked.

Meda answered him. "What do you think we're going to do? We're going home!"

Eli put his arm around her. "That's right," he said. "In a few months we'll be one of the few sane enclaves left in the country -maybe in the world. He shook his head. "Use your imagination. Think of what it will be like in the cities and towns." He paused, reached down and picked up Zera, who had sat at his feet and was leaning sideways against his

right leg. "Remember the kids," he said softly. "They'll need us more than ever now. Whatever you do, remember the

kids."

EPILOGUE

Stephen Kaneshiro waited until he began to hear radio reports of the new illness. Then he put on his gloves and drove with Ingraham into Barstow. From there, by phone, he tried to locate his wife and son. He had been with Keira until then, had seemed content with her, but he felt he had a duty to bring his wife and son to relative safety, though they must have given him up for dead long ago.

Eli warned him that no one knew what effect the disease might have on a young child. Stephen understood, but he wanted to give his family what he felt might be their only chance.

He could not. It took him two days of anonymous, sound-only phoning to discover that his wife had gone back to her parents and recently had returned with them to Japan.

He came back to the mountaintop ranch and Keira. Her hair was growing in thick and dark. She was pregnant-perhaps by Stephen, perhaps from her one night with Eli. Stephen did not seem to care which any more than she did.

"Will you stay with me?" she asked him. He was a good man. He had helped her through the terrible time after the deaths of her father and sister. He did not excite her as Eli had. She had not known how much she cared for him, how

much she needed him until he went away. When he came back, all she could think was: No wife! Thank God! Then she

was ashamed. Sometime later she asked the question. "Will you stay with me?"

They sat in their room next to the nursery. Their room in Meda's house. He sat on the bed and she on the desk chair where she could not touch him. She could not bear to touch him until she knew he did not plan to leave her.

"We'll have to cut ourselves off even more than we have so far," he said. "I brought new weapons, ammunition, and

foods we can't raise. I think we're going to have to be self-sufficient for a while. Maybe a long while. You and I

couldn't even have a house. Not enough wood." "It doesn't matter," she said.

"San Francisco is burning," he continued. "I bought a lot of news printouts in town. We haven't been getting enough by radio. Fires are being set everywhere. Maybe uninfected people are sterilizing the city in the only way they can think

of. Or maybe it's infected people crazy with their symptoms and the noise and smells and lights. L.A. is beginning to

burn, too, and San Diego. In Phoenix, someone is blowing up houses and buildings. Three oil refineries went up in Texas. In Louisiana there's a group that has decided the disease was brought in by foreigners-so they're shooting anyone who seems a little odd to them. Mostly Asians, blacks, and browns."

She stared at him. He stared back expressionlessly.

"In New York, Seattle, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, doctors and nurses have been caught spreading the disease. The compulsion is at work already."

She thought of her father, then shook her head, not wanting to think of him. He had been so right, so wrong, and so utterly helpless.

"Everything will be chaos soon," Stephen said. "There have been outbreaks in Germany, England, France, Turkey, India, Korea, Nigeria, the Soviet Union. ... It will be chaos. Then a new order. Hell, a new species. Jacob will win, you

know. We'll help him. And Jacob thinks uninfected people smell like food." "We'll have to help him to help ourselves," she said.

"We'll be obsolete, you and me."

"They'll be our children."

He lowered his eyes, looked at her belly where her pregnancy was beginning to show. "They'll be all we have," he said, "the two of us." There was a long pause. "I've lost everyone, too. Will you stay with me?"

She nodded solemnly and went to him. They held each other until they could no longer tell which of them was trembling.