Both girls looked. Keira gasped when she saw how much closer the pursuers were. "Watch for a turnoff," Blake said. "Any turnoff. I need a road I can see."
Keira leaned back in her seat, eyes closed. "Dad, Ninety-five has 'travel at your own risk' signs all over it." He glanced at her. She knew what she was saying could not matter, but she had had to say it.
" 'High crime area,' " Rane read over Keira's shoulder. "It's a sewer! I didn't know they existed in the desert."
Blake said nothing. He had treated patients from city sewers -people so mutilated they no longer looked human, would never look human again in spite of twenty-first-century medicine. What the rat packs did to each other and to unprotected city-dwellers was not something he wanted to expose his daughters to. They knew about it, of course. The small armies of police who guarded enclaves kept out intruders, but they could not keep out information. Still, for sixteen years, he had managed to shield his daughters from the contents of sewers and cesspools. Now he was taking them into a sewer.
The turnoff they had been hoping for materialized suddenly out of the night, marked only by a dead Joshua tree. Blake turned. The new road was better-smooth, graded, straight. He increased his speed, slowly pulling away from the pursuers. The Wagoneer could travel. With it's modified engine it was much faster now than it had been when it was made-as long as it was not running a half-seen obstacle course.
Just over six miles later, the second dirt road ran into a paved highway-U.S. 95. They had gone from north to northeast. Now they were headed north again on a road that would take them to Needles-to safety.
Abruptly there were headlights directly in front of them- two cars coming toward them on the wrong side of the highway. Two cars that clearly did not intend to let him pass.
Reacting without thinking, Blake swung right. To his amazement, he discovered he was turning onto a road he had not
noticed-another paved surface that headed him back almost in the direction from which he had come. Back toward the ranch.
He was being herded, Blake realized. They were on the eastern side, the wrong side of 95 now, but it had not taken much to force him to turn the first time. He could be turned again, made to recross the highway. All his effort so far could be for nothing.
How had Eli's people gotten ahead of him?
He switched out the lights and turned off the road onto a dry wash. At almost the same moment, Keira shut off the glowing screen of the map. Now, let Eli's people prove how well they could see in the dark. Nothing, nothing would force Blake back to the ranch-force him out of the profession of healing and into a life of spreading disease. Nothing! Lights.
A dirt road, smooth and level, cut across the wash just ahead.
And along that road came a car. Only one. It could be a coincidence-some rancher going home, some hermit, a fragment of a car family, even lost tourists. But Blake was in no mood to take chances with anyone.
He turned onto the dirt road toward the oncoming car. Abruptly, he switched on his lights and accelerated. The other car braked, skidded through the dust, swerved off the road into a thick, ancient creosote bush. Blake sped on, knowing the dirt road must lead back to 95. He switched out his lights again, praying.
"That was a van," Rane said. "Eli's people have cars and trucks, but I didn't see any vans."
"You think they let us see everything?" Keira asked. "I don't think that van was one of Eli's."
"I don't care whose it was," Blake said tightly. "I'm not stopping until I reach either a hospital or the police. We're not giving this damned disease to anyone else!"
"When Eli comes," Keira said softly, "it will be to kill us, recapture us, or die trying. He won't be frightened into a ditch by lights."
Blake glanced at her. He could hear certainty and fear in her voice. For once, he realized, he agreed with her. Eli and his people would do absolutely anything to prevent the destruction of their way of life. He could understand that. The
life they had at their nearly self-sufficient desert enclave was better than what most people had these days. But there
was the disease-no, call it what it was, the invasion. And that had to be stopped at any cost.
He remembered the thing running alongside his car on all fours. Running like an animal, a cat. Jacob. It was possible if this insanity spread, it was possible that he could have grandchildren who looked like Jacob. Things. Christ!
The highway was ahead, down a slope. It looked empty and safe. Blake felt if he could reach it, he would have a chance.
He accelerated, swung onto the highway, headed north again.
"We've made it!" Rane shouted.
Keira looked around. "Someone's back there. I can see them." "Sewage. I don't see any-"
Lights again. Lights behind them, then abruptly, lights in front.
Blake was not aware of making the choice not to slow down. Apparently that choice had been made before, once and for all. He thought he saw a human shape leap from one of the cars, but the car kept coming. At the last instant, Blake tried to swerve up the slope and around. He did not quite make it. The front left corner of the Wagoneer hit the other car and Blake's head hit the steering wheel.
There was nothing else.
PAST 21
Zeriam made it.
He almost failed, almost survived. He had done a thorough job on his neck, but it was half-healed when Meda found him dead. The front of his throat was gaping, but the sides were merely bloody and scarred.
Meda brought Eli to him. When Eli was able to think past shock, past sadness, past the terrible knowledge that Zeriam would eventually have to be replaced, he examined the man's neck.
"I wouldn't have made it," he said. "Made what?" Meda asked.
"I wouldn't have died-even if I had managed to cut my throat. I'd heal all the way." "From a cut throat without a doctor? I don't believe you."
"I was in a couple of dominance fights aboard ship." He paused, remembering, shuddered inwardly. "The first time, I
was stabbed through the heart twice. I healed. The second time, I was beaten literally to a pulp with a chunk of metal. I
healed. Barely a scar. It takes a lot to kill us."
She helped him clean up the blood. It was she who found the letters. They were sealed in envelopes and marked "To
Lorene" and "To my son."
Meda stared at them for several seconds, then looked toward the bedrooms. "I'm going to wake Lorene," she said. He caught her shoulder. "I'll do it."
She looked down and away from Zeriam. He felt her tremble and knew she was crying. She never liked him to see her when she cried. She thought it made her look ugly and weak. He thought it made her look humanly vulnerable. She
reminded him that they were still humanly vulnerable in some ways.
For once, she let him hold her, comfort her. He took her out of the kitchen, back to their room and stayed with her for a few minutes.
"Go," she said finally. "Talk to Lorene. God, how is she going to stand this a second time?" He did not know, did not really want to find out, but he got up to go.
"Eli?"
He looked back at her, almost went back to her; she looked so uncharacteristically childlike, so frightened. He did not understand why she was afraid.
"No, go," she said. "But . . . take care of yourself. I mean ... no matter how strong you think this thing has made you, no matter what's happened to you . . . before, don't do anything careless or dumb. Don't . . ."