Clay's Ark (4 page)

religious people up here once, though. Not cultists, just . . . What do you call them? People who never saw sweet reason

around the turn of the century, and who decided to make a decent, moral, Godfearing place of their own to raise their

kids and wait for the Second Coming."

"Leftovers," Blake said. "At least that's what we called such people when I was younger. But this place looks as though

it hasn't been touched by this century or the last one. Looks more like a holdover from the nineteenth."

"Yeah," Eli said, and smiled again. "Get out. Doc. Let's see if I can talk Meda into cooking you folks a meal." He took

the keys, then waited until Blake and Keira got out. Then he locked their doors and got out himself.

Blake looked around and decided that almost everything he saw reminded him of descriptions he'd read of subsistence

farming more than a century before. Chickens running around loose, pecking at the sand, others in coops and in a large

chicken house and yard. Hogs poking their snouts between the wooden planks of their pens, rabbits in wood-and-wire

hutches, a couple of cows. But every building was topped by photovoltaic intensifiers. The well had an electric pump-

clearly an antique-and on the front porch of one of the houses, a woman was using an ancient black Singer sewing

machine. There was a large garden growing over perhaps half the valley floor. And near the two most distant houses

were small structures that might have been, of all things, outhouses.

Blake had turned to ask Eli about it when suddenly, Rane was in his arms. He hugged her, startled that even this strange

place had made him forget her danger for a moment. Now, flanked by both his daughters, he felt better, stronger. The

feeling was irrational, he knew. The girls were no safer for their being with him. Their captors still had the guns. And

they were all still trapped in this isolated, atavistic place. Worst of all, something was being planned for them-

something they might not survive.

"What did you hear?" he asked Rane while Eli was busy talking to Meda.

"I think they're on some weird drugs or something," Rane whispered. "That guy Ingraham-his hands shake when he

isn't using them, and when he is, he has other tics and twitches."

"That doesn't have to mean drugs," Blake said. "What about the woman?"

"Well ... no twitches, but if you think I'm too outspoken, wait until you meet her."

"What did she say?"

Uncharacteristically, Rane looked away. "It wasn't anything that would help. I don't want to repeat it."

Keira touched Rane's arm to get her attention. "Was it about you being more likely to survive than the two of us?

Because if it was, we got that too."

"Yes."

"Plus?"

"Kerry, I'm not going to tell you."

It must have been bad then. There was very little Rane would hesitate to say. Blake resolved to get it out of her later.

Now, Eli was coming toward them, motioning them into the wood-and-stone house. The dark-haired woman, Meda,

came with him, stopping abruptly in front of Blake so that he had to stop or collide with her. She was a tall bony

woman with no attractiveness at all beyond the long, thick, dark brown hair. She may have been attractive once, but

now she had no shape, poor coloring, and not even the sense to cover herself as Keira had. She wore jeans cut off at

mid-thigh and a man's short-sleeved shirt, buttoned to her skinny midriff, then tied. Blake wondered whether Rane

might be right about the drugs.

"For your own sake," Meda said quietly, "you ought to know that we can hear better than most people. I don't usually

care who hears what I say, but you might. Now what I told your kid, what she was too embarrassed to repeat, was that I

meant to ask Eli for you. I like your looks. It doesn't matter whether you like mine. Everybody here looks like me,

sooner or later."

"Jesus Christ," Blake muttered disgustedly. He began to laugh, not meaning to, but not able to stop. "You are crazy," he

said, still laughing. "All of you." The laughter died finally, and he could only stare at them. They stared back

impassively.

"What are you going to do?" he asked Eli. "Give me to her?"

"How can I?" Eli asked. "I don't think I own you. Meda and your kid have a way with words, Doc. With more people

like them, we never would have avoided World War Three."

Blake managed to stifle more laughter. He rubbed a hand across his forehead, and was surprised to find it wet. He was

standing in the hot desert sun, but between his daughters and his captors, he had hardly noticed.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked.

"Oh, you'll spend some time with her. That can't be helped. I wish it weren't necessary, but she's your jailer-which is

what she was really asking to be. We're going to have to confine you pretty closely for a while, and things will work

out better if your jailer is a woman."

"Why?"

"You'll know, Doc. Just give it a little more time. Meanwhile, for the record, what you and Meda do together is your

business." He turned, faced Meda. "There are limits," he said softly. "You're getting to like this too goddamn much, you

know?"

She glared at him for a moment. "You should talk," she said harshly, though somehow, not quite angrily. She turned

and went inside, slamming the door behind her.

Eli sighed. "Lord, I hope you'll all make it-all three of you so we won't have to do this again soon." He glanced to

where Ingraham stood watching, managed a crooked smile. "You figure she'll feed us?"

"She'll feed me," Ingraham said, smiling. "She invited me to dinner. Let's go in and see if she's set a place for you."

They herded Blake and the girls into the house, somehow communicating amusement, weariness, hunger, but no threat.

It was almost as though the Maslin family had been invited to eat with new friends. Blake shook his head. On his own,

he would have tried to break away from these people-whatever they were -long ago. Now . . . He wondered what his

chances were of getting Eli alone, getting his gun and the car keys. If he didn't move soon, Rane or Keira might be

separated from him again. These people were in such bad physical condition, they had to take precautions.

Abruptly, it occurred to him that a simple precaution might be to drug something they were to eat or drink.

"What are you planning, Doc?" Eli asked as he sat down in a big, leather wing chair.

The house was cool and dark, comfortably well-kept and old. Blake had to fight off the feeling of security it seemed to

offer. He sat on a sofa with his daughters on either side of him.

"Doc?" Eli said.

Blake looked at him.

"I wonder if I can stop you from getting hurt."

"Forget it," Ingraham said. "He's going to have to try something. Just like you'd have to in his place."

"Yeah. Listen, you still have that knife?"

"Sure."

Eli nodded, gestured with one hand. "Come on." "You mark the wall and Meda'll find some way to get you, man."

"I'm not going to mark the damn wall. Come on."

"Don't break my knife either." Ingraham reached toward his boot, then his hand seemed to blur. Something flashed

toward Eli, Eli blurred, and the floorboards beneath Blake's feet vibrated. Blake looked down, saw that there was a

large, heavy knife buried in the floor between his feet. It had hit the wood just short of the oriental rug. He gave Eli a

single outraged glance, then seized the knife, meaning to pull it free. It remained rooted where it was. He pulled again,

using all his strength. Still the knife did not move. It occurred to him that he was making a fool of himself. He sat up

straight and glared at Eli.

Eli looked tired and unamused. "Just a trick, Doc." He got up, walked over, and tugged the knife free with little

apparent effort. With one long arm, he handed it handle-first to Ingraham, while keeping his attention on Blake. "I

know we look scrawny and sick," he said. "We look like one of us alone would equal nothing at all. But if you're going

to survive, you have to understand that guns or no guns, you're no match for us. We're faster, better coordinated,

stronger, and some other things you wouldn't believe yet."

"You think a circus trick is going to make us believe you're superhuman?" Rane demanded. Blake had felt her jump

and cringe when the knife hit. She had been frightened, so now she had to attack. His first impulse was to shut her up,

but he held back, remembering the value Eli had placed on her. Eli might tell her to shut up himself, but he would not

hurt her just for talking. And she might get something out of him.

"We're not superhuman," Eli said quietly. "We're not anything you won't be eventually. We're just . . . different."

"And sometimes you hurt," Keira whispered.

Eli looked at her-looked until she stopped studying the pattern on the rug and looked back. "It isn't like your pain," he

said. "It isn't as clean as your pain."

"Clean?"

"Mine is kind of like what an addict might feel when he tries to kick his habit."

"Drugs?"

"No drugs, I promise you. We don't even use aspirin here."

"I use things, I have to."

"We won't stop you."

"What are you?" she pleaded suddenly. "Please tell us."

Eli put his hands behind his back, though not before Blake noticed that they were trembling.

"Hey," Ingraham said softly. "You okay?"

Eli glanced at him angrily. "No, I'm not okay. Are you okay?"

Keira looked from one of them to the other, then spoke to Eli. "What is it you're keeping yourself from doing to me?"

"Kerry," Rane cautioned. That was a switch-Rane cautioning. Blake wanted to stop Keira himself, would have stopped

her, had he not wanted an answer as badly as she did.

"Give me your hands," Eli said to her.

"No!" Blake said, suddenly wary.

But Keira was already extending her hands, palms up, toward Eli. Blake grabbed her hands and pulled them down.

"You made a promise!" he said to Eli. "You said you'd keep her safe!"

"Yes." Eli's coloring looked worse than ever in the cool dimness of the room. His voice was almost too soft to be heard.

"I said that." He was perspiring heavily.

"What were you going to do?"

"Answer her question. Nothing else."

Blake did not believe him, but saw no point in saying so. Eli smiled as though Blake had spoken the thought aloud

anyway. He unclasped his hands, and Blake noticed that even they were dripping wet. Diaphoresis, Blake thought.

Excessive sweating-symptomatic of what? Emaciation, trembling, bad coloring, now sweating-plus surprising strength,

speed, and coordination. God knew what else. Symptomatic of what?

"Want to hear something funny, Doc?" Eli said in an oddly distant voice. He held his wrist where Blake could see it

and pointed to a small double scar that looked black against his gray-brown skin. "A couple of weeks ago while I was

helping with the building, I got careless about where I put my hand. A rattlesnake bit me." Eli laughed hollowly. "You

know, the damn thing died."