O-Zone

7

It had been like a voyage to a distant land. O-Zone was an island. And he was now safely back in the world; but shaken.

After all that — two surprising days that had exhausted him by soaking him in fear and excitement — the world looked different to Hooper Allbright. Had the world changed, or had he? The O-Zone trip gave him a way of dating his life. He now had a sense of time, a feeling of before and after. It was scratched on his memory in a long raw stroke that would heal but always remain as a narrow scar. In that sealed wound were the discoveries he had made — the forbidden place, the friends he had seen in a new way, the shock of having seen those aliens in an area believed to be empty. And he had to accept the strange simplicity that O-Zone was America, and aliens were human.

The worst of it was that he had killed two men and nothing at all had happened. Because there was no justice, he had to carry all of the guilt alone. Far away from the shouting lights of New York, among cluttering birds, he had become a man and a murderer. I'd like to take something of this away with me, he had said. Now he realized that he had left something of himself behind. It gave him a lasting desire for solitude, but an aching sense of loneliness — he who had never been lonely. He wondered who was missing in his life, for surely it is only other people who make us lonely?

He stopped thinking of Fizzy as a supermoron. He felt instead a little insecure — dependent on the boy, because they now shared a secret. He needed him in other ways, too: he saw Fizzy's strength, and he suspected that all this time people had mocked the boy — even Moura and Hardy had mocked — in order to give themselves the courage to face him. It was not that the boy had the answers to hard questions, but rather that his navigation had been crucial to their O-Zone trip. The boy had made maps of this unmapped region. They had all found it awkward to admit how much they owed to Fizzy, which was another reason they jeered. And the boy didn't make things easier. He seemed to have the power of a wizard, but he also had all of the wizard's eccentricity. And his life indoors had made him cranky and demanding. Yet I need him, Hooper thought. Something had happened.

As for Murdick — his fears and obsessions had never seemed worse. The man was stupid and mean, and his stupidity Hooper regarded as very dangerous. He was a member of Godseye!

Yet the memory of the weapon, the double-barreled particle beam, which took pictures, continued to fascinate Hooper. Murdick had called it a burp gun. "I'm going to put it into my catalog," Hooper had said when he'd first seen it. It still seemed a profitable idea. Sell it by mail order; there was a fortune in something as simple and deadly as that, especially as the camera apparatus was said to be as efficient as the firearm. You pointed it in the general direction of the target, and the heat-seeking particle beam found its mark and destroyed it. Hooper was eager to develop the film. He was very surprised it wasn't instant self-developing film, like the stuff they had used to tape the trip out.

It had all been discovery! O-Zone was beautiful, the Eubanks were cowards, Hardy was mysterious (but tactfully didn't ask questions), the Murdicks were frantic, and Moura watchful. Fizzy had put himself in charge and then said, "I like math because there's no people in it!" They had streaked back to New York — and Hooper saw it afresh: another discovery. The city seemed silly and tame after those days in O-Zone.

From his tower in the garrison block of Coldharbor on the upper east side, he looked out at the glittering city and saw a long narrow island of more towers in garrisons, arranged like upright tombstone slabs. Some were glass, some granite or coated steel, others scalloped and black-gray like chipped flint. A knot of small choppers whistled past. Flights of rotors sharked through the sky, and circled, and sank, as they dropped onto the flat tops of the towers or on the barge pads moored on the river.

The choppers' monotonous chugging was in odd contrast to the shriek of jet-rotors, and all of it echoed in the deep canyons between the garrisons, a whole sky of aircraft noise, rising and falling. It went on ringing; it was the loudest city in the world. Hooper was sure that there were more than the permitted number of aircraft at this time of day. But the gunships of the police patrols did nothing but make their incessant figure eights over the city. The aircraft — choppers and rotors especially — had multiplied a thousandfold since the bridges had been secured against unlicensed ground vehicles. Sealing the city had meant a longer trip in and out— more security checks, more barriers, more bottlenecks. It had made the city safer but a great deal slower.

Until that trip to O-Zone Hooper had believed — with most of his friends — that aliens did not have aircraft. Now he was not so sure. The aliens he had seen were not freaks; they looked alert and human. He would have been happier with freaks or subhuman creatures — it was the popular view, anyway. It shook him to be reminded that they were human, and that it was not they but the language that had changed. Similarly, his view of O-Zone had altered his view of New York.

The skylights could not mask the gritty January color of the clouds, or the rolling smoke-laden air from New Jersey, or the purple rotor fumes. The only trees he could see were inside, at the high windows of nearby towers. At ground level he saw great empty spaces — the stone plazas, the wide streets, the fenced-in parks. And everywhere — even on this Tuesday morning — the security lights, so powerful, and shining from so many angles, that New York had a superficial magic, an illusion of castle towers suspended on a watery cloud. The profusion of lights made it a city without shadows.

He had not noticed that New York was bad, because it had become bad so slowly. It was a terrible place. All you could say was that it was safe. But the water was foul and the air was woolly and dusty from factory acid that made the light sulfurous. And all the buglike aircraft with their noisy wup-wup-wup. Fizzy was right again! The only solution to living in New York was to stay indoors, in a tower complex like Coldharbor, because indoors there were trees and flowers, there was fresh-cut grass; you could swim, it was warm. And outdoors, however safe, it was a full-time hell. You might be bored in here, but out there you would be suffocated or deafened or blinded by the light; and out of the city — in any direction — eaten alive.

One of Hooper's pleasures was standing on the balcony of his unit and looking through his own windows at his rooms, liking the play of light on his pictures and the arrangement of his furniture and the look of all that warmth and solitude. He became a spectator to his own achievement, and as his scrutiny increased and his interest widened, he became almost disembodied and indulged in the intense vanity of envying himself. It was a kind of pride that he could not suppress, because looking through the windows of his unit he saw that everything was in place: I have what I want. He had only to reenter the unit for the vision to be complete.

But now he knew, without looking in, that something was missing. Over his breakfast of green tea, tangerine juice, and fresh bread, he glanced at the smudged horizon and remembered the two men he had murdered. Not even shreds were left of them. They had been atomized into a fine mist of blood and sprayed apart, and at last blown gently away on the breeze.

He rid his mind of that image by thinking: I want that weapon for my catalog.

Even that seemed tame — his company, his catalog. He laughed to think that he had once been excited by it and had woken up in the morning with new ideas to try. He was the owner of a mail-order business. He had inherited the family chain of department stores, while Hardy — older and more serious — had gone into weather management. There had been almost five hundred stores — most of the old shopping malls had had an Allbright's. But with progressive deterioration, as one city became too dangerous, and another too poor, and another lost its power supply, and yet another lost its population, Hooper rid himself of the retail outlets and changed over to mail order. He was warned — by Hardy among others — that he would probably fail. The warnings liberated him and made him bold; Hardy's tentative cautions meant that if he succeeded he would owe his brother nothing. The only way to get free of the paralyzing grip of family was to break out and risk everything — to frighten the family into disowning him, and then to succeed. By risking everything, Hooper knew he would have everything to gain, and what had seemed a humdrum and predictable business became risky and made him imaginative.

His best idea had been to close the stores and start a catalog. But instead of printing it he put it on tape and film and relayed it to subscribers on cable television. He used still pictures as well as the data in the margin. He also used videos of some products: he knew that some men subscribed merely to watch women's underwear being modeled. Indeed, there was something for everyone: Allbright's Discount Cable Sales was famous for the liveliness of its visual catalog — its drama, its humor, its erotic content. The catalog claimed to sell everything: Allbright's for All Bright Things. The sales operations were performed on a computer line, the subscriber ordering his merchandise and paying for it using his own tube and cable link. Allbright's depots and warehouses were scattered throughout the country in secure industrial estates, but as the catalog was available throughout the world, it was a global business — Allbright's sold worldwide to anyone who had dollar credit.

It was a vast but simple business. There was no head office — no office at all. Hooper worked from a computer terminal in one room of his Coldharbor unit. The rest of his staff also worked from home, using mainframes; but the daily operation was little more than updating the catalog, reviewing new videos, ordering merchandise from subcontractors, adding and deleting items, and auditing the cash flow. Hooper seldom saw his employees — it was not necessary, since their performance showed clearly on the computer record. He never saw his customers and he had ceased to take much interest in his merchandise. Because of the credit arrangements he demanded of customers, he was guaranteed payment before an item was shipped. All sales were firm. The problems were usually associated with deliveries. Many delivery points were unsafe for ground vehicles or were far from airports. Yet Hooper prided himself on being able to ship anywhere.

Converting the family business to mail order, and building it up, had been a physical act. He had followed his instincts, and he had been encouraged by all the warnings that he would fail. He could see no point in action unless that action involved risk.

It had all paid off. When asked what his net worth was, Hooper showed the gap in his front teeth and stuck out both hands and cried, "Ten digits!"

He had become a billionaire by including in his catalog just the sort of innovation that Murdick's weapon was. It was a foolproof, all-purpose item. It was a camera, it was a rifle, it worked in the dark, it had thermal imaging; it was more accurate than the person firing it, and its effect was devastating. It contained no bullets: a light particle pulverized the victim, and there was nothing left. No wonder the camera was so important: the trophy existed only on film, which was housed in a cartridge that was small enough to hide in your fist.

I won't put it in my catalog, he thought, and was suddenly very angry that such a diabolical weapon existed. It had no business in any catalog! What if weapons like this were common? It was bad enough, as Fizzy had said, that some Skells had rockets — and it was well-known that though Starkies were always naked, they were also very well-armed.

Hooper felt that by keeping the weapon out of his cable catalog he was helping to keep it a secret. Putting it into the catalog was like giving it to the world,

He went through the mechanical motions of approving some catalog changes, authorized an inventory in one warehouse and a stock shift in another depot. He answered some staff queries, and he reviewed the Christmas sales and the year-end figures. And then he stood up, hating the mouse in his hand that controlled his terminal; hating his room, hating his tower, hating the prison of this garrison, Coldharbor. It struck him that they had broken the rules — they had committed murder; and they had not simply gone home from the New Year's party — no, they had been expelled from O-Zone. It was a dismal thought, because it left Hooper feeling powerless and poor. What was all the money in the world if you couldn't have the one thing you wanted?

He hated being alone in this city. All everyone said — its only praise — was that it was safe. But not even that was completely true. The limited degree to which it was true was the result of a dreary succession of security checks, one valve after another, at every garrison block and on every bridge: the ID examination, the showing of the pass, the scan, the sniffers.

He had fled Coldharbor, he was walking fast downtown.

"You've got something in your pocket, sir."

Was there always a security check at Eightieth and Madison?

"A film cartridge."

"You'll have to show it to us, so we can scan it," the guard said. "And I'll require an ID."

"I'm walking down the street," Hooper said, and sensed he was about to lose his temper. "And you—"

"Without an ID you have no legal existence."

"Don't lecture me," Hooper said, and his temper was gone. He was shouting now, and his anger seemed to have a life and logic of its own that had broken loose from him and was flapping in the face of this uniformed man. It was not even his own voice. "You private security people have no legal standing," the voice was saying. "Half of you guys are crooked. I know all about those body searches you carry out. I know—"

"Most people tell us it makes them feel better," the guard said. He had inserted Hooper's ID in a scanner, he had turned the film cartridge over to another man to be sniffed.

He was still talking; he had interrupted Hooper. Was there anything more infuriating than being interrupted only to be contradicted?

"— That's what most people tell us."

"I am not most people," the voice said, issuing from Hooper's mouth. "I am some people. I'm a few people — very few people!"

He snatched his ID and the cartridge and continued on his way. He was photographed at a checkpoint on Sixty-first, and there was another very strict check at the Midtown Mall when he entered the Greenhouse. He was scanned, he was sniffed, he was made to wait until his ID was flashed; and he realized, waiting in a narrow cubicle, that he was being photographed again.

"Are you jokers looking for someone?" the voice said. "Listen, I'm an Owner!"

He walked a few steps and called back, "You porkers!"

Then he recognized the voice, and realized his affinity with Fizzy. That was what had changed. He was uneasy, he was lonely, like the boy.

Inside the Greenhouse he saw a naked woman — naked-naked.

She was walking toward him, her flesh riding gently upon her as she walked, shaking with each footfall, the up-and-down of her thighs, her trembling belly and nodding breasts — all skin and motion. They usually wore jewels, but she was young; she wore only a gold chain around her waist, and sandals and a mask — a snout — but nothing else. He saw that the mask was gilded, and possibly gold, but it was her nakedness, not the mask, that suggested that she was probably very wealthy. And if you covered your face you didn't have to cover the rest of your body.

Someone said, "It must be spring."

"Starkie," was murmured several times.

The alien styles had inspired new schools of fashion, and it was true that this young woman was frankly imitating a Starkie. Other women had smears and stripes on their faces, mock tattoos and markings, and ribbons in their hair. They wore poor-folk styles and outlaw styles, and torn-open metal fiber shirts, and heavy leather belts, and dusty boots. But there was no mistaking these people had lots of money.

Some of the other shoppers and pedestrians in the Greenhouse were more conventionally dressed in one-piece suits, but many girls and young women wore aprons — and nothing else — or skirts that were slit up the back, so that their bare buttocks showed. These were the defiant winter styles this new year.

Hooper followed the naked woman from store to store— she was buying jewelry. There was not much interest in her. Some people muttered, older men stared. She bought another gold chain and fastened it around her waist with the first one. Hooper stayed behind her as far as the main exit. He would have left then, but he wanted to avoid another security check. The woman breezed through, though she too was scanned and sniffed.

A car with black windows was waiting for her at the sidewalk, but before she walked the forty feet from the exit to the car, the woman enlarged her mask, drawing the snout aside and the mouthpiece over the lower part of her face, making it a breathing mask. The city was perfectly represented in the image: the security check, the gold chains, the ornamented mask, the naked woman.

The Greenhouse in the Midtown Mall was pleasantly warm, and fragrant with the odor of its own hot blossoms. It had once been eight blocks of streets and buildings; and then it was sealed and rebuilt, the streets surfaced with tiles and the whole mall roofed over in glass, a crystal cover twelve stories high. Trees and flowers had been planted inside the Greenhouse, and in the rest of the mall there were balconies and walkways erected against the buildings. It was on ten levels, a sealed shopping and business precinct which preserved something of the look of the old city and yet had a perfect climate — no noise, no fumes, no crime. But the rents were high, and although there were enclosed shopping malls in most cities, they were not good places for discount department stores. That was why Hooper had chosen to turn Allbright's into a mail-order business.

Fizzy had once said that someday domes like this on the Midtown Mall would cover the whole city.

Why discourage the boy by telling him that it would never happen? The cities would fail and die long before then. There were too many threats to their security. And look at these fools mimicking aliens — bare-assed, tattooed, wearing ragged ribbons, and some in bare feet. It was because of the protection they felt in the Greenhouse — its warmth, its security guards. But these people had no idea that some aliens were tough and intelligent and very fast; that they wore plain clothes, and had long hair, and dirty knuckles, and were simply out there, waiting. He had seen them! And seeing these parody aliens in their silly costumes made him remember clearly the aliens in O-Zone.

Or had he been wrong? But he had the cartridge of film to verify it all. It was the reason he was here. He did not want to release it until he was certain he could get it developed. Normally he would have sent it with a runner, and the runner would make his way around New York looking for a lab. But Hooper wanted to hang on to the film. And at last he was glad he had come in person on this menial errand. The dreariest jobs were the most revealing: he had forgotten how much he hated New York.

He had already been held up at two security checkpoints because of the film cartridge — its seal, its size, its metal strip.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we've never seen one of those before,"

His Owner's ID made them polite, but still they ran the cartridge through a scanner.

Anything unusual worried the guards. Hooper loathed and pitied their stupidity — they were carrying out orders, they never used their own judgment or took anything for granted. They told him solemnly that they had to be thorough, but Hooper saw them as only very slow, and he growled wordlessly at them in impatience and fury.

The irony was that there had been no security check on their arrival back in New York yesterday. Their rotors had been logged but not searched — they could have imported a blob of radioactive sludge, or a flask of poison dust, or a jar of contaminated water (people said O-Zone was full of such dangerous trash), and no one would have known. Fizzy had a maggot-heaving squirrel in a bag: its brain was bulging out of its skull, probably a mutant. Hooper thought: I could have sneaked in a whole live alien!

No one had seemed to care that they had come from O-Zone. It was off the map. No wonder O-Zone was full of aliens.

"I've read about film like that," the man at the lab told him, and Hooper was almost grateful to the man for treating him like a flunky runner. He hardly looked at Hooper, but he was fascinated by the film. "This is the first time I've seen it." Handing it back, he said, "Sorry. Can't help you."

"It's ordinary film," Hooper said. "What are you telling me?"

"The problem is getting it out of the cartridge. The case is designed to obliterate the film if it's not opened with the right key."

Hooper was examining the seamless case. "What's the point of—?"

"Security. So it won't fall into the wrong hands. You know that, fella."

"It's pictures of my kid's birthday party."

The man pinched the cartridge while it lay in Hooper's hand, and he said in a husky threatening way, "That's no birthday party. Stop wasting my time."

Hooper tried at another lab. Two men puzzled over it, and then one of them said, "I wouldn't want to be responsible for fouling this up."

He kept walking in the Greenhouse. He saw another naked woman. This one wore a mask, and attached somehow to the right place was a rubber penis, which swung as she walked. He saw some naked teenage girls painted with mock tattoos and wearing helmets and face masks. And he saw a naked man wearing what looked like a hangman's hood, leather, with a pointed beak and eye slits — a mask probably. And other people dressed expensively as aliens: men as Trolls, women as Skells. It disgusted Hooper. These people may never have seen an alien in the flesh, and so their mimicry seemed strangely naive and alarming.

The trees planted here in the Greenhouse were taller and greener and far healthier than many he had seen in O-Zone. But there was also something barren and antiseptic about them. They were like overgrown houseplants, with clean leaves, the trunks wrapped in tape, and the limbs neatly pruned. Beneath them were long troughs of flowers, and low fountains; and some streets had been banked into swales, with grass and ferns. It was like a bottle garden or a vast terrarium — greenery under glass — tidy and clean and beautifully lit.

But that orderly place had the effect of making the rest of New York look especially dirty and dangerous, for as soon as Hooper left the Greenhouse — another security check, another argument — he smelled the sour air and was deafened by low-flying one-seaters moving recklessly between the buildings. Cruising above were some booming police gunships. Many people wore mouth-masks and some wore full masks with earphones and receivers: he watched them gabbling as they walked along.

Still looking for someone to deal with the cartridge of film, Hooper headed for a photographic lab where in the past he had sent his own confidential film and tapes for copying. He had never gone to the place in person — had always sent a runner — and it was not until he set off that he realized that the lab was deep down on the west side. He had not expected any problem with the cartridge, so he had not taken his car. Now it was becoming a full day's work on the ground, but it was an instructive day, and moving through the security checks, he was like a man in disguise. There was a humiliation in that scrutiny, but he felt a thrill, too, at the thought that he could be mistaken for an illegal or someone packing a weapon.

But at a hastily set-up checkpoint in the West Thirties his patience failed him. It was perhaps the arbitrariness of it, the temporary-looking barrier and booth, that made him feel victimized. He was subjected to a thorough body search and made to wait.

"I'm just looking for clearance," the young guard said, seeing that Hooper was exasperated.

Was anything happening on the screen? Hooper's number had been keyed in. The guard was blinking at it.

"Won't be a minute."

"I'm going," Hooper said, and started forward in a brawling gesture. He knew he would not be able to open the door, but he wanted to make a scene. He needed to be angry.

"My boss won't like this."

"Don't you know who I am?" Hooper shouted. "I am your boss! I pay your salary. I'm an Owner, I'm a taxpayer. You work for me! Now get out of the way and let me through!"

"We're not Federal, sir. We're private."

The city was full of private armies of security guards!

"This street's private, sir. This checkpoint's going to be permanent." Before Hooper could react, the guard said, "You're clear."

And they were all robots!

Hooper did not feel sorry for himself, and he knew better than to waste his sympathy on New Yorkers; but this rare experience of walking left him wondering how these millions of people endured this policing day after day. For Hooper it seemed a milder form of the crime it claimed to have eliminated.

Upstairs, in the lab, the technician said, "I couldn't touch this. It's probably classified. Anyway, the case is sealed — I can't get into those."

"What's so special about these cartridges?"

"They're safe. They're used for highly sensitive visual data." The technician was turning the small thing in his fingers. "Whose is it?"

The question inspired Hooper. He said, "It belongs to my boss."

"He sent you here?"

Hooper nodded. "His name's Allbright."

"It would be," the technician said, and smiled as he weighed the cartridge in his hand.

"You know him?"

"No," the man said, and his beaming expression was the pressure of his memory building behind his face. "But I've seen some stuff he's sent here for copying. They were choice items. Very special, very wild."

The man did not seem to notice that Hooper had fallen silent and had recovered his cartridge.

"I used to do some of the copying. I'd say, 'Now I've seen everything.' But I was wrong, because a week or two later he'd send us something else — something fantastic!"

Hooper had put the cartridge into his pocket. He said, "I don't think Mr. Allbright would like it if he knew you were saying irresponsible things about his private tapes."

The man was unmoved. He had become possessed by the memory of what he had seen, and that remembrance was so powerful it overwhelmed the present. All he saw in Hooper was a mildly complaining runner with an impenetrable film cartridge.

Hooper was indignant, but the man was still smiling.

"I wish I could help you," he said, "because I'd love to see what's on that film."

Hooper left feeling that he had only one choice left. Of course the weapon had been special, and it was understandable that the cartridge was sealed. This film was the only record, for whatever the weapon destroyed was gone forever. What was it that Willis had said? Regulation Godseye, Murdick was a trooper!

Light was safety and darkness danger even here, and especially at night. But New York was famous for its skylights, the long high cones of sharply bent-back light that were particularly dazzling at the margins of the island — at the bridges and wharves and designated entry points. Tonight, diffused and smoky from the cloud cover, five cones shone down on Mur-dick's garrison in the peripheral district of Midwest.

The garrison was called Wedgemere and comprised four tall towers nicknamed the Bolts. That name had stuck. They were threaded throughout half their height, like bolt shafts, and their tops seemed modeled on the heads of machine bolts, six-sided and thick, for rotors.

"The Murdicks are on thirty-seven North Tower," the guard said. "They're expecting you."

"Don't tell me things I know," Hooper said. "Just open the door."

"I'm getting a shadow." The guard looked up from his screen. Hooper saw the man's blank face as insolent. "We'll have to run it through the scanner."

It could only have been the cartridge. "It's film," Hooper said, and he resented having to reply to the guard. "It's harmless."

"Everything goes through the scanner, sir."

"That sounds like an order. I don't take orders — I give them. So get out of my way, soldier."

As he spoke, the main door opened, but it was not to let Hooper through. It was Holly Murdick, leaving the building. She said, "Willis is waiting for you."

"This robot won't let me through! He wants to look through my pockets."

"Open that door," Holly said, "or else this is your last day on the job."

The guard's face remained impassive — nothing in the mouth, nothing in the eyes; and his body hardly moved as he flashed the door open.

Hooper said, "This is a sealed city. We've got skylights. We've got aerial patrols, gunships, and barriers. I've been going through security checks all day! It's all obstructions! And what is it with these security guards? Why do we let them run our lives?"

"Willis always says, 'Don't blame the guards — blame the aliens for making the guards necessary.'"

Now that the door was open, Hooper deliberately delayed entering. Who exactly was in charge here?

"I'm an Owner," he said. He turned to the guard. "And you're not."

"Relax," Holly said, and took Hooper's arm. Leading him to the door, she spoke to him gently, as if trying to calm him; but when Hooper realized that this was probably her purpose, he became only more agitated. "I'm real sorry you didn't come to see me," she was saying, "'Different people mean different sex.' I liked that a lot."

How annoying it was to be quoted: it was such a tiny mirror. Hooper stared into Holly's little witchy face, and then mentally he tipped her onto her back. But it didn't work, he wasn't interested, she looked too eager. That eagerness meant she wanted everything, and that he did not matter much to her indiscriminate lust.

He said, "I've got a little problem."

"Sometimes people with problems are the most fun," Holly said. "Hey, I know all about your moviemaking!"

Her saying this so lightly, in an excusing tone, made him feel worse than if she had screeched at him for being perverted. She was treating him as blamelessly crazy.

"Too bad I've got a date," she said hurriedly, seeing the anger she had provoked — Hooper's eyes blazed at her. And calling back at him, "I'm seeing Moura. Wasn't that a great time? I got a good feeling in O-Zone. I'm meeting Moura to prolong it a little."

But upstairs her husband seemed to take a different view. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you for another year," he said, and stared at Hooper. "I mean, we saw so much of each other in O-Zone."

Hooper said, "And yet, I had a feeling I was seeing everyone for the first time."

At this, Murdick winced, wrinkling his face as if he had heard a loud noise. He looked away from Hooper, pretending that he had just seen something out of the window. It was seven o'clock, a winter evening, but nearly daylight. The skylights dazzled-the river was on fire with them, and speckled with the insect shadows of rotors landing on barges and the patrolling gunships lumbering back and forth. No stars over the city — only the smoky glaze of skylights deflected through cloud.

"Especially you," Hooper said.

Murdick was trying to hide his face by looking away. But Hooper could see his reflection in the window: wounded eyes, hurt and trembling lips. Hooper was fascinated by the skinny face, the bareness of it, and Murdick's little head and fragile-looking ears. The man was so ugly without his mask!

"Holly's out," Murdick said. It was a meaningless remark; he was changing the subject. He kept talking.

O-Zone, he said, had made her feel claustrophobic: now she had the nutty idea of roaming New York. There had been more restrictions in O-Zone, and they had stayed indoors most of the time! But Holly was restless, he said helplessly, like a man running out of euphemisms. He swung around and faced Hooper in a pleading way, as if imploring him to understand.

Hooper said, "I was a little worried about you in O-Zone."

Murdick pushed his face back against the window and leaned and looked across at some low-flying gunships.

"It all seems so strange," Murdick said. Was he speaking about those gunships rocking in the long columns of light? "Seeing those abandoned condos. The mutation — that squirrel. The creepy noises. The darkness. The poison dust. All the rules and regulations — rules can scare the hell out of me, and the simplest ones are sometimes the worst. 'Wear protective clothing at all times' did it for me."

He moved his lips, showing his teeth — the shape of a smile, but only the shape: it was the memory of fear.

"Those savages, that mission, that so-called shoot," he said. "O-Zone was a kind of nightmare."

He tucked his hands into his metal belt and flapped his elbows in a time-killing way. His fear was fading but his voice was still hesitant.

"Who knows what really happened?" he said.

Hooper smiled at him in a wild disbelieving way, his big eyebrows rising, and with frost in his voice he said, "I know."

"All the confusion," Murdick said. He didn't want to hear Hooper. "It's better forgotten."

Hooper said, "I'll never forget."

Murdick went perfectly still — so still he seemed to twist time around — and after what seemed to Hooper twenty minutes or more, the little man said, "What are you saying to people?"

"I don't have to say anything. I've got a videotape. I can just put my feet up and watch it — or show it, as the case may be." He waited until Murdick's eyes were on his, then added, "It all depends on you."

Murdick made a tentative sound, saying maybe by using the air in his nose. He then said, "I'm glad you came. I only discovered after we got back that you took the cartridge out of that weapon."

Murdick was facing him, but Hooper had not blinked.

"I want to buy it from you, Hoop."

He said "buy" with emphasis. He was worried, he wanted it; this was like ransom.

"Do I look like I need money?"

But Murdick was still talking. "I didn't behave very well out there. I'm not used to that — being alone, facing aliens on the ground. I was unarmed. I've never been so scared. That's why I ran."

"You thought they were going to eat you."

Murdick began protesting in an excited stutter. "They do eat people, some of them. Not for nourishment, but as a ritual. It's a proven fact. We have full documentation. Teeth-marks. Bite patterns. Denture templates. We matched aliens' teeth to victims' wounds. We've done autopsies — stomach contents." Then he faltered, working his mouth. He said greedily, "I've got to have that cartridge."

"How do you know I haven't developed it?"

Murdick's smile was genuine and relaxed. He trusted the strength of technology — it was another trait he shared with Fizzy. But human weakness worried him. He was uneasy with Hooper, but certain about the film.

"Impossible," he said.

"Still, I've got it," Hooper said. "You want it because you're afraid Godseye will find out that you ran."

Hooper said it in order to hear Murdick's insincere denial — a No like a groan. Murdick's face bore the faintness of the real smile that was fading into worry once again.

"They'd string you up, I guess."

Hooper went on mocking him about Godseye. Each time Hooper spoke, Murdick clenched and unclenched his jaw, grinding his teeth as he listened. It gave his face a peculiar look of concentration, as though he was unable to swallow a stubborn mouthful. The biting made his eye twitch.

He said, when Hooper finished, "They'd understand. They're much more compassionate than you think."

"Oh, sure. I've heard some of these death squads are greatly misunderstood."

Murdick screwed his lips together and said, "Don't use that expression."

"What did you tell them about O-Zone?"

"Not much," he said. But he was using his teeth again, and his biting gave him away.

"That means you told them something."

"I didn't tell them our route, or any landmarks. I deleted the flight plan. They wanted to access it, too — they wanted to know. I didn't mention the mutant, the condos, or anything."

"You blabbed about the aliens."

Murdick started to deny it, and then he said abjectly, "I told them there were only two of them."

"Did you say who burned them?"

Murdick became watchful. He said nothing. He was biting again.

Hooper said, "I see."

"I want the cartridge," Murdick said.

"Armed men never say 'please.'"

"I need it," Murdick said, and the "please" was a whimper in those words.

Hooper said, "You don't need it. All you need is for me to keep it quiet. You need to trust me with it."

Murdick's face was small, but he was thin and had two distinct sides to his flat head. He turned his skinny face on Hooper and said, "Can I trust you?"

"Sure," Hooper said — so promptly that Murdick smiled unexpectedly again. "And just to prove you trust me, I want you to take me to one of your meetings."

"We don't have meetings," Murdick said, staring hard. He was almost certain that Hooper was trying to slip something past him. Wasn't there a loose connection in what Hooper had just said?

Hooper had taken the cartridge from his pocket. "It's coded," Murdick said. "It's regulation."

"You'll have to explain that to a simple mail-order man."

"It's secure. Chemical code." He was biting between each thought. "It has an obliterating mechanism. Can't be developed commercially. Used in intelligence work. Can't be copied either."

Hooper was smiling at Murdick in a lazy challenging way. "It's no use to you now," Murdick said. "And we're the only people who can develop it."

"We'll see about that," Hooper said. "I just want you to know that I have it."

Murdick began to protest, making fishmouths. "Let's not threaten each other," Hooper said. "We faced danger together. I saved your life. That should make us friends." And he smiled as he pocketed the cartridge. "I want to see this movie, Willis!"

Murdick said, "You swear you won't say anything about that mess?"

"I'll go you one better," Hooper said. He was cheerful. Perhaps it didn't matter what was on the film, as long as he kept it in his possession. "I'll go to one of those Godseye meetings and tell them what a hero you were. That it was your idea. That you planned it all. That you burned them," Murdick said, "I would have, too." He was nibbling with anger. "You want me to develop the film for you?"

"Not yet," Hooper said. "Let me stick up for you first. Godseye will be proud of you."

"We don't have meetings," Murdick said. He was biting again. "We have hunts."

8

For Moura, the aftermath had all been secrets and sudden silences. She had stood aside at the Firehills tower in O-Zone when Murdick's Welly had returned and buzzed straight down, spinning grit and green leaves at the watchers. She had seen Murdick stagger out, still bowlegged from the flight, and he leaned into his faceplate and crowed, "We burned them all down!"

She had watched Hardy stride forward and say rather stiffly and formally to Hooper, "I'm not going to ask you how it happened, so don't tell me."

"You don't want to know?" Hooper seemed relieved.

Hardy was still standing to attention in front of his brother, a little ceremony to make him remember. "It could be terrible for you if I knew."

Afterward Moura said, "What the hell was that all about?"

Hardy said, "Nothing."

But she knew — she only wanted Hardy to deny it so that they would both remember the moment.

She said, "'Nothing' always means 'something.'"

Hardy shrugged, refusing her the courtesy of an explanation, and as always keeping his work secret and separate. Yet she wanted him to realize that she was no ignorant bystander and that she knew that something serious had happened on the shoot; that she knew that it was more convenient for everyone if it remained a secret.

He could be a cold and humorless man, but she admired his fairness. He would not have lied, even about his brother. He would have filed a report, and Hooper might have faced an investigation. They would have wired him and plugged him in to see whether he lit up. His money would not have been much help to him.

And he probably would have lit up, hot with guilt, she guessed. It was undoubtedly serious, because Fizzy's behavior was more unusual than ever. What had the boy swallowed to make him so strange? He had said nothing on the return to Coldharbor — he who had done nothing but talk and criticize all the way to O-Zone! And Hardy, normally very silent, became talkative, as if to avoid thinking about what terrible things had happened on the mission that Hooper, Murdick, and Fizzy had mounted. How could three such thorough misfits have failed to bungle badly?

She saw each one of them as disturbed and divided. So they might have taken a risk. But disturbed people were also accident-prone. So something unexpected had probably happened, which "burned them all down" only hinted at. She was surprised and relieved — everyone was — that they had returned safety.

But would she now have to live with Fizzy's silences as she had once lived with his know-it-all nagging? She tried to talk to him, merely to hear his voice and perhaps detect in it whether he was angry or upset. He looked shocked, he was a bit pale, his eyes drifted in and out of focus. But he was thoughtful: she could almost hear the buzz and whir of his mind, the odd flutter of his calculations.

His silence made her talkative. She remarked to Hardy on the clear sky here and the cap of haze that lay over the cities outside O-Zone; the squarish, furred prints of houses and blocks, the miles of creeping green, the pleasure of having spent New Year's in that place. The secrets, too, were an oblique pleasure — another surprise, for she had so many secrets. How could the wife of such an unresponsive man not have secrets?

During the flight back, Moura glanced at the specimen Fizzy was bringing back — the monstrous misshapen squirrel. How had it got that way? Was it plutonium, as everyone had said — and if so, had they been in any danger? "It's a low-level mutagen," Fisher said in a dull voice. "Want to talk about it?"

"I can't talk to you," he said. "You don't have enough math." Wasn't there something simpler to discuss — something she knew about? What about food, music, the latest movies, radio programs, money, the rest of the world, or next year's presidential election? What about his acne? Pimples had broken through on his nose and his cheeks. He usually ate badly — he sat at Pap during long study sessions, eating junk, Guppy-Cola, and jelly sandwiches.

"Your acne's improving," she said, being tactful.

"Antibiotics," he said, and yawned at her. "I'm doing two capsules a day."

Back in Coldharbor he kept to his room, muttering to his machines and yawning without covering his mouth: she watched him on the monitor.

The day after, he appeared at his door.

"Just tested the squirrel," he said. He was afraid; he needed to talk to someone; but he was so bad at the simplest things. "I did a brain scan and an autopsy. It's not a mutant."

"That's good news," Moura said.

"No, it's not," he said. "Because it was dead before it hit the beam."

He was talking in his growly uncertain voice.

"Someone threw it," he said, and put on his helmet and clicked his mask into place, and slipped on his gloves. He was dressed as he had been in O-Zone — the same boots, the same armored-fiber suit, the same radio helmet. He was prepared for a zone of deep contagion: it was a high-risk outfit.

He said no more about the specimen. Instead, he did an extraordinary thing. He went out alone. He gave no explanation; he simply left the unit, dressed as if for a danger zone: clump, clump, clump.

The phone was ringing — not Fizzy; it was Holly Murdick's face on the screen. It was an eager face: she photographed well, because she was so used to mirrors.

"Can I come up?"

Then Moura was glad that Fizzy was gone, because Holly had things on her mind.

Holly said she was desperately bored, and she laughed in a convincingly desperate way as she said so, sounding reckless, as if she was ready to try anything. She was a pretty woman in her mid-thirties, and as obsessive about style in a garish way as Willis was about the latest equipment. They were both faddists — he was gadget-conscious, she was mirror-mad. Moura saw something childish in this, something touching and monotonous at the same time. Holly's face and hair were striped, she wore trucker's boots and carried a Skell bag; her short skirt was slashed into a fringe of ribbons, and underneath she wore skintight trousers. Moura was glad that Holly was not wearing one of her embarrassing aprons — the apron and nothing else that showed her big pale bottom and her knuckly spine and made her seem so silly and defiant.

Today Holly was intense, trying a little too hard — her trying showed.

"I haven't been able to pull myself together since I came back" — she was still talking about being bored. "Willis just mopes." She paused and looked sharply into Moura's eyes and said, "You're so lucky to have a child."

"Fizzy's not a child anymore."

"You know what I mean."

"And he's been moping too."

"Their big so-called mission. 'Let's go on a shoot!' Willis is so secretive." She seemed to be poking fun at him because he could not possibly have anything to withhold — he was too dull to have any secrets. She found Moura's eyes again and said, "I never knew how to go about it — having a child. I mean, doing it right, having one worth raising."

Moura could see that it was not necessary to reply to this. Holly had just begun to unburden herself. But Moura dreaded such conversations and she felt sure that Holly was leading up to something painful — probably going to divulge an awkward secret. Maybe she had tried to buy a child on one of her trips — so many people did, and the kids turned out so badly sometimes: feebleminded, diseased, crazy, the wrong color, with faked IDs and misleading medical histories. Years later the awful truth came out; and then they were taken away to be injected and burned.

"So many theories, so many methods," Holly was saying. "Every year it seemed there was something new-implanting, freezing, womb-leasing. I couldn't decide."

"Or just buying one in some other country," Moura said, to test Holly's reaction.

"Willis would never have stood for that. He hates people who buy kids."

Seeing that Holly had become reflective, Moura softened toward her and said, "Having children is pretty straightforward nowadays. The labs start a dozen for you and then implant the best one."

"Wasn't it straightforward when you had Fizzy?"

There was a sudden blankness, a whitening in Holly's face, between the stripes of makeup. The expectancy in her demeanor put Moura on guard.

"You didn't try anything fancy," Holly said. "Or did you?"

She knew something. She was not very intelligent, but that made her all the more tenacious. She was asking all the right questions, because she knew all the answers. Moura smiled to mask her look of caution.

"There were a lot of methods," Moura said. "All those theories —" She stopped abruptly and said no more.

"I'm sure you made the right decision." Holly was still watchful beneath the mask of her makeup.

Moura said, "Do you really want to have a child?"

Holly looked eager. She had not heard that question, only her own provocative remark. She said, "Fizzy wasn't frozen, was he?"

Moura shook her head: No. Why didn't Holly take the hint that she didn't want to discuss this?

"I hope you don't mind my asking about this. It's just that you're so sensible and practical — and everyone else goes chasing after the fads."

"I chased after the fads," Moura said.

Holly's mouth was open, but there was the suggestion of a smile in the way it gaped. This was what she wanted to hear.

"I think it was a mistake," Moura said. "Hardy wanted the best. He's so scientific — so careful. He insisted I have a matched donor."

"It must have been a great match. There's a striking resemblance between Fizzy and Hardy."

"I'm afraid I don't see it anymore," Moura said.

"So you went to a clinic."

"I didn't mention a clinic."

"Sorry," Holly said. "You mentioned a donor. I just assumed."

And then Moura knew there had been whispering. Holly had got the information from Rinka about Fizzy — the pedigree, the donor, the clinic. Moura had told Rinka, and she had not sworn her to secrecy. Most of Moura's friends knew that Fizzy was a clinic child, but until O-Zone no one had known the method. It was that trip that had made Moura remember — Fizzy's face, his nagging, the masks. And the excitement; her nervousness. O-Zone had seemed an innocent wilderness, and their isolation at Firehills had given her a glimpse of the past and made her truthful.

She said very precisely, "What is it you want to know?"

"I was just curious, just wondering—"

"It was a contact clinic," Moura said.

Hearing that, Holly relaxed. Moura could hear the breath. It was not modern to be shocked, but Moura saw an old-fashioned thrill register in Holly's shoulders, a little shiver of pleasure, as if something small and lively were moving within her.

"They probably don't even call them contact clinics these days."

Holly said, "They do, they do! But—"

Her excitement, and the wish to conceal it, distracted her. She was so full of questions she had trouble phrasing them. The most banal were obviously the easiest.

"Weren't you frightened?"

"I wanted to be frightened. That made it more human."

"Yes," Holly said — but it was hardly a word; it was a little gasp of pleasure.

Moura understood now, and she was glad that Holly did not want to talk about having a baby, even gladder that she did not want to talk about Fizzy. She wanted information, that was all. Discussing the contact clinic was simple: it involved only Moura herself. Hardy had been very scientific, so Moura had been the opposite — taking the risk of a donor, of twenty-four sessions, and at each session prolonged contact.

"It seems such a long time ago."

"Only — what? — Fizzy's fifteen, isn't he?"

"It was over a year before it took. That's almost seventeen years ago, I forget how manny sessions. Two years' worth, I guess."

How thrilled Holly would be if she told her how she had counted the eighteen sessions, and knew exactly when and for how long. But it was impossible to be truthful about that without being truthful about the other thing — how she had been devastated when they had come to an end.

"Two years," Holly was saying, and now she did not bother to conceal her excitement. "You must have actually gotten to know the guy — the donor."

"He was wearing a mask."

"Oh, God, really, a mask? What kind — was it scary?"

"It had a sort of beak. It looked like an owl or an eagle, one of those blunt hooked beaks. A bird of prey, I remember thinking. But he was probably a Harvard student."

"He was young?" Holly asked. "How could you tell?"

"Masks make you look at other parts of the body," Moura said. "Everyone's feet are different and easy to remember. Their knees, their hands, their knuckles. And everyone's got a different odor, even someone who's very clean. These donors were scrubbed and sanitized, but still I knew. He was young. He had light bones. He was tall. He—"

"He must have known you, too!"

"I never thought about that."

It was her second lie — and she was angry. She had vowed not to lie, because she had always been misled by her own lies and had trouble with the truth afterward. Anyway, she hated liars — their stupidity — they were usually half-convinced by their lies. Yes, of course she had thought about the man recognizing her! She reminded herself of this forcefully now. Seeing Fizzy, she had seen the donor. Had that donor ever thought of her again?

"Did he say anything to you?"

You love it. You—

"No," Moura said, and she knew she was safe with this lie. There was no danger of her ever forgetting or distorting the words the young man had whispered. But she could see that Holly wanted to know everything and, in her frustration, did not know what to ask next.

Moura said, "I had very definite ideas about it. I thought: If Hardy's going to be so scientific, then I should be as unscientific as possible. I wanted to take risks. But I didn't really think they would be serious risks, because I had it all worked out in my mind — what it would be like, what my reactions would be. I had it all under control."

Holly was nodding, her face lit with approval and admiration. You knew what you wanted, she was thinking, and you went out and got it.

"The thing is," Moura said — and paused to make sure that Holly was listening—"I was totally wrong. It wasn't anything like that, and my reactions were strange. I was shocked — I lost all control."

Yet Holly was still smiling.

She said, "I like that even better, honey."

"It was frightening," Moura said. "You don't think I'm serious. You're still smiling."

"Because I like it frightening."

"Risks change you. You take them and you're different afterward," Moura said.

"Yeah," Holly said, and darkened slightly in her seriousness, "but you weren't hurt."

"Not hurt, but changed," Moura said. "The physical part was actually rather tender and innocent at first, but… I'm not going to tell you any more. I just think it might have been a mistake."

"To have contact with a donor?"

"To have a child," Moura said.

"Why did you bother!"

If it had been a question, it would have been the hardest question of all, and Moura's answer would have incriminated her. In the end the child had been a necessity, for it was all that remained, the only thing she could hold on to. And that was why Fizzy's heartless brilliance was so discouraging. But thankfully, Holly wasn't asking a question.

"I don't care about children, really," Holly said.

Already her self-deceiving and meddling friend had forgotten her earlier lie: You're so lucky to have a child.

Moura saw in Holly's face a wild willingness. She looked very happy and very hungry, as if she were about to laugh out loud. She had carefully put on these savage clothes, and at last her savagery suited them.

Moura said primly, "I thought you were asking about Fizzy."

Holly brought her knees together and pinched her face and said, "Don't tell me he goes to clinics!"

She really had forgotten her pretext for bringing up the subject of the contact clinic! She had no memory. Such people were often liars. But it was their salvation: they would never be seriously hurt by their actions.

Holly said, "Let's get up a party and go."

"I'm sure they've changed," Moura said. "No one goes to contact clinics for implants or fertilization anymore. They've got a bad reputation."

"They're still licensed. They're very strictly controlled. They're supposed to be clean."

Moura could not help smiling at Holly, who looked so eager and happy now, nervously smoothing her hair — so bright-eyed. "You actually want to go to one."

"Yes." It was another half-formed word, another gasp of pleasure.

Moura said, "I wouldn't dream of going through that again."

"You don't have to do anything — just prop me up a little. It'll be fun, like the party in O-Zone. We'll get Rinka." She was chattering eagerly. "Do you think they still wear masks?"

Before Moura could answer, the door alarm sounded— Captain Jennix from Coldharbor Security, announcing Hooper Allbright. Moura was glad for an interruption to deflect all this talk of clinics. Hooper was just the person to change any subject.

And yet this evening he seemed unusually reserved, almost suspicious. The women were at once too quiet and too interested in his arrival. He detected something conspiratorial in their politeness. What had they been talking about?

He saw Holly as fickle and out of touch, but he liked Moura, and he always thought it a deficiency in himself, not her, that she was the sort of woman he would never be able to make happy. His studious and rather chilly brother had not succeeded with her, he knew, but they were still together. Happy marriages were inexplicable to him, and probably meaningless anyway; but long marriages were another matter — they had a mystery ingredient, something subtler than love, like sympathy or patience or even comedy. However, it was not comedy in Hardy and Moura's case, and he knew they regarded his humor as aggressive and his instincts as impulsive and unpredictable. This knowledge made him self-conscious and more impulsive, and because he hated being watched, made him wilder, too.

He smiled at the women, not knowing what to say. He had become weakened by the apparent futility of his other purpose — the cartridge of film that no one but Godseye could crack open.

Holly said, "It's all right, Moura. Hooper's here to see me. He's been following me around all day."

"Where's Fizzy?" Hooper said suddenly. "I couldn't get him on the radio."

"Hooper's pretending he doesn't see me. Men always do that," Holly said. "He's just waiting for me to make the first move. Woof-woof. Like I'm some animal."

Hooper turned to her and said, "I don't mind your saying that, because you're not really talking to me. You don't know me. So what you say doesn't matter."

He felt that she usually seemed to be talking to herself, and something in him was always on the point of signaling to her: Yoo-hoo!I'm over here!

"You girls look as if you're planning something," he said. It was a kind of nervous smugness with an air of concealment: their exaggerated interest in him was an awkward lack of interest.

"I'd love to hear your plans," Holly said.

"Fizzy's out," Moura said. "Sit down, Hoop. Talk to us."

"I can't sit down. I've been trying all day to get one chore done."

Holly said, "Don't you wish you were back in O-Zone, where there are no chores to do? Just the wilderness and abandoned buildings. Those towers looked so exposed — so naked — with no one in them, and there's something sexual in all that solitude. I mean, being alone in a place like that gives me ideas! I thought: One other person and this would be perfect!"

Hooper objected to the woman saying this, because the sentiments were his but her way of putting them sounded crude and stupid. There were better ways of expressing the simple wish that had woken in him in O-Zone.

"That's very silly," he said, angry that she was making him deny it.

Then he sat down. They had noticed that he was irritable, and so they were trying to please him by being playful and giving him information.

Moura said, "We were all wearing masks in O-Zone. We come back to New York and suddenly everyone is wearing masks."

"It's like we started a fashion," Holly said. "I like that. I love masks. You can get away with anything in a mask."

This made Hooper even more uncomfortable. He had detected something sexual rising in the room. He saw it was Holly, a sort of glow on her: she seemed to shimmer from where she lay on the sofa, propped on one elbow, with her hand cupping her striped face.

She was saying: Look at me.

Hooper was not attracted to women who bore the marks of other men on them. Holly was like that, like those women whose manhandled bodies had slight discolorations, bruises like thumbprints, little reddened patches of pressure. Old lovers and brutes and strangers, and most husbands — they all left their damage on them. The most desirable women looked to him as though they had never been touched — not virginal or innocent, just unscathed and solitary.

Moura and Holly he saw as bright New Yorkers. They had all the money and all the savvy and they had always lived among powerful men. Holly was reckless, and Moura practically unknowable, which puzzled him, because she was almost his own age, and very attractive — those long legs, that smooth serious face — yet there was no evidence that she had ever been manhandled.

He said, "Someday New York could look like O-Zone. It wouldn't take much nuclear trash to take the stuffings out of this city."

"I can't imagine New York without people — like O-Zone."

Hooper almost replied, Don't be silly! but he remembered how they had sworn to the others that O-Zone was empty, that all the aliens had been burned. It was probably full of aliens!

Holly said, "Don't be depressed. This is a great place."

The glow was on her, and there was something else in her expression that seemed brainless and sexy — perhaps the way she worked her mouth and kept it open?

"It could happen. New York could turn into a city-stain," Hooper said. "It might be a good thing. The trouble is that it wouldn't end up as pretty as O-Zone."

"You've been saying that a lot lately," Holly said. "Catastrophes," she said. "Burnouts." She spoke each word with a dreamy smile. "The future."

"Sometimes I think your wishing for a sorry future is your way of taking revenge," Moura said. "It's a kind of threat, because you've had a bad day. But really it's just cursing."

Where am I? Hooper thought, and surfaced again from another conversation. There were so many playing in his head.

He said, "What do you mean Fizzy's out? He never goes out!"

9

Normally, Fisher would have had a long study session at the mainframe in his room today. He had never gone to school; he had always had high-level classification — Remote Student, Type A, the category that had given him the nickname "wonder boy." He was not alone in the category, but the mention of anyone else made him overprecise and competitive. He had all the strengths of his classification, and the weaknesses, too — hypertension, impatience, humor-lessness. He disliked human company. His pleasures were the symmetry of math and the solitude of his room, and a session like today's, where he was rapping back to a study team and propounding his own new description of particle behavior, Fisher's Theory of Subsequence. He went through his proofs and thought: You porkers.

But he canceled the session, and after that muttering to Moura, he headed over to Hooper's unit, which was in an adjoining tower in Coldharbor. He needed to see his uncle. Much more than verification, he wanted reassurance. He could not be calm about the squirrel autopsy — it had not been a mutant, it had not been contaminated, it had not even been alive! But who had thrown it? It shocked him to think that aliens had crept so close to Firehills. And he had been shocked by the mission — the rapidity of the deaths — the burning of those two trotting men in O-Zone. He had thought that the difference between particle theory and particle practice was a pool of blood. But there had been nothing left of those men. He was a supremely confident boy, and had a flexible if narrow imagination, but he was shaken when challenged with the idea of nothing.

He mindlessly, uselessly signaled Hooper with his phones, and when there was no reply from Hooper's unit, he set off to look for his uncle outside Coldharbor. He had never been alone in the city — there was always Moura, or Hardy, or a driver, or a pilot. He was walking, and he knew there was something momentous in this move, as there had been in their trip to O-Zone, and the mission. He had never thought of himself as living in New York. He was a resident of Coldharbor. So this was no stroll — this was like flinging himself off the roof.

He had no real hope of finding his uncle in this huge city, and what good was his tracer signal among all the radio waves here? Hooper might be anywhere! But Fisher knew that he was only half-looking. The important thing was that he was outside, skimming — he had liberated himself. It was the effect of O-Zone. He felt braver now. He had seen aliens face to face — and not simple trampy Skells, grubbing in garbage cans, but wild people, net-men, living like settled beasts in a prohibited area.

And the extraordinary revelation was that he had seen that these aliens were not very strange at all. He despised himself for the intrusive superstitions that had made him imagine them as snarling doglike creatures with broken fingernails and dirty feet. The truth was so different from this irrational goblin species. They were clean and fast, they had beards and bright teeth, they seemed self-sufficient. He was overwhelmed by the obvious: they were not beasts. He was surprised and ashamed to discover what logic had told him all along, that they were fully human. They were not like him, but they were very similar to everyone else he knew.

All his terror had come later, on the trip home, when he was safe. Then he went rigid, considering how he might have died. The memory of Murdick had made it worse, because he easily imagined himself being just as defenseless and clumsy, with a pinched wire or a blocked air supply, shuffling in front of the aliens in mute terror, maybe gabbling and pleading just before he was netted and his head twisted off or his bones broken. The forest aliens killed their victims by hand, to save bullets — that was what everyone said about forest aliens. Two of them had been killed—"beasts," he would have called them, yet no one could have looked more human than they had at the moment of impact, when the particle hit, just before they were turned into smoke.

But Fisher had survived. He had steered them out of that place. After that, what terrors could this walled-in city hold for him?

He walked from Coldharbor to the Midtown Mall, but did not enter. He told himself that he was looking for Hooper. He still felt safe, in his mask and headphones, his suit, his big boots. He paused at Madison, somewhere in the East Forties, and clicked his mask out of position and switched off his headset. He was holding his breath, but not voluntarily: there was a catch in his throat, he could not speak or cry out, he was being slowly throttled by a paralyzing yawn. All contact was broken; he felt very weak.

A tear gathered at the corner of one eye, then spilled and ran quickly to the tip of his nose. Air hummed in his head, and his breath and strength returned. He became buoyant— first his face and head, and finally his whole body. He was momentarily weightless — outside, still alive!

The city stank, it screeched, its rough stone was cold. He noticed, as Hooper had, the large numbers of policemen and guards, city cops, private security men, and even some gray-suited Federals. Above him were cruising gunships that did nothing but buck and slide low in the sky. It was a towering city of soldiers and policemen.

He heard the donkey-bray of an alarm and saw nearby lights raking the street and mounted cameras swiveling. He was on the point of running away when he saw that no one near the alarm seemed to notice the pounding noise or the flashing light. Often in the past, when the sound of alarms carried to his tower room in Coldharbor, and he saw confusion on his external screen (he had no outside windows), he put on his headphones and turned up the volume — music or the voice of a teaching panel — merely to calm himself. As an indoor creature, he had always been made anxious by the racket of distant alarm bells or sirens. Now he was outside, up close, and he saw that it was nothing but noise — a false alarm.

"They're too sensitive," a watching man said. "They can be triggered by vibrations — by dust particles,"

"That means they're not sensitive enough," Fisher said. "They're calibrated wrong."

He wanted to explain what he meant, when the man frowned and said "Bullshit" and walked away. The abruptness of it scared him a little.

The other streets were full of people, and the air pulsated with the regular beat of rotor noise and rising choppers. Like Hooper, Fisher was reminded of the emptiness of O-Zone, the great spidery wilderness of hickories and oaks, the sinkholes and swellings of the plateau, and the distant glimpse of prairie. Empty buildings, standing like tombs, with the peculiar nakedness of abandonment. The whine of insects, and birds fluttering like blown paper. The reassurance of wilderness; and then the sudden violence of that shoot.

The O-Zone trip had given him a taste for flying, for navigation. He was restless here in New York, and he was proud of his boldness in wandering the streets. But the wandering also proved that there was nothing to be afraid of here: It seemed to him a somewhat ordinary city, and certainly on the ground it was a great deal less special than it looked from fifty floors up. New Yorkers talked about dangers, but where were these dangers?

"You'll have to pass through this checkpoint, sir."

Sir, because the guard could see from the expensive mask and headset that he might be wealthy. He had slipped his mask on again. The fumes and the noise in this part of New York— surely this was one of the dingier parts? — were too much for him. Another alarm had started, and just the sound of it had shaken him. It might not be dangerous, but it was bad-looking. You needed nerves, not brains, here. The tramping crowds and the traffic had driven him east, where he had hoped to get a look at a sealed bridge. He had not expected a checkpoint.

"Your ID, sir."

He handed over his plate and watched the guard push it tape-side-down into the machine. It was returned to him with a salute by the armed guard on the other side of the metal detector.

"What do I do now?"

"You may proceed, sir."

When had he ever been called sir? Afterward he relished the idea that he had been under suspicion. He might have been armed; he might have been illegal. He might have been dangerous!

Feeling powerful, he stared at his reflection in a store window. The mask and headset gave him an insectile head and beetle jaws, his pimples made his nose look lopsided, the corner of one ear was folded forward under an earpiece. He saw that he was skinny, and he suspected that one arm was slightly longer than the other. He was overdressed in his padded jacket and boots. He was wired. He peered into the reflection of his faceplate and thought: Goofball. He felt ridiculous, and so he squinted until he went out of focus and his image was bearable.

At times like this he remembered that he was fifteen years old. In his defense, he wanted to tell people that he had traveled to O-Zone. I've seen it, he wanted to say. I've seen aliens in the wild — we killed a couple of dangerous ones. I navigated a Welly and hid it in a sinkhole. I collected a specimen — not a mutant, but it was dead before it hit the beam!

Who was there to tell who would understand him?

He found a weapons dealer on East Thirty-fifth. It was six flights up in a rattly elevator, and then through a security check and a very thorough frisking by an armed woman guard smelling sweetly of flowers — a gimmick, Fisher thought, this pretty woman carrying out body searches on potential customers. From the side window he could see the East River — the drive, the wall, the cones of skylights.

Nothing was displayed on the counter except catalogs, which he pushed aside.

"I want to see a particle beam. It's got a camera with thermal imaging and a weapon built in that can work independently or in conjunction, reviewing data. There's probably a pure laser model."

The clerk was grinning, but it was not amusement — he was only resting his mouth as he listened to Fisher, who was still talking.

"It's got a heat-sensitive director for self-centering on the target — if it's a soft target. And if it's—"

"Weapons like that are regulated," the clerk said, interrupting him. "They're not for civilian use, anyway. They're Federal army, special forces."

"I know someone who's got a nice one," Fisher said in a needling way. He had gone into the store in order to tell the man this — to boast. "He's not army."

The clerk was a young mustached man with the slightly sulky mouth and skeptical eyes of a weapons dealer.

Fisher said, "Whatever they blast, they just atomize."

The man looked unconvinced, but Fisher did not mind. Boasting was his way of talking to himself.

"It's probably the best antipersonnel weapon you can get," Fisher said. "It's not perfect. I'd like to see it modified for high-density targets."

"Beat it, kid. I'm busy."

Fisher laughed at the man's ignorance. The laughter came honking out of his helmet, and he left saying, "You're a complete tool."

He spent the remainder of the day testing his nerve on the streets in Lower East, clumping in his boots and keeping his helmet on. He saw a large number of blacks — no masks, no suits, only bubble caps and hippy-dip jackets like jigs in stories. He could not understand why they were allowed to roam the city. Were they legal? He wondered why they weren't arrested, or stopped and searched. They were probably Pass Workers, he thought, over for the day to do things like shift trash and sweep.

Two came toward him, and Fisher began radioing the emergency number.

"Hey, Bubba!"

"Rocketman!"

They were staring at his helmet, his boots, his contagion suit, as he steered clear of them.

They were gone!

"This is Mobile Task Force. Please identify yourself—"

He tuned out, feeling brave, and yet still mystified by the blacks simply swaggering and shouting along the parkway. But he told himself that he would be able to identity them if he were called on later, summoned by security, and with that in mind he noted the time, fifteen-thirty-seven.

He did not eat lunch — no money; nor take a bus, nor a tram — no pass; nor enter any other buildings. He stayed on foot, keeping by the river, thrilled by his nearness to Brooklyn — right across the water — which had a reputation for danger and squalor. It was filled with illegals. He heard sirens and thunder flashes from that greasy shore and he knew they were not false alarms.

In the late afternoon, he was walking back to Coldharbor worrying about illegals they had started calling "worms," for their ability to burrow beneath the city, and he saw a chopper shining a strong light on the river just below the rail. A support boat also shone a light, and he could see from its markings that the boat was part of the task force nicknamed "Moat Patrol." He was encouraged by the large number of armed police, and crossed over to the rail to see a Skell being fished out of the river.

It did not matter that a chopper was hovering, and a support boat waiting, and four men of a foot patrol had their weapons leveled at the creature — Fisher was frightened. He was frightened by the appearance of the Skell and he was frightened by what the Skell represented, the millions more. Whether this one had fallen in accidentally or was trying to enter the city illegally, Fisher could not tell. But it was certainly an alien, and here at the edge of New York, the slangy name was apt. He had a lumpy face, and a miserable, wicked expression, and his skin was gray-blue, bristly and bloodless like a cut fish or a fragment of old plastic. He was shaking with cold, and his shoes had been removed to prevent his escape — his ugly feet were blue and white, and he had terrible toenails. He was whimpering to a policeman, trying to explain something.

The Skell was dripping on the cold stones of the terrace, bedraggled like a sea monster — Fisher had the impression of air escaping from the Skell's body. When the creature was strapped and restrained, Fisher went a bit closer. The policemen guarding him seemed to be joking among themselves. Another policeman, punching buttons on a handset, looked up as Fisher approached.

"Good going," Fisher said, feeling he should congratulate the patrol on a successful capture. "Was he carrying a weapon?"

"Just a lot of old rope."

But the policeman stared at Fisher as the blacks had done. What was so odd about being addressed by a Type A in a fiber suit and boots with the latest gear on his head? Fisher guessed that it was his bravery in being here at all, alone in New York — the cop probably guessed that he was only fifteen and was surprised by his courage.

Fisher's voice came quacking out of his mask: "He might have been making a net. Some illegals in outlying places use nets as weapons."

"Is that a fact?" the policeman said, and went on punching buttons in his hand receiver.

"Oh, sure," Fisher said, and then he glanced at the Skell and became frightened again — it was the blue face, the filthy skin, the white feet, the wet shaggy clothes. He lost his voice in fear, and tried to talk it into existence. It came creaking and whistling. "I've seen some — as near as I am to you. I was on a search mission. It was supposed to be a shoot, just taking a sound-bite, but they ended up burning two of them. Now, those guys were carrying nets."

The policeman did not reply. He had looked up as Fisher was talking, and he seemed to be mumbling to himself: Search mission? Sound-bite? Burned two of them? Nets?

Fisher made a face, shifting his mask, and said, "The only thing is, they're the wrong kind of ropes. Density, see. Too stiff, too heavy."

But the policeman was still staring at Fisher's expensive mask and headphones.

"You sure you should be here, kid?"

"I thought I might be able to help. I've got some data—"

"Wait a minute," the policeman said, and adjusted his receiver. "I'm getting a sighting."

But still his fascinated gaze strayed back to Fisher.

"I've been in much worse places than this. I'm talking about contamination, I'm talking about city-stains—"

Squawk, quack: the policeman was staring at Fisher's faceplate. Contamination? City-stains?

"— You probably wouldn't even believe me," Fisher was saying.

That made the policeman smile. He said that having worked this particular stretch of the river wall for almost ten years, he would believe anything.

Fisher wanted to tell him the rest — about the dead squirrel, the broken roads, the forests, the sun flooding the empty towers at Firehills, the sound of insects and birds. He wanted to say, I've been to O-Zone, because he was sure the policeman had never heard anyone say that.

But in his talking he had ignored the policeman's word "sighting" — another creature had been seen — and now he remembered it, and the fear took hold of him again.

The fear had something to do with being very hungry, and it was aggravated by the light sliding like yellow crockery on the river's surface; by the echoing alarms and the jangling of cars; and the idea that this was all routine and happened every day.

So he simply turned and walked away from the policeman and the scene at the river wall (the Skell was being hauled into the chopper). On the way to Coldharbor his nerve failed him — it was the panic that he might have to spend the night out alone on these streets. And hurrying home, he got lost, though he was only three blocks from the towers. He used his phones — the emergency number — and had to ask directions. After that courageous day, this humiliation!

"It's him," Hooper said as Fisher entered the unit. Hooper was delighted to see the boy. When had this kid ever gone out alone?

"I've been trying to call you all day," Moura said.

"I was off the air," Fisher said. "I decided to tune out and do some exploring on the ground."

He said it carelessly but he believed he had just survived another hazardous mission — one not very different from the shoot in O-Zone. He waited for their reaction, and was annoyed that no one expressed surprise or asked him where he had been. He wanted to describe the blacks — how they had threatened him; he wanted to tell them about the Skell and the task force and how he had explained ropes and aliens to the cop. He felt he had been very reckless in switching off phone contact and staying off the air.

"Don't worry," he said, to encourage them — why weren't they saying anything? "I'm all right!"

Moura said, "You missed your study session."

"Theory of Subsequence," he said.

"You never know — it might come in handy someday," Holly said,

"I wasn't learning it, shit-wit. I was teaching it and going over proofs." He looked at Hooper. "What do you want?"

"Private," Hooper said. "Let's go into your room."

What was oddest about Fisher's odd feety-smelling room— a wilderness of screens and tubes and consoles — was that although it had a skylight, it had no windows. Hooper had never noticed this before; but he had never before taken Fisher seriously, nor had he ever needed him as he did now. Imagine, needing Fizzy!

"Blacks," the boy was saying. "It's all blacks out there."

"How do you know that? You don't have any windows."

"I was actually out there. I mean, on the ground. I saw them. Incredible number of blacks." Fisher was pleased with himself and snorting with satisfaction. "A few of them thought they could give me a hard time. They didn't get anywhere!"

“What was he talking about? Hooper said, "What do you do for windows?"

Without speaking, Fisher went to a console panel and threw a switch. A window image appeared on a larg;e square television screen on the wall where the outside window ought to have been. The boy manipulated a remote camera and panned the other towers, the skylights, rooftops, gunships, and a wall of blackness at the perimeter of the city. Fisher had not been looking at the image; he was looking at Hooper, and when Hooper nodded — his question had been answered — Fisher stabbed the switch and the image shook and vanished.

The boy was still snorting in a confident way. "You think from up here that there's all kinds of trouble down there. But most of that is just false alarms. Oh, sure — they pull Skells out of the river, but some of them don't even have weapons."

"They're tramps," Hooper said. "Where would they get weapons?"

"I'm just giving you an example. Like the blacks. You wouldn't think there are any blacks in the city from up here."

"New York is full of blacks," Hooper said. "Just because you're black it doesn't mean you don't get a residence permit or a work pass. Or an ID. Lots of Owners are blacks."

Fisher looked at Hooper with suspicion, as if he had not known this simple thing.

"I know," the boy said defiantly. "What's that?"

Hooper had taken the cartridge out of his pocket. He handed it to Fisher.

"Ever seen one of these before?"

"No," Fisher said, and held it under a desk lamp. "But I've studied those seals. They're used in intelligence work."

"There's film inside."

"I know," the boy said.

"The problem is opening it without destroying the film."

"I know," the boy said.

He made an ugly mocking face at Hooper, twisting his mouth, as if to say: You must be a fool if you think I can't open this!

"It's apparently a very sensitive mechanism."

"I know," the boy said. "What's on the film — those boonies?"

"Unlock it and we'll watch it," Hooper said. "But listen, this is secret."

Just the word, whispered in that way, was like an affirmation of friendship, because they were alone, and each suspected the other of being weak and needing a friend.

Hardy had filed his preliminary report on the longitudinal field study in O-Zone and submitted it with his tape of the trip two days after arriving back. Now, almost a week later, he had his reward: a coded message on his computer screen in his inner office. He unscrambled it and read: Budget approved for further topographical field study Project Q-Zone. Please update and verify. Scramble this immediately. Do not print. Do not use data base. Treat as classified.

If it was this secret, then they were serious.

He scrambled the message and then phoned Operations.

"Allbright here."

"This is Operations," the woman said. Why didn't she give her name? But he knew why — Asfalt bureaucracy made employees that way, and it was the reason he had no friends there.

"I want to discuss Project O-Zone."

The voice said, "Seems it was a good party."

"Excellent."

"No problems?"

"None." Hardy was glad that he was ignorant enough to be able to say that.

"Then there is nothing to discuss."

"I wanted to ask about Access Passes," Hardy said, persisting.

"These will be granted to authorized personnel, or anyone you nominate."

He wanted to say more. He was happy about the approval. He just wanted to talk about the project.

He said, "I was wondering who's supervising—"

The voice said, "Weathermaker—"

His company name came like a warning.

"— this subject is highly classified."

Nothing to be written, or spoken, or recorded: they were very serious. And it was a measure of O-Zone's reputation in the United States: the place was believed to be wild and inaccessible and poisoned and dangerous, and so the project had taken on these same attributes. It was the first time that had happened, though Hardy had carried out many similar projects.

Hardy Allbright made mountains. He had designed and built mountains in West Africa, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia. So scientific, Moura always said about her husband. It was true, and it was the chief reason that Hardy had not inherited the family chain of department stores. "You're smart enough to stay out of business and look after yourself," the old man had said. "Perfesser!" he had always yelled in an admiring way at Hardy, and he had left him a large sum of money. "Perfesser!"

The family thinking was that Hardy had the brains, and Hooper the personality. In retail trade, personality mattered more than intelligence, especially as the business was long-established. And if it was a question of expansion or alteration, brains did not help much; then it was series of chess moves, which had more to do with being able to borrow money. And yet no one had ever expected that of Hooper. It surprised everyone when he restructured Allbright's and turned it into a mail-order business.

It also surprised everyone when Hardy, who was indeed a professor — a meteorological scientist specializing in weather modification — left his lab at Columbia and went to work in the downtown offices of Asfalt, which was part of the Pe-troland Oil Conglomerate. Hardy in business! But his work was classified — always Federal contracts or else contracts with foreign governments. Construction, people thought. What else could it possibly be? And because it was Asfalt, they suspected defense work, probably airstrips. Not even Moura knew. Few secrets were safe from Fizzy's restless intrusions and yet Hardy felt that even wonder boy did not know the exact nature of Asfalt's work. Rainmaking was always rumored, but no one knew how.

Hardy was mistaken. The boy had long ago hacked into Hardy's computer, and he copied everything that entered it. He knew all of it, but scorned it as obvious drudgery, and he could not understand why anyone would treat it as secret. It was no more complicated than roadbuilding. It was simpler than runways.

It was mountains — flat mountains, hot mountains, thermal mountains: vast black patches in places that were dying of thirst or simply in need of additional rainfall. The mountains were great unbroken areas of black asphalt. In the Ivory Coast they had paved 3,400 square kilometers, and the Sulayyil Stripe in Saudi Arabia was almost a third larger. Moura had gone on both trips without knowing, without guessing; though she too had suspected airstrips and runways. Asfalt had a projected mountain in central Australia and another was being studied in the middle east — but fighting in the region, and finance, cast doubt on that middle-east mountain ever being made.

They looked like enormous parking lots. They were flat and featureless and black. They created rain. Hardy's job was finding their dimensions and their placement. Shaping them and siting them properly were crucial, because it was not merely that they were placed in areas of low rainfall, they also needed the right prevailing winds and the correct angles. The wide black mass became a hot spot and created a convection current, boosting the air passing over it. This heated air rose rapidly, as if against a mountainside and, rising, it cooled and the moisture in it condensed. And then there were clouds and, quite often, rainfall on the far side of this thermal mountain.

It was, most of all, a way of using millions of barrels of excess oil. It meant that oil production could be maintained, and it kept the price up.

The oil side had nothing to do with Hardy. He had invented ground patterns — black crescents — that modified wind direction, shifting the air to his mountain. It meant a greater use of asphalt. Thermal mountains had intensified Petroland's drilling and refining, and it was the making of the company, now one of the five big oil producers in the world. And in every country where the Asfalt Division had built a thermal mountain, the weather had been significantly modified. There was now rain — and trees and crops — where there had been desert.

But Asfalt dealt in disruptions. Secrecy was a necessity because of the scale of the projects-the large oil shipments, the land areas, the finance; all the things that could go wrong, the downside, the shortfall. When Hardy was asked how he made his living, he never mentioned that Asfalt was mainly concerned with weather modification on a grand scale. He said engineering, the oil industry, and sometimes he used Hooper's private joke: landscaping.

He had told Hooper, because Hooper had asked. He had never been able to withhold anything from his brother, and so he was particularly resentful that Hooper seemed to have so many secrets.

Asfalt was an American company, and yet all its work so far had been carried out abroad. Apart from one stripe in Mexico of relatively small proportions (though the precipitation yields were good), no plan had ever been put forward for an American mountain. All the good land was spoken for — it was owned and managed — and so no tract available was large enough for a thermal mountain that would make a difference. One was needed in the midwest, but no one could agree on where it should be sited. Federal agencies had obstructed all development plans so far.

Several enormous tracts of land had been put on the market, but as soon as the sellers discovered that Asfalt was interested, the price had gone up, the sellers thinking: Oil money! Defense contracts! Airstrips! Bases! And so the prices were prohibitive. Hardy had never believed that Asfalt would build a thermal mountain in America.

And then, by chance, the exclusion order was removed from O-Zone. Asfalt provided Hardy with Access Passes and instructions to camouflage the visit. Hooper said, "Let's spend New Year's there — have a party!" Murdick said, "I'll find the food!" The Eubanks had promised backup, and after pleading with them Fizzy agreed to navigate. But it was Hooper's enthusiasm that kept Hardy's intention secret: after Hooper took charge of the trip, no one asked why it was that Hardy's company had secured eight Access Passes. Asfalt had warned Hardy of the dangers in traveling in a Prohibited Area. But there were advantages, too. It was Federal, so it was protected, and it might be possible to lease it from the government. It was contaminated, so it was empty — who would dare go there, who would want it, or fight for it? It was large. It was a wilderness. It was one of the largest tracts of empty usable land that might ever be available to a private company. And some of it, Hardy now knew, had been cleared.

But Project O-Zone was classified: the very idea of it was secret. And Hardy knew that if the land was still radioactive it was useless. But what a coup if he could reactivate O-Zone! The first trip was meant as a way of getting a general impression and trying to decide the safety factors. That was the beginning of the longitudinal study. Later, if the budget were approved, he would do some preliminary plans, establishing its elevations, making maps. There would have to be many more trips, more studies, and especially needed was a grid of film and some satellite photography. Yet he knew now that O-Zone could easily contain a thermal mountain, and with this — perhaps the largest in the world, perhaps a chain of thermal mountains — it might establish a modified weather pattern for this part of the United States. That was for the future. The main thing at the moment was to get onto the ground again and make it look like another picnic.

He had come to see that it was a wonderful place, O-Zone — low hills and broad fields and sunken cities: perfect, really, and all ready to be poured full of asphalt.

In his office at the division, just before he set off for Cold-harbor, Hardy Allbright shut his eyes and saw it very clearly — the immense space, the emptiness, the ruin. Fifteen years ago its appeal was not merely that it was centrally located and unlikely to arouse suspicion — it was already underpopulated and somewhat wild; and most of all it was full of caves. They were deep limestone caverns, with the dimensions of the gorges aboveground: they were in some cases believed to be bottomless pits. Put nuclear trash in sealed containers in these holes and it would never be heard of again. Who could possibly tamper with them? That was the theory.

The contamination was so bad, so catastrophic when it came, that it was hardly publicized, for fear of its being so demoralizing. And even after it became known that half the state had been uprooted and moved, it was regarded as a precaution rather than a necessity; and it was never known how large an area in the heartland of the United States had become uninhabitable. It was one of those events which occur on such a scale and are so tragic and empty of hope that they are kept secret — any publicity only adds to the misfortune, and simply knowing about them seems like a curse.

But time had passed. There had been changes. The place had gone from wilderness to civilization and back to wilderness; it had been returned to America again. Now it was ready for anything. The woods could remain as protection, the roads and some of the towns might be reactivated, and part of that new state would be determined as an area of high rainfall. It did not matter whether the prairie in the western quarter would be affected, or whether the rest of the plateau would return to intensive agriculture — it was not a question of food. It was all experimental, and an American first. The point was that O-Zone could be controlled, so what did it matter whether the input of rain resulted in a hydroelectric scheme or altered topography? It was a sealed zone, and when it was unsealed and its weather modified, it could be penetrated according to a scientific plan, and colonized like a new planet. In a world of dead ends, it would be a fresh start. And there would never again be any accidents there.

He saw the land rising up before his eyes, the long swards and knobs and rough escarpments and tumbling woods, and the vast empty spaces that filled his dreams as a weather-maker.

Now the trees were clumped and denser, and in between the clumps were chutes of grass; up ahead, protrusions of original forest showed as great smudges. This new view was from the ground, in a semidarkness highlighted with heat impressions. The land was iron-blue and dusty on the film, with smear marks of leafy boughs and above them naked branches lying across the sky like cracks. It softened to pale blue, but still there was no movement, only the black branches in the foreground, the frothy wall of trees at the far side of the watery-looking meadow, and the long slashes of new light— dawn rising.

"I was just thinking about that," Hardy said, holding the door open. "That's O-Zone."

"What are you doing in here, you dong!" Fisher said. "This is a private room. You didn't buzz."

"That was not O-Zone," Hooper said, and killed the picture.

"I recognized it!" Hardy said. He was still looking at the blank screen, where the meadow had been. Now he turned to face the two seated people. "Hooper! In Fizzy's room!"

"The kid and I were just kicking a problem around," Hooper said, hating himself for sounding adulterous and apologetic.

"Why did you switch off the screen?"

"Out of politeness."

"Go away," Fisher said. "Why are you bothering us?"

"You're wearing a mask!"

Fisher looked like a louse, or a sucking insect. He said, "Hay fever!" and stood up.

Hardy was surprised by the boy's bad posture — the way he hunched his shoulders made his long arms seem even longer. And what huge feet! His hands were red and very damp, and his wrists newly hairy. He had grown up in this room, and so he had the strange shape and habits, and even the same lowered head and bumping motion, of an animal in a cage. His appearance and the way he moved — the noises he made, the yawns, the squawks — always caused Hardy to forget the boy's intelligence.

"You didn't buzz! You didn't signal! You just burst in— and now you're not going away!"

"I was looking for Moura."

But the boy was right. Hardy knew he was lingering here because he had just had a new glimpse of what he was sure was O-Zone. Was it the tape they had made on the shoot they had mounted with Murdick?

"Moura's not here. Obviously."

Hardy pointed to the blank screen. "Those trees and fields — that's O-Zone."

Hooper said, "That was the tape of the trip out. We got it on macro. That was the Ohio valley. You interested in the Ohio valley? Got plans for it?"

Hardy shook his head — he didn't want to encourage any of Hooper's talk about Asfalt's plans, especially in front of Fizzy.

"Do you want to discuss something?"

Hardy said nothing: he was annoyed that they were now asking the questions. It was an unlikely pair, Hooper and Fizzy, but he saw them as formidable and possibly a threat. They had all the right combinations, and they had apparently made peace. Hardy felt especially uncomfortable, and almost envious, seeing Hooper succeeding with Fizzy where he had failed.

"Why don't you go away?" Fisher said. He was not being aggressive, only showing incomprehension that he wasn't being obeyed. He poked toward Hardy with the snout of his mask and let his long arms dangle.

Hardy said, "I have no interest at all in O-Zone. And I don't want to watch your tape. Don't forget, I've got one of my own." But as he shrugged and turned away, he glanced at the video screen: the quality of their tape had been noticeably better than his — it was ground-focus, close-up, high-definition. He wondered, was it Murdick's? "I'm just surprised to see you two in here, looking so guilty."

"Don't be such a dong," Fisher said. He seemed suddenly bored, and began sniffing in impatience, sucking air noisily through his snout. "Now get out!"

Hardy went, but hated being sent away like this.

Fisher locked the door and said to Hooper, "My parents are insecure. They don't know what to do with me. They're not as intelligent as I am, so they can't tell me anything. See, the trouble is, they don't have any authority. All they could really do is bully me or report me to my session team leader. But they're afraid to. They know I could double up and really wreck things for them — I could file against them. I could be taken away from them and sent to a guardian."

He plucked his mask off and yawned. It was one of his loud slow yawns. He didn't cover his mouth. Hooper had to turn away — his immediate reaction was an urge to slap the boy for yawning like that.

"I know all about Hardy's work-everything he does!"

"It's supposed to be classified," Hooper said.

"I hacked it."

"And you know all about your mother?"

"No," the boy said — so logical he could never be untruthful. "Moura only thinks things. She never stores them. It's all in her head."

He yawned again, another gravelly roar, and showed Hooper his scummy tongue.

"They really have problems!" Fisher said.

Hooper was staring — too fascinated to smile.

"That's why I have to be careful not to criticize them," Fisher said, growling through another yawn. "They'd freak if I did."

Hooper said, "Let's roll this thing," and pointed the mouse in his hand and squeezed.

The screen deepened with an image: daybreak over that meadow in O-Zone, as the two troopers peered through the basketwork of branches. Murdick's helmet was visible, and the upper bulge of Fizzy's, as the camera panned slowly back and forth. Human murmurs drowned the birdsong on the soundtrack. There was a dragging racket of what seemed like scraping.

— Your yawning drives me crazy,

In the blurred imaging the meadow had a frozen look.

— I hate the dark.

— You've got irons. What are you so nervous about?

— We could be sitting in poison.

— This isn't an iron. It's a camera. Right, Willis?

— That piece is regulation Godseye. It's got thermal imaging.

The mike was bumped, and then: —looks like a particle beam to me, shit-wit,

The dusty blue of the set of woods behind the field turned to a pinker, grayer powder, and was stirred and liquefied into paler light. Yellow seeped in at one edge and soaked the foreground, making it a tufty green. It was dawn on the meadow.

10

— I don't have a college education, because I don't need one. Listen, I'm not a freak. I didn't come out of a test tube.

"Fucking Murdick," Fisher said, and whirred the tape forward. "He is such a fucking truncheon."

When, the tape resumed, the images rose and fell, and the nodding motion continued in the long tracking shot through the yellow woods. Hooper was photographing the running figures of the aliens, who were chasing the lame deer. The accompanying sounds were of tramping feet — the troopers' big boots — and of branches being punched, and They don't look like mutants to me — and the aliens' laughter.

Hooper had remembered the slant of morning light striking through the leaves, and the surprising speed of the aliens as they high-stepped through the ferns and low hollies that grew beneath the hickories. But he had forgotten all those unusual sounds — the muttering birds, the screeching insects, the aliens' delighted yells.

The men had raced ahead and were circling in order to maneuver the deer into the clearing, where they could use their nets. As they changed direction, the young woman crossed over, and there was a clear shot of her turning just in front of a curtain of sunlight.

Hooper pointed the mouse at her and froze her.

He caught her in a hurdler's posture, her legs fully extended front and back — she was leaping a fallen tree. Her face was bright with effort and strength, and she was barefoot. She wore a loose shirt and thin green trousers. Her shirtfront had jumped and he could see her smooth stomach and the curved undersides of her bare breasts. Her hair, sunburnt in patches, whitened and blond, was cut short, except for a single braid at the back of her neck. Her hair was shorter than that of the men who ran ahead, and for a moment she had seemed like a beautiful boy among dark witches and hags. She was well off the ground — a good healthy bounce — and she was young. Sixteen, Hooper thought, because he did not dare tell himself less.

"Subject G," Fisher said. "One of the survivors. She's about fifteen."

She was smiling. Hooper envied her her happiness, and for that instant he wanted everything she had. But she had nothing. Hooper thought: Yes, I want that — I've never had nothing. He saw an unassailable safety in that simplicity, and he was aroused. But it was more than wanting to possess her. He wanted to be her. He wanted to live her life. She was welcome to his. She would think this was crazy, because he was wealthy and considered powerful — an Owner, after all — and had an apparently pleasant life. She could have it! It no longer interested him.

And Hooper, who had never loved — did not believe love existed apart from sexual desire, and that desire itself burned it away — Hooper began to speculate. Perhaps that is what it is, he thought: sharing someone else's life, living it, serving it, believing in its value — challenging yourself with this new person by offering everything that person wants. And the lack of love was the empty prison of your own life lived alone.

He did not think he was such a fool. That alien — that savage — must have felt the same. He felt powerful again and saw the use of his strength: I can give her everything she wants. But although in that instant he had started to live her life and be with her, he could not imagine what she might want. And she was far away, not in space but time. She might be infectious — many of them were diseased. She might not speak English. She might be a psychopath.

She's lost, he thought, and pitied her. And then he began to worry: Or am I?

All this took a few seconds, and some of it he remembered later and put in its proper place, the blaze of those seconds.

"It's jammed!" Fisher said.

The girl completed her leap, and bounded over the fallen tree trunk, and ran out of sight.

"I was thinking," Hooper said. He had remembered his unspecific wish in O-Zone to take something of it back to New York. Now desire had made that wish specific.

"Move it forward to the burn."

"No. I want to watch it slowly."

He glimpsed her through the trees. She was lingering in the woods, watching the men in the meadow. He was aroused by her peculiar health and by her carelessness. He loved her old clothes. And she was dangerous!

"Quit pausing it!"

"I'm trying to get a fix on these people."

"They're not people — they're aliens. They're really dim-bos and they're probably sick. No masks, no gloves, and look at that footgear. They're running around practically stark! They're almost pure monkey!"

Hooper said nothing. The tape still whirred.

"They sleep under trees! They don't even make camps! No technology!"

Hooper sat forward. He had just seen her again, her hand on her face — she was thinking. What was she hoping?

Whatever she wanted. . But Fizzy was still talking, and Hooper could not finish the thought.

"They're really dirty," Fisher was saying. "Hey, dong-face!"

Hooper had killed the picture. He fumbled with the electronic mouse in his hand and moved the tape up to the moments just before the shooting.

"If it weren't for me you wouldn't even be watching this. I cracked the seal, I decoded it, I developed—"

"If you say one more word, I'll kill this thing," Hooper said. "I'm showing you the burns, and that's all."

Fisher started to reply, but a male alien filled the screen and commanded his attention. Murdick's hands became visible, then the helmet, and the terrified face in the mask. No wonder Murdick wanted this tape — it showed more clearly than Hooper had seen at the time what a coward Murdick was. Murdick was trying to smile at the alien. The trooper in Godseye was about to grovel.

And then the alien was in focus — his beard, his sinewy shoulder, his net. The blast came — a hiss preceded it on the tape — and the alien was changed from a solid substance to a jelly, and trembled deep red and contracted, withering and fusing to a tiny doll image of its bigger self. It flew apart, disintegrating, a mist becoming a gas. The fine spray of the destroyed man slightly darkened Murdick's suit.

And the second alien, just the same, losing his look of surprise and vanishing in a mist. He was enclosed, then gone.

"What a weapon. . what amazing burns!" Fisher said. "How about the rest — the early part you skipped?"

Hooper could not answer immediately. He was nauseated by the deaths. Seeing them like this, in slow motion, frightened him, too. No wonder a camera was part of the weapon: there was no other way of knowing who the victim was.

He removed the cartridge from the video unit. He was still trying to think.

"The chase," Fisher said. "How about the chase?"

"You're too young for that stuff."

Fisher laughed, because he was not really interested in those animals, he said, and he told Hooper that he had spent a whole day out on the streets alone.

"You've done it once," Hooper said.

"I'd go out again anytime," the boy said. But trying too hard to sound brave, he sounded terrified.

Hooper went back to his own tower and watched the tape four more times. It maddened him that he could not copy it or print from it. He did not watch the burns — they had badly upset him. But the girl: he watched her closely, concentrating hard. She did not know him, she had never heard of him. And she was a stranger. He wanted her. It had been years since he had really wanted anything, and until that moment he had never wanted any person.

He tried saying it a number of ways, but nothing worked until he whispered, "She needs me," and then he saw her face again.

11

Going out, Moura approched the Coldharbor main gate and saw the security guard inside reading a book. Captain Jennix was not a captain in the Coldharbor Security Force but rather in his local "ship." The man's title irritated Hardy, who had once told Moura, "'Captain' means something, which is why I will not call that man 'captain.' He's not an Owner, he's never been in the service, and he's done nothing to earn that rank. Frankly, I think all these Pilgrims and Rocketmen are crazy in an uninteresting way." Moura still didn't know what "captain" meant.

Captain Jennix was a youngish man, thirty or so, who called himself a Starling. He had a very small head, and unfunny blue believer's eyes, and wore an immaculate uniform. He had a way of glancing skyward and talking about "the program" and "weightless motion" and "emigration" — he meant into space.

He looked up from his book and spoke to Moura in his flat plodding way. "Preparing my mind for the mission."

You didn't ask about the mission — not because it was awkward and imaginary, but because they would keep you there all day describing it with facts and figures, and they could be fanatical recruiters if they felt they could use you. Moura was aware of Captain Jennix's interest in Hardy, and so she was always very circumspect.

He was smiling at her, showing her the title of his book, The Time Lords of Titan. She wanted to laugh, but his passion frightened her, too. The books were always science fiction, and they always seemed years out-of-date.

"Read it?" Captain Jennix said.

"No thanks," she said, to be ambiguous and polite.

"I've got lots of others you might like," and stooped and brought out a stack of paperbacks with lurid covers showing troopers and Pilgrims and lunar settlements. Captain Jennix showed them to her title by title: The Settlers of Planck, Beneath the Ocean of Storms, The Synodic Month, The Lunar Pole, The Gardens of Tranquillity, Crossing Mare Frigoris, Mission to Fertility—

"Please," she said. They were like a peculiar form of devotional literature, and she found them singleminded and upsetting.

"It's unusual to see you out on a Sunday morning," Captain Jennix said. He had the Pilgrims' belief in strict routines.

She hated being noticed that way, especially as she knew that something had changed within her. Until the O-Zone trip, she had spent most Sundays at Coldharbor off the air and sealed in her room, sometimes with Hardy, in a deep deliberate sleep. A coma, most people called it; and not beds or sleep capsules, but "coma couches."

It had started as a fad and turned into a pastime. When it became very popular it was associated with good health — not physical strength, but a sense of sanity and well-being. But it is the fate of some pastimes to become obsessions.

I've done fifteen hours, people said; I've done twenty; I've done a day. When Barry Eubank said, "I've done two dozen," the Murdicks replied, "We're working on thirty." It had attracted them to O-Zone — it was so empty it must be very safe. That was what everyone had thought. What a place to sleep! But in the end no one had slept at all in O-Zone.

"You were away about a week ago," Captain Jennix said, stating it as a fact.

How surprised he would have been if she had told him where they had gone. He might not have believed her. He expected her to believe that at some point in the future he was going to take his place in a lunar mission, make a moon landing or else live for a time in a space station with other Pilgrims, or Starlings — Rocketmen, anyway — and yet he would find it inconceivable that she had spent two days in the Prohibited Area of O-Zone.

"New Year's party," she said, enjoying the preposterous sound of the truth.

"You can pass, Mrs. Allbright," Captain Jennix said.

He sat at a bank of monitors on which various parts of Coldharbor and even districts in New York were visible. On one a space vehicle was shown. Was this why Captain Jennix was in such a thoughtful mood? Perhaps he was anticipating a space launch — always an emotional moment for a Pilgrim. Their hope lay in being transported into space by just such a rocket. Captain Jennix wore two stripes on his sleeve, which meant that he had paid a certain amount toward a place on one of the vehicles. He had not said so; it was talk — but it was probably true. All the Pilgrims paid, and all hoped, but very few of them actually went up. Still, they were great supporters of the Federal Space Program, and there were so many of them it was sometimes said — Hardy often said it— that highly placed Pilgrims boosted the budget for space travel, and the Federal government encouraged this zeal.

Now Captain Jennix pushed his chair away from the monitors and said, "I don't blame you for hesitating, Mrs. All-bright. New York—"

But it was not New York. It was that Moura did not want to spend another Sunday in a coma. That wasn't rest — it was active sleep: not forgetting but remembering. She and Hardy used gas. It could have been the gas as much as the motion of the couch that tired her. Other people used injections or capsules. The longest period she had managed was eighteen hours, and she had regretted it. She had thought that the silence and the emptiness in O-Zone might change her manner of sleeping, somehow alter the experience. She had always woken exhausted.

Captain Jennix was saying, "Take this book, for example" — she saw it was The Settlers of Planck. "It shows you the importance of pushing on. There's no sense going unless you keep going. Out of the house, past the wall, off the earth, until you're weightless. Learn to fly and you solve the problem of time. You never just go out and come back. Know why?"

She must have glanced at him, because he spoke as if in reply.

"Because once you've gone out you can never come all the way back."

What was he talking about? She was thinking of O-Zone, how it had stirred her, shown her the land and the sky. Because she thought they had been alone, the place had frightened her with its emptiness; but it had frightened her more when Fizzy's suspicion had passed through Firehills that there were aliens nearby.

"There is no recorded crime. There is no disorder. No instances Of madness. The training program is foolproof, so its success is due to the caliber of the troopers who go — good caliber, the best people."

Moura listened to him, but behind his small head she saw the old world of O-Zone. It seemed remote, and as separate, as isolated and hard-to-find as an island. Never mind that it was in Missouri, because America had become an ocean.

"The great complaint is that not enough people go on these missions," Captain Jennix said. "But all the good people go. Isn't that everyone?"

She had been exposed to danger — reminded of it, even if it had not existed. Fear was fear, whatever the cause. And fear had made her feel solitary. She had begun to think intensely about her life — more intensely than any coma had made her remember. Fully awake and afraid, in the clear light of the O-Zone trip, she had seen Fizzy changing into whoever his father was — the masked man at the contact clinic. He had spoken to her!

"I'll give you an example," Captain Jennix said.

An example of what? What was Jennix trying to prove? She stared past his head and on the bank of monitors she saw street grids and various corners of New York — the river, the perimeter, the bridges — and she wondered. .

But Captain Jennix said, "We have a unit in the Starlings' divisional ship code-named 'White Girls.' This is basically an intelligence unit, but it won't move until the day comes for transporting personnel. In other words, they're basically on standby alert until just before countdown."

"I'm sorry," Moura said, but it didn't seem to matter that she had not been listening. Captain Jennix had stood up and become rigid when he had said standby alert.

"White Girls," he said. "Basically they could be on standby alert their whole lives. They move when they get the signal" — now he moved, but it was only to slap another book for emphasis. It was Mission to Fertility. "Mrs. Allbright, you could qualify for White Girls. The point is, you don't go out until the last day, and then you go out and you don't stop until you're locked into space."

He sat down and frowned at the video screens on the bank of monitors. He was clutching Mission to Fertility.

"It's all in here," he said, flexing the book.

What a bore he was, waiting his turn for the rocket. And it probably would never come. Moura knew she wanted something else. Since returning to New York she had felt dissatisfied. She had a vague feeling of imprisonment. Holly's visit had stirred her, too, and given her a direction. Holly could be foolish, but she was funny and uncritical and a good prop. Moura had known her too long to be able to find fault with her. After that length of time you accepted everything in a person or else ended the friendship. And Holly was useful because she dared to say things out loud to Moura that Moura only whispered to herself. Moura sometimes wished that Holly were more subtle, but she also thought: Maybe I need her to be unsubtle in order to flatter myself.

"This is an awful city," Captain Jennix was saying.

In her mind, Moura had gone into New York and found the clinic. She had entered and registered and made her request. Was it still such a hive of rooms and cubicles? And all the scanners and sound equipment; and the air knifed with disinfectant. In her mind she waited there, crouched at the cliff edge of her willpower, listening hard but hearing nothing but the white noise which hissed in her ears during those sessions; and his beaked mask hard against hers. You love it You—

He could not have been an ordinary person, because Fizzy wasn't.

She had rehearsed the trip, tried out her questions, and imagined what the answers might be. But she did not want to go out alone.

"It's a much worse place than anyone admits."

Was Captain Jennix reading her mind? Pilgrims — Starlings, Rocketmen, Astronauts — often claimed to be telepathic.

"The things I've seen!" he said. "And not just on those screens. I'm not talking about over the river, which is pretty terrible. Or beyond that, where it's hell. I'm talking about right here. The power failures, the inefficiency, the new so-called styles of clothes, some of which means no clothes whatsoever-supposedly decent people, Owners, pretending to be Starkies. And self-delusion. And old technology. And junk people."

Moura brought him into focus.

"New York," she said.

"The world, really."

And he frowned again at the monitors, this time importantly, as if to say I'm leaving.

"This planet is very backward," Captain Jennix said.

But Moura didn't believe in the salvation of space, and she certainly was not going to pay for a time-share in a rocket. You weren't supposed to call them "rockets"? The Pilgrims were so fervent and deluded, always glued to the launch channel, and pathetically thrilled when another vehicle was boosted into space with a colonist on board. What happened to them? Perhaps they were killed or else stranded; perhaps the few that went were opportunists — merely joyriding. They never advertised their disappointment, or their eager despair.

"When the last good person leaves," Captain Jennix said, scrutinizing her with shrewd pleasure, "we'll burn this planet."

"Don't burn me, captain."

"Join us and we won't have to."

It was wrong to argue with fanatics, or even simple believers — they always ended up by insulting you. Moura had wanted to go into New York, but had only made it to the park beneath Coldharbor, which was no distance at all. She was not consoled by that stupid man who kept telling her it was dangerous out there. If he was so brave, why was he double-locked in a checkpoint and dreaming of a trip to the moon?

Hardy was saying, "Aren't you ever going out again?"

This was at Coldharbor, in their unit high in the tower. He was talking to Fisher and waiting for Moura, who had said she might not be long.

Fisher yawned without covering his mouth, as if replying to Hardy — but a harsh reply of scouring breath.

"Why not go?"

What a change it would be to have Fizzy somewhere else on a Sunday, especially if Moura was coming back soon. He was hoping to persuade Moura to help him sleep. It was no fun sleeping alone, and it was terrible to be observed. He was grateful for her interest. It was what remained of their marriage, their willingness to sleep together — sleep in the recreational sense: the coma. For Hardy it was an important activity; but he always made a point of waking first — he wasn't a distance sleeper.

"There's nowhere to go," Fisher said, because the idea still frightened him. He became slightly nauseous and unsteady on his feet when he remembered that he had spent one whole day prowling New York. That was how his timid and tentative sniffing had seemed — like bold prowling, a kind of confident balancing act, the awkward boy imagining himself like an indestructible cat. But something else within him, a dull inarticulate instinct, held him, and this dumb memory of the danger had kept him indoors ever since. "And there's nothing to do out there."

Against his will, and in silence, like a shadow on the window, he saw the old Skell again — the blue bristly face, the risen veins, the white feet, the black rags. It dripped against the river wall and it whimpered. The creature possessed a dangerous hunger. Fisher hated his own irrationality — these were small cockroachy pests! And then he hated Hardy for rousing the feeling in him. Why was Hardy harping on that lately — about going out?

He had another favorite subject these days, and just then, to Fisher's annoyance, he reverted to it.

"Those pictures," he said, and as the boy began to yawn at him again he went on, "I wish I'd gotten pictures like that in O-Zone."

"They weren't taken in O-Zone."

"Even so" — but he didn't believe Fizzy at all—"they were extremely good. High definition, thermal imaging, overprinted with that data on elevations and distances. What sort of camera was it? It must have been Murdick's, right? I'd like to know where Willis gets his equipment."

Fisher wanted to say, "He's in Godseye." But that reminded him of Murdick's gibe: "If you don't know what Godseye is, you're not as smart as you think you are."

"That was the Ohio valley,"

"It doesn't matter," Hardy said. He knew that Fizzy was telling Hooper's lies. He only wanted him to listen: he needed the boy's help.

Pictures of that quality were what he needed for his Project O-Zone report. But it was not only necessary to have good pictures on the ground; he also needed willing scouts.

Asfalt had not confirmed that the project was secret, because it was more than secret: it was what the company called a ghost — it did not officially exist. Its sensitive nature meant that any research had to be Hardy's voluntary idea. All the responsibility was his, all the risk, all the blame. O-Zone was still classified as highly dangerous, a Prohibited Area. No project could be officially contemplated for such a place.

Yet Hardy had already decided what his next step must be. He was influenced by Fizzy's sudden decision to go out alone in New York — a whole day in the city, off the air! He had been such a coward before. And there was Hooper's new relationship with the boy. Perhaps Hooper had given him the encouragement to spend a day outside the garrison.

This was the answer. Those two could shoot the preliminary survey, the elevations, the aerial grid. They could distribute sensors for relaying wind data and carry out some fieldwork to complete the longitudinal survey.

If Hardy himself took the return trip he would have to keep a secret. With Hooper and Fizzy acting for him, shooting O-Zone for the hell of it — for the pleasure of having a unique Access Pass — no one would suspect him of having a secret. The ghost would be safely invisible. There was another bonus — they apparently had the right equipment and knew how to use it.

Hardy said, "And when I say out, I don't just mean New York. I mean wild places."

He was changing the subject again, and again Fisher saw Brooklyn, the view from the river, the bridges that had been secured against alien gangs, and the lights that could never reassure him, because all they illuminated were the scribbles and the greasy river water and the blackness on Brooklyn's walls.

When he looked up at Hardy, wild places was printed on Fisher's face. It showed in his eyes and on his mouth — doubt, uncertainty, shadows, strangeness.

Hardy said, "I was really impressed with you in O-Zone. The way you took charge and drove the mainframe. Keeping everyone calm. Locating those aliens. Gathering that data—"

Fisher seldom listened to Hardy. He looked at him but his mind was elsewhere, solving problems, usually a kind of baggy geometry of particle physics, like socks he slowly turned inside-out and tucked into matched pairs. In the streams of particles he tried to seize each speck and enlarge it and give it a name. Exodes. Squarks. Antigons. And lately he had become interested in the concept of "wabble," which he saw as the sideways movement of particles, something that had never been described, but crucial to his Theory of Subsequence. His mind was working that way now, but then something urgent in Hardy's voice made him begin to listen.

"Hard information and reliable maps," Hardy was saying. "The graphics could be very useful. In fact, the whole program—"

"It's not a program," Fisher said. He never allowed his work to be praised. He was a perfectionist, and he believed his mind was perfect, but a thing was blunted and coarsened as soon as it was made: pure thought could not be transformed into matter, and nothing could be brought to perfection. "It's just sketches."

"They're great sketches."

The boy shrugged. "There's a lot we don't know." He stared at Hardy and said, "Microscopic data. Subterranean temperatures. Soil analysis. Take those birds you were raving about."

"The quail — beautiful bobwhites." And Hardy saw their round tufted shapes, pecking and making for a thicket at Firehills.

"We haven't got anything on their bone marrow." Saying these things awakened Fisher's interest, and he became curious about the answers.

"I never expected you to go with Hooper and Murdick. You were in unknown territory!"

The boy was encouraged. He said, "A Prohibited Area. Evidence of high-level mutagens," and licked his lips. "Exactly," Hardy said.

"No one's been on the ground there for fifteen years," Fisher said. A wordless anxiety trembled in his mind — some-thing small darkening within him like an infection. "We were the first."

"There were aliens there. You could have been in serious danger."

"We were in serious danger," Fisher said. "You burned them."

"Yeah, we burned them all down." And he thought: Murdick, that total dong!

The boy was frightened again. He saw clawing aliens, the other man, the running girl. The burning of the two men had bewildered him, and viewing the tape with Hooper had only given him nightmares. He still had horrible dreams of being trapped there, of ragged aliens wrenching him through the smashed window of the stranded Welly.

"And then you went out in New York!"

This new reminder weakened Fisher further. That small dark thing trembling within him was terror curling like a dead leaf. He wanted Hardy to stop talking about what he had done.

"Wait," Hardy said as Fisher turned away. "That's pretty impressive for a kid of fifteen."

The boy had already crossed the room.

"I'm a theoretical physicist, not a trooper."

"You proved that you can be both. It's the most valuable human on earth — the field scientist."

The boy did not react except to say blandly, "I'm not a spaceman."

Hardy walked across the room toward him, and waited until the boy acknowledged him before saying, "You can help me."

It didn't work. Fisher was unmoved. Of course he could help him!

"Are you interested in going back to O-Zone?"

The boy thought Yes and became afraid once more. He could only calm himself by thinking No.

He said, "I have work to do here."

"I could get you a couple of Access Passes."

Fisher stared. Hardy was always so evasive, but Fisher was never surprised where Hardy's work was concerned. Since he had hacked into Hardy's computer, he knew this longitudinal field study concerned weather modification in O-Zone, probably a thermal mountain. It was old-fashioned stuff, just a way of using surplus oil and inflating its value. He saw something savage in Hardy's naive trust in the benefit of rain.

"Imagine being the only human in O-Zone!"

If that were possible, Fisher thought, I would go. But that thought was crowded with the sight of jumping aliens — monsters! beasts! net-men! He saw their hungry faces, their teeth, their big filthy hands.

He said, "No one really knows what's there. Hooper calls it a desert island."

"You can find out what's on it."

"Why not you?"

"I don't have your skills, your insights, your resources. I don't have your pedigree. I'm not a Type A." Hardy had found it difficult to begin, but then he spoke with conviction, fascinated to know what Fizzy's response would be. Again he mentioned how Fizzy had taken them there, and led the shoot, and brought them back to New York.

"That's obvious," the boy said.

Hardy was staring — feeling doglike.

The boy went on, "I've been listening to that for years, people saying, 'We could work with you,' 'We could use your talents,' 'We could find room for someone like you.' Of course! It doesn't flatter me. I know what I can do. I know myself better than any of these dongs. I'm even better than they think I am! They never say how badly they need me. No, they put it in a patronizing way, how much I need them." He had started to clench and unclench his hands, reddening them and leaving bright white marks from the pressure of his fingers, and he was blinking with fury when he said, "I don't need them at all!"

"I'm saying I do need you, Fizz."

"And they tell me what they want, but they never" — the boy's voice had become a squawk—"they never ask the really crucial question."

Hardy was about to speak when Fisher interrupted.

"I'm going to be burned out at twenty!" the boy cried.

"Fizzy—"

"And they never ask what I want!"

"I'm asking," Hardy said.

Fisher said nothing. His fear had come back. But he did not think: I want more courage. He believed his intellectual strength made him unusually powerful. But in a small awful way his irrational fear of darkness and of imaginary terrors crippled him badly. He knew that. It was not a large handicap — that was the worst of it. It did not really limit him, and yet it would not go away. It was absurd and maddening, like having a stone in your shoe.

"I'll let you know," the boy said.

"What are you doing?"

He was pulling his helmet on, the one with the faceplate and phones; and the suit, and gloves, and the big boots. Survival gear.

"Going out," the boy said, and shoved his nose and mouth against the faceplate, and squashed them, making himself ugly. "Going out!"

Moura had come back sometime after that, and now they lay side by side in the darkened unit, she and Hardy. They were relieved that Fizzy had at last gone out. Into New York wearing survival gear! They imagined the boy roaming the city, being watchful, seeing blacks and Japanese and weirdly dressed Owners, and believing he was in great danger.

But it was a start, like his friendship with Hooper. The two had nothing in common, so it had to be true friendship, perhaps the beginning of maturity.

"We're losing him," Hardy had said as he administered the gas to Moura.

"When was he ever ours?"

To Moura, Fisher seemed completely out of reach. She had left the building intending to visit the clinic. But her nerve had failed her; she had not even gotten past the gate. I'm as bad as Captain Jennix, she thought, dreaming of empty planets and the serenity of space stations.

"He thinks I should be in something called White Girls."

Hardy did not hear her. She was murmuring, going under. And she wondered what had become of the clinic after all these years.

The same thought continued in her coma — the clinic, the cubicle, the underwater noise. She was received, she was examined; smears and scans were carried out. She was injected. Then she realized that she was not alone. In the soft semidarkness a beaked man rose up beside her. She recognized him, in spite of his mask; and what was more, he knew her. He held her and she was struggling, thrashing, and worrying that it was going to stop too soon.

In his own capsule, watching across an expanse of black, Hardy saw full piles of thunderheads rising and gathering.

Fisher had clumped past Captain Jennix. He thought the man was an idiot. The credulous Rocketman had a question for him, something simple about vertical shear. Fisher refused to answer — he called him a tool. Jennix squinted; he was taken by the boy's helmet and boots. He said that he had just seen Moura. Fisher said, "You are such a total herbert!"

It was another bright night; but the rush of rotors and ground traffic, the rattle of trams, and the yowl of punctured alarms kept him back. The sounds weakened him physically, the noise making his muscles go loose. When he tuned out, the unnatural silence spooked him.

In front of Coldharbor was a lighted park — a plaza of dense yew hedges and bare trees. Beyond it, the street led downtown. There was a station of the Tram Rail and the coaches flying along it. He could get in and go. He could take the subway. There were taxis. But he did not move: that stone in his shoe was making him afraid.

He buzzed Hooper. "I'm out — prowling around," he was going to say.

Hooper did not respond.

Fisher sensed that the city noise was hammering him small. He wondered now where he had ever got the courage to go out before, and he felt a retrospective fear — anxiety at what he had done a week: ago, alone.

He tried Hooper's number again. "How about prowling together?" he practiced saying.

But Hooper was off the air.

12

We're going hot at oh-four-hundred. Want to watch a video while we wait for Murdick and the others? Hey, mister, I'm talking to you."

The big man with the cartridge belt over his shoulder was talking to Hooper by helmet phone, though the two men were only a meter apart in the new-model assault rotor. Hooper thought of it as a gunship; the man called it a "Whoopee." The man's helmet and mask had the Godseye insignia of a sunburst, and the local unit's name—"Snake-Eaters."

His name was Meesle. He was tall, with a full gut and narrow shoulders. Hooper could see that he was proud of his big belly — the way he clapped his hands on it and measured it with satisfaction and seemed to steer himself forward with it. He was not fat overall but he was an assertive shape. He had met Hooper just after midnight and led him blindfolded to this spot. All the while Hooper was thinking: I'm a wealthy man and I let them blindfold me!

Now the blindfold was off, but the rotor's windows were dark. This gunship, Hooper guessed from its size, was probably parked on a tower top way uptown. He could hear the air traffic clearly here.

"This video," Hooper said, "is it something special?"

He suspected that it was a porno disc, for passing the time — or possibly a violent murder. It had always been whispered that some of these squads made tapes of their executions; and now Hooper knew how. He's going to show me a burn, Hooper thought. That's how they get into the mood, all these trigger-happy executives and Owners, these millionaire vigilantes. Yet there was something rather vulgar and scruffy about Mr. Meesle, who probably had a title like Colonel or Commander.

Hooper had come here out of curiosity, but already he regretted it. He was afraid it would all be too much for him, and what was the point? Why had he browbeaten and blackmailed Murdick into getting him a candidate's pass? Because Godseye was only a name, because he knew so little about them. But now that he was here he suspected why he had so far always stayed away from this bunch.

"We had this flick made for us," Meesle said. There was a wink in his voice that Hooper hated. "Special."

That made it sound as if it might be worse than murder.

"What do you think's keeping Murdick?" Hooper said.

He was stalling. He did not want to watch a videotape with this man Meesle. It was too cozy, the pair of them side by side in the parked gunship. Hooper did not want to be near enough to be nudged by this eager man. His distrust of the man had become resentment, and he was angry with Murdick. After that invitation, now he had the nerve to be late! Perhaps that was the little creep's way of getting even.

"That might be him," Meesle said.

Careful, rung-creaking feet rose up the metal ladder that led to the belly of the gunship.

"Murdick."

But the door opened and it was Sluter — so his name badge said — the pilot. He was a slow, suspicious man with sniper's eyes, who in a deliberate way said nothing to Hooper, and when Hooper smiled Sluter stared at his mouth — at the space between his front teeth.

To Meesle, Sluter said, "There's some artillery shells on the pier. Who left them there?"

"That would be Cleary, from Ammo."

"It's no place to leave them."

"Not much we can do about it."

Sluter said, "There's a lot we can do to Cleary."

He was speaking to Meesle but staring crookedly at Hooper.

"We can burn his car and kill his dog."

It came out quickly in a monotone. Hooper thought: He's crazy, he's dangerous.

Sluter's jaws had bony hinges protruding from the back of his cheeks, and his teeth were clamped together. Hooper wondered whether this sense of danger was merely an expression of his own resentment and unfamiliarity here — a first-time feeling, and something cruel in the man's face.

Meesle said, "I'll get him to winch them aboard."

"Artillery shells?" Hooper asked Sluter, and at once he knew the man was antagonized by questions.

Sluter turned his back to them and stuck his elbows out. He was nodding — probably angry; he seemed to be counting.

"Simulated artillery shells," Meesle said. "Noisemakers." He spoke in a friendly way, using his big hands for emphasis. "They startle and disable. We've got real ones, too, but we don't normally use them inside the city limits."

It was after three o'clock in the morning, and even Meesle's friendly voice seemed harsh; time was slow-moving, and the lights too bright. Hooper felt inattentive and fragile because of the hour. He hated missing sleep, not because it made him tired but because he became stupidly wakeful— extreme fatigue gave him insomnia. He was risking that just to have a look at Godseye!

Abruptly, breaking the silence, Sluter said, "We might have a surprise inspection tonight. They'd want to see everyone's pass."

Hooper understood what he was driving at. Who is this stranger? Sluter was thinking. Doesn't he know this is a secret organization? What right does an outsider have to be here on a hunt? And is he really an Owner? Hooper had always believed the typical Godseye trooper to be someone like Sluter — a man whose feverish suspicions misled him and kept him from knowing anyone well.

"You're responsible, Meesle."

"I've got a pass," Hooper said. "It's signed by Murdick."

"Murdick says he's a snake-eater."

"I've seen some of Murdick's snake-eaters," Sluter said.

"Listen, this is the guy who was with him in O-Zone when Murdick wasted those aliens."

It seemed to Hooper just as well that Murdick had told them the lie, because he did not trust himself at this moment to sound convincing on Murdick's behalf.

"He saw Murdick burn them all down!"

Sluter did not hear any of this — chose not to hear it. He had walked over to a porthole and cranked it open.

"Those artillery shells are still sitting out there," he said.

Meesle didn't react. Hooper now admired the way Meesle could be both friendly and stubborn.

"Well, it so happens that we're planning to watch a video. You're welcome to join us, Skipper. We'd love to have you. And after that we can worry about the artillery shells."

He placed his hands on his belly and spread his fingers to contain it in a good grip.. He seemed very contented that way, holding himself like a man dangling in deep water with a flotation device.

But Sluter was gone. He had the sulky person's way of suddenly disappearing — eclipsed by his own shadow and muttering as it happened, the mutters becoming part of the incoherent background, like another eclipse, the sound equivalent of shadow. There was something about his bad temper that made him seem insubstantial: he easily vanished. Meesle did not mind. He looked happy in the fishbowl front of his black helmet. He pressed a switch on the video machine and lit the screen. He said, "Are we nice and comfortable?"

"Let's get this over with," Hooper said, rotating his chair toward the screen.

The word "INTRUDER" solidified on the screen, and then melted into the shape of an actual man entering a darkened house through a window. Finding his way with a flashlight, he opened a desk and removed a small tray of rings, and then rifled some drawers for papers, and moved quickly through a room, snatching small pretty figures of glass and silver from shelves and pocketing them.

Then the lights went on: the burglar looked up and saw that he had been surprised by the home-owner, who was smiling and holding a gun on him. He threw the burglar a pair of handcuffs and ordered him to put them on, and then brought him into the cellar of this luxurious house. The burglar had a tough, vicious face which, in close-up, had the fixed expression and mute darting eyes of an animal. But then the face reacted, fear slid across it, and the camera drew back to show that the interrupted burglar had been brought to a torture chamber— whips, straps, chains, prods, a bondage chair, and more. "That's enough," Hooper said, and turned away. "It just started!"

"I'm not interested in pornography."

"He doesn't kill him. He just tortures him."

"That's what I mean."

"The burglar asked for it! He was robbing the guy's house." Meesle looked hurt. "Afterward, the guy goes to the burglar's house and burns it down. This isn't porno. This is about justice."

"Forget it."

"Hold it," Meesle said. "I've got another one."

This one, called Alienation, could not have been simpler, and yet Hooper's bafflement kept him from protesting.

A young man appeared on the screen. His handsome face and strong upper body were shown — he was barechested. Behind his head the sun was breaking through a cloud. The young man was not smiling, but neither did he look solemn. He was serious and self-possessed. He said, "I am an American," and stared.

"I am an American," said the next person, a woman— head and shoulders, her fresh face shining. She had white even teeth, full lips, soft hair, and if it were not for her eyes she might have been taken for the sister of the young man just shown — there was certainly a family resemblance. But this woman's eyes were the hard gray-blue of knife metal and had the same warning glint.

An older man, just as healthy and dignified, followed the woman. His hair was pure white, and his face lined, but his voice was steady, with a hint of defiance in it.

"I am an American."

Hooper wanted to laugh, it was so naive. And Meesle perhaps sensed his restlessness, because he said, "Wait, you're going to love this."

Another face appeared. It was an abrupt shift, the face bumping into view. This man was swarthy and had rumpled hair — a piece of string in the hair — and a torn shirt. When he opened his lips to speak there was a great square gap, and his whitened tongue twitching in this toothless hole.

"I ain Nerican," he said, moving his furtive eyes sideways, like a thief.

"I in Mokin," the next one said. His face was black and swollen, pustules on his forehead, his hair a mop of little medallions of filth. He was almost certainly a city Skell.

"I aim Mocking!" an old woman shrieked. She had a ruined face and was balding. White scars showed like chalkmarks on her scalp.

"Arm Marrycan," muttered a grizzled man with wild eyes. He had the dirty outdoor look of a Troll, and greasy cheeks, and plugs of snot in his nostrils.

Hooper was startled by the ugly faces, and there was something objectionable — harsh and mocking — in their voices, each creature saying in broken English that he was an American.

"Argh Maakin!" This man's pulpy nose was split open, and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Me!" cried another sweaty head. "Me Marican!"

"Meiguoren!" a Chinese man howled, showing tooth stumps, and then his head was displaced by another howler, a gleaming monkey-face with slobbery lips and pendulous ear-lobes. "Mollikan!"

The faces were hideous, animal, lunatic, foreign — alien. They grunted. They were scarcely human, and they were not speaking English; but that did not matter, because Hooper knew they were illegals and that in their shouts and barks they were claiming to be Americans. There were more. Hooper was fascinated by their ugliness. They had wild eyes and broken teeth. They were furious. They looked extremely dangerous.

The faces became fiercer. They were stupid with rage— defiant and demented. One mouth had long canines, the dogteeth of a baboon. And then they became wholly unintelligible and simply gibbered — but Hooper knew they were saying, "I am an American."

There were gunshots, and these loud blasts made the faces disappear. There was no blood. This happened twenty times, beginning with the last faces: the gibbering ones — bang! Dog-teeth — bang? "Mollikan" — bang!

And, in spite of himself, Hooper felt lighter and breathed better as each figure was blasted away. He relaxed, settling into his chair, waiting for all this to end. He was relieved that it was not porn, not torture, not murder, really; he was not sure what it was. It seemed to him a kind of comedy — the grotesque faces, the absurd ways of saying "I am an American," and the bangs were no worse than custard pies.

In the last sequences, the three healthy people from the beginning reappeared — first their faces, and then "I am an American," and finally a wide shot showing that they were wearing uniforms with the Godseye insignia and carrying blunt black weapons. That was the end.

"Didn't I tell you it was kind of cute?" Meesle seemed pleased in a wistful way. "How about another one?"

Hooper said no, but softly and suppressing a half-smile, because in a small way that video Alienation had worked on him. He had found those faces horrible. Insisting they were Americans! What made him somewhat objective was that all the faces annoyed him, even the three Godseye troopers that he was supposed to admire.

And he also said no because it was like pornography — he was disgusted and aroused at the same time. He could not honestly say that he hated the video. But he hated himself for feeling ashamed and fascinated.

He guessed that Meesle saw him weakening. The peak of Meesle's helmet was wagging at him.

Meesle said, "I know you want to watch another one. You're just not sure whether it's good for you."

Hooper did not want to incriminate himself by denying a thing he saw some truth in.

"You like it," Meesle said, leering at Hooper through his mask. "Or else you wouldn't be here."

Exaggeration was better — that was easier to deny. But Hooper had forgotten why he had come — something to do with the other tape, the particle beam, his surprise when the skinny-faced little man in the shiny helmet and new boots had become very nervous and confidential and said, "I'm in Godseye." Murdick, of all people!

"Just curious," Hooper said, and thought: No wonder I'm disgusted.

Meesle was still good-natured, still trying to entertain him.

"Some of you first-time guys are great," he said. "Sluter thinks you're all security risks and you're all going to give us clams. But I'm for opening up more and getting fresh blood. A lot of what we do is just routine. Even the Snake-Eaters sometimes forget about the real objectives. We need new people." He peered at Hooper from the gleaming faceplate. "Really angry people."

Yet Hooper was surprised by Meesle's cheery tone. It had always been Hooper's impression that men in squads like Godseye were very angry. In other respects they were totally anonymous and secretive. Upside-down, over forbidden O-Zone, the terrified Murdick had revealed his secret.

"We had a guy on board a couple of months ago. He was a first-timer."

Meesle smiled and savored the moment. He was full of the story he was about to tell.

"Sluter wanted to kick him off the ship. 'He's a clam. He's a dick.' That kind of thing. But I insisted we give him a chance. He didn't say a word the whole time. He was an older man — mid-sixties or so."

Spreading his fingers on the ground-screen, Meesle said, "Pretty soon we had a Skell cornered down at the Battery. He'd run behind a building and had sort of squeezed himself into a doorway. Some of those monkeys can get into cracks. We couldn't use gas on him because of the location. I was for popping his eardrums — blasting his head open with some noise. Hum some stunners at him. But before I could load them, this old guy — who we've never seen before, meek as a lamb — he says, 'Put me on the ground.'

"'Put him on the ground,' Sluter says, only too happy for him to draw the Skell out, so we can burn him down.

"But no. This first-timer rushes forward and tears the Skell out of the doorway with his hands. It's not a Skell — it's a Roach. He doesn't know the difference! He begins bashing him on the head with an iron pipe. There's blood everywhere — the Roach's head is smashed into a bag. Hey, this was getting strange! We had to pull him off. It wasn't that he killed the guy, which he did, by the way — no, it's all that anger coming out. I hadn't seen blood for years. With these new weapons you never get that kind of open wound. I never expected a Roach to have that much blood. The wet mess! The raw meat! I had forgotten that you could kill someone with an old iron pipe. But he had more than an iron pipe."

Meesle had stopped tracing out the murder on the ground-screen with his fingertips.

"That's why we need you guys," he said, raising his eyes to Hooper. "We need your anger."

Hooper said, "I wonder what happened to make that man so angry,"

"I asked him. Screaming Skells. Years ago, he was trapped by some in New Jersey — Screamers. They cornered him and just howled at him. Then they took his car. You never forget a thing like that. The thing about aliens—"

But Meesle stopped in the middle of the sentence: the outside hatchway had opened, the rubber seal making a plump satisfying punch as it shut a moment later.

It was Mur'dick, feetfirst, his new boots and short legs and fat knees descending the ladder into the body of the aircraft. Then his bubble-head showed — another helmet! This one was blue-black, with antenna plugs, a chin mike, and a faceplate that looked to be an inch thick — perhaps a combat model. It made Murdick's white face seem trapped in a fish-eye monitor.

"The thing about aliens," Murdick said, finishing Meesle's sentence and pinching his face at Hooper, "is that they're responsible for everything in this city that's inconvenient. Forget their crimes, forget that they're illegal. I was just stopped three times on my way here — that's why I'm late. Two checkpoints and one Federal patrol. What am I doing out at three o'clock in the morning? Where am I going? I'm an Owner! Sure, they were apologetic after they saw my ID, but do you think we'd have to put up with this if there were no aliens?"

In addition to the helmet, which Hooper now saw was onion-shaped, Murdick was wearing a green padded jacket and gauntletlike gloves and yellow knee boots. He was obviously bullet-proof and completely wired, and though he was only two meters away from Hooper he had spoken over his phones, probably unaware that the phones made him sound like a cricket.

"The fact that there are aliens around means that we're under suspicion," Murdick said. "Owners!"

When he said "Owners" he lifted his arms and Hooper saw that in his right hand he held a weapon. It was riflelike, but obviously very light — Murdick easily swung it in one hand. It had a short barrel but was not bored, and its shape was that of a slender lamp rather than a gun. Yet more of Murdick's paraphernalia, another fancy weapon.

"It's not fair," Meesle said. "We're not fanatics. We've got a right to be out anytime of the day — anywhere we like. We shouldn't have to carry IDs. This would be a freer society without them."

Hooper had heard the issue of aliens discussed many times before — there were few other issues that roused such passion. But he was struck by Meesle's tone: it was reasonable and just a touch annoyed. There was nothing obviously brutish about it; and even Murdick's argument seemed to have merit. It was true that the aliens and illegals were the reason for the endless barriers and security checks.

"In a way, it's not their fault," Meesle went on, smiling softly and adjusting his helmet. He shook the helmet and something inside rattled; it was such a beautifully made helmet Hooper imagined that the odd rattling sound came from inside Meesle's own head. "They're foreign. They don't understand our society. They don't know American rules. A lot of people will tell you, 'They're animals.' But they're not animals. Unfortunately. Their big problem is that they're human. Their curse is that they somewhat resemble us. And because they can never fit in, they'll always be predatory. They can only do harm, to us and themselves."

There was patience in Meesle's voice, and a mildness that Hooper found maddening.

Then Murdick said in a quietly amused way, "Some of them don't even wear clothes."

And seeing nothing on Hooper's face — no anger, no agreement, no objection, because he was suppressing everything— he turned to Meesle and said, "He doesn't believe me!"

Hooper said, much too loudly — it all came out at once—"I saw a naked woman two weeks ago at the Midtown Mall!"

"An Owner," Murdick said. "She was naked!"

"A naked Owner has clothes at home," Meesle said. "A naked alien doesn't have any at all — not a stitch. That's why they get burned."

"Right," Hooper said, still fuming. "And that's just the way they talk about you. Godseye is a secret organization that burns people for throwing paper in the street." Murdick said, "He called them people." But Meesle didn't quibble.

"We sometimes do," Meesle said. "We have to. Your paper-thrower is your rapist."

"And vice versa," Murdick said, his voice chirping out of his helmet. "The same ones commit all the crime."

Meesle sighed and seemed to relax, and he gazed at Hooper in a comfortable upturned way through the faceplate of his mask.

"That's a very important point to remember, Mr. Allbright," he said. "At the simplest level it is throwing paper in the street. At the highest level it is killing or raping, or stealing something valuable. But you see we are dealing with the same offender. Your alien is not a person with clean habits. Your rapist or your thief is also someone who will throw paper, just as your murderer or your mugger is also someone who will commit petty crimes — spitting, shouting, defacing property."

"So if you arrest people for spitting, and maybe kill them, you've solved the problem?"

"You don't have to take my word for it, Mr, Allbright," Meesle said, seeming to agree with him. "There have been scientific studies, carried out by teams of experts. We have documentation. In some places, your spitters were actually apprehended and burned — and your crime rate went down. Or your noisemakers were apprehended and burned — and your crime rate went down."

"The crime rate should have gone up," Hooper said, "because isn't burning people a crime?"

Meesle looked pained at Hooper's ignorance. "But we don't always burn them," he said. "And we never call them people."

Murdick went cheep-cheep on his phones, trying to protest and put Hooper straight. "Polygamists, professional beggars, stowaways, lepers," he was saying. But Meesle interrupted softly.

"We pick Skelly up and we put Skelly down."

Hooper said, "Aren't you curious to know why aliens commit these crimes?"

"Skelly doesn't actually have a choice in the matter," Meesle said, raising a debating finger at Hooper. "A cat that kills a bird is merely following his nature. You either accept a cat's nature as a bird killer, or else you eliminate all cats. That's why we're against putting Skelly on trial. He won't have any defense — it's not fair to him. Skelly is acting instinctively. He can't help himself. It's his nature. See, Skelly is not really committing a crime — Skelly is a crime. A walking, breathing, living crime. And of course we're also talking about your career criminal, who sees himself as doing a job. We want to put him out of work."

After saying this — still in his friendly reasonable tone— Meesle went to the microphone at the console and tapped it and said, "Load the shells, Cleary." Then he returned to where Hooper still stood, trying to find logic in the cat analogy.

Hooper said, "You didn't answer my question."

"Mr. Allbright," Meesle said, "an alien, or a cat, or anyone, commits a crime for one reason only — because he thinks he can get away with it."

Meesle and Murdick smiled in pity at Hooper, the simple soul who had to be told that.

"And most of them are feebs," Murdick said. He then chirped at Meesle, "Who's on board?"

"Sluter's forward," Meesle said. "Flatty ought to be here any minute. We're going hot at oh-four-hundred."

Murdick said, "Flatty's the navigator. He's a damned sight better than your nephew, wonder boy. Flatty knows all the best locations. He's found us some great specimens."

There were four sudden thumps. The gunship pitched each time. Hooper looked around in alarm. "That's just Cleary, loading shells." The man named Flatty arrived soon after. He explained that he too had been detained at several checkpoints, and like Murdick he was not angry with the guards, but rather with the aliens who made the checkpoints necessary. He was somewhat undersized even by what Hooper had taken to be Godseye standards, and in his heavy uniform — big helmet, big boots — he had a funny little strut, like a self-important cripple, as he made his way through the gunship. He was fluent and easygoing and good-humored in ways that reminded Hooper of liars he had known.

"Hooper Allbright," Flatty said, "Any relation to Allbright, that billionaire with the cable catalog?"

"I was going to ask him that," Meesle said.

"I used to be him," Hooper said.

"Very funny," Flatty said. "But that's good, because everyone's treated equal here."

"Flatty's pretty famous, too — for some roundups he made in Florida a few years ago."

"When you lose sovereignty over your borders, you're finished," the little man said. "That's why the world's jiggered. We can't let that happen in America."

The trouble with these particular fanatics was that one or two of the things they said made sense, and it was their rare flashes of rational thought rather than their usual craziness that worried Hooper. He was facing little Flatty, thinking of what Murdick had said about roundups.

"I remember those raids," Hooper said. "You loaded transport planes with people — with aliens — and dumped them in Africa."

"Or on the way," Flatty said.

"There's nothing on the way."

"The Atlantic."

"You dropped them in the ocean?"

"Very gently."

"I never thought of that."

But now that he had been told, he saw them spilling out of planes, tumbling through the air into the open sea and sinking.

Flatty said, "It's better than dumping them in Prohibited Areas. That's what some units used to do, years ago."

"You mean, tossing aliens into places like O-Zone?"

"Sure. So they could catch cold," Flatty said. "But you know all about that, don't you? You and Willis burned a couple, didn't you?"

"Murdick did," Hooper said.

And Murdick, who had been irritable from the moment he boarded, smiled and looked very pleased.

"What's O-Zone really like?" Meesle asked in the tones of someone speaking of a fabled land.

"Incredible," Murdick said. "Dangerous. Full of ghost towns and contamination. Oh, sure, we're talking high-level mutagens. You're looking at an animal population that's maybe fifty percent droolies and limpers, and a high proportion of outright deformos. I'm not counting extra toes and cleft palates. I'm talking heavy mutation, I'm talking monsters."

Meesle and Flatty had turned from Murdick to stare at Hooper in scrutiny, because only he could verify what Murdick was saying. O-Zone was well-known as a wilderness, but was this true?

"O-Zone is an island," Hooper said. He was going to say more, but checked himself: that seemed to explain everything.

Sluter's voice came over the intercom. It was sharp, snappy and commanding — all business.

"This mission is code-named 'Streetsweeper.' Strap yourselves in for takeoff. And mask the passenger until we clear the tower. We're going hot in zero minus sixty."

The others began counting, chanting the numbers.

Murdick blindfolded Hooper with what looked like a hangman's hood, and as the gunship surged and tipped, his voice chirped at Hooper's ear.

"We're cooking ass," he said.

13

So far, the Godseye unit had made Hooper feel like an outsider himself — him an alien! The troopers' crass antagonizing opinions made him defensive, and he was fearful of making hostile jokes, afraid they would turn on him and say, "You too!" He hated their seriousness, he was insulted by their bad logic.

Murder is always easy, murder is for bunglers, Hooper murmured in the darkness behind his blindfold. When he put it into words it sounded true. These murderers did not want him to know the location of their rotor pad. As if it mattered. And all the rest of it, the talk about anger and aliens, the videotapes, the whispers, the insignia, the expensive weapons, the jargon, the silences, the silly helmets — it all reminded Hooper that he had no business there. It was not just that Godseye hunted aliens; it was rather that Godseye was suspicious of anyone who was not in Godseye. These so-called troopers were suspicious of him!

"Murdick, where the hell are you?"

"Up front here," Murdick said; and nervously, "We'll take your blindfold off as soon as we clear these buildings."

The man was uneasy now with the secret of his incompetence in O-Zone. It was hard enough for him to conceal his cowardice, but so much harder to pretend to be brave. He badly needed Hooper.

Hooper said, "I'm an Owner!"

This rattled Murdick, who had no idea why Hooper was protesting. If they know so little about me, Hooper thought, what can they possibly know about aliens?

"We're going to work a few areas in Lower East," Flatty said.

The croaky voice helped Hooper remember what the little man had said about dumping aliens into the ocean: It's better than dumping them in Prohibited Areas. That's what some units used to do, years ago.

They had populated O-Zone! A self-important unit of Godseye troopers had abducted some pathetic aliens. Instead of killing them quickly, they threw them into O-Zone and wished on them a slow death — cancer and skin diseases and softened bones from the contamination, the whole colony turned into a colony of lepers and zombies. Godseye, with its loathing for litterers, tossed aliens into America's only real wilderness.

This revelation had two effects on Hooper. It made him loathe Godseye — the Snake-Eaters, as this unit was called; he hated their ignorance and their presumption as much as he feared their casual murders and their hypocrisy. But it also intensified his feelings for those others — the victims, the aliens he had seen in O-Zone. Somehow, these people had survived. And they had looked healthy enough, racing through the woods.

Every time the Snake-Eaters had used the word "alien," he had a flash of that running girl he had isolated on the tape. And when Meesle had said, "We don't call them people," he had seen her very clearly — pale eyes and straight sundrenched hair and brown legs — hopping over a log, her dancer's way of jumping and pausing. Women were to him first physical and animal: she was that, fleeing, and it excited Hooper to see her running away.

Hooper's blindfold was taken off, and two different faceplates gloated at him in the gunship — Meesle and Murdick in new helmets, a skull and a demon face. Murdick was the demon, because he was talking to Hooper breathlessly about his new weapon — a stunner — and his chirping was the giveaway. It was the tiny voice of a violent sparrow.

But skull and demon faces? They were probably intended to scare aliens, yet they were like Halloween masks — oversized and ridiculous. And their voices were eager and definitely birdlike and boyish.

"You can usually get some real good action there," Meesle said as the gunship nosed slantwise down among the towers on the lower east side. It was at the margin of the city's skylights, where they splashed on the river.

With their gloves on the ground-screen, the masked men twitched and looked alert — the Skull and the Demon, potbelly and sparrow-chirp; party masks and real weapons. Sometimes Hooper had thought how his Allbright Cable Sales catalog accurately represented America, everything in it, and that in the future this civilization could be understood from that catalog alone. He had believed it to be real and truthful, and to contain everything that mattered. Now he knew he was wrong, for there was no hint in it of these men or their equipment. Their suits did not look like suits, nor their weapons like weapons.

What am I doing here? Hooper wondered. There was darkness in the sky ahead. He thought: She's lost. And then, remembering how far away he was from her: I'm lost,

He simply wanted that girl. He was proud of his desire, but he was also afraid she might vanish. He was impatient now to go back to her. In this gunship of hunter-troopers he felt like a betrayer. It was not only guilt that worried him, but also a prickly sense that this hunting mission was unlucky and maybe risky. He knew that desire made him solitary and singleminded, but he had never been able to explain his impulses to anyone.

The lighted grid on the ground-screen showed them to be hovering just above Lower East.

"We're going to drop down and get some lights on," Ratty said, speaking from the cockpit.

Sluter groaned over the intercom about visibility, while Flatty gave altitudes — meters from the ground.

"We've had reports of some sightings around here," Flatty said.

Hooper had put on a pair of headphones. "I don't get it," he said, "The city's secure. The bridges are safe. The whole perimeter's sealed. And even the perimeter in Brooklyn is patrolled. All the trouble spots are contained, so how—"

"There's plenty of leaks!" Meesle said.

His old sober voice had changed and become gleeful. The patient pompous man had become jaunty at the prospect of catching aliens within the New York perimeter. Plenty of leaks — he sounded delighted.

Murdick said, "Oh, sure, there's got to be lots of them down there," and practice-aimed his elaborate stunner.

"There's too many irresponsible people in this city who encourage aliens to enter illegally, just so they can get some cheap labor. I'd shoot half the manual workers for a start, and I'd deport all those goons on temporary permits."

"You could round them up and dump them into O-Zone," Hooper said.

Murdick chirped at this — already he had forgotten his disgrace; and Meesle cried, "Sure thing!" Even with masks on, Meesle and Murdick were visibly happy. The masks made their pleasure look frivolous and silly. The men were bright-eyed, actively impatient, working their fingers on the ground-screen as they busily watched for a victim.

"Is that one?"

"No, it's a city cop on patrol. See his shield? It shows up on ultra-v. And there's his partner. The trouble is, they have to make arrests and do a lot of paperwork."

"What about you?" Hooper said.

"Generally speaking, we stick to the areas where shoot-on-sight rules apply."

"That's why we stay off the ground," Murdick said.

"I'll bet there's a Roach around the corner of that building," Meesle said. "We're on low power. This bird is quiet. A Roach around the corner couldn't hear us. We'll just swoop and take his head off as he's whistling—"

Meesle sounded very pleased as he scrutinized the ground-screen. He spoke hungrily and in a mocking way.

"We can see in the dark, you know."

"We'd probably catch more of them if we could smell in the dark," Flatty said from the cockpit. He was eavesdropping on this conversation,

"Skelly likes alleys and doorways. You never find Skelly on a wide road. Skelly loves tight places. Give him a crack and he's happy."

That other talk, all the theory about crime and career criminals and scientific studies and "We have documentation" — that was just guff. These facts were plainer. Meesle and Murdick were having the time of their lives, and they were very proud of their expensive weapons. The grouch, Sluter, actually adored flying the gunship and declaring, "Burn his car and kill his dog." Little Flatty's fun lay in navigating them into corners and seizing aliens and then flinging them out of cargo planes into the sea. This was a picnic for them.

Hooper imagined that all this was so. And then he had proof of it. In the narrow streets of Lower East a speck on the ground-screen was enlarged, and proved to be alive. It was warm-blooded, it moved; but it was very small.

"Make sure it's not a dog," Meesle said, and explained why to Hooper. "We made hamburger out of a guard dog the other week. We pinned him down and were ready to fire when we saw it was a mutt. 'Burn him anyway,' Murdick says — he's all excited, see. But it was a patrol dog, beautiful thing, got loose somehow, poor bastard. Murdick didn't care! If Sluter hadn't hoisted us out of there it would have cost us a few bucks. Hey, there was dogmeat everywhere."

"I had a spasm!" Murdick said, thrilled at the reminder of Burn him anyway. "I just wanted to wail away with my bazooka."

He moved his demon face near Hooper's.

"Flechettes," he said. "I hit him with two cluster bursts of exploding flechettes."

Hooper saw a flight of arrows, Murdick blasting the hound to shreds from the safety of the hovering gunship.

"It breaks my heart to see a good dog burn," Meesle said.

"He didn't have a leash," Murdick protested. "The shoot-on-sight rule applies."

"Watch the screen," Sluter said — there was a sob of enthusiasm in his voice. "See if that Skell has a leash."

Because the speck was not a dog. It was a human male in heavy clothes, and as soon as the gunship's lights were turned on him he began to run.

Then Hooper experienced something he had only seen secondhand on videos or on very big and very teasing projection screens — the wraparounds that could be so vivid.

He held on tightly as the Godseye gunship tumbled sideways toward the street. It pulled up sharply and went after the running man. Hooper had been in many different aircraft, but never in one that could make such sharp turns as it gave chase; never so close to the ground or so near the sides of towers; and never in this part Of New York at this hour. Now they were upside-down, and now flying backwards.

Hooper was secured by a body clamp, but still he felt the sharp jolts of the gunship as it changed direction. The others called out — the man on the ground was darting in and out of doorways; then into an alley. Sluter could have waited at the entrance — it was blind, there was no other way out — but instead he raced in and somersaulted against the blind wall, drenching the man in bright light and driving him out.

"Drop something on him!"

"See who it is first — zoom him."

"It's a Troll. He's ugly, he's got scabs. He looks black. Burn him."

"Stun him," Murdick said, holding his new weapon to a valve in the side of the gunsnip and aiming out. "Stiff him, save him. I can turn him into rubber. We can make an example of him."

Hooper said, "Take it easy, Willis."

"The mere fact that he's running gives us the right to burn him," Murdick said through his chirping amplifier.

They were trying but failing to pin him down; there were too many streets, and too narrow and enclosed.

But Meesle said, "This is the part I like best." He pressed his skull mask to the porthole. "Chasing them." His eyes were fixed on the running man, and there was a gentleness in them — a calm satisfaction and a certainty. "Watching them get tired." He seemed to be smiling within the skull. "Running them down."

"He's shooting at us," Murdick said. "The asshole's got a handgun. Bang-bang. He's going to tip over."

"I've got a profile on him," Flatty said. "We just scanned him. He's using an ordinary automatic, he's wearing a metal detector and a radio. We just monitored him calling his headquarters."

"What headquarters?" Murdick said.

"He's a security guard. He's legal."

"Aw shit," Murdick said, with feeling.

"Leave the bugger alone," Meesle said.

They were still tracking the man, but no longer so recklessly.

Hooper detected in their sympathy a certain kinship with security guards. He felt otherwise. When he realized that the man was a guard and not an alien, he hoped they would go on chasing him — not shoot but disable the man somehow and give him a taste of his own terror. Security guards were never Owners, and they seemed to take acute pleasure in giving Owners a hard time at checkpoints. Owners were absurdly tolerant with them and often even grateful, as if these big slow fools made the whole world safe.

"Don't burn him if he's a guard," Meesle said.

"Why not burn him for being a guard?" Hooper said.

"That would be a clam," Meesle said, and turned his skull face to the ground-screen.

Hooper had heard the word before. "What's a clam?"

"A mistake," Murdick said. "One you can't correct. Like someone you can't bring back from the dead."

But the incident had shown Hooper an important aspect of the hunt: a person chased by a gunship — no matter who— behaved like an alien: panicked, ran, shot back if he had a weapon, and tried to hide. And really, from this height, in a racing gunship, everyone below looked puny and furtive, like an alien.

There was more movement on the ground-screen — another man. Using lights and howlers, the Godseye troopers quickly pinned htm down. He crouched against a tower, and though his face was averted and his hands were over his ears, they knew they could hold him there as long as they wished, blinded and deafened, until they scanned him.

"I hate the ones that don't run," Meesle said. "He's got no fight in him. He's a stiff."

"If he makes a break for it, let's stun him," Murdick said, poking his weapon into the valve and aiming down.

"He's not going to make a break for it," Meesle said. "He's just sitting there, forcing us to do all the work."

Meesle sounded disgusted with the cowering man.

"I hope he's an African or a Hindu or something in Category F," Meesle said. "We won't need clearance. We can fry him in his own fat."

Murdick's unwavering weapon was pointed at the man below.

"They all have diseases."

"He's not carrying any metal," Flatty said, and then cutting down the howler and using a microphone, he demanded that the man produce his ID, so that it could be scanned and validated.

"I'm praying the monkey doesn't have one," Meesle said.

But the man fumbled in his jacket, and wincing at the skull and demon pressed against the portholes of the shuddering gunship, he held up his ID.

Sluter shone a beam on the disc and said, "We're getting a readout. He's local. Works here," and then called over the microphone, "Look up!"

The man turned his naked white face toward the gunship. His eyes were slits and his mouth was puckered in terror. It was as if he were facing a firing squad.

Sluter said, "We are looking at Vernon Morrisett, thirty-nine, a file clerk. He lives in a tower on Thirteenth and B. No offenses."

"I wouldn't live down here," Meesle said. "It's all legal Orientals and approved blacks."

Hooper looked at the frightened face of the crouching man. His clothes were blown by the rotor of the chattering engines. He moved on his hands and knees to keep his balance, and his face was full of the bewildered fear of a man having a nightmare.

"He's never going to be the same again," Murdick said. "The very least he's got is burst eardrums."

"So what? He's not an Owner," Meesle said. "Anyway, he shouldn't be out so late."

They kept talking about the man, and they were so frustrated in not having killed him that after very few minutes they were reproaching themselves for their hesitation and were fully convinced that the man was an outlaw — a Roach or a Skell who had stolen an identity disc.

"Next time we won't be so kind."

Hooper in anticipation pitied anything now that moved on the ground-screen.

There came a shadow, no more than a sliver of darkness, and they gave chase — Murdick poised at the firing valve with his new weapon. But they lost the fleeing thing before they had gone one block.

"Just as well we didn't shoot," Murdick said. But it was insincere consolation — his fury at not shooting was still burning in his voice. "It might have been someone's pet — maybe an expensive attack dog. They don't wake up from these."

"What exactly is that thing, Willis?"

"This is a Wardley Sonic Stunner," Murdick said, chucking the weapon up and sighting with it, and then jerking it in his mitts. "It's made under contract in France. It delivers sonic shock."

Hooper hated the man's silly helmet. The demon faceplate, made of bulletproof high-gloss Velmar, had red flames painted on the eyebrows, and red pointed ears — the concealed phones. And Murdick's monotonous chirp the pitch of a busy signal came out of the grillwork behind the blood-spattered fangs. Murdick was thirty-seven years old!

Still chucking the weapon and gloating, Murdick said, "It directs ultrasonics at the target. It's antipersonnel, so you've got absolutely no peripheral damage. But it has a devastating effect on muscle fibers — makes them go all floppy. You know anything about the principle of sound-chains? It's not on the market yet, on account of some negative data."

"I love those Fizzy phrases," Hooper said.

"It dropped a few animals in some labs," Murdick explained. "Heart attacks. I mean, their hearts just arrested— plop. But see, that's the great thing. When it's calibrated right it just melts the target. I'm talking jelly-effect. No more muscles, and your target's hardly ventilating. It wears off in a day or so, with no aftereffects at all. I know what you're thinking — heart attacks. But they were very small lab animals."

Through his skull teeth, Meesle said, "Murdick and his magic irons. Ever see anyone so well-equipped?"

"You've got to have the right tools for the job," Murdick said. "I just wish," he went on, thrusting the sonic stunner once more through the firing valve, "I just wish we had something to use them on."

Hooper believed they were more dangerous in that frame of mind than in the mood of pretend-outrage he had seen earlier — their reasonable tone on the ground. After three chases there were no trophies, no prisoners; not one shot had been fired. Their impatience was worse than anger, because it gave them a false sense of urgency and made them careless. The gunship seemed to swim amid taunting shadows. The more frustrated Murdick became, the more he hugged his weapon, making adjustments.

"It's important to experiment," Murdick said, knocking his mask against the window.

The gunship still hummed and bumbled between the towers, shaking the passengers and yanking them against their clamps when it changed direction.

Then it climbed steeply, seeming to swallow air.

"Going up," Meesle said in the voice of an elevator operator. "Top floor. Skells, Trolls. Roaches, Outlaws. Pimps—"

He is curing me of being a fool, Hooper thought.

No joke was possible by a man wearing a death's-head mask. Everything he said in that faceplate made him seem either cruel or foolish.

"We've taken a risk-benefit decision," Sluter said over the intercom. "We're crossing into Brooklyn. There's always action in Redhook. Watch the ground-screen and stay on alert."

Murdick clutched his weapon and put his horror-helmet against the porthole of the banking rotor. Meesle stuck his face against the ground-screen.

"Let me know if you see anything," Murdick said. He was already in a firing posture — excited again.

"Don't you worry."

But they were both fearful too, Hooper thought. This could be dangerous, crossing into a no-go area of Brooklyn at four-thirty on a black winter morning, out of the range of skylights. They had dropped south in the course of their several chases. They now passed over two sealed and lighted bridges. Hooper recognized the Navy Yard in a pool of light, and then the gunship banked and brought them southeast over low dark rooftops. They spotted a figure on the ground, and as the gunship descended the figure moved, began to run.

"That one's definitely from out of town," Meesle said.

There was a kind of silly humor — never funny — that always was a part of violence, and Hooper regarded murderers now as terrible clowns.

"Bring us down," Murdick was saying. "Give me a clear shot and watch him melt." He turned his demon face on Hooper and said gloatingly, "Liquid!"

Meesle said, "Why not chase him a little bit?"

And they did, with teasing hesitation, letting the man get away, and then piling over him and turning on the howlers and driving him into a different direction.

"He looks guilty as heck," Meesle said of the stumbling man.

Hooper was touched by the murderous man using the word "heck."

The man on the ground seemed confused — cornered, panicky; and once again Hooper was reminded of how anyone chased by a gunship like this looked and behaved like an alien.

"Easy," Murdick said, taking aim.

"The way I look at it, that clam's dead already," Meesle said, and sounded disgusted. He was addressing Hooper, who had stayed in his safety clamp because of the gunship's jolting. "The ideal thing is to find a hot one. Home in on a crime. A swarm, say, or a mugging, or someone jogging home with loot in his hand. Then we go howling in and scorch him."

Hooper noticed for the first time that certain details on Meesle's skull mask were luminescent. These features glowed at him from above the ground-screen. This childishness made Meesle seem more dangerous.

"Sometimes we drop someone down as bait or a decoy. Some Roach we've had in the jug. Or one of those moldy guys they call worms, that turn up in the subway." Now the man's real eyes looked as hideous as the painted features on the mask, and they widened in the greeny glow of the sockets. "As soon as they wet their teeth on him, we scorch. That can be beautiful. With a woman or a couple of kids as bait it's" — and he paused, savoring the pleasure of it—"hey, you can make movies?"

"Watch," Murdick said.

"But winter in Brooklyn," Meesle said. "Perimeter Redhook. It's too cold. They don't run. It's just scabs like him—"

The man was cornered, averting his eyes from the lights.

"Listen to how quiet this beast is," Murdick said.

He was speaking of his weapon. There was no sound. There was no light. There was only the tock of the start button. The man simply collapsed on the ground and remained there, flopped over his twisted legs.

"Now he's pliable," Murdick said. "Now he's open to suggestions."

"And now you can pick him up and drop him in O-Zone," Hooper said, "so he can get nosebleeds and raise a family of Roaches."

"We don't do things like that," Meesle said. "We just run them out of here."

"Ever think maybe they belong here?" Hooper said, throwing his body clamp off and facing Meesle.

But all Meesle said was, "I never think that," and to Murdick, "Your friend's getting excited."

"It's crime prevention, Hooper."

Flatty's voice came from the wall: "We just did a scan on him. He's not carrying anything. What shall we do with him?"

"I don't want that garbage on board," Sluter said.

The gunship hovered in the uprush of steadying air.

"Burn him down," Meesle said.

"Don't!" Hooper said.

But Murdick had already fired. The crumpled man moved under a dart of light from another of Murdick's weapons; and then the corpse shimmered and seemed to rise, and went black. It was then only a smear of gray ashes.

"I used a flechette," Murdick said.

"I took his picture," Meesle said. "He was smiling."

The gunship had risen, they were spinning. Hooper moved away from the two men for relief, and he watched at the porthole, wishing he were elsewhere. Across the river, New York was bright and tall, lovely under its skylights, a narrow island of turrets and towers. There were glistening pinpoints of frost in the winter air, and the flashing blips of other rotors moving among the buildings. Here the streets were dark; only in the distance were there stripes of light — the corridors and access routes through ruined and unsecured areas. They were passing over these ruins now, staying low and keeping silent on reduced power, moving like a heavy insect toward Greenpoint.

At the ground-screen, Meesle said, "I've got a clear image of something upright."

"A woman," Murdick said, studying the image. He was excited. "Don't let her see us. She's just walking."

Hooper sensed the gunship lift and pause, but the figure on the ground-screen kept moving, still tracking slowly — a gray shadow crowded by darkness. What was she doing at this hour on a Brooklyn back street?

"It's like I said — ideal." Meesle was peering at the screen. "She's like bait. She's certain to attract an outlaw. She's probably a scab herself."

Hooper said, "From this altitude, doesn't everyone look like a scab?"

"That sounds hostile," Meesle said, and then he murmured, "Stay high and get a clear image of her."

They did so, and the shadow on the screen was replaced by a red point of light.

"Here comes Skelly. What did I tell you?"

Another pinprick on the screen moved toward the first one.

Murdick said, "Shuffle, shuffle."

Meesle said, "Let it happen."

The two glowing.points of light came together and made one red bud.

"We're dropping," Sluter called from the cockpit.

But before he had finished speaking they had dropped the whole distance, an accelerated fall that was checked just above the couple on the street. Murdick was at the firing valve, fussing with the lighted numbers on his sonic stunner, bumping his gloves and saying, "Aw, rats."

"I think it's a rape — she's fighting back."

"Throw something at him!"

Murdick raised his weapon and took aim. This time there was a sound that accompanied that of the start button — of liquid sluiced down a plughole, the suck of rapid water and air — and both figures dropped flat.

"You got the two of them, T-Bone."

"It wasn't me!" Murdick said, and smacked his weapon in disgust. "It's a design fault." He looked again at the victims. "They were too close together."

The bodies lay on the ground, arms and legs all the wrong way, and their hands looking very small and helpless. The gunship's spotlight was so strong it took the color from them,

"Someone's got to go down there," Sluter announced. "They might be carrying IDs."

He was brisk, he was at the controls, he would not have to go down himself.

They feared the ground — especially here, especially at this time of night, in winter-dark Brooklyn. But the ground, anywhere, always held the prospect of danger. Hooper believed that it was partly superstition, because they lived in high towers and usually traveled in rotors. Now no one spoke up. There was no movement in the gunship. Rushing air in the stabilizers was the only sound — that, and the gulp of the rotors. Even the expressions on the horror-helmets seemed peculiarly blank — the dumb things gaping at Hooper. There was silence from the loudspeaker, too, so Sluter and Flatty were holding their breath.

The bodies were wrapped in ragged clothes, and under the bright light of the gunship they lay like a burst bag. Hooper said, "I'll go."

"On the ground," Murdick said, as if thinking out loud at the audacity of it.

"I've been there before."

They set him down gladly, and encouraged him, saying they would burn anyone who came near him. They sounded violent: they probably meant it. Their dread of being exposed on the ground had made them murderous. "Snake-Eaters" said it all. It made Hooper feel superior to them — braver, smarter, more sensible; and he was pleased because they must have known this, and there was nothing they could do except take the same risk themselves. They didn't dare. Snake-Eaters!

He took his time looking over the figures. In spite of the thickness of the rags they were poorly clothed for the weather. Had this been an attempted rape? It was impossible to say. It was an abduction, there was no doubt of that — the commonest crime these days: stealing people, for any one of a thousand reasons. Hooper dug the woman's face out and uncovered it. She was ruined-looking but young, possibly an addict. She was no Skell. He found proof — an identity disc.

The man was frowning and very pale, with the sudden cut-down look of a dead animal, wearing a surprised expression of useless effort in his frown. His eyes were open and empty.

The young woman had suffered pain, the lower edge of her face was twisted aside, and Hooper saw that it was this agony that made her seem old. From her date of birth on her ID Hooper calculated that she had just turned sixteen.

"They're both dead," Hooper said into his mike.

"Get aboard," Sluter said, "or we'll leave without you."

But Hooper still took his time, mocking them by being slow, reproaching them with their own cowardice. They were afraid of the ground!

"He thinks he's a meat inspector," Meesle said.

Smiling up at the spotlight, Hooper palmed the ID; and then he signaled for them to open the hatch.

"She must have had a bad heart," Murdick said. His voice was screechy and defensive. "I blasted the guy, but some of the shocks must have brushed her as I swept it sideways. It's supposed to have a narrow focus."

"Two more clams," Meesle said. "Which reminds me. What about their IDs, Mr. Allbright?"

"No IDs," Hooper said.

"Then they're not clams," Murdick said, "They're Roaches. See? It didn't matter!"

But he was pacing the belly of the gunship, looking for a place to stow his weapon.

"It's got to be a design fault," he said. He seemed disgusted with the weapon, and held it lightly, as though he wanted to get rid of it. "Or maybe I had it turned too high. You should see the circuitry."

"Give me that thing," Hooper said, and snatched it.

"This mission is complete," Sluter was saying over the intercom — and the gunship was rising again. "We are proceeding back to base, to go cold. Blindfold and secure the passenger."

14

The sleep chamber inside Hooper's unit in Coldharbor was dark and soundproof. He gave himself a "kind" injection and stayed in his sleep capsule for the next twenty hours, kept all his windows blacked, re-routed his messages — Allbright business. In spite of the injection, an equalizer, he dreamed badly of the Godseye hunt. The drug perhaps worsened the effects, by making his terror into clownishness. He had always been frightened of clowns, and dolls, and most masks. Now he saw terrible masks. He heard wounded notes played on a stringed instrument. The last stage of the dream was all struggle — thick gloves, and slow legs, and clumsy shoes. When the four clowns glared at his guilt — they knew what he was thinking — he tried to laugh. It made an awful sound. Even he hated it, and at last he woke himself with this hideous laughter.

Awake, he could endure that fear, but the experience of it aroused his pity for Fizzy. In his garden, a glassed-in room tall enough for a grove of full-grown bamboos and wide enough for a lily pond and a fountain, Hooper felt stronger. He strolled; he marveled that his fear was gone; but he kept seeing Fizzy's face.

"Poor Fizzy."

The panic Hooper had felt on the mission had given him a taste of what the boy's life was like. Everything was a threat! For example, one day, working at Pap — the name he had given his computer mainframe — a little crust of snot had dropped out of Fizzy's nose. Seeing it fall on a pressure key, Fizzy had squawked at it. He stood up in fright, rising on his tiptoes, shocked and disgusted — and what a sour face! He tried to go on working, but he paused, uttering nauseated groans, and avoided touching that key.

The boy had a well-known horror of dirt, of strangers, of surprises. Anything unexpected was a shock. It was the reason he never went out alone. The memory of Fizzy's fastidiousness made Hooper ashamed of himself — his behavior the other night. Fizzy limped and squawked, yet for all his little-boy rage he was truthful. His superstitions proved that he was innocent. But Hooper himself had no excuse.

Hooper walked through his glassed-in garden, squinting at the hot colors of the flowers, pushing the overhanging palm leaves, feathery shapes that went on swaying after his hand left them. Peeping through the greenery were marble statues — a headless woman, a Chinese lion; and at the far side of the lily pond, a nymph pouring water — his fountain. There were rotors and loud planes motorboating in the gray sky outside, but it was always quiet in the humid heat of this garden. It had always consoled him in the past; but now he saw that his isolation had made him naive.

He had been naive about Godseye, and realizing it shamed him and made him feel lonely. This lonesome feeling also contained a vision of himself as ridiculous and selfish. He had always known that the city was corrupt — and dangerous too, though not in a filthy obvious way like those dark parts of New Jersey and Brooklyn and the no-go zones of America where there were ruins and no skylights and even the police were dangerous. But now he was close to home, on New York's perimeter, and that made his loneliness so much worse. When have I ever been lonely? he wondered. And why now?

He made for his office and his computer terminal. But he did not work. He took out the ID disc of the murdered girl, and held it until it heated his hand. He wanted to rid himself of his sickening and poisonous feeling of criminality, but he could not bear to focus on what he had done and seen.

He wanted to be innocent. He was innocent, in a way. His friends had always assumed that being so wealthy and worldly, he knew all about hunters, all about death squads and vigilantes and weapons, and all the workings of the security net. But he had known nothing. Those troopers were at once so bold and so stupid! Their secrecy irritated him, their arguments were illogical. From one point of view it had seemed boring, pointless, masonic in its foolish rituals and routines. And those horror-masks! But no — it had been a real hunt, committing real murders: he had seen those people fall, and heard the hunters rejoice. "Burn him down!" The masks had been truthful — truer than the men's faces, the skull and the demon. Cowards of their kind made the worst murderers; and Hooper knew that he had been a coward himself.

It was not evil, it could be explained: it was bad and ugly and cruel. What haunted him was the knowledge that they would all get away with it. He deserved that to be turned into a punishing memory, and guiltily wished it upon himself; but he also felt reprieved — a sense of relief in waking up in his own apartment, among familiar things, his unit, his office, his garden. The worst of being with murderers was in afterward noticing his similarity to them.

They were efficient and powerful, they had either money or else connections; they felt they were securing their own city — they were Owners. They had everything they wanted. But power could also represent useless muscle. All this time, ever since he had crawled out of his sleep capsule, he had been opening and closing his hands, grasping air. Then he gave up. His hands were heavy; two thick things lying in his lap as he sat at his terminal.

He ran the video again, scanning it for the girl with bright hair — freezing it when she smiled, freezing it again when energy stiffened her long strides, freezing it and zooming on her face and figure. She was not glamorous; she had the look of a fox; her hair was burned — streaky and short; she had a small head, her feet were large, she had long legs. She was exactly what she seemed: young, pretty, bright-eyed, strong, very fast. She had to be intelligent to have survived there.

"How do you know she's fifteen?" Hooper had asked Fisher.

"I analyzed her bones," the boy had said.

"Her bones!"

"And her teeth."

Her skin was smooth and unmarked. In several shots she was a boy with breasts. She had probably lived her whole life in O-Zone. She had that look. There was a simplicity in her clothes; in her face. Hooper saw this as her strength. She might never have heard of New York, might never have seen another city, apart from the collapsed cities and city-stains of O-Zpne.

Still Hooper worked the video, all the time watching for her. He let her expression change in close-up. She was fresh; and was it innocence or bravery that made her seem so fearless? Hooper felt that for her this city would be magic. And he could bear to live here, if she were with him. You could look anywhere in New York and not see a face so fresh — so eager and happy.

She would want everything she saw. Hooper, who had had all he had ever wanted, had forgotten what desire was like until he had seen her face on the video. He had not even noticed her in the flesh.

"DECODE UPDATE" appeared on her face. The urgent message had found him on a classified emergency circuit, from where it had been re-routed. Obviously it was something needing immediate attention.

Hooper tapped in his security code and released the update.

The girl's face still showed on the screen, but just at the level of her eyes and passing over her brushed-back hair there was a message on a ribbon: "HOUSTON ALLBRIGHT SHIPPING FACILITY AND WAREHOUSE RAIDED AND PARTLY DESTROYED BY FIRE EARLY THIS MORNING. SEE DATE AND TIME ABOVE. SUSPECT ORGANIZED GANG ARSON ATTACK. REQUEST OWNER'S PERMISSION TO CARRY OUT SURVEY OF DAMAGE AND LOSS- FURTHER REQUEST URGENT FUNDING FOR POLICE ACTION AS IN SOUTH FLORIDA STRIKE-FORCE MISSION ON BEHALF OF MIAMI ALLBRIGHT."

The message continued, lengthening and reminding him of last year's terror in Florida — the roundup he had financed. He severed the ribbon and keyed in his orders.

"PERMISSION DENIED," he typed on the screen. "FUNDING DENIED. TAKE NO ACTION." He frowned: he was happy.

Once, a worker had written in one of the anonymous criticisms that he encouraged: "The Owner, Hooper Allbright, is conspicuously absent, and in communications he has an abrupt and arrogant manner that does not inspire loyalty."

He thought of that criticism now. He added to his orders: "THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PROMPT ATTENTION," and keyed in his Owner's code. Then entered it and sent it down the wire and concentrated again.

She was running. All exertion was revealing, but hers was particularly so. It was not only her simple strength he found attractive — he had seen enough athletes; it was her enthusiasm, an energy that hinted at happiness. She was probably fierce, too, and as different from any woman he had known as a wolf from a dog.

She was an alien, always hiding, always hunted, totally temporary, with no education, no rights, no legal existence, no individual identity — no disc. All this made her more attractive still to Hooper. She was like a flower in the forest— so new she had no name yet. And he had found her. She was, finally, wild, and Hooper knew that bringing her out of that Prohibited Area might make her wilder still. The idea excited him. She deserved to live.

All this time, while he watched and froze the video — enlarged the image, looked closely at the girl — he saw lights accumulating on the panel of his console. He had activated his receiver for Allbright messages. What was it? Probably warehouse inventories, weekly reports from the depots, losses and gains. Perhaps another raid. He had come to hate the business.

He left the girl on the screen and, watching her, pressed the print button. Out the stuff came — pages of it from the glowing chattering printer, all of it requiring his attention and comment. He reached into the basket and drew out a report, began sorting through it, then dropped it and switched off the printer. He diverted the remainder of the messages to his committee. But the printer was finishing a report. It was programmed to complete a task before it went cold, and with a mind of its own it chattered and pages kept coming.

Hooper shouted at the thing and clawed the pages out of the basket. He was infuriated by this particular report. The raid in Houston had pleased him, and "TAKE NO ACTION" exactly suited his mood. He had asked for a defeat. But this spat-out report was of year-end profits, Christmas sales, cash input, dividends — ten-digit numbers, like new words, like phrases, figures so large they were like whole sentences.

Infuriated — ripping mad — because an outsider would always say how hard it was to make money like this, how easy to find a friend. The girl still leapt on the video screen. If a man could make that much money in the mail-order business he could certainly persuade that girl to join him.

But, no, it might not be easy at all; he was afraid it might be impossible. He would need the best plane he could get — a gunship like Murdick's that could fly backward and sideways and vertically and scan the ground the whole time. He needed a stock of equipment — not the standard.gear from his catalog, but sophisticated weapons, like the stunner he had taken from Murdick (but a stunner that worked properly). He needed navigational devices, like Murdick's; and a bubble-shelter, like Murdick's; he needed help — but he did not need Murdick.

He imagined the tight spot — a strange noise, a shadow, a threat. And Murdick sweating inside his mask and stumbling in new boots. "These are authorized for lunar locomotion!" And perhaps an encounter and unnecessary violence. "I had a spasm!" And perhaps a death. "Aw, rats." Then a hurried flight out and the girl lying wounded or else startled and fleeing. He did not need Murdick at all. It was not that Murdick was wealthy, though that was certainly an important disadvantage — Hooper had begun to see that the rich greatly resembled the aliens, but being more powerful, were a greater threat to everyone. Murdick's special danger was that he was almost certainly impotent, like so many fortyish men whom Hooper knew — like Hardy perhaps; and that limpness, that unwillingness, that lack of response, with his money and his anger, made him a killer.

But Hooper could not navigate, did not have a flight program, and — most crucial of all — did not have an Access Pass, And he knew that even if the miracle happened, giving him solutions to these problems, he was still alone, and if something went wrong in O-Zone he would probably die.

He puzzled and hungered for a week: his desire was a thrilling insufficiency, always leaving him unsatisfied. The New Year's trip to O-Zone had just about wrecked him, and the Godseye mission had done the rest. He had discovered the one thing on earth that he could not have!

Afterward he laughed, because he was thinking just these thoughts — cursing at finding no connections, frustrated that money didn't help, teased and weakened by desire, and sensing that at last he had no control over his life — and he was maddened by his inability to plan a mission to O-Zone. He laughed later and remembered all this pressure, for in the middle of it, perplexed by another imagined difficulty — what if the aliens were armed and attacked his plane? — he heard a call sign.

Heep.

It was like being woken by a disruptive dream: a sudden shock that made him remember the dream — like the killer clowns.

Heep.

Was the printer jammed? Maybe choked on one of those vast reports? Strangled by Allbright input, overheated by the length of the profit sheet?

Heep. Heep.

Machines were either works of art or else dumb animals. They were never human. This was an animal sounding an alarm. But it was not the computer. He had shut it down and diverted the messages in order to concentrate on the girl's face. It was not his telephone: that too was re-routed.

Hee—

Across the room, on the floor, was the helmet-mask he had worn in O-Zone — the one with phones — ridiculous thing with bat ears and a chrome throatpiece. He was being signaled on that frequency. It was a summons, but so unexpected it was like a rapping in a stance.

Hooper put the helmet on, feeling foolish.

"Hooper—"

It was Fizzy, snarling, squawking — would he ever have a normal voice?

"Hardy asked me to go to O-Zone, and you too" — and yawned: it was a long growling in Hooper's ears. "You probably don't want to, right?"

Hardy worked underground, in an enclosed office complex under the Asfalt tower. He had no windows, no glimpse of the sky; the one external monitor showed the security desk at the entrance — people having their passes checked. The secrecy demanded of him in his weather work meant that he seldom knew what the weather was outside, whether it was rainy or sunny or, this month, snowing. He did not mind that. It would only have exasperated him to see unplanned precipitation or unanticipated sun, and he hated weather jokes. People were stupid and complacent about the weather; they behaved like the most primitive aliens and believed themselves to be ridiculous victims, constantly fooled by its changes of mood. They knew practically nothing of the secrets of weather management.

Hardy's own research had always been classified. He had never been tempted to discuss it with anyone. Even if he had had the intention, where would he begin? Should he start by saying he had once drowned an entire valley of Mexican peasants in a weather effort? But, no, he had gone too far now in his work for it to be easily explainable — its simple beginning was so long ago, and he was past the point of anyone outside Asfalt understanding it. Today was typical. He was preparing a report on the subject "Weather as a Weapon" — proposing a Subdepartment of Storm Creation in the Department of Defense. What did it matter what anyone thought of it? And anyway, Hardy hated discussing anything until he had come to his own conclusions. People gave you ignorant opinions, not informed judgments — they told you how they felt! Fizzy was one of the few people Hardy knew who could take an idea and consider it with intelligence.

Hardy became distracted wondering whether Fizzy had put the plan to Hooper.

Moura had said, "Fizzy's so strange. I hardly know him now. I'm starting to dislike him."

"We should have been more careful," Hardy said. "You should have."

He felt sure he could have managed the birth better. He had seldom had a problem with his work, and that was a similar sort of calculation. He had always been successful himself in managing nature.

He had grown excited about the idea of a thermal mountain in O-Zone. He paced; he reflected; he had done most of the calculations — billions of liters of oil would be used for the black patch. The patch would cover — and seal-the radioactive hot spots in O-Zone, and if it worked, the same process could be used in other Prohibited Areas in the world, making them very valuable. The precipitation in the adjacent space would probably increase tenfold, and rivers and lakes would be created, and the configuration of the landscape changed, like clay molded by a gigantic hand.

He saw the immensity of black asphalt, and the clouds massing over it — chutes of them, darkening and swelling until they became a great Gothic cathedral of vaults and spires made of the storm. And between gaps of silence, the groans of thunder like breaking hammer-beams released shafts of blinding light — fiery cracks in the stirring clouds, and finally a slow hiss growing to a roar of water, as the rain fell hard on the land, slapping it and giving it life.

The vision brought him back to the theory in his report. A bomb was an isolated convulsion: it was a matter of technique and simple explosives. But to take control of the sky. to manage the insubstantial air — that took genius. To Hardy, there was more beauty in a well-made cloud than in any tower or bridge or city wall; and more use. Those drowned peasants in Mexico: the point was that after that sacrifice there was plenty of water. Those people had not died for nothing. Yet the thought of so many people dying at once in his own flood and mudslide had given Hardy a thrill that shamed him and made him even more secretive, as he dreamed of that black sky over O-Zone or making war with weather.

His report was a sober reasoned thing, but he thought: What a wonderful weapon. What a triumph it would be to drown your enemies, to rain on them and watch them dissolve, to make their country uninhabitable. To parch them and kill them with the slow fire of a drought. To choke them on dust, batter them with hailstones, or bury them in snow. Flood them! Freeze them! Starve them!

And people say to me: What do you really do? — and expect me to give them an answer that will please them.

Storms that could be made to rage day and night for months, beating mountains down in their fury!

That was the substance of his report to Asfalt: Bad Weather. He argued for controlled periods of severe weather as a useful thing. There were disputed areas of Africa and Asia which could be held in check and perhaps settled with storms. He had made videos of the possibilities — mock disasters. The crackle of rain, the whisk of snow; successive spasms of flood, or a prolonged dry spell. No Owner could truly be hurt by bad weather, but for everyone else the lash of weather was splendid and impartial; and the land would always remain.

Here he ended his proposal, but he went on thinking — of storms, and secrecy, and his thermal mountain. His project in O-Zone could prepare the way for other large-scale storm projects. His success would mean a promotion in Asfalt, but that mattered less to him than the fulfillment of his vision of the world: sitting in the windowless concourse under the Asfalt tower and — somewhere in the world — making it rain, making it snow, allowing the sun to shine; making the desert bloom.

He would have promised anything to Fizzy to get him to go to O-Zone for the raw data. Then he saw that the boy really wanted to go, but was afraid. Hardy knew he had no influence on Fizzy — he was not a father but a foster parent, a silly flunkying figure. He was counting on Hooper's boredom and bullying to carry it off and help the boy make up his mind— Hooper's impulsiveness. And he knew, without knowing why, that Hooper badly wanted to go back to O-Zone.

15

Fisher had explained what hardy wanted, and Hooper said "Yes" before he asked what it was all about. The boy took this eagerness to be pure stupidity.

He had crossed over from his unit to Hooper's, in an adjoining tower at Coldharbor. "Hard copy," he said, looking at the Allbright profit printout scattered in the room. "I'd suffocate on all that junk. What kind of a fuck-wit is it that doesn't store it?"

It was an accusation, not a question. He was not interested in a reply. He saw the Wardley stunner and snatched it.

"That looks like one of those crazy sound-forgers. It works on animal tissue. You can do anything with it. You can bruise, you can disable, you can maim — you can melt!"

Though he had only crossed from his tower in a tube, staying inside Coldharbor the whole time, Fisher was dressed for the outdoors. He was dressed for contamination conditions. He was dressed for the moon. He wore leaded boots and mechanical hands and a high collar. He wore a radio helmet, and his mask hung loose around his neck on a strap. He wore a survival pack on his belt — Hooper knew there was a body bag and a week's rations in the bag. His suit was thick and air-conditioned, and his radio crackled as he talked.

Hooper was touched by the boy's seriousness, his belief in the expensive equipment. It was another example of his innocence — his thinking that because he wore this stuff he was safe. He did not yet know all the ways he could be harmed.

He had hardly looked up from the weapon. He seemed genuinely interested in its workings, unlike Murdick, for whom it was just another deadly boast. "I was out a week ago with Murdick."

"That porker."

"It's his. I took it off him."

"That porker," Fisher repeated, but he was still studying the weapon, scrutinizing its options panel.

"It's got something to do with stunning people, using vibrations. It makes their muscles seize up."

"Tell me about it," Fisher said — mocking in his clumsy way. He sighted with it, screwing up one eye. Then he placed it on the floor and knelt over it. "This thing's lethal."

"Murdick says it's safe,"

"Murdick's a porker," Fisher said. "It's got a design fault. The controls are housed under the sonic generator and they're not isolated. As soon as you start wailing away, the sound penetrates the panel. Look, it's on the highest setting. Plus, it's got a flare on the muzzle instead of a pipe fitting. There's a unit missing."

Hooper loved him for his jargon, and though Fizzy's tone was his terrible squawk, Hooper wanted him to continue.

"What should I tell Murdick?" he asked to encourage the boy.

"Murdick must know this! With a pipe fitting to squeeze the vibes, you have to aim, but with a flare you can't miss. It sprays a beam about a meter wide. Hey, did you see him use this thing?"

Hooper said yes.

Fizzy's lips were drawn tight, "He didn't miss."

"He stunned some people. I saw it."

"He probably melted them," Fisher said. "He certainly stiffed them. It's highly sophisticated but it's set on overload. It could be very useful. But it's dangerous at the moment. I want to take it apart. I want to fix it. I know how."

He probably did know how — he was usually right. But once again Hooper was on guard, feeling both admiration and uneasiness in the boy's presence. Sometimes Hooper wanted to laugh out loud; then he would pause and become thoughtful. Fizzy was such a strange boy. He noticed everything. He never smiled. His bad manners were his major fault, but it was his bad manners that reminded you that he was human, and that reminder made him bearable.

It was then, while Fizzy was describing how he would go about fixing the weapon, that Hooper remembered he had said yes to O-Zone.

"What's it all about?" he asked.

"Don't know," Fisher said. He had seen the earlier inquiry, the prospectus, and he was almost certain that Hardy was planning a thermal mountain. All this he had gathered by hacking into Hardy's computer, and he had known before the trip to O-Zone that it was not a New Year's party but an exploratory took for a longitudinal field study, for Asfalt.

"You didn't ask?"

"Don't care," Fisher said. It was just an excuse to sell surplus oil! Hardy imagined himself to be Jove, hurling thunderbolts, but he was just a tool of the oil people, telling them where to squirt it. He was an oil can! "Hardy's a dong. All he does is lie to me."

"That's very uncharacteristic of you, Fizz. I think of you as having an inquiring mind."

"I'm not too sure I want to go." There was a twang of timidity in his voice.

"You're not afraid, are you?"

Fisher said, "I'm not a field scientist," and his eyes went black in anger. His skin was very pale — almost chalky near the red eruptions of his pimples. He looked absurd in his spacesuit.

He's fifteen years old, Hooper thought. He said, "O-Zone — just the two of us. It could be a good trip. We could learn things. This time we could do it right."

There was nothing else on earth that he wanted. The young girl was now very clear and within reach. Hooper was on the verge of telling Fizzy exactly what he planned and how Hardy's offer could not have come at a better time.

But Fizzy had begun to bristle. He looked like a stuffed toy, and his inner trouser legs scraped as he stalked to the wall, where there was a full-length mirror.

He said, "They could have done a whole lot better. They didn't have to settle for this. I know I'm smart, but I could have been a lot taller. I could have been stronger. I could have had risk training when I was, say, four or five."

He was challenging himself in the mirror, and still sneering at what he saw, and seeming to glare past his reflection at his parents.

"But they were stupid," he said. "Especially Hardy. He ordered Moura to make her own choice. I'd like to know where she. went. She could have done better. She could have made me taller."

Hooper stared at him, and smiled, and licked the smile off his face. He realized that Fizzy was talking about fertilization — the clinic, the pedigree, the achievement and type number. The boy was facing himself and complaining.

"I could have been a lot bigger," Fisher said sourly. He opened his mouth and showed his teeth to the mirror. "They starved me."

"What's wrong?"

"I hate my teeth. And I'm too small."

"Your teeth are fine. You're a big boy. You're big enough."

"Hardy gave me an anxiety attack!"

Hooper didn't know what to say.

"Some people are really stupid!"

Fizzy seemed on the point of smashing the mirror, for the image he saw in it.

"Why bother getting a high type-number if you don't get the highest one?"

His voice had cracked in the middle, and the absurdly high note combined with the growl of his trying to recover his voice made him sound particularly pitiful.

Hooper said, "You're fine, Fizzy! You're a remote student. You've got university exemption. You get great scores. Look at me. I had to go to college. I wore a beanie! I failed my exams! I drank beer!"

"I'm not talking about you," Fisher said — merely moving his eyes to glance at Hooper. What was the connection between this rich foolish man and himself? Hooper had come out of another age — he was probably thirty-nine. When you asked him a question he grinned like a goon and showed you the big space between his two front teeth. But Fisher saw himself as a new man, and so he was maddened each time he had to contend with the evidence that he was imperfect. He knew it made him anxious, it made him overdress.

"They got me a brain, but they screwed up all the basic factors. I'm not big enough, not strong enough. I hate my face. I get nosebleeds. I have shallow breathing. I grind my teeth. I'm fear-oriented. I've got shitty reflexes. It's all her fault. I could have been a trooper!"

"Take it easy, kid." But with this plea the boy looked especially sad in his expensive suit and wired helmet and bulgy boots. And the survival bag flapping against his thigh made him seem pathetic. What was it about equipment that made people look weak and uncertain?

Perhaps Fizzy had seen the same pathos in the mirror. He turned away from it and said, "I wanted to go out the other night. I tried. I was afraid."

There were tears in his eyes.

"I hung around the checkpoint talking to that idiot Jennix about space travel. He's a Rocketman. He's lining up a place on a station, he said. He wants to migrate to a space platform. He's such a fucking wonka. He's afraid, too! He's worse than me!"

Hooper was sorry for the boy, but he was so uncertain about what to say that he felt that if he said anything he would giggle. And something in him made him glad to see Fizzy squirm. He was growing up at last. He saw his weaknesses — so that was an approach to adulthood. When, years from now, he saw he was ineffectual, he would be a man.

In a hopeless voice Fisher said, "I wanted to go to O-Zone."

"We'll go!" Hooper said, glad that he was able to shout it. It meant everything to him now.

"I can't," Fisher said. "And it's their fault. Moura's especially. She went to some stupid clinic and got stuffed with some defective implant. I could kill her for that!"

Hooper said, "There are two of us, Fizzy. We'll get the best gunship, the best gear, the best weapons. You've got all the navigation. We'll bring back some brilliant descriptive data—"

All the time he was speaking he was thinking of the girl's face. It was a good humorous face. And her pale eyes and slender legs. If I don't take her I'll never have her. He had always imagined that she would leave willingly, but there was something in Fizzy's fussing that made Hooper think that he might have to capture her.

"If we're to find anything new we'll have to get onto the ground. Otherwise they can use satellite pictures and spy planes."

"Eye level," Hooper said. "I'll be right beside you."

"It's dangerous. We'll die."

"No — it'll be fabulous. We'll look at those blind big-headed mutants!"

"They weren't blind. They were anophthalmic. Their skulls were normal-sized. But they had exencephaly."

"Whatever you say, Fizz."

"They were dead before they hit the beam. Someone threw them at us — to scare us."

"So what?"

"It worked — I'm scared! Hooper, you don't know me. I'm serious. I'm not strong enough. I haven't got—"

But Hooper had known for years what Fizzy had just discovered. That weakness, which Fizzy thought was a revelation, was all that Hooper had ever known about the boy. And the boy did not know that admitting the weakness was a strength, and knowing what it was would help the boy survive in the wilderness — that kind of anxiety was a greater advantage in O-Zone than a feeling of power.

Fizzy had discovered that he was not perfect! So there was hope for him. He had taken off his heavy gloves. His hands were hot and flushed pink — very soft, almost delicate hands.

He said, still pleading, "There's something missing."

"You might find it in O-Zone," Hooper said.

When the Allbright brothers, Hooper and Hardy, were together they felt much younger, usually like boys, and at times ageless. But they were sensitive to slights and could easily be wounded, so they were very guarded about what they said. They were wise and infantile at the same time.

Hooper had thought: I won't go to O-Zone for his reasons — only for my own reasons. Then he remembered the Access Pass: it was being handed to him on a plate, and it seemed to him as if there was no way he could refuse. It was a brilliant gift, and what was best about it was that the giver had no idea of its great value. Hooper knew in advance that he would accept. His fear was that in seeming to equivocate he would appear too reluctant, and the offer would be withdrawn, and he would never see that girl again.

Make me give in, he thought when he saw Hardy. He found it hard to accept a gift from anyone, least of all from Hardy. This dislike of gifts was a domineering trait in him, he knew. He was always somewhat surprised to see what people would do when they were given some small token, and he distrusted the vanity of anyone who solicited favors. It was another strength of Fizzy's that he mocked all such offers of presents.

They had met in a restaurant in West Harlem, a bulldozed and newly colonized part of the city, and a compromise location for the brothers — Hooper had come from Coldharbor, which was off York Avenue in Upper East, and Hardy had been looking for office space in Washington Heights, where he hoped to locate what he now thought of as his Storm Center.

"I just saw the Eubanks downstairs," Hardy said. "I haven't seen them since our party in O-Zone."

This was his cue — Hooper was sure of it — but he resisted it, and let it pass, and only said, "They smoke, did you know that?"

"They were actually going into the Smoking Room," Hardy said. "They seemed a little sniffy with me. I'm sure they expected something else in O-Zone."

"They didn't smoke in O-Zone — probably scared they'd catch fire," Hooper said. "They drink, too. It makes me gag to think of a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other—"

It was a false note. Hardy could have said: You inject yourself, you swallow nappies, you photograph women. But Hardy was a tactful brother, and he responded in the same way, talking about the sickening habits of the Eubanks. And now both brothers knew they were stalling. They had no secrets from each other. Guile only worked because they allowed it. Hardy wondered why Hooper did not have a woman; and Hooper wondered whether Hardy was really impotent — and what was at the bottom of his weather research? But this was all. It was not very much. As brothers they understood the delicate nature of each other's pride. And they had real admiration for each other's achievements — Hardy's status as a weathermaker, Hooper's as a mail-order tycoon. There were no confrontations, they never talked about the family or the fortune; there were no hard words — that would have been the end.

They studied the menu and then ordered by keying the numbered combinations into the selector at the edge of their table — the steak dinner for Hardy, the fish for Hooper. Any mention of food these days provoked talk about Murdick's meal at Fire hills:

"Meat butter,"

"Crab strings."

"It was designed for the space program!"

It was another way of stalling, though. The subject, so far evaded, was Hooper's willingness to take Fisher to O-Zone. It was a conspicuous evasion for a number of reasons, but brotherhood came into it again.

Each brother to be polite had to give the impression that the other was doing him a favor. But each believed the opposite at the same time — that he was doing the other a favor. And secretly, at the faintest level of awareness, each had a dim sense of satisfaction that he could not put into words, that he was doing exactly what he wanted.

Hardy said abruptly, "We're very worried about Fizzy. I think the proposed mission to O-Zone would be good for him, frankly. I sometimes feel he's cracking up. This might pull him together."

Ah, so we can discuss this tricky thing by discussing Fizzy, Hooper thought. That was tactful — so tactful as to be a bit spineless. But in this way they could spare their own feelings. They proceeded very tentatively like two fat acrobats balancing on wobbly chairs.

"He's not cracking up. He's a little awkward, maybe. But he's normal, for his number."

"He never goes out. That's not normal."

"He went out once, a few weeks ago."

"Only once is weirder than never."

"He doesn't have any reason to go out."

"That's crazy too, because he doesn't have any reason to stay in."

"His computer. His mainframe. His studies."

"He calls the thing 'Pap'!" Hardy said. "Listen, this is the safest city in the world!"

Hooper said nothing. That statement gave him a glimpse of the Godseye gunship.

Hardy said, "He's getting strange indoors. In his room. He's developing a wacky eye-blink. He chomps his teeth. He's weak. He sleeps irregularly. And that yawn."

Hooper knew the yawn. "He'll grow out of it," he said. "He's only fifteen!"

Their food was brought by a man with a trolley. He wore a face mask — it was catching on! Hooper wondered whether the thing served a practical purpose. He slid the sealed trays in front of them, and made a little bow and pushed the trolley to another table.

"Fizzy's a slug," Hardy said. "I've seen kids like that just collapse and cry when you talk to them, and spend the whole day watching their fingernails grow. They stop taking baths. Liquid diet. They develop this tremendous interest in germs and fecal odors. They start talking about dirt. They receive strange orders over their headsets. They get very unscientific and monotonous."

"Are you talking about your kid?"

Hardy said, "You should hear him describe the right way to open a can. Gloves, tongs, tweezers, hot water, plastic bags—"

But Hooper thought: We are here to talk about O-Zone.

He said, "The mission might do Fizzy some good. But he's not crucial to it. And if you want elevations and temperatures, you could use satellites or send a plane over."

"I want eye-level stuff," Hardy said. "I want to know what it smells like. I want your feet on the ground."

He wants secrecy, Hooper thought, so he wants me. Who else could he trust? His favor to Hardy, and Hardy knew it, was that he did not ask why he wanted eye-level videos, and the smell of it, and his feet on the ground. Secrecy certainly, and he also suspected that Hardy was a bit of a coward — it seemed to go with the limp dick of impotence, and if Hardy wasn't a coward, why was Fizzy so fearful? The boy had never learned courage. Hardy had neglected him that way, and in so doing had made him think that courage was something special and unattainable. The boy was a brain, but not more than that. It was like being a moron.

"I'm pretty busy," Hooper said.

Hardy nodded slightly, to show he had heard.

Hooper was grateful to him for not challenging this. Hardy knew he was lying — that he had been restless but never busy.

Hardy said, "It would mean a lot to me if you took over. I think the kid likes you. You can set him straight."

"What if we find aliens?"

"Probably none there. And didn't Murdick say you'd burned them all down?"

"But what if?"

"You know how to handle yourself," Hardy said. "Anyway, they're all sick. They're cranks and cancer patients. They don't fight back. I can't see them worrying you."

It was the popular view — aliens are sick and diseased— and it was a measure of its pervasiveness that even someone as scientific and well-informed as Hardy appeared to believe it. Maybe he's just trying to urge me to go, Hooper thought.

But Hooper knew that the aliens he had seen in O-Zone and on the Godseye hunt were not sick at all, and what had struck him most was the way they resembled Owners and pass-holders and everyone else.

"They could delay our research," Hooper said. "And we might want to study them."

Hardy smiled and shook his head. "People make a mistake in thinking aliens are interesting. They're not. They're empty. They're diseased. They're very easily intimidated. Very few of them have killer instincts. They don't make anything. See, if you don't bother them they won't bother you."

All this talk had made the meal mechanical, and concentrating on what Hardy was saying;—especially this bullshit about aliens — had made Hooper incapable of tasting his food. It was there one minute; then it was gone. He could not remember having eaten it-it had something to do with pauses in the conversation, with listening. It was a form of punctuation.

But Hooper had his answer — he was still suppressing his urge to blurt it out. He pretended to worry a bit longer. He dropped his eyes, then took a deep breath and expelled it slowly, so that Hardy could see and hear that he was being judicious. It was such a charade! He had never been so eager to do something, and he felt foolishly grateful to his brother, for this favor, and for sparing him other questions.

At last, almost bursting, he said, "I'll go on one condition. That you don't give me instructions — no warnings, no advice. If you want to be in charge you can go yourself. I'll carry out your instructions to the letter-whatever data you want, I'll get. And I'll look after Fizzy. But I'm in charge."

Hardy had already begun to nod in agreement as Hooper was talking. Then he said, "That's fine, as long as you treat it as secret. Not a word to anyone."

Hooper opened his mouth to speak.

"Not even Moura," Hardy said (and his quick interruption made Hooper stammer). "Let her keep her own secrets."

It was perfect for Hardy: nothing official. He had no job, no project, no research, no proposal — nothing existed except the words they had just spoken, which had risen and disappeared like vapor over their food in this anonymous restaurant. It was perfect for Hooper too. No one knew what he planned — he hardly knew himself. So there was no mission, no purpose, no plan. Nothing existed, no routes, no checkpoints, no aliens—

"You're smiling," Hardy said. "That's good." Only the girl existed, waiting to be rescued. The brothers had managed to please each other again. It was not a gift, but an agreement — a mutual favor that went back and forth. Hardy was glad, for whatever reason. And Hooper was delighted. It was all he wanted and yet he had never revealed more than a mild willingness. Give someone something and they go on dogging you, if not traipsing after to thank you, then trying to return the favor, which was worse, like giving the same thing back.

16

Moura had always stayed clear of her son, as from a biting animal or one of those toothy household trash extractors, the garbage-chewers that ate everything and were so hungry and vicious you needed a license for them. Fizzy hated to be touched. If it happened, he quacked — or worse, he laughed. His laugh was both a bark and a squawk, and always abusive, with the stink of his bad breath in it. He laughed, always without smiling, and it had the rhythm of a rotor blade.

The distance and the hands-off might have helped them succeed as mother and son. Moura had never liked to touch him, or be touched by him either. Once it had been like politeness, but now it was closer to revulsion, and Moura was so amazed by her behavior that she told Holly Murdick.

They were at their exercise class on the roof garden of Coldharbor — Holly had come over from Wedgemere. Each woman was on a muscle machine, looking as though she were being snatched and swallowed. Holly was glowing, damp and pink with exertion, groaning in her body sock. And yet, even twisted in the machine — but perhaps it was the way the machine held her in its grip — she looked fleshy and eager. Lust gave her a silly face and a doggy friendliness — heated eyes and a wide stare and a slow half-smile, all lust.

"It might mean you're repressing your sexual feeling for him," Holly said.

Moura wanted to laugh — and it was not just the idiotic idea that she might have a sexual feeling for the supermoron ("I've got an on-line program waiting for me on Pap, quack quack!"), but the way Holly said it, hanging there with her arms out, like a bondage queen, sweating as her legs were being worked. There was a panting lunacy in Holly's lust that made the woman impossible to take seriously and aroused a protectiveness in Moura, something almost motherly, because in that mood Holly had no defenses. But she was still theorizing about Fizzy!

"— and sort of masking it in self-disgust," she was saying. "It's fairly common among a lot of mothers."

And the other thing about Holly's ignorant defenselessness was that you had to listen to her nonsense or she would be dreadfully hurt.

"I've never been his mother in that way," Moura said, trying to be tactful. She was on the next machine, being stretched. "Holly, I don't even like him very much."

"That's what I mean by disgust," Holly said. "Or maybe he's attracted to you and you somehow understand this." She was full of theories, many of them contradictory, and perhaps it was because she had so many that she was seldom dogmatic. "Maybe it's your way of thwarting him. You're discouraging him. You suspect that he wants to jump you."

The trouble with Holly's seldom being dogmatic was that she seldom sounded serious.

Moura said, "Now I wish I hadn't told you."

"Willis says that kid is nothing but trouble."

"Fizzy's fifteen. He's got huge teeth, long arms, and his hair is already partly gray. He insults Hardy to his face and he calls his mainframe 'Pap.' He does nothing but yawn in my face. And to him I'm an old hag, because I'm thirty-six."

"I was reading about this witch instinct they've discovered in aliens that might be some indicator—"

"I'm not a witch, not a whore, not a mother, not a little girl, and I despise the word 'wife.' I'm a woman!"

The outburst did not startle Holly. She was now dancing slowly and still fastened to the arms of the machine.

"You should act like a woman, then, and be practical about this obnoxious kid of yours."

Sex was the last thing, but it was just like Holly to think of it first. Moura was baffled by her own reaction to Fizzy. As an infant he had been a frail inert creature, and she had loved him — his milky breath, his tiny fingers, the way he slept in a little bundle. He was a part of her, a live thing that had become detached, that still belonged to her. But then he opened his eyes and began to move and make noise, and nothing she did pleased him. She had no power to quiet him. He was the same infant, but a beast, and from the moment she recognized that it had been a battle.

Moura coped by handing him over. It was easy to find school sessions for him — all the agencies wanted to take credit for his genius. But these days when she heard that meaningless word she thought: Who is he?

The schools found him volatile, quick to master anything, but with intelligence to spare — it brimmed in him, and he used it to mock the teachers, and he mocked the work they gave him, too. The work he found easy, it was thin he said, there was not enough of it. He said, "Everybody knows this!" He laughed his unsmiling laugh. The school authorities said that he was like a certain kind of computer that could perform well only when a wise operator was driving it. They could not master his operations.

But Moura did not see him as a special machine: he lacked the stillness, the repose of a mechanical object. He was active. He was like a hungry monster that could eat anything you fed it. He gobbled up the problems that were set before him — demolished them and then laughed because no more were provided. Finally, he was classified as a remote student. He worked at home, and his lessons were transmitted to him on a cable — his own channel, his own program. He was granted high school exemption, and this year, aged fifteen, university exemption. He was now doing advanced research in particle physics. He was not boasting — he was too truthful ever to boast, and yet everything he said about himself sounded boastful. Moura was not impressed: she knew the schools had not been able to handle him.

"University exemption!" Hardy said. He was the one who boasted — and he had no cause, and knew it. He was not Fizzy's father.

"They're procrastinating," she said. She was just as wary of his boisterous intelligence; and still she asked: Who is he?

These days she watched him cautiously — for example, unscrewing the lid of a jam jar. He wore gloves, his hands like big broad paddles; he did it under a disinfecting light; he wore a mask. He grunted miserably — these noises meant he was thinking — and he seemed to be sniffing, smelling what he was doing. He moved his lips and wrinkled his nose behind his faceplate. Opening a jam jar! He folded his gloves on the lid and let the light play on it, and jerking one leg back for balance, he struggled until the lid was off. He shrieked when he saw that he had smeared jam on the fingers of one glove, and kept quacking until he had flapped the glove into the trash extractor.

Beside this, what was particle physics? As he had grown older, changing from day to day, he had become less familiar to her. On occasions she regarded him as, if not a threat, then a potential source of danger.

Moura had finished her exercises with a swim in the Coldharbor pool and had come back to her unit feeling refreshed — relaxed and strengthened and, as always after swimming, a few pounds lighter. She looked out and saw the dusty lavender sky of midafternoon, which meant the winter day was ending — the tame skylights would soon be switched on, a whole dome of curved light, making it a city without shadows.

But she preferred it the way it was just now, before the skylights came on — the wide empty streets of winter, few pedestrians, the grinding of the trams, the swarms of tipping rotors with their flicking lights — like fireflies. She loved this shadowy daylight, on the narrow seam between day and night. And it soothed her to know that Hardy would be late. She was planning ahead, allotting the hours to herself. She wanted to call up the figures on some investments she had made, and analyze them as she ate — she enjoyed eating at the console; Hardy never did so himself and hated seeing her do it. She wanted to compute her exercises at the same time — the hours on the machine, and under the lamp, and swimming; and the breakdown of her food figures. It made her feel even better when she saw her effort turned into statistics, because numbers were unalterable and they always seemed in a solid authoritative way like investments. A first-night was being televised at eight, and after that tennis, and she promised herself a long phone call later to Rinka, to fix a day for their outing. By the time Hardy came home looking for sympathy and a listener, she would be ready for him; but she felt free only when she was alone.

She had just seated herself at her console when Security rang — Captain Jennix at his most military, imitating a spaceman. Before she could respond, Fizzy burst out of his room.

"That's for me!" — his elbows raised like a penguin.

It annoyed her that it was for him, a large parcel in the tamperproof wrapper that meant it was classified — about a meter long and rather narrow. She wondered whether it was a weapon — it was rifle-sized, and Fizzy carried it in a certain tough-nervous way, one end of it sticking ahead of him as he pushed toward his room.

His sudden appearance spoiled the rest of the evening for her. She succeeded in ignoring him because she tried hard, and she always returned to what she had convinced herself was an empty unit — not thinking of Fizzy at all, because he never left his room. And then there he was, flapping like a penguin and with the same shuffle-shuffle, full of corrections, big teeth, spiky hair, and holding his head to one side, yanking his door open as the phone went. He had snatched the parcel from Jennix's runner and limped back into his study, which was his whole world, where he sat and squinted at Pap. If that thing was an iron it was the end. It was bad enough that he had become a stranger — but a weapon-freak!

Moura had not been in his room lately, not since the return from O-Zone, just after New Year's. That was a month ago. She resented the thought that Hooper had been admitted: all that whispering that day over the video cartridge.

No, "resented" wasn't right; and not "irritated" or "offended." She wanted, consciously, to have no feelings at all; she wanted to see the boy as clearly as possible. But he was such a little shit and know-it-all, her anger always got in the way.

"Let me in," she said on the phone. "I'd like to talk to you."

"Don't come in here!" This was four quacks.

Maybe he's attracted to you. Some things Holly said were so wrong they could never be offensive. This was actually funny! Holly's obvious lack of perception made her a safe and easy friend. Moura could not bear being observed by an intelligent and critical woman — it was so exhausting, and what was the point? Were you supposed to listen to all their wise questions and give them humble answers? At least Holly let you laugh at her occasionally.

There was a noise. Had Fizzy dropped something? He was probably trying to unwrap the weapon, or whatever it was. He could be very clumsy, dangerously so, as his slow hands sought to keep pace with his racing mind.

"Don't be a nit," she said. "I'll be right in."

But the next moment he was at the door, breathless, swallowing with apprehension, his eyes wide. He had rushed out and confronted Moura, to protect his room. How could you be angry with someone who looked like a penguin?

His panting was like a demand that she leave. His breath was humid. He was trying to speak.

That was another thing — she could never tell these days when he was afraid. His fear seemed like just another kind of rudeness. And hunger always gave him bad breath.

"I thought you might want some food," she said.

"Too busy!"

"And I wanted to talk to you about going away. The Murdicks are getting up a party to go to Africa in March."

Holly had said, I'm going to be a naked savage for a month.

"I hate those places," Fisher said.

"It's completely zoned and secure. The beaches are beautiful, all of them are fortified. I haven't been there for years. When I was your age I went with my parents. I met a boy and had a really good time."

She wanted to say more. He looked so bored she wanted to shock him.

He said, "Those places look safe because of all the soldiers and police. But really they're full of diseases. The food's buggy, the water's contaminated. All those jigs, all those monkey-men."

"It's a lot safer than O-Zone."

"Wrong!" Fisher said, and his repeating the word turned it into a honk. He was protesting with his hands — batting the air. Upset at that little thing!

"What is it, Fizz?"

He fussed, started to speak, then gagged and gave up. Later she heard him banging in his room; and talking. But he often talked to himself. In a sense he talked only to himself.

But tonight she heard him shouting in a ducklike way.

"Negative," he said. "Negative." And more: words so unfamiliar to her they might have been another language. And then a familiar cry of his, "Nuke it!"

I don't know him, she thought, and it frightened her more to think that she once did.

He was more and more a mystery, but she pitied him. That was the first week of this new seclusion. Then crates began arriving for him. He had always been interested in new equipment, yet this interest had apparently developed into an obsession. She could see him trying the stuff out — she had a glimpse into the skylight of his room from a corner window upstairs. She saw him in a bewildering variety of masks, staring out. He had weapons. He pointed these ugly objects at the tall, safe city and its emptiness. He was living out some bizarre fantasy of siege, she supposed.

That was when she bugged the room and listened.

"Mission Westwind Command speaking."

He was full of code names. She had always found men's code names madder than their masks, and insane, as well as simply childish. Women never went in for this ridiculous naming and playing. Hardy was a tremendous user of codes. Perhaps Fizzy was imitating this secretive man, who refused to be a father.

Fizzy was still quacking: "When a risk arises and is canceled out by a solution, there is no risk. I have run a computer check of every possible downside event, from suspected cannibals and a verified biting-death, to foot-rot from boot condensation. 1 have a matching tally of remedies. I will not consider any move until the mission has been declared risk-free. I have drawn my list from all the recorded and projected incidents in all other missions by self-contained vehicles in comparable zones, and nothing will be taken for granted in the decision-loop, not even any loss of—"

Who was he talking to in this severe voice?

Moura went on monitoring the bug: he was not talking to anyone. He was recording this on his memory machine and storing it in what he called "Mission Westwind's Archives." Was he sick?

"Mission Westwind Command, speaking from Headquarters — location confidential. This is the Commander with an update of the details of risk-elimination intelligence—"

Sometimes, clinic kids went hoopy. They blazed with insights until they were in their mid-teens and then burned out and spent the rest of their lives watching cartoons on television, doing jigsaw puzzles, and working on coloring books. They became very pliant and told you what they wanted for Christmas. So she had been warned.

Poor kid, she thought.

Books arrived. He snatched them from her. She heard him stumbling with them in his room. When he was done with them he fed them into the trash extractor, grinding his teeth as he worked the switches.

"What are you doing, Fizzy?"

"Shredding these classified documents."

She pondered whether he was wacko by trying to remember a time when she had believed him to be normal. She was left, still wondering, as video cartridges arrived. He watched them in his helmet and then wiped them.

A two-day silence — and nothing from the bug — impelled Moura to try his door. She knocked.

"Fizzy, can I come in?"

"Negative!"

But his voice sounded so strange and choked she got her own key and unlocked the door.

Fisher was hanging upside-down, his legs crooked over a chair back, his head in a helmet.

"Classified!" he howled, and in his fury he fogged his whole mask.

He was growing odder. Any day she expected to see him grinning from above a jigsaw puzzle and quacking in joy as he pounded a whittled piece into place.

Physically he had changed a great deal. Not long ago he had her lovely solemn face — Moura thought of it as her mother's face — but this past year, the onset of his late adolescence, had coarsened it. He was taller and skinnier, and his face was paler and blotched and bony; his neck was thin; his feet were very large. Those feet! Expedition boots arrived. He limped in them and made snorting noises and ordered more, not bothering to send back the rejected ones. Moura could see some of the equipment from her upper window. She imagined Fizzy's room to be piled high with it.

One day a warning light flashed on the unit's signal board, indicating a fault in Fizzy's room. At first he denied there had been anything wrong, and then he admitted — because Moura threatened to call Jennix — that Pap had overheated.

"Commander," she heard from his dead-ended messages. "Mission Westwind."

It was not that he was mad, but that he was growing madder.

Hardy was no help at all. He was seldom at home these days, and when he was at home and Moura told him of her bafflement, of Fizzy's strangeness, he agreed. But his agreement was useless, and his sympathy was as bad as ridicule. She wanted Hardy to shake the boy, or else plug him in until he lit up.

But all Hardy said was, "He's a fruit all right. No question about it."

Hardy had never taken any responsibility for the boy, and after the novelty of Fizzy's intelligence had worn off he had taken no interest. He's not mine! he seemed to say. It was true, but so what? And it made Moura wonder further: Yes, whose is he?

Hardy's ambition and singlemindedness were no bad thing, but the trouble with ambitious people was that they were invariably secretive and even sneaky, and that made their ambition intolerable.

"I think we should send him for observation," she said. There were whole hospitals filled with kids his age — all problem kids who had become cartoon freaks and jigsaw addicts, who did other odd things like pulling down their pants in public; kids who had been reared as remote students, doing theoretical physics. Though personally Moura did not think it was such a long way from discussing Black Holes to coloring in Donald Duck. Yet she was sure now that Fizzy had to be plugged in or else fed through a wringer. He needed a year of it — a real pasting.

"It won't do any good," Hardy said.

It was just like Hardy to be so self-absorbed. He agreed there was a problem but refused to discuss a solution.

"If only he were calmer," she said, realizing that she was the one who was fretting.

Sometimes at night she heard him grunting over Pap, voice-printing, and once doing a random check on the bug she heard Hooper's voice. Hooper, of all people! She thought of confiding her fears to Fizzy, but how could she without revealing that her gravest anxieties were provoked from what she heard on the bug?

The "Mission Westwind," the "orders," the "Commander" business, worried her most, because they seemed the most fantastic and unlikely. And all those weapons — they had to be weapons. And the boots — boots for a penguin of fifteen who had been in New York City alone only once in his life, and that for a mere afternoon! That one time was only about six weeks ago: perhaps it meant something? Maybe he was gearing up for another expedition to Battery Park or Tribeca!

"I think it's war games," she said to Hardy. "I hope it's war games."

Hardy smiled. What did he know? Nothing: where Fizzy was concerned, Hardy was a total stranger. He was not the father. He knew that. She hated his detachment. He was so ambitious — such a sneak.

What was Hardy's sympathy worth? It was worse than his humoring her. When she became agitated he made it seem as if the problem were hers. She was the worrier, she was stranger, and she was probably causing it all — that's what his sympathetic tone said. He was still smiling in that horrible unhelpful way.

"The kid's fifteen years old. He's a Type A. He's a clinic-genius. What do you expect? What do you want?"

From the upstairs window she saw Fizzy dressed as for a moon landing or a space flight, holding his arms out like a deep-sea diver, and walking stiff-legged among all his packages and parcels, all those weapons, that equipment, the rejected boots.

"This is Commander, Mission Westwind. Risk-elimination weapons check commencing at oh-nine-hundred—"

Moura thought; I want to find him.

The three women usually took turns dividing the day. Lunch in Connecticut was Rinka's idea. She provided the rotor and the pilot.

"We could have taken the train," Holly was saying over the whup-whup-whup of the blade. "You meet people on the train," and she winked. "Real-lifers!"

"This is quicker," Rinka said.

"This old thing!"

It was old. It was noisy. It was a low-altitude model. They were still not in Connecticut — at least nowhere near the restaurant — and already Moura was sick of Can't hear you, darling! and everyone shouting everything three times.

"I said, you could have taken your rotor," Rinka yelled.

"Willis loaned it to someone who's doing a long haul," Holly said. "Hooper Allbright, I think."

Moura said, "Did you say Hooper?"

"Can't hear you, darling!" Holly smiled back at her, and then turned to Rinka, who was sitting next to her. "It's so dull here I want to puke."

"Give me a chance. You'll get your turn later," Rinka said. "Anyway, we're not in New York anymore. That's something."

"Connecticut's worse. All those fortresses. All those shantytowns. All those trees. It's riddled with roadblocks, you know. Checkpoints. Scanners. You can hardly move!"

"That's why I didn't want to take a car."

"Who said anything about a car?" Holly winked again at Moura, who could scarcely follow the conversation. "I was on the train once. It was when that germ scare went around and everyone wore masks. I had a really devastating one, with huge eyes and little jaws, like a hornet. The man next to me had a shiny leather one. He had a sort of muffled voice, but I knew what he wanted. 'How about a little privacy?' he says. He had a room on the train — he was an Owner, from upstate, going home. We went to his room. He took his clothes off — everything but his mask. I found that incredibly sexy. I did the same. He said, 'Want to dance?' Did we dance!"

All this while Moura had been leaning closer in order to hear, and then she smiled and said softly, "I know what you want, Holly."

"Can't hear you, darling!"

Soon the rotor was setting them down on a circular pad in front of an old brick building with a white wooden porch and freshly painted trim. The three women paused to admire the chimney, and wondered whether the smoke coming out of it was real — and decided it was not.

"The food's supposed to be very good," Rinka said. "They grow most of it themselves in those hothouses."

The bright bubble-domes gleamed on the next low hill.

"Fresh asparagus in February. They even do their own mangoes and guavas."

Moura said, "I'm in the mood for textured lobster."

"Meat fabric," Rinka said.

"I'm sick of that joke," Holly said. But she seemed angrier than was justified by her friends' mockery of Willis' provisions. Perhaps it was her forced smile which made her seem so cross. She said, "Look at us. Three attractive women spend one day a week together because we're frustrated and restless. What is our brilliant solution?" She turned to face them and said sharply, "We eat lunch."

They were met by a boy in a pale blue one-piece suit. He was not much older than Fizzy, Moura noticed, but in his slow attentive way he seemed both wiser and saner, and quite a bit more intelligent.

"I'd like to make your lunch here as comfortable as possible," he said. The name badge on his suit was lettered Royce. "Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

Holly said, "Do you mean anything?"

"I hate it when people are rude to workers," Moura said when the boy left them. "You embarrassed him. You're always doing it. Hardy's always doing it. Hooper's the only one who gives them a break."

"They're used to Owners here," Holly said, "Don't worry, I'll pay him."

And her mention of Hooper made Moura remember something else: "Were you talking about Hooper when we were in the rotor?"

"No," Holly said, but she was not listening — she was glancing around the restaurant. "Look at the people here. Where did they get their permits! They're all duds. Sometimes even Owners look awful. Look at him — I'd rather get jumped by an alien!"

They ordered their meal, and because they were not hungry and were so eager to leave, they only glanced at the menu, and they ordered too much. When all the food came— bowls of vegetables, a salver of beef, a half-meter of salmon — they wanted to go.

"There's nothing special about this stuff," Holly said after they had picked at it a little. Then she spoke into the microphone: "Royce, darling. Take this garbage away." She looked at her friends. "When I'm not hungry," she said, "I don't even think of it as food."

"Sorry," Royce said, gathering the plates.

Holly fixed him with a smile and said, "I'd much rather eat you."

Back in the rotor, Rinka said in a challenging way to Holly, "Your turn, darling."

"Coffee at the Greenhouse," Holly said. "Hooper told Willis that he saw people walking around naked — it's apparently a new Starkie fashion."

"These fashions that copy aliens give me the creeps,*' Rinka said.

"There's no one else to copy," Holly said. "Anyway, I want to see if it's true, I haven't been there since before Christmas."

That was the routine, each woman taking a turn. On the way back to New York, Rinka said, "Is something wrong, Moura? You're so quiet. Is it our bitching?"

"No. It's Fizzy. I think he's breaking down."

"Clinic kids have a wicked record for breakdowns," Holly said in her cheerful rattling way. "But you didn't go to any old clinic, did you? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because I just thought of my turn," Moura said.

"First give my turn a chance," Holly said.

Just before they landed on the rotor pad on the roof of the Midtown Mall, Holly changed into a short apron, and but for this she was naked.

They strolled with everyone else in the warm scented air of the Greenhouse, on the lookout for a naked woman. Soon they saw one. She was leaving a bank. She was not more than thirty and rather tall and slender, but her jewelry was the most striking thing about her. She wore a heavy gold chain around her waist, which was fastened by a gold padlock; a heavy knotted necklace; and bracelets and ankle loops. Holly said it seemed a little tacky to wear that much jewelry without any clothes.

"And that's just plain fussy," she said when another woman approached them. This one was also naked and wore gold chains, and her pubic hair was dyed green and cut in a leaf shape.

"There's one with a mask," Rinka said. "That's attractive."

It was a breathing mask, but an expensive ornamented one.

Moura said, "When I see New Yorkers wearing breathing masks in this clean air, and these rich women going naked—"

"Aren't there any men?" Holly asked, and quickly answered her own question. "Of course not. Men are so pathetic. Owners are the worst." And she continued in a wondering way, "You don't know anyone until you know what their sex life is like. Then it's all horribly clear. And if you think very hard about your own sex life you know yourself pretty well. Oh, God, your turn, Moura."

Then they were in the rotor, Moura giving the pilot precise directions, and Holly was still talking.

"You could have a friend for twenty years, but if you don't go to bed with them they're a mystery. Don't laugh, darling. Sex makes you rational. What are we doing?"

"Making our descent," the pilot said.

The rotor was straining and tipping against a vibrant muscle of wind.

"So we don't really know each other that well. But I know some strange men very well. Where are we?"

Moura explained: Upper West, in a district called Riverwest, just north of Columbia. And then they landed in an open space.

"Where all the hospitals are," Rinka said.

They were private hospitals and small clinics, street after street of them in the new towers and in old dignified brownstones. In the glare of the ground-level lights, the brass plaques shone. Most of the windows were false or else heavily curtained. The whole area gave the impression of thick walls and secrecy. All the buildings had broad diameter dishes on the roofs and tall antennas. The heavy doors were severe and anonymous.

"They look like banks," Holly said.

"It's all clinics," Moura said.

"Sorry I can't take you nearer," the pilot called from the cockpit. "There's a noise restriction here."

The three women walked from the landing pad to one of the smaller buildings. It was ten stories high and unadorned, in the old style: pale brick, granite, and square windows, and only a number on the door — no plate.

"This used to be the Sanford Clinic," Moura said.

Holly said, "I hope it still is, darling."

Even approaching from the street, Moura had the feeling they were being watched. She had always had that feeling here, because there was never anyone visible from the windows. They buzzed and were admitted to the lobby, where they were quickly scanned by a stony-faced security man, who sent them into a reception area.

There a nurse met them. She was Oriental, probably Chinese. "Do any of you have an appointment?" She wore a crisp white suit and gloves and a cap that hid her hair. Only her face showed, in an oval in this uniform, and the face was smooth, like a doll's, and perfectly painted.

Moura said, "If this is the Sanford Clinic, we're here to make appointments."

"The consultant will be right with you," the nurse said, and stepped softly away.

"Does she think we want babies?" Holly said.

"It's a licensed contact clinic," Moura said.

"That usually means whorehouse," Rinka said. "I would never have come here alone."

Just as the door opened, Moura felt herself tremble and she knew she was afraid of seeing the consultant. She remembered him as very nervous and so eager to please he seemed unsure of himself. She had wanted him to take charge and release her from the embarrassment of making decisions herself; but no, he had said, "It's up to you, Mrs. Allbright," and she had had to explain what she wanted.

That was, she knew now, the old days. The consultant was a woman, heavy, about fifty, very businesslike, and there was a briskness in her voice and an assurance in her manner that indicated to Moura that it was routine for her. And Moura was glad of this, because it meant that she had seen such women many times before, and she would not look closely at them. They would be anonymous, really; just clients.

Even as she was thinking this, the consultant was saying, "Protecting your anonymity is one of our main concerns. And of course your health—"

Moura realized now that the woman was not interested in any of them personally; she only wanted their business. She probably did not mean much of what she said — these clinics were not in the fertility business anymore — and so Moura was grateful for the woman's insincerity. How she would have hated her concern or her scrutiny.

"We'd like to work with you on your program," she was saying now. "We'll be meeting with you to discuss your requirements and your options. I'll explain the insurance scheme and the short-term contract. I take it you've never been here to Sanford?"

Holly said no—"First time!" — answering for them all in her enthusiasm. And Moura was so touched by Holly's eagerness she did not correct her. Holly was saying, "Tell us what to do."

"Before we can begin any sessions we'll need some details. These are strictly confidential. And I also suggest a complete physical — a blood test and a smear. This is as much for your protection as it is for ours. And I do urge you to take advantage of our insurance scheme. We can get most of this over with today, and then you might be interested to watch some training discs. I'm sure you'll want to be examined separately. Excuse me — I'll just see who's free."

All this was said by the woman in a confident voice, without much emotion, and it took Moura this amount of time to realize that the lights were so low that they could see the consultant's face very clearly, but she could not see theirs. Moura was glad it was a woman, and she liked her rapping voice and lecturer's manner.

"A blood test! An insurance scheme! A physical!" Holly said when the woman had gone. "Hey, don't laugh — it's sensible!" — but she was laughing.

"Is a training disc what I think it is?" Rinka asked.

"I imagine it's porn, with a woman's slant," Moura said. "They didn't have training discs in my day."

Holly said, "I like this place. Our 'program'—that's nice. When can we come back?"

"What about next week?" Rinka said. "Our next outing."

"I don't want to wait a week."

The Oriental nurse returned and directed them to the examining rooms,

"I'll need a blood sample," Moura's doctor said. He was a man and wore a gauze mask. He used his hypodermic syringe to motion her to a chair.

"Don't touch me," she said. "I don't want a physical. I'll pay you, but skip the charade."

"No one gets in here without a physical," the doctor said. "So if you want some action—"

Moura was startled by his directness, but because she didn't want a man she kept her composure.

"I'm looking for someone," she said.

When she had explained it to the doctor, he said, "That's rather an unusual request. I'll have to refer you to the director. You can make an appointment at the front desk."

All of this, Moura knew, was for Fizzy's sake. He had made it necessary, and he had been on her mind the whole time: that was where he had come from; that was what he was.

And because of her concentration she called him as soon as she returned to Coldharbor. There was no reply. She used the bug, she peered through the skylight from the upper window, and — unable to find any sign of him — she unlocked his room with her emergency key. She had prepared herself for a loud complaining quack and flailing arms. She had prepared herself for worse — for his swollen face, a blue tongue, a brassiere around his neck. But there was nothing. He was gone, with all his boxes.

17

"Are we still on course?" Hooper askd.

Fisher did not reply. The land below was scratched with old roads. It was empty and sunlit and wide-awake green. It seemed safe — Hooper felt he could put this jet-rotor down anywhere. But he was not navigator. The navigator was silent inside his helmet.

"Is there something wrong, Fizz?"

"Call me captain," the boy pleaded in his quacky voice.

"All yours, captain," Hooper said, and thought of Jennix at Coldharbor and his space-station dreams and the fantasy of his funeral on the moon. Was that normal?

None of Hooper's talk could rouse the boy. Fizzy had not blinked since they'd crossed the Red Zone. When they had received a sharp command at the perimeter to give details of their Access Pass, Fizzy had opened his mouth. But no sound came out. He breathed hard, like someone trying to steam up a window, and had a glum, laborious look on his face. Hooper had transmitted the details and they had been allowed to pass over that great shaved strip of land, with its upturned dishes and low-level gunship patrols.

Hooper was almost sure they were on course. They were using the flight program from the New Year's trip. But Hooper wanted Fizzy to relax, or at least to say something— anything to lessen the boy's apparent terror.

"We are filming, captain," Hooper said. It was still early in the O-Zone part of the trip, but they were speeding, and he did not want to miss the aliens' camp.

The horizon and the white sky were a shining reflection on the curve of Fisher's faceplate.

"I wish I knew where Murdick got this stuff," Hooper said. "Jet-rotor. Burp gun. Sonic stunner. Sealed video equipment. And that food of his was like slop, but you've got to admit it was unique." He glanced again at the boy. "It must be true about Godseye having government connections."

How could Fizzy sit there so long and say nothing? Hooper had never imagined that fear would make a person deaf, but rather the reverse — make him hear every crackle and whisper. Or was it something muscular? The boy was rigid in the bouncing rotor.

"I get mad when I realize I can't buy what I want with my money. Hah! Tell me what I'm supposed to use if I can't use money."

Now Hooper knew he was talking to himself, so he was brisker and friendlier.

"But it's humiliating — you bet it is. That a guy with my net worth and my credit can't buy Special Forces gear. That I have to blackmail Willis Murdick, so I can use it. That I have to take orders. No, sir, scrub that last objection."

He glanced again at Fizzy and hated the boy's helmet and found the padded suit unnecessary and the shoulder patch ridiculous: Mission Westwind Commander, it said. The boy was dressed for a moon landing. "Lunar suits" — that's what people called the temperature-controlled suit that Fizzy had chosen for this trip. And the boots made his feet look elephantine.

"We are still filming," Hooper said, and then remembered: "Captain."

There was a murmur on his earphones. He waited for more babble, but no clear words were uttered. It was grunting— Fizzy. The fact that the boy was grunting meant that he was thinking hard and might say something. Hardy had once said that Fizzy's farting was also an indication that the boy was deep in thought. Still, bursts of air were forced down the wire — no words. The boy's thought showed like the rumbling surface of a cooking stew.

"Viruses," he said at last.

Hooper looked hard at Fizzy's faceplate and tried to penetrate it to see his expression. Surely the craziness would show

220 Paul Theroux

on his face. But all Hooper saw was the tilting land and empty sky of O-Zone mirrored on the plate. "Psycho-killers," Fisher said. Then there was a long silence — fifty clicks or more. "You can't really do anything about either one." And he turned, the reflection slipped away from his faceplate. Fear had given him one mad eye and dry lips. "There's no remedy for bugs or wackos."

So that was it: he was still afraid of the risks. He had boasted about eliminating risks, but Hooper had noticed that he had come on the trip reluctantly. He had waited until Moura had left with her friends in the rotor, and had met Hooper on the rotor pad of Coldharbor looking like a moon-man — padded "lunar suit," stratospheric helmet, high boots, finger-assisted gloves, and a container of weapons and equipment so heavy the rotor had to kneel to receive it. Fizzy had struggled through the main hatch, looking sick.

"You all right, Fizz?"

"Call me captain." That was the first time. The boy's face was yellow.

Now they were in O-Zone airspace. They flew low over the green tufty fields and the hills of blue rock and the hardwood forests. The thin brown rivers were all loops and oxbows. The city-stains were like the ashes of vast fires. They were circular and gray, littered with scrub and untended trees, and there were scorched saucer patches where there had been explosions. These craters brimmed with stunted trees. The land was lumpier where there were caves, but from this height nearly everything else looked flat,

"I had forgotten it was so dry," Hooper said. "But spring breaks through nonetheless."

The bright hot dust showed through the mottled woods. They knew that the green on the rocks that gave them a soft appearance was a crust of lichens. They had started their long descent.

"Still filming."

Fisher had not looked once at the ground-screen. He was holding on, bracing himself on his safety clamp, his head bowed.

"There's Firehills," Hooper said, and saw that Fizzy's eyes were shut tightly.

The towers, the terrace, the whips of foliage, the empty swimming pool and its snaking vines, the oaks and hickories surrounding the complex, which was set secure!) on the stoollike hill — it all looked lovely to Hooper and he felt, hovering there, as if it belonged to him.

"I see a fire," Fisher said, glancing out.

"Wild azaleas," Hooper said.

The boy winced and withdrew to his helmet.

"We'll make a sweep around it to get it on film. Okay, captain?"

After a slow circuit of the buildings they dropped into the very spot they had vacated almost two months before and saw that the alarms were still in place.

"How long do we have to stay?" Fisher asked.

Hooper threw open the hatch and lifted his faceplate and breathed the clean air. It was a beautiful day in O-Zone. Then he turned toward the boy and deliberately did not smile.

He said, "You tell me, captain."

In silence, they verified that the alarms still worked and the power packs were still charging. They used scanners and sound equipment to search the interior of Firehills for intruders. Fisher followed Hooper, doing nothing but grunting and growling — thinking hard; he stayed very close to his uncle, and from time to time Hooper bumped him, or stepped on his toes, and several times Hooper himself was tripped by the boy. Hooper calmed himself and moved on.

He was reassured by Fizzy's anxiety and he knew that for his purposes the boy was the perfect companion here. He was so spooked by aliens he would be a genius at spotting them on the tape they had made. Fizzy had devised a complicated program for scanning the videotape.

They were outside the condo now, at the edge of the clearing. The wall of dense trees prevented them from going farther, but for the moment Hooper was satisfied. He loved the partially broken brickwork, the grass growing through the terrace cracks, the oxidized metal foxed by tiny lichens, the desolation of the place. It was like an ancient ruin of hot solitary stones, but one he understood, because it was not really ancient — it was only abandoned and entirely empty.

It was not until he heard the small flute notes of a bird that he said, "There aren't many birds here."

All this time Fisher had been silent, bumping and tripping Hooper as they walked the perimeter of Firehills.

"What a shame we can't live here forever," Hooper said.

Something careless and lighthearted in Hooper's tone made Fisher stiffen.

"I'm afraid," the boy said, and sucked air.

Hooper put his hand on Fizzy's shoulder and felt the boy recoil slightly and then draw nearer to him and relax slightly, comforted by the simple touch of Hooper's glove. Hooper wanted to hug him for responding that way, but he didn't want to frighten him. Usually the kid hated to be touched! But he saw into Fizzy's loneliness, his isolation in his study at Coldharbor, He had a clear memory of seeing Fizzy bent over Pap, and he found the posture pathetic — not like someone driving the computer but rather like a fearful little Skell praying at an altar.

"We'll be all right here," Hooper said. "You're captain. I'm chief of ground operations. I'm responsible for your safety."

He had never been closer to the boy. He felt powerful as his protector and in an intense imagining he saw Fizzy as his own son, and wanted to hold on to him. It gave him heart to continue searching for that girl, because in seeing Fizzy as his son he took possession of the girl, too, and saw her as his wife. In that moment at Firehills — the green woods blazing around them and the sharp smell of dry dust in the air and the solitary rattle of a woodpecker — Hooper understood what it was that he lacked on earth: simply, a family that needed him.

It put him in a generous mood, and that generosity helped him see the boy clearly. Fizzy was a calculated product — the result of a plan. He had a type number; he had been designed; he had specifications and predictability. He had done everything that had been required of him. But he had not lived. His mind was a vivid island of intelligence in an innocent body. Now inexperience made him dumb, though it had never done so in New York. Faced with the real world of dust and insects and empty valleys, and the prospect of aliens, he felt terror.

That was proof of his worth. His fear was his humanity. His fear would save him. When Fizzy said, "I'm afraid," Hooper loved him.

And later, after sunset, when Hooper said, "I need you, captain," he meant it. Only Fizzy could read the videotape for aliens, only Fizzy could operate the scanner program. Without Fizzy's wonderful brain, Hooper knew that he would be blind and stumbling in this wilderness. He would never find that pretty girl. Fizzy was inarticulate and strange, gulping and farting in the echoey corridors of Firehills; but he could speak to these machines and get answers.

In the operations room — it was Fizzy's idea — they hung a row of monitors and installed a computer console. Fizzy looked at home here. His breathing was better. He didn't quack, he didn't grunt. He ran the videotape of their inbound trip and watched the main screen.

"Explain how these bleeps work."

"I can't, because you don't know the first thing about stealth or radar avoidance."

"1 know about sneaky people."

Fisher said, "Alien clandestine exfiltration, you mean."

Hooper had to bite his lips to keep from smiling. "How do I find an alien on this thing?"

"You'd never understand."

The selfish little snarl in Fizzy's voice gave Hooper a lift. Fight, he thought — fight and live.

But he spent the second day dragging Fizzy up to the roof, and he took sightings on every side, while Fizzy knelt behind the parapet. The third day they were airborne, flying through the markers on a grid they had traced over this part of O-Zone.

Fizzy said, "Do we have to do this?"

"Hardy said so."

"That porker."

"He wants us on the ground, too."

"I'm not going on the ground until I'm sure we're alone."

At night, behind blacked-out windows in the sealed operations room at Firehillls, Fisher scanned the videotape for aliens. He grunted, he gasped, he found no one.

Before they set off in the morning, and every night using starlight scopes and infrared sensors, Hooper wandered through the corridors of Firehills, looking for treasures. Everything he found was a treasure. He was like a beachcomber searching the tidemark for something familiar. He enjoyed being in these low buildings, among collapsed and dusty furniture, and old pictures, and faded paint, and brittle magazines. Firehills was a museum of recent artifacts — not very old, but how dated and useless! And their frivolity condemned him — the left-behind shoes, the cracked mirrors, the thick broken televisions and sunburned curtains. Nothing was so harsh as time in dimming brightness, or in shrinking objects into triviality, or in grinding great things very small. Time was an impartial leveler of everything. And what reproached Hooper here was that much of this junk was Allbright's merchandise, bought before he had introduced his cable catalog, and unpacked here to molder in the ruin and radiation. He saw his name on the lining of a lampshade, on the label of a towel, and printed on the dome of a dead bulb.

He thought how you had to look hard for ruins in America, and you were lucky if you found them, because they didn't last. When they were gone, they were gone for good — not like the ruins in Europe, but more like the mud huts in Africa, which simply crumbled and became earthworks again, with trees growing out of them. And when the ruins were gone you were lost, the past was a mystery, and not even the future was familiar. He thought: I need a family.

He had found his way to a sun-faded room at the top of the second tower and was looking off the balcony at the distances of trees.

"Hooper!"

Fisher's voice rang on the helmet phones.

"I've got a bunch of aliens here!"

Hooper found the boy rigid at his mainframe, his goggles misted, his mask and faceplate fogged — he was breathing hard, grunting, as if trying to speak.

The aliens were not in the old place, near the flat valley, that enormous depression surrounded by bluffs, where they had looked for huts. They had moved out of the valley and were in a heavily wooded part of O-Zone. They had built flimsy shelters — that was the meaning of those freckles on the screen; the hot pinpricks were humans. They were nearer to Firehills — not more than fifty clicks away.

"A bunch?" Hooper said. "A whole bunch?"

He smiled at the back of the boy's helmet, and still murmured the ridiculous word. The boy had never been so imprecise before. There was hope!

"Three," Fisher said, and grunted again. "I'm pretty sure the rest of them are hiding. There are lots of caves in those rocky hills nearby."

"Nothing to worry about." Hooper was relieved that Fizzy had spotted them. He would not have been surprised, after those killings, to find that the aliens had fled O-Zone. But it seemed they had only shifted away from the valley — if they were the same ones.

"Aliens!" Fisher said, fogging his faceplate again. "We didn't come here for them. We're shooting a video for Hardy. We're on a shoot!"

"We'll still have to go on the ground."

"I'm not going on no fucking ground if those dongs are there!"

"Take it easy, Fizz. They're probably a different bunch."

"They're the same ones from the meadow!" In his threatened mood, Fisher had begun to quack again. "I identified them. Two net-men and that skinny girl—"

Hooper lowered his face to the pinpricks that Fisher had enhanced on the monitor, and he warned himself against reacting.

"Hooper! You're responsible for my safety!"

"Stop worrying."

"I'm worriedr so how can I stop?"

"I need you, Fizz. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You're my navigator. I can't go anywhere without you."

"I'm the captain!"

"Leave them to me," Hooper said, still nodding. "I can deal with them."

But he was nodding at the tiny image, that bright star on the ground which matched perfectly the pretty girl in his imagination.

They blacked out more windows that night on Fisher's orders. They ate in silence — Hooper, with his mask off, grinned at the meat he was about to tear apart in his teeth; Fisher screwed a tube of protein fiber onto the suckhole of his faceplate and slurped it. At Fisher's insistence they checked all the alarms and all the infrared sensors.

Fisher said nothing: he was listening for aliens. Hooper thought of Hardy, of Moura, of Murdick, and Holly and the Eubanks, of everyone he knew in Coldharbor — in New York. He looked at his world from a distance, and from here it seemed very clear to him. He seemed to be looking down from space. Was this the sensation that Jennix craved? Everyone he knew was small and exposed, like those aliens. They were isolated. They vibrated in empty space.

He pulled out his sleep capsule — the long pod that lay under the blacked-out window. He switched it on.

"I was just thinking how we're always alone. Each of us is alone."

He knew he was rambling. Now he was thinking of the girl and feeling sorry for himself and pitying her.

"Ever notice?"

Fisher said, "No."

He had already crawled into his sleep capsule and was flexed in it on the floor like a white worm. His face showed. His eyes were dark — closed off like the windows just behind him.

"I never noticed."

No! Of course he hadn't! The boy had never known anything but solitude.

"But I was home then," Fisher said. "I had Pap."

The room hummed with silence.

"How do you feel now?"

"I've got you," Fisher said.

"Right, captain."

They were back at the clinic, the three of them. Two days after that first visit, Holly called Moura and said, "I want to go back to the clinic — now." Moura said, "Fine, I'll join you," and Holly was slightly shocked at how quickly Moura had agreed, just like that. But it was only a moment's pause, no more than a blink of Holly's long eyelashes — the shock excited her and made the visit even more urgent.

Moura noticed that Holly was dressed differently this time — not the teasing little apron and bib and bare bum, but a jacket and skirt and warm boots and goggles. Holly had realized that she could have what she wanted. It had probably just dawned on her that she didn't have to make an effort to attract a man at a contact clinic.

"I've never seen you looking so sensible," Rinka said — she had come reluctantly, she said. "For laughs," she said, using a phrase that Moura never believed, no matter who uttered it, no matter how.

Holly's smile was her lively one of lust and eagerness, and there was an edge of hilarity that lent a giggle to her voice.

"I told Brad he could land on the roof," Holly said. "I wish he had. It's so much better going through the roof. I think going through front doors in New York is really vulgar."

Moura hated this evasive chatter, but she was also grateful that she was not required to talk. What could she say that would not condemn her?

"We've got four-o'clock sessions," Holly said. "I opted for soft sessions — they're open-ended for my client area, and they're more expensive, but I told them I didn't want a time sleeve."

Moura thought: Hunger, greed, unlimited fucking — poor Holly. The jargon did not disguise Holly's mood. She was twitching, blinking behind her goggles, smoothing her skirt. But it moved Moura to see her friend nervous.

Rinka was sheepish. She seemed hesitant and embarrassed. Moura would have been touched by that embarrassment, except that Rinka persisted in her insincerity.

"I'm doing this for laughs more than anything else."

"There aren't many laughs here," Moura said.

The others fell silent, and she realized that she had been too sharp. What a stern remark to make to her uneasy friends.

To help the moment pass, she said, "But it's safe. It's got a reputation. It's not in the baby business anymore, but so what? It's got all kinds of men, and a good health record."

"I know a gal who caught that chronic clap from her husband," Holly said piously. "You get these red dripping blebs all over your pelvic area. You begin to smell. She started to drip — this gal I know. It was her husband! She would have been a lot better off here."

She sounded disgusted and self-righteous, but Moura knew it was poor Holly's confusion — virtuous one moment, devilish the next. Moura wanted to say, You'll get used to it here, but didn't — not because it wouldn't calm Holly but rather because it was such an ominous thought and probably true in a dreary way.

And Moura, too, was uncomfortable. She had the suspicion that they had wanted her as a chaperon, but now that she had eased them into the clinic they wanted to be rid of her. No one liked to have witnesses here.

I enjoy being with them but I don't like myself when I'm with them: she went on confessing to herself, because being here meant that she had to scrutinize herself and look for motives. All this was the past.

She thought: I have to be with them to understand who I am and where I have been.

"We're real-lifers," Holly whispered. "This is action."

It wasn't boasting — she was merely trying to raise her morale. Moura knew that first-time fear. It was mostly imaginary — there were few risks — so that when you overcame the fear you quickly felt brave, and that was the sudden beginning of a greedy stuffing habit.

"Where are the other women?" Rinka asked.

Her nervousness had made her prissy. As she sat in the reception area she kept pinching different parts of her suit in a modest tidying way.

"The idea is that you don't see anyone else," Moura said. "Except the donor. They apparently still call them donors."

"I love anonymity," Holly said. "It really switches me on." She touched the shine on her eager cheeks. "Most people will do anything in a mask!"

For Moura there was something painful about waiting here. It was torture, a well-informed fantasy, that reproached her. She had returned to an old love and seen that it had not existed. She had always been alone. She felt remorse, the humiliation of broken hopes. She thought: It is heartbreaking to be reminded of your old dreams.

The three women were instructed by another kindly nurse to pass to an inner room. They blinked and tried to widen their eyes: it was darker here, lighted only by lamps above bright not-very-good paintings and bronzes. The statues were of naked dancers — perhaps dancers — men and women. And the lights and the way the sculptures were positioned made you look closely — too closely: the things were really poor and plainly sexual. But the low music was clever. It didn't come from those rooms but rather seemed to be playing in your own ears.

"It must have been so different before," Holly said.

"Yes," Moura said, for her friend's sake.

"I guess this is it," Holly whispered, seeing another nurse, and she leaned toward Moura. "When we get to the room, what do we—?"

But the question was lost. The nurse gave Holly and Rinka their room numbers and then she waited with Moura until the other two had left.

"I'm here to see the director," Moura said, and thought: No, it was just the same, and wanted it to be over.

The fragrant odors in this place — perfumes and flowers— reminded Moura of their opposites: sweats and stinks; and a whiff of strong disinfectant from one doorway made her think of venereal poisons. The bronze statues and bad paintings were truly vulgar, and she hated the potted palms and soft music. None of that had changed. Years ago it had been slightly more shadowy, more pretentious and unsure of itself, although its business had been strictly regulated and the clients came to be fertilized, not fucked.

If there was a difference it was that now the place had more airs of being a medical facility: the white uniforms and gauze masks, the many reception areas, the solicitous instructions and needless clipboards; and all the staff so kindly and courtly, as if they were dealing with problem people. It was that atmosphere that depressed Moura and made her feel like a problem person.

"The director will see you now, Mrs. Allbright."

His name was Varley Sanford. He had founded the original clinic, but Moura had never met him before. He could have been a man of sixty, but he was probably much more than that. He was healthy, old-handsome in the way men sometimes were, rather slim, with a lined, sun-browned face and soft white hair. He had perfect teeth — capped and probably sealed, but a good job. All his gestures suggested a man used to calming women and gaining their confidence, and he had an unhesitating vanity.

His eyes were the giveaway — they were cold and colorless and bulged slightly. He hardly blinked. And his hands were those of a very old man — twisted and a bit shrunken in the slack skin. But it was not the age or that look that frightened her. There was also something reptilian about them — the thin digits with sharp narrow nails, the yellowing cuticle, the slippery skin that had a dry sheen on it. He had a lizard's unwavering gaze, and a limp reptile's handshake — he merely presented his hand and let Moura weigh it in her own. And her attention was drawn to the hands again, because just as Moura sat down Sanford clawed a piece of paper from his desk and held it rattling near his face — those fingers, those eyes.

"You don't have to introduce yourself," he said. It disconcerted Moura that Sanford still clutched the paper printout. "We know you. How is your son?"

"He is the reason I'm here," Moura said.

How could the man stare like that without blinking?

"I want to ask you about his father," Moura said, and she decided to be careful. Sanford had the sort of stare that made you talkative.

"We don't use that word. I'm sure you mean the donor. What do you want to ask?"

"His name."

Sanford's hands became very still. There was a pause on his face, and his features tensed and swelled slightly, as if the man were resisting an expression trying to surface. Moura was impressed by his control, but she was also impatient for him to speak.

"I'm willing to pay you for the information."

His hands were hairless and slender, with knobby joints, and the skin was covered with crescent wrinkles, as if cut with scales. The paper was pressed between his fingertips.

"Please say something."

He slowly drew his lips apart and said, "I've had stranger requests than that."

"I am only interested in my request," Moura said.

"Of course." Now he seemed to be smiling, and this was worse than his other frozen face. "Strange requests are always considered, and if they are granted there is always a surcharge of some kind. But we have strict regulations. As a contact clinic, we are working in a very sensitive area."

Moura said, "Don't make needless explanations. I know what business you are in now."

"Our business has always been family planning."

"How many of your clients want babies?"

"Not wanting them is also family planning."

Moura said, "Nowadays, women come here to be fucked."

He had put the printout down, but now, using only his nails, he scratched it from the desktop and took it into his hand, and he rattled it as he spoke.

"You sound indignant," he said. "But you were a steady client of ours for almost two years. We have no record of any complaint from you."

"That was sixteen years ago."

Sanford stood up. He did not speak. He locked the printout into his desk and beckoned Moura into the next room.

It was the sort of security room she had seen at Captain Jennix's checkpoint at Coldharbor — monitors, a bank of them, covered one wall. There were fifty or more, and their square screens made a chessboard pattern on the wall. Jennix's were always lighted, showing parts of Coldharbor— corridors and sidewalks — and parts of the city. But these screens in Sanford's room were cold and like his eyes had a surface gleam that was colorless and impenetrable. That's what it was about his eyes — he could see out but you couldn't see in.

Still he had not said anything. She hated his silences most of all. He reached and activated a dozen pressure pads, cutting the light and glare, and then he shook his control pistol at the monitors and in a drizzle of light blobs eight or ten of the screens came on.

The images were green-tinted orange at first, and then the flesh tones of naked bodies — so frail-looking and plain on these small screens. A hooded man lay with his head between the scissors of a woman's legs on one. On another a woman knelt over a man's face. They seemed feeble and a little frantic — that woman on all fours impaled by the man behind her — their close embrace like that of a pair of copulating frogs. In two others the woman sat on men, in another a woman was tied to the bedposts. The sound was turned off, but in one a woman was obviously shrieking with pleasure: Holly—

"Don't turn away," Sanford said. "Look."

But she had looked — she had seen everything. She tried to complete a thought: Sex is always solitary and selfish, and—

"We had those screens sixteen years ago," Sanford said, switching them off. "We were years ahead of our time." He had moved to the door. His voice was almost without emphasis. He seemed very sure of himself. "Go home, Mrs. Allbright, and think about those screens." He might have been giving directions to a small child. "They are the answer to everything. Think carefully, and come back if you like. But please be warned. They are also the answer to questions that you haven't yet asked."

18

It was dark enough now, Hooper thought — late on their fifth day at Firehills. He played a small light on Fisher's closed eyes.

The expression on the boy's face when he was asleep made Hooper love him more. He was so young! And he was innocent, his face unmarked, no scars — only a scatter of pimples — and so pale. With his eyes shut he seemed very fragile. He had a temporary, suspended look in sleep, his lips just parted, as if he were about to fall and break. The awful word "genius" was perfect, because there was something useless and unearthly about a genius.

The boy stirred in the light, then blinked — compressed his cheeks and squinted, giving himself a mole's squeezed face.

"You fucking herbert!" he said. Now he was awake.

He tried to say more but he choked on his fear, and he had stiffened in his sleep capsule. He did not move — he was deader than he had seemed asleep.

"It's me, Fizz — don't yell," Hooper said. "We're shooting."

Fisher just managed to groan, "I'm staying here."

"You're safer with me."

"Negative!"

There was no alternative: tonight, Fizzy could not refuse. It was to be Hooper's final push. But he had not said so.

Each night he had slipped out alone and muffled the rotor and flown to the forward base he had established. He had then trekked ten clicks, to where the aliens had moved. He waited; he watched; he filmed, returning at dawn to Firehills. There, Fisher scanned and interpreted the videotape.

These shoots were possible and productive because the aliens were also hunting at night, and they had put themselves at a disadvantage. They had moved their camp — obviously because of the New Year's Day ambush and those killings. So this was for them new territory: they were truly aliens here. They had no gardens, no huts, no defenses. Their dogs were gone — had they eaten them? They seemed to have little food. They went in search of small animals, which they trapped. They gathered wood. They grazed their animals — a skinny cow, a pair of goats. All this in the darkness of the woods, when the moon was down. They had survived so far, but they were having a difficult time, Hooper could tell. They were divided and desperate; they were blind.

And because they were blind, Hooper's shooting was easy. He used the starlight scope to find them, and he shot them with Murdick's heat-sensitive camera. Fisher had identified all of them. There were nine aliens. Monkeys, Fisher called them — Herberts, dongs, tools, wackos, jigs. He hated and feared them. But he described them minutely for the data base; he knew all their movements, which ones were scavengers and berry-pickers and diggers, which were hunters and sentries. Without realizing it — he still thought they were shooting for Hardy — he had helped Hooper isolate the girl. There were hours of her on the tape. Hooper had her hunting, he had her standing guard and burying food. That food business was interesting — the other aliens did not seem to know anything about it. Hooper watched the tapes after Fisher sealed himself into his sleep capsule for the night. This secret food-burying fascinated him, but there was another in which she washed in a shallow pool that was fed by a spring. Hooper had shot that one at some risk, because dawn was just breaking and until then he had always traveled in the darkness. But seeing her stripping off her clothes, he was not about to sneak away in his rotor simply because the sun was coming up. In fact, the light dazzling between the saplings gave the moment a powerful poignancy as she tossed her clothes aside and stood, as slender as a taper. The girl's nakedness and the rapid, splashing way she washed made her seem like a creature of the forest.

Her name was Bligh — that was the spelling Hooper gave it. He learned it by shooting her in whispered conversation with two men, one she called Gumbie, and another she called Rooks. Rooks was black. Fizzy analyzed their lip movements.

"They probably saw you. They probably want to kill you. Especially that jig,"

As he muttered — this was back at Firehills — he inserted the lip-reading program into the computer.

"They're hungry," he said. The data was coming through now. "They're talking about food."

"Hunger makes people irritable," Hooper said.

"You know all about it, don't you, herb? You and Hardy are such big talkers when you've got me to do all the work!"

The boy's fear made him quarrelsome, and quarrels upset him further.

"I appreciate your help," Hooper said.

"I'm the captain — you're the helper!"

"What are they saying?" Hooper asked, not daring even to try to calm the boy anymore.

"I'll tell you, but just stop giving speeches. 'Hunger makes people irritable.' I can't bear listening to shit like that."

"Right, captain."

Hooper was always surprised that Fizzy did not take offense when he spoke to him in this ludicrous way — the boy even seemed to like it.

"They're arguing," Fisher said. "'Listen, Bligh, if I find out you've been hiding food I'll kill you'—correction, 'kick you.' She says, 'Don't you threaten me.' The jig says, 'Don't make problems.' He should talk!"

That was last night, a typical night. Hooper had stayed near her and she had taken the same path to the shallow pool. He wondered whether she would remove her clothes again and wash; but she didn't — perhaps it was too cold. She waited, and when she seemed satisfied that no one was watching her, she foraged in the trees.

Hooper had been on the point of stunning her when he saw she was not foraging — she was hiding food. He was so fascinated by her deception that he allowed her to get away. So he had not isolated her: she had isolated herself. Perhaps she was planning her escape; perhaps she did not trust the others; perhaps she was merely hungry. He shot her going.

Usually, just before dawn the aliens hid themselves, to sleep. They had been frightened into new habits. And when they vanished, Hooper returned to Firehills. He watched the video he had made; but it was more than watching — it was like a form of prayer. It was sometimes worship. His desire for the girl, Bligh, dominated him totally. He told himself that he needed her, and that it was urgent. He believed it might make him strong. Instead, he felt sick. If he did not have her he would die. He reflected that he could have just about everything else on earth and it became a greater urgency that he should have her, because none of those other things mattered.

But it was not simply a reaching out and clutching her: he wanted her to possess him too. He wanted her to feel the same desire. She did not even know he existed! It was all like old magic, and he thought he sounded like a savage when he mumbled to himself that he loved her.

"We didn't come here for this," Fisher said.

He meant watching the tapes and drowsing all day and kicking around this old condo, Firehills. He also meant that they were too close to the aliens. He meant everything, because he was so frightened.

"It's what Hardy wants us to do," Hooper said.

"Hardy's got a secret weather scheme here," Fisher said. "I know all about it. I hacked his computer wide open."

"What's the scheme?"

"I don't know — the fucking tool stopped using his computer! But I'm sure it's one of those thermal mountains. He wants to get a contract, so that he's the only one in O-Zone."

"Except there's some people who got here ahead of him."

"I mean, he wants to be the only human being."

Hooper marveled at how all of Fizzy's reading and intelligence had failed to persuade him that aliens were human. His fear had made them into wolves and monkeys.

Hooper said, "We agreed to Hardy's terms, captain."

"That porker."

"And we can't shoot these ground elevations until we've isolated the aliens."

He meant Bligh — without her there would only be misery in his mouth.

All this time, Fisher had stayed at Firehills, behind the blacked-out windows and the wires and alarms and infrared sensors. Hooper had allowed it. But tonight, their fifth night at Firehills, Hooper needed the boy with him.

"Negative," Fisher was saying as he rolled his head in refusal.

Hooper said, "I think a couple of them could have just slipped under our wires."

He regretted the lie when he saw the effect it had on the boy's face: Fizzy was drowning.

"So we're moving camp, Fizz. Leave the hardware and follow me. I've already loaded the food."

But in the end Fisher said he was too weak to follow. Hooper helped him up and half-carried him into the rotor. And then they were on their way, heading for the forward base.

"Did you say something?"

There had been a murmur in Hooper's phones.

Fisher was whimpering. "You fucking herbert."

The landing spot for the jet-rotor was a sinkhole, ten clicks from the aliens' camp. It was a wide hole and deep enough to hold and hide the rotor. These sinkholes, Fisher said, were caused by the collapse of the limestone caverns that were so numerous in O-Zone. The roof fell in and a bowl was formed. Everyone talked about the sabotage that might have caused the radiation leak, or was it a ransom attempt, or blackmail that had contaminated O-Zone for so long? Fisher's own theory was that it was none of these. It was an earth tremor, like the one that had created Landslip in California, and simultaneous collapse of these caverns all over the Ozark Plateau. The weight of this rock had ruptured the drums of nuclear waste that had been hidden in the caverns; and so the place was poisoned.

Hooper was doubtful. "Then why did the Feds make a mystery of it and imply that a dark foreign power had made a mess of O-Zone?"

"Because the Feds didn't want to admit that they had been hiding nuclear waste in Missouri for twenty years. It was a blunder, so they invented a conspiracy."

"And it never occurred to anyone that it was the roof falling in?"

"How could it? No one was allowed to enter O-Zone. It was evacuated and sealed/'

"Smart kid," Hooper said.

"And now we're sitting in one," Fisher said, looking out of the rotor at the steeply sloping sides of the hole. "It's probably hot!"

"It's safe. I've checked it for radiation levels."

"I hope it's hot. I hope your knob drops off!"

The hole was perfectly situated for Hooper's purposes. He had flown from Firehills with the rotor's muffler engaged — it was almost noiseless, its sound was something like the thin whine of a nighttime mosquito, and didn't carry: it was the pelting of the rotor blades. In the hole, it was hidden. This was Hooper's forward base.

Fisher said, "I hate it here."

The base of the hole was soft and silty, probably from soil that had washed down, and on its upper edge were trees, many of them withered and bent down.

"You think it's pretty on the ground-screen," the boy said. "But it's just smelly green rock."

The false barren green of O-Zone covered the exposed limestone here. It was a crumbly, scaly green, the fungus crust of lichens. From a distance it was velvety and ravishing; up close it was hard and ugly and very dry, and every surface was thick with it. Beneath this layer of scrubby lichen was solid rock. At night, in the darkness, it seemed to have a sweetish stink.

They had traveled in the dark. The landscape had showed crimson and gray on the ground-screen, the woods mottled, the hills had been blotches and black holes.

"Lights are dangerous," Hooper said. "They make you overconfident."

"You dong," Fisher said. "You're supposed to be responsible for my safety. How did those Skells get under the wire?"

"There are no Skells out here," Hooper said, amazed at the boy's ignorance of this simple fact. "You only find Skells in cities. You saw them yourself on the tape. They're not tramps and bagmen and cannibals."

"You tool."

"They're sort of ordinary people," Hooper said, persisting.

"Grubbing in caves. Climbing trees. Chewing branches. Oh, sure, ordinary people!"

"We drove them out of their camp. We killed two of them! They're scared — wouldn't you be? They're hungry. They're desperate."

"You feel sorry for those monkeys!" Fisher said. "What a fucking porker. It's a good thing I'm captain. If you were captain you'd probably be making contact with them. Chewing branches with them! 'Okay, jigaboo, pass me a branch'" — Fisher was honking, because it was all so preposterous—"And there's Hooper and his monkeymen, all having a feeding frenzy! Boy, am I glad I'm captain."

He stopped talking as the rotor shut itself off — something in its whine had kept him talking. But now he sat in the darkness, simply breathing. Hooper said nothing. The boy bitched and breathed hard when he was afraid.

"What about — me?" Fisher cried finally. "I'm hungry. I'm desperate. And I'm not a monkey!"

But it was so hard to reassure this ranting kid. Hooper was calm because he was certain of success — certain of its necessity, too. He saw the three of them in the rotor — Fizzy navigating, Bligh in the rumbleseat, and flying east with a tailwind in a clear sky. It was a lovely vision but it was so complete he could not describe it — he had gone too far in imagining it, given it too many specific details. He had let it accumulate around him so that he was already living within it. And he knew that it was his own vision, not Fizzy's; so the boy might find no consolation in it at all.

"Let's stick to the plan," Hooper said. He meant his own plan. "And then we can go home."

"I'm not leaving this rotor."

"It's only ten clicks to the camp," Hooper said.

"I'm completely hidden in this sinkhole. I ain't leaving, porky."

"I'm telling you, you're safer with me."

"Walking in the dark up a hill in monkey land!"

"Suit yourself, sonny." Hooper was too angry to risk saying anything more.

"Herbert!" Fisher called out. "Don't go! Don't leave me!"

But Hooper had already pushed away his safety clamp and lifted himself free of the hatch. The darkness poured past him. He did not think of the risks but only of the urgency of this mission. He was not worried about these blind aliens. He only thought how much easier this whole business would be with Fizzy's cooperation. And now the stubborn boy had wedged himself in the rotor and wouldn't leave.

Hooper dropped to the ground. Outlined against overlapping masses of stars, the rotor — parked on its long crooked-out legs-looked like a monster insect. There was a breath of wind tonight. No, it was a suffocated voice in the rotor crying, I'm captain. A little gnat shriek. I'm captain.

Over these past days it had become Hooper's practice to climb the hill quickly and descend the other side more slowly, scanning for aliens. He had safe stopping-places where he crouched and listened for voices or footsteps. He had discovered that people who hunt at night establish regular routes and never deviate from them. Night hunters were the most predictable creatures, and they all behaved like raccoons, blindly treading paths that were clearly visible by day as worn-away grooves on the floor of the woods-Darkness was the cover for their routine; but Hooper also had a night routine, and he could see their paths in his starlight-scope. He always knew at which point in the trek he would hear Bligh stealthily toeing the leaves, and where he would see her foraging, and where bathing or waiting. He had become accustomed to watching her when she was alone, like a bird on a branch. He felt he had come to know her well. He loved her face. When she was alone her face was real.

But he was surprised tonight at not finding her in any of the usual places. For an hour he trekked and stopped, and for another hour he scanned — nothing in the imager, nothing on the scope or the phones. He went to the spring. Because of the water, it was the only dense greenery around, the only seclusion. Hooper did not want to be trapped by daylight. Bligh was not there. Hooper waited, listening to his own breath in his ears, and the rattle of the dry leaves.

What he first took to be voices were running feet, closing in on him quickly. He had heard Bligh running before — she was fast; but these were swifter echoey steps. He decided that it was two people, one just ahead of the other.

He set his scanner at those sounds and waited for an image. He was always excited by the rising image — a pinprick became a seed-shape, and swelled to a wavering blob, grew legs and arms, and was whole and human. It was a kind of birth in seconds.

So he saw Bligh, like this, growing out of a point of light; and then saw an unformed thing behind her. In the imager it became a bearded man in a heavy coat. Bligh outran her pursuer and then the man stumbled among so many trees.

"I can see you!" the man yelled. But it was Bligh's own territory. She knew it in the dark, and it was the man — this stranger — who was lost. Yet he was not that far away. Bligh might not be able to hear him, but Hooper monitored his gasps at thirty meters.

Crouched, and with just the imager and the mike raised in the dark, Hooper could see them both, Bligh and her pursuer.

"It will be light soon," the man called out. Who was it? Fizzy would know. He had identified them all. The kid even had nicknames for them, like the Jig, and Dimbo, and Beaver-Face. "I'll get you then, when it's light!"

With this the man was silent and still, watting for the night to lift. Bligh lay against a fallen tree, her hands on her face, her knees drawn up.

The man remained a melted shape, a swatch of pink, pulsing on Hooper's small screen. Hooper wanted to do something, but what could he do without alarming Bligh? He might lose her in that attempt. It was past four-thirty and the sky was changing from a starry blackness to a murky blue, like deep ocean overhead. In one quarter, the sky was lighter but the wooded land here was still dark, and the hillsides like black walls with cold shadows.

In this silence and ripening tight the man stood up and everything happened.

He ran forward and picked out Bligh. He flung himself at her. But as he did so, Hooper fired the stunner and the man dropped. He fell with a flop, like a heavy sack, and his grunt was the air thumped out of his mouth.

It took several seconds for Bligh to realize she was safe from the man.

"Don't run," Hooper said. "I'm over here."

The light was enough.

She seemed curious rather than afraid. Hooper could see the wonderment on her face, the thought: Who. .? She was thin now. She wore an old coat, and her hair was bright and chopped.

"Bligh," he said.

She looked closer and almost smiled at hearing her name— she seemed touched, as if she had just heard someone praying.

In his mind, Hooper had always pursued her and taken aim with Murdick's sonic stunner, which Fizzy had repaired — Fizzy had the new model with him in the rotor. (It was the boy's peculiar selfishness that he kept all the expensive and elaborate equipment with him, and never used it.) Hooper had imagined stunning her with one shot, and on waking she was his — he had never questioned how.

He was amazed by how very different all this was. He was improvising — it was new to him, and clumsy. He observed himself taking off his mask and dropping it, and throwing his stunner aside, and taking off his gloves. His hands were bare — he could see he was trembling.

She watched him very closely with alert eyes — they were big and pale; they missed nothing. Her head was erect on her long neck, and steady like a deer's in a breeze.

"I love you," he said, and felt liberated by saying the word.

It was only then that her face clouded and she backed away.

That morning Moura had said, "He's never been gone this long before." But Hardy was just as evasive as he had been at the beginning. He was evasive in an active hectoring way. He first went deaf and demanded that Moura repeat what she said — the worry; then he ridiculed her for worrying; then accused her of being suspicious, and finally of wasting time— it was too late, he said; didn't she know that simple thing?

It was probably the only thing that he had in common with Fizzy, that he was overbearing and abusive when he was nervous; at his most truculent when he was fearful. Then you poked him and he collapsed.

Now he was saying, "Hooper got him out of his room somehow — for almost a week so far! That's more than we ever managed to do!"

It was all blame. He meant: You failed him, you neglected him, you turned him into a robot, a tool, a supermoron — and you're his mother!

"I don't know whether you understand," Hardy said, "but Fizzy's childishness humiliates me. I feel as though I have to carry him — and I don't like it. I'm not his father. I'm not responsible. I don't know him — I used to, but I don't anymore. It's sometimes that way with children, isn't it?" But he did not wait for a reply. "You don't understand."

And then Hardy went about his business. He might be late, he said. He was working in the Asfalt Annex — more evasions: there was no Asfalt Annex, Hardy must have just invented it.

But he was not stupid. It had occurred to Moura many times that in creating these evasions Hardy had made himself a free man.

She wished she had some of that freedom. But she felt burdened by her past and had only lately realized how much of it was Fizzy — how this horrible-handsome boy disturbed her. Her conversation with Hardy had upset her. She had been worried, and it was related to Fizzy. But how could she tell Hardy that she was making another visit, this time alone, to the contact clinic? He would have said, "What are you trying to prove?" and she didn't have an answer to that.

It was her third visit to the clinic in less than a week — but "clinic" was the wrong word. It was a meat market, it was a doghouse, it was a stud farm. She hated its hidden exits and entrances, all its face-saving secrets, the rotor park on the rooftop, the blacked-out windows. Its pretense of being involved in medical research and technology was a shallow mockery, and all that talk about fertility and babies and programs! She hated the bad expensive decor and the subdued and cheating lights, and the oversized plants, and the tests and examinations. Most of all she hated the solemn medical manner of the staff, who were all pimps and whores.

"You can go up now, Moura" — she hated the way these so-called nurses had quickly gotten onto a first-name basis— "Dr. Sanford is expecting you."

And she hated the nurse's knowing face and her brisk bullying manner — standing watch over her until she started upstairs.

"To be perfectly honest, I didn't expect to see you again," Sanford said. "But here you are, so let's get down to business."

They were in the room with the checkerboard wall of video screens, and Sanford had begun switching monitors on and activating machines, tapping pressure pads and pushing chairs forward as soon as they had entered.

Moura was intimidated by the monitors'—by her memory of the glimpse Sanford had given her: that awful combination of high technology and poor frantic flesh. It went against her upbringing for her to feel ashamed — and she wasn't ashamed. Yet she wondered whether her anger and indignation were a mask for shame. The clinic was perniciously spic-and-span, and she was disgusted with herself for being there. But she held on to her doubts, because always in her life it was her doubts that saved her. She thought: This is what I was, but is this what I am now?

She knew the sad greedy women who came here and stuffed themselves full with sex. They acted out their fantasies. No one was shocked here, because everything had a price: some fantasies were merely more expensive than others. None were priceless. That was the logic of the meat market — every cut was for sale. She had never believed that she was one of those women, and that was why she was able to return here.

Sanford's fussing distracted her in these thoughts and brought her back to her immediate purpose.

"Shouldn't we be discussing terms?" she said, because she saw him slipping a video cartridge into a slot.

"We're very old-fashioned here—"

Why was it that crooks and liars always used that phrase?

"— we're in business to make money. And I've found that for people in certain moods, money is no object."

He had not turned to look at her as he spoke. It was a gauge of his contempt, not to turn. It was also a medical man's arrogance; and it was the arrogance of a pimp.

Now the largest screen was lighted. Sanford said, "All this was a long time ago, of course."

She guessed that his elaborate manner was a way of wrong-footing her, and she felt that he was behaving this way because he suspected that she was in a weak position — she had come with a request: she needed him — so he must have thought. Perhaps he also suspected that she despised him. Beneath his fluttering phrases and gestures there was mockery. She was convinced of his sadism, because he was so much worse when he smiled.

He was smiling at the screen. It was an old video; she could tell from its scratchy surface and occasional jumps, its rattled lines, its poor color quality — parched in some shots and garish in others.

But there was no mistaking the young man. She looked upon his beaked mask thinking: A mask is also a face.

"Is that him?"

She only watched; she said nothing. But she felt as if she were at the edge of a cliff that was breaking beneath her and bearing her down. The man had entered a room. He was naked except for the mask — and that looked a little fierce. There was no sound, but she knew the man was speaking.

"Tell me his name," Moura said at last.

"Just watch," Sanford said.

She said, "I'm almost sure it's him."

But Sanford kept facing the screen. What did he see with those empty eyes? Moura realized that she had deliberately not looked at his hands, so as to keep her composure.

The masked man walked forward, his penis like a tassel making an odd short arc as it wagged. She had always thought of sex in a disconnected way because penises seemed like something added on, with a separate existence — rather comic and bulgy tassels one minute, and the next minute terrible truncheons.

He was very young — tightly muscled and tall, with a flat stomach and slender legs. It was Fizzy's body — Fizzy's hands and feet; the same penguin's walk that made her feel safe.

"That's enough," she said. "His name and whatever other details you can give me — that's all I want."

Sanford smiled with only his mouth — his cold eyes were no help — and his effort made him seem particularly sinister to Moura,

"I'll pay you whatever you want," she said. "And no one will ever know. I realize you value your confidentiality, so I give you my word that it will remain my secret. I'll sign anything you ask, I'll swear—"

"Not necessary," Sanford said. He was confident, and yet not relaxed as an assured man might be. He held himself stiffly in his chair, and began to turn. "I know you will never sue us."

He was facing her, twisting his hands — one hand throttling the other.

"This is why."

As he turned back to the screen the angle of the camera changed — a new camera, a different corner of the room.

And now Moura saw the young woman on the bed; she was propped on a stack of pillows, one hand lying just between her legs in what was not modesty but a kind of teasing. As the man approached, she opened the fingers of that hand, making a wicket of them, and the mock-modest covering gesture became gross and explicit. Spreading her fingers, she spread her legs, and showed the lips of her vulva reddening, and its moistened throat.

She too wore a mask that perfectly fitted her: it was the face of a lovely woman.

"Shall I turn the sound up?"

"No" — and she surprised herself by sobbing. "I don't think I could bear—"

She did not finish, for now the man had embraced the young woman, and she received him, taking his face in her hands and kissing it. It was a clumsy coming together of puppet heads — staring and expressionless, the most meaningless caress: mask kissing mask. But it did not matter that their faces had the fixed expressions on the masks; it was their bodies that thrilled her. She saw pleasure, drama, and a subtle change — even an expressive sadness — in the bodies of the young man and young woman. And there was something that moved her in the way their feet responded — their lovely feet.

Tears were streaming down Moura's face. She watched willingly, punishing herself with the sadness of it. She wept for herself and the young man. She wept for Fizzy. She wept at the sight of the solitary act. The young woman did not know that she was lost.

Finally she could not bear to look anymore, and could not see through her tears. Alone, she saw the woman alone. There was no loneliness in love. But sex was narrow, sex was private. It was like throttling a small animal — choking it until it was dead. It was sometimes like twisting your own arm off. It was not shared — not really — and when the desire was gone there was nothing. Love involved someone else; but all sex was always sex with yourself.

"Now you know almost everything."

"He's gone," Hooper said when they got back to the sinkhole where the rotor was parked.

The sun was just breaking over the brow of the hill, and the whole sky was visible — liquid with light.

"The food's gone. The weapons too."

As soon as he saw the hatch lying open he had let go of Bligh's hand. She watched without surprise as Hooper blustered. He was saying: How? Why?

"They've snatched him — we'll never find him," Hooper said. He hated saying these things, because his words made it all real. But he couldn't help it; he was babbling, and now he spoke directly to the woman, who had not said anything so far. "Where are they taking him?"

She had pale eyes, a child's face, and her skin was damp and dusty from the tumult of the night. Her clothes were torn and so threadbare, and she was facing a man in a gleaming rotor-suit, standing tall in expedition boots, and wired for survival.

In a small surrendering voice she said, "Where are you taking me?"

Just then dawn dissolved the simple darkness of night and the clear air showed the beautifully lit disorder of the day in this wilderness — the green-caked rocks and gaunt trees, the blue dust, the pathless woods, the emptier distances.