Clay's Ark (5 page)

He turned stiffly and went to the door, no longer laughing.

"Eli?" Ingraham said.

"I got to get out of here for a while, man, I'm getting punchy. I'll be back." Eli stumbled out the door and away from the

house. When Blake could no longer hear him, he spoke to Ingraham. "That did look like a snakebite scar," he said.

"What the hell do you think it was?" demanded Ingraham. "I was there. The rattler bit him, tried to crawl off, then

doubled up a few times and died. We kept the tail. Fifteen-bead rattle."

Blake decided he was being lied to. He sighed and leaned back in silent rejection of whatever fantasy might come next.

"This whole thing is going to be hard on you, Doc," Ingraham said. "You're going to want to ignore just about

everything we say because none of it makes any sense in the world you come from. You'll deny and Rane will try to

deny and it won't make a damn bit of difference because one way or another, all three of you are here to stay."

PAST 5

The dogs were winning.

They had attacked almost in unison, furiously, angered by his alien scent. Together, they managed to bring him down

before he could hurt either of them. Then the smaller one, who appeared to be part Doberman, bit into the arm he had

thrown up to protect his throat.

Pain was the trigger that threw him into his changed body's version of overdrive. Moving faster than the dogs could

follow, he rolled, came to his feet, locked both hands together and battered the smaller dog down in midair. The dog

gave a short shrieking cry, fell, and lay twitching on the ground.

The larger dog leaped for his throat. He threw himself to one side, avoiding its teeth, but hunger and weariness had

taken their toll. He stumbled, fell. The dog lunged again. He knew he could not avoid it this time, knew he was about to

die.

Then there was a thunderous sound-a shot, he realized. The dog landed awkwardly, unhurt, but startled by the sound.

There was human shouting. Someone pulled the dog back before it could renew its attack.

He looked up and saw a man standing over him, holding an old shotgun. In that brief moment, he noted that the man

was frightened both of him and for him, that the man did not want to do harm, but certainly would in self-defense, that

this man, according to his body language, would not harm anything helpless.

That was enough.

He let his weariness, hunger, and pain take him. Leaving his abused body to the care of the stranger with the out-of

date conscience and the old-fashioned shotgun, he passed out.

When he came to, he was in a big, cool, blue-walled room, lying in a clean, comfortable bed. He smiled, lay still for a

while, taking mental inventory of his already nearly healed injuries. His arm had been bitten and torn in three places.

His hands and arms had been scratched and bruised. His legs were bruised. Some of this was from climbing the rocks

to this house. Some was from climbing out of the red volcanic mountains where he had hidden when the ship was

destroyed. His muscles ached and he was thirsty again. But more important, he was intensely hungry. Food was

available now. He could smell it. Someone was cooking pork, roasting it, he thought, so that the savory meat smell

drifted through the house and seemed almost edible itself. His body required more food than a normal person's and in

spite of his desert kills, he had been hungry for days. The food smells now made him almost sick with hunger.

He found a pitcher of water and a glass on the night table next to his bed. He drank all the water directly from the

pitcher, then sat up and looked himself over.

He had been bathed, and clothed in someone's gray pajamas. Whoever had removed his coverall and bathed him was

probably ill. They would not realize it for about three weeks, but when the symptoms began to make themselves felt,

chances were, his rescuer would go to a doctor and pass the infection on beyond this isolated place. And chances were,

neither the rescuer nor the doctor would survive-though, of course, both would live long enough to infect others. Many

others. Both would be infectious long before they began to exhibit symptoms. The doctor would not recognize the

illness, would probably give it first to family and friends.

The ship had died, the three people he had come to love. most had died with it to prevent the epidemic he had probably

just begun. He should have died with them. But of the four, only his enhanced survival drive had saved him-much

against his will. He had been a prisoner within his own skull, cut off from conscious control of his body. He had

watched himself running for cover, saving himself, and thus nullifying the sacrifice of the others. To his sorrow, to his

ultimate shame, he, and he alone, had brought the first extraterrestrial life to Earth.

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

otherwise?

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

way.

"So," she said, "you're among the living again. I thought you might be. Are you hungry?"

"Yes," he croaked. He coughed and tried again. "Please, yes."

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

"Jake," he lied. "Jacob Moore." Jake Moore had been his maternal grandfather, a good man, an old-style, shouting

Baptist preacher who had stepped in and taken the place of his father when his father died. It was a name he would not

forget, no matter how his body distracted him. His own name would send this woman hurrying to the nearest phone or

radio or whatever people in this desolate place used to communicate with the world outside. She would call the would-

be rescuers he had hidden from for three days after the destruction of the ship, and she would feel that she had done

him a great favor. Then how many people would he be driven to infect before someone realized what was happening?

Or was he wrong? Should he give himself up? Would he be able to tell everything he knew and dump the problem and

himself into the laps of others?

The moment the thought came to him, he knew it was impossible. To give himself up would be an act of self-

destruction. He would be confined, isolated. He would be prevented from doing the one thing he must do: seeking out

new hosts for the alien microorganisms that had made themselves such fundamental parts of his body. Their purpose

was now his purpose, and their only purpose was to survive and multiply. All his increased strength, speed,

coordination, and sensory ability was to keep him alive and mobile, able to find new hosts or beget them. Many hosts.

Perhaps three out of four of those found would die, but that magical fourth was worth any amount of trouble.

The organisms were not intelligent. They could not tell him how to keep himself alive, free, and able to find new hosts.

But they became intensely uncomfortable if he did not, and their discomfort was his discomfort. He might interpret

what they made him feel as pleasure when he did what was necessary, desirable, essential; or as pain when he tried to

do what was terrifying, self-destructive, impossible. But what he was actually feeling were secondhand advance-retreat

responses of millions of tiny symbionts.

The woman touched him to get his attention. She had brought him a tray. He took it on his lap, trying, and in the final,

driven instant, failing to return the woman's kindness. He could not spare her. He scratched her wrist just hard enough

to draw blood.

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

"It's nothing," the woman said. "I'd like to hear how you wound up out here so far from any other settlement. And

here." She handed him a linen napkin-real linen. "Wipe your hands and face. Why are you perspiring so? It's cool in

here."

PRESENT 6

In surprisingly little time, Meda served a huge meal. There was a whole ham-Blake wondered whether it was

homegrown -several chickens, more salad than Blake thought six people could possibly eat, corn on the cob, buttered

carrots, green beans, baked potatoes, rolls . . . Blake suspected this was the first meal he had eaten that contained

almost nothing from boxes, bags, or cans. Not even salt on most of the food, he realized unhappily. He wondered

whether the food was clean and free of live parasites. Could some parasite, some worm, perhaps, be responsible for

these people's weight loss? Parasitic worm infestations were almost unknown now, but these people had not chosen to

live in the present. They had adopted a nineteenth-century lifestyle. Perhaps they had contracted a nineteenth-century

disease. Yet they were strong and alert. If they were sharing their bodies with worms, the worms were damned unusual.

Blake picked at the barely seasoned food, eating little of it. He wasn't concerned about any possible worm infestation.

That could be taken care of easily once he was free. And since everyone took food from the same serving dishes,

selective drugging was impossible. He let the girls eat their fill. And he watched the abductors-especially Eli-eat

prodigious amounts.

Keira tried to talk to him during the meal, but he gave the impression of being too busy eating to listen. Blake thought

he tried a little too hard to give that impression. Eli was attracted to Keira; that was obvious. Blake hoped his ignoring

her meant he was rejecting the attraction. The girl was sixteen, naive, and sheltered. Like most enclave parents, Blake

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

surrounded by vast, crowded, vulnerable residential areas through which ran sewers of utter lawlessness connecting

cesspools-economic ghettos that regularly chewed their inhabitants up and spat the pieces into surrounding

communities. The girls knew about such things only superficially. Neither of them would know how to handle a grown

man who saw them as fair game. Nothing had ever truly threatened them before.

Meda was staring at Blake.

She must have been doing it for some time now. She had eaten her meal-a whole, roasted chicken plus generous

helpings of everything else. Now she nibbled at a thick slice of ham and stared.

"What is it?" he asked her.

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

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

She got up, walked around the table, stood over Blake, staring down at him intently. Sweat ran down her thin,

predatory face. "Come on, Doc," she whispered.

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

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

Sweat ran into her eyes, but she did not seem to notice. In a moment, she would take hold of him with her skinny claws.

He stood up, stiff with fear of the woman and fear of showing it. He bumped the table, palmed a knife, secretly, he

thought. The idea of threatening her with it, maybe using it on her, repelled him, but he gripped it tightly.