Clay's Ark p-5 Read online

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

  "But why-'

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

  Lorene wet her lips and went after Zeriam.

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

  "Want me to help change that tire?"

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

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

  "So we'll hurry."

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

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

  Lorene as just what he needs."

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

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

  "What the hell would I be joining?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What about her?"

  Silence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  PRESENT 18

  Keira knew what she wanted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  He stood still.

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

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

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

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

  "You know why," she said quietly.

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

  "Meda." "Meda?"

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

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

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

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

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

  God. "Why?" she demanded.

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

  "But I am."

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

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

  "But . . . What about Meda?"

  "What about her?"

  "Why do you have two kids with her?"

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

  "Yes."

  "You don't care?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  longer look directly at him.

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

  "I didn't care much for it today."

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

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

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

  "What?"

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

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

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

  medicine was still working.

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

  Eventually, pleased and tired, they both slept.

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

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

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

  had not.

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

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

  She would have to hurt him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She went back to the bed, climbed in.

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

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

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

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

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

  much of it. He was probably all right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  PART 4: REUNION PAST 19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I don't believe you!"

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

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