the chemical composition of love? Human babies are ugly even when they're normal, but we love them. If we didn't the species would die. Our babies here-well, if we didn't love them, if we weren't damned protective of them, the Clay's Ark organism on Earth would die. It isn't intelligent, but, Cod, is it ever built to survive."
"I won't change," Rane said.
He smiled and shook his head. "You're a strong girl, but you don't know what you're talking about." He paused. "You don't have to come to me until you want to. We're not rapists here. And you . . . Well, you're interesting right now, but not as interesting as you will be."
"What are you talking about?"
He put his arm around her. She was surprised that the gesture did not offend her. "You'll find out eventually. For now, it doesn't matter."
They walked away from the heifer and she mooed after them.
"Cows don't seem to get the disease," he commented. "Dogs get it and it kills them. It kills all the types of cold-blooded things that have bitten us-snakes, scorpions, insects . . . There may not be anything on Earth that can penetrate our flesh and come away unchanged. Except our own kind, of course. I can't prove it, but I'll bet those cows are carriers."
"The scope attachment of my father's bag could probably tell you that," Rane said. "Though he may not be in any mood
to use it."
"I can use it," he said.
She looked at his face, lineless in spite of his thinness. He was the youngest person she had seen so far-in his early twenties, perhaps, or his late teens. "You were in school before, weren't you," she guessed.
He nodded. "College. Music major. I got a little sidetracked taking biology and chemistry classes, though."
"What were you going to be?"
"A concert violinist. I've been playing since I was four."
"And now you're willing to give it all up and move back to the twentieth century?"
He stopped at a large wooden bin, opened it, and watched as a couple of dozen chickens came running and gathered around, clucking. He opened one of the six large metal barrels, took out a handful of cracked corn, and threw it to them. This was clearly what they were waiting for. They began pecking up the corn quickly before the newcomers who came in from every direction could take it from them. Stephen threw a little more of the corn, then closed the bin.
"It's almost sunset," he said. "You'd think they'd be too busy deciding where they were going to roost to watch the bin." "Don't you care that you're never going to be a musician?" she demanded.
He looked down at his hands, rubbed them together. "Yes."
His voice had dropped low into his own private pain. She stood silent, feeling awkward, for once not knowing what to say. Then he looked up at her, smiled faintly. "It was an old passion," he said. "I haven't touched a violin for months. I didn't know what that would be like."
"What is it like?" she asked.
He began to walk so that she almost missed his answer. "An amputation," he whispered.
She walked with him, let him lead her out to the garden, passing the Wagoneer on the way. The sight of it jarred her, reminded her that she should be watching for a way of escape.
"Did you ever see food growing?" he asked, bending to turn a deep green watermelon over and look at its yellow bottom. "Ripe," he commented. "You wouldn't believe how sweet they are." He was distracting. He moved from one
subject to another, drawing her with him, keeping her emotionally involved in whatever he chose.
"I don't care about food growing," she said. "Listen, Stephen, my father is a good doctor. Let him examine you-maybe the disease can be cured. If he can't help you himself, he'll know who can."
"We don't leave the ranch," he said, "except to bring in supplies and converts." "You'll never be a violinist here!"
"I'll never be a violinist," he said. "Don't you think I know that?" He never raised his voice. His expression changed only slightly. But she felt as though he had shouted at her. She watched him with fascination.
"Why?" she asked. "What's holding you here?" "I belong here. These are my people now."
"Why? Because they gave you a disease?"
"Yes."
"That doesn't make sense!" she said angrily. "It will."
His apparent passivity infuriated her. "You were probably nothing as a violinist. You probably didn't have anything to lose. That's why you don't care!"
His face froze over. "If you want to get rid of me," he said, "go on saying things like that."
In that moment, she realized she did not want to get rid of him. He seemed human and the others did not. Just a few minutes with him had made her want to cling to him and avoid the stick people and animal children who were her alternative. But she would not cling to him. She would not cling to anyone.
"I don't care what you do," she said. "I don't understand why anyone would want to stay here, and you haven't said anything to help me understand."
"Nothing I say would really help." He sighed. "When your symptoms start, you'll understand. That's all. But try this. I
was married. My wife played the piano-played it maybe better than I played the violin. We had a son who was only a year old when I saw him last. If I stay here, my wife can go on playing the piano. The world will go on being a place where people have time for music and beauty. My son can grow up and do whatever he wants to. My parents have some money. They'll see that he has his chance. But if I try to turn myself in, I know I'll lose control and spread the disease. I would begin the process of turning the world into a place with no time for anything but survival. In the end, Jacob and his kind would inherit everything. My son . . . might never live to be a man."
She was silent for several seconds when he finished. She found herself wanting to say something comforting, and that was insane. "You've sacrificed my family to spare yours," she said bitterly.
He pulled an ear of corn from its stalk, husked it, and began eating it raw. He tore at it like an animal, not looking at her.
"Someone sacrificed you, too," she said finally. "I know that. But Jesus, isn't it time to break the chain? You and I
could get away together. We could get help."
"You haven't heard me," he said. "I knew you wouldn't. Listen! We're infectious for as much as two weeks before we start to show symptoms-except for people like you who won't have two weeks between infection and symptoms. How many people do you think the average person could infect in two weeks of city life? How many could his victims
infect?-and with an extraterrestrial organism. There's no cure, Rane, and by the time one is found-if one can be found-it
will probably be too late. It isn't only my family I'm protecting. It's everyone. It's the future. As Eli told me, the organism is a damned efficient invader."
"I don't believe you!"
"I know. Nobody believes it at first. I didn't."
Rane walked away from him as he picked a tomato and began to eat. He never washed anything. Ate them just as they grew out of the dirt. Rane had never seen food growing this way before, but it did not impress her. She wondered whether they fertilized it with the contents of the outhouse and the animal pens. It was just the sort of filthy anachronistic thing they might do.
She climbed some rocks-huge, rough rounded mounds of granite-and stood on top, staring down. To her surprise, she saw the road winding below. Then Stephen was beside her. She started violently to find him there in a space that had been empty a second before. He must have leaped up, almost the way Jacob would leap.
"We can all jump," he said. "We can run pretty fast, too. You should remember that." "I wasn't trying to get away."
"Not yet. But remember anyway." He paused. "Do you know how they caught me seven months ago?" "You've only been here seven months?"
"I drove right into their settlement," he said. "I'd gone to see my folks in Albuquerque and on my way home, I decided to do some exploring. I discovered a mountain road that wasn't on my maps, and thought I'd find out where it led. I
found out."
"Why were you driving?" Rane asked. "You should have flown."
"I loved to drive. It was a kind of hobby. I'll bet your father has the same affliction."
"Yeah. He has a Porsche and a Mercedes at home. He won't even drive them outside the enclave." "A Porsche? You're kidding. What year?"
She looked at him, saw excitement on his face for the first time and laughed. Something familiar at last. Car craziness. "1982 Porsche 930 Turbo. My mother used to call it his other wife. My sister and I figured it was his other kid."
He laughed, too, then sobered. "It's getting dark, Rane. We should go in."
She did not want to go in-back to Lupe and Ingraham. Back to hands that made her cringe. Stephen's hands did not make her cringe any longer.
"I don't have a house, yet," he said. "I have a room in Meda's house."
She could not look at him now. She had never slept with a man. The thought of doing so now with a stranger-even a likable stranger confused and frightened her. The thought of conceiving a child in this place-if you could call them children-terrified her.
"Back to Lupe, then," he said. He put his arm around her, and startled her by snatching her up and jumping off the
rocks. They landed safe and unhurt amid stalks of corn. She thought she weighed at least as much as he did, but her weight did not seem to bother him.
"You're not a screamer," he said. "Good." He set her on her feet. "Am I like your wife?" she asked timidly as they walked back. "No," he answered.
"But ... do you like me?"
"Yes."
She looked at him uncertainly, wondering if he were laughing at her. "I wish you talked more," she said.
Later that night, Lupe tied Rane to a bed.
"We don't have bars yet," Ingraham said. "You should have gone with Stephen."
"Shut up," Lupe told him. "Tying people up is no joke. Neither is trying to send a kid to bed with a guy she doesn't even know. We gotta find a better way. I'm sick of this."
Ingraham said nothing more.
Rane found no comfort in Lupe's sentiment. Tied as she was, she had to ask even to go to the bathroom. And she could not sleep on her side as was her custom. She lay miserable and sleepless, twisting her wrists in the hope of freeing at least one. The twisting hurt enough to make her stop after a while. Then she tried to reach one of her wrists with her
teeth. And failed.
By then she was crying tears of frustration and anger. She was totally unprepared for the sudden weight across her stomach that knocked the breath out of her. This time she would have screamed if she had been able to.
She caught her breath, feeling as though she had been punched, then saw Jacob dim and shadowy in the darkness above her.
"You can't bite the rope," he said. "Your teeth are too dull."
"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
"Nothing." He stared down at her from the pose of a seated cat. "I came in the window." Rane sighed, closed her eyes. "I think I'm glad you're here," she whispered. "Even you." "Why don't you like me?" he demanded.
She shook her head, answered honestly because she was too tired to humor him. "Because you look different. Because
I'm afraid of you."
"You are? Of me?" He sounded pleased. He also sounded closer. She opened her eyes and saw that he had stretched out beside her. She tried to draw away, but could not.
"You are afraid of me," he said gleefully. "I'm going to sleep here."
She could have called Lupe. She made a conscious decision not to. The boy was harmless in spite of his appearance, and he did not understand that what she feared was not him personally, but what he represented. Most important, she did not think she could stand to be alone again.
Sometime after midnight, when she had developed a headache from lack of sleep, he awoke and with unchildlike alertness, asked if her arms hurt.
"They hurt," she said. "And I can't sleep and I'm cold."
To her surprise, he pulled her blankets up to her chin. "Bikers put a rope on me," he said. "They pulled me and said,
'Heel, heel!' "
Rane shook her head in disgust. Jacob could not help what he was. He did not deserve such treatment. "Daddy hit some of them and they died."
"Good for him," Rane muttered. Then she realized she was talking about Eli, who might even now be raping Keira. Confusion, frustration, and weariness set in heavily, and she could not stop the tears. She made no sound, but
somehow, the child knew. He touched her face with one of his hard little hands, and when she turned her head away
angrily, he turned his attention to her right wrist. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
As though in answer, she found her wrist suddenly free.
"My teeth are sharp," Jacob announced. He climbed over her and started on her left wrist. In seconds, it too was free. "Oh God," she said, hugging herself with aching arms and numb hands. She made herself reach out to the child. "Thank you, Jacob."
"You taste good," he said. "I thought you would. You smell like food."
She drew her hand back quickly, heard his gleeful laugh. Let him laugh. He had freed her. How the hell a four year old could have teeth that cut rope was beyond her, but she didn't care. If he had been a little less strange, she would have hugged him.
"Something is happening outside," he said.
"What?"
"People moving around and talking." He bounded off the bed and to the window. "They're your people," he said. He leaped silently to the high window sill, then down the other side.
Then even she heard the noise outside-a car starting, people running. There was shouting, and finally what must be happening penetrated her weary mind. Her people-her father and sister . . .
She got out of bed, taking time only to slip into her shoes and grab her pants and shirt. She threw both on over the thin
gown Lupe had brought her from her luggage and she went through the window. She would have climbed through it naked if she had had to.
She got out in time to see the Wagoneer disappearing down the mountain road, stick people in hot pursuit. Her father had left her!
She took a few useless steps after them, then turned without conscious thought and ran in the opposite direction-toward the rocks she and Stephen Kaneshiro had stood on. Toward the road below where her father would almost certainly be
passing soon. It occurred to her as she headed for the steep incline that she could be killed. The thought did not slow her. Either way, the stick people would not tie her down again.
PART 3: MANNA PAST 15
Now Eli would become an active criminal as well as the carrier of a disease. Now, with the help of Lorene and Meda, he would abduct a man. He would take Meda's father's Ford and go to what was left of old U.S. 95. Meda knew 95 from State Highway 62 to Interstate 40. It was desolate country, she said. No towns, almost no private haulers on the road. Just a few daredevil sightseers, taking their chances among the bike packs and car families, and a few well-armed, individualistic ranchers.
Eli worried about taking Meda along. She was four months pregnant, and he worried about both her and the child. She was not an easy woman to become attached to, but the attachment had happened. Now he could not lose her. He could not lose her.
Meda had always been physically strong, had taken pride in being able to match her brothers at hard work and hard
play. Now the disease had made her even stronger, and her new strength had made her overconfident.
She would not, she told Eli, sit at home, trembling and wondering whether her child's father had survived. She intended to see that he survived-and, he thought, maybe get herself killed in the process.
Eli swung from anger to amusement to secret gratitude for her concern. There were still bad times with her-times when she cursed him and mourned her family. But thess times came less frequently. Both the disease organism and the child inside her were driving her toward him. Perhaps she had even begun to forgive h
im a little.
Now she helped him plan.
"We can hide here," she said, using an old paper auto club map. "There's a junction. A dirt road runs into Ninety-five. There are some hills."
All four of them sat clustered at one end of the large dining room table. Lorene, who was to have the new man if he lived; Gwyn, who was already pregnant again and in less immediate need of a man of her own; Meda; and Eli.
Covertly, Eli watched Gwyn, saw that she seemed at ease, uninterested in the map. A few weeks before, she would have torn the yellowed paper in her eagerness to take part and get a man for herself. Now, pregnant by Eli, she was
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