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."