Clay's Ark (27 page)

"Open this door," she said.

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

sign.

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

She was going to be a doctor someday. Doctors did not kill people; they helped people heal. Her father had carried a

gun for years and never shot anyone. He had escaped without shooting anyone.

But she could not.

The instant she showed indecision, weakness, mercy, these people would cut her to pieces. In this room several were as

formidably armed as she was. All she had going for her was terrifying speed and perhaps their belief that they would

soon be rid of her one way or another without anyone playing hero. Nothing she had ever heard about rat packs gave

any indication they were heroic. At best, they mistook ruthlessness for heroism.

"Open the door," she said to a second man.

He stumbled quickly to obey.

"You!" she chose a third. "Help him!"

"He doesn't need any hel-No!"

She had come within a hair of shooting him. He scurried to the first man, then stood by while the first opened the door.

Of course, the instant the door moved, Eli's people opened fire at it. Someone-one of the new group of car rats,

perhaps- managed to run onto the porch, but did not quite make it to the door.

Rane heard all this as she ran from the room. She had never intended to step into the battle at the front of the house. She

would never have headed for the front if she had known what was going on there. Once there, however, she had to

create a diversion so that she could get to the back door.

Someone shot at her as she ran, but she was too quick. In the kitchen, she stopped, turned, fired a short burst at the door

she had just run through. That should stop any pursuit. She hesitated, saw a flash of color at the door, sprayed the

doorway again. Then she went to the back door. If it required a key, she might be trapped. That depended on how

thoroughly bulletproof the house was.

Her hand flew over the various locks that did not require keys. She had to shoot the last one off, though at least it came

off. As she fired, however, someone else fired at her, hit her in the lower back.

She fell to her knees, tried to swing around, but was shot again. This time, the impact of the bullet spun her around. She

held on to her rifle somehow and managed to spray the other side of the room. She heard screaming, knew she had hit

something.

She released the trigger only when, briefly, through a haze, she thought she saw her sister staring at her over a counter,

through a doorway. Then, because she was propped up against the door, unable to move her legs-unable even to feel

her legs, she sprayed the last of her bullets into the car rats as they showed themselves. She had the satisfaction of

seeing the ape fall before someone shot her again.

The disease organism was merciless. It kept her alive even when she knew she must be almost cut in half. It kept her

conscious and aware of everything up through the moment someone stood over her, shouting, then seized her by the

hair and held her head up as he began to saw slowly at her throat with something dull.

PAST 27

The women had become frightened of Eli-frightened for their children. Gwyn's daughter by Eli was beginning to toddle

around on all fours and Lorene's daughter by Zeriam clearly had the same physical abnormalities. She would be another

quadruped, another precocious, strong, beautiful, little nonhuman. Eli could see that. He watched the children in grim

silence.

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

silent.

"We don't like being afraid of you," Gwyn said, leaning forward against the dining table around which they had

gathered. "We need you." She glanced sideways at Meda. "And we love you. But we're afraid."

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

consumed him.

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

He stared at her in bitter anger. She had brought the others together against him. They had never united against him

before. He was father or foster father to all three kids-all three hopelessly nonhuman kids. No one had the right to tell

him how he should reel about them.

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

hurt them."

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

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

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

protection.

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

Gwyn's feelings mirrored in their faces.

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

But-"

"It scares us!"

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

"Who says they have human minds?" Meda asked.

Eli glared at her.

"They're obviously bright," she said, "but their minds may be as different as their bodies. We can teach them, but we

can't know ahead of time what they'll become."

"No," he said. "We can't. But we know the world they'll have to spend their lives in. And I know what their lives will

be like if they can't fit in-and, of course, there's no way they can fit in. You think sewers and cesspools are bad? Try a

cage. Bars, you know. Locks."

"Nobody would-"

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

we're not going to live forever to protect them."

The women stared at him bleakly.

"I'll tell you something else," he said. "These kids are only the first. You know there'll be more. If anything happened to

me, you'd go out and find yourselves another man or two. Hell, you'll do that even if nothing happens to me. We'll

probably bring in more women, too. Our organism won't let us ignore all those uninfected people out there completely."

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

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

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

They all faced him, waiting. He realized then that he loved them. He wondered when he had begun to love them-three

plain women with calluses on their hands. Answering them would not be an act of love, but it was necessary. If anyone

deserved to know what he thought, they did. "We're the future," he said simply. "We're the sporangia of the dominant

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

will be because we fulfill our purpose-because we spread the organism."

"Spread the disease?" Lorene asked

"Yes."

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

"I didn't say we should spread it deliberately. I didn't say we should spread it at all. I said we won't survive, and the kids

won't survive, if we don't. But I'll tell you, I don't think they or we are in any real danger. Once we knew what to look

for on Proxi Two, we found the organism in almost every animal species alive there. Some were immune-herbivores

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

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

Eli nodded. "Dogs, yes, maybe coyotes, wolves, any canine. I wouldn't give much for the chances of cats either, and

some snakes-maybe all snakes, rats, most rodents. Heaven knows what else."

"What about the people?" Lorene whispered. "They'll die, too. Four out of seven died here. Five, if you count Gwyn's

baby. Ten out of fourteen in your crew died. And what about Andy? How many more Andy Zeriams, Eli?" She had

begun to cry. "How goddamn many?"

He got up and went to her. She pushed him away angrily at first, but then reached out and pulled him to her.

"What about the people?" she repeated against him.

After a moment, he put her aside and sat down next to Meda.

"What do you want to do?" Meda asked.

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

"But-"

"What else? You're right about the kids. They are what they are. I'm right too. They can't make it in the world as it is.

But I'm not going to make a move to spread the disease beyond the ranch, here. Not even for them. We'll have to bring

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

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

"No," he told her, "not quite. I'm talking about stifling chance, doing every damn thing I can to keep the disease right

here. Everything. And I'll need all three of you with me."

"But the kids," Meda said.

"Yeah." He sighed. "I couldn't hurt them. Even without the three of you ganging up on me, I couldn't have. But ... in

this one way, I can't help them, either. Can you?" He looked from one of them to the other. No one answered. "What

happens happens," Eli continued. "I won't make it happen. Dead people, dead animals, no more cities because we'd go

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

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

PRESENT 28

Keira had just eaten a large meal-overcooked, overseasoned, but filling. She was feeling well until the white-haired girl

came to take her to her father. She was feeling well! She could not remember how long it had been since she had last

felt truly well.

The car family had locked her in a walk-in hall closet. She had been in pain and Badger had demanded to know why.

When she told him she had leukemia, he had shrugged.

"So?" he had said. "There's a cure for that-some kind of medicine that makes the bad cells turn back to normal."

"I've had that," she told him. "It didn't work."

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

"It didn't work on me."

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