Meda was staring at Blake.
She must have been doing it for some time now. She had eaten her meal-a whole, roasted chicken plus generous helpings of everything else. Now she nibbled at a thick slice of ham and stared.
"What is it?" he asked her.
She looked at Eli. "Why wait?" she asked.
"God knows I almost didn't," he said. "Do what you want to."
She got up, walked around the table, stood over Blake, staring down at him intently. Sweat ran down her thin, predatory face. "Come on, Doc," she whispered.
Blake was afraid of her. It was ridiculous, but he was afraid.
"Get up," she said. "Come on. Believe it or not, I don't like to humiliate people."
Sweat ran into her eyes, but she did not seem to notice. In a moment, she would take hold of him with her skinny claws. He stood up, stiff with fear of the woman and fear of showing it. He bumped the table, palmed a knife, secretly, he thought. The idea of threatening her with it, maybe using it on her, repelled him, but he gripped it tightly.
"Bring the knife if you want to," she said. "I don't care." She turned and walked to the hall door. There she stood, waiting.
"Dad," Keira said anxiously. "Please ... do what they say." He looked at her, saw that she was frightened too.
She looked from him to Eli, but Eli would not meet her eyes. She faced Blake again. "Dad, don't make them hurt you." What was it about these people? How were they able to terrify when they did nothing? It was as though there were
something other than human about them. Or was it only their several guns? "Dad," Rane said, "do it. They're crazy."
He looked at Eli. If the girls were hurt in any way-any way at all-Eli would pay. Eli seemed to be in charge. He could
permit harm or prevent it. If he did not prevent it, no circus trick would save him.
Eli stared back, and Blake felt that he understood. Eli had shown himself to be unusually perceptive. And now he looked almost as miserable as Blake felt.
Blake turned and followed Meda. He kept the knife. Everyone saw it now, and they let him keep it. That alone was almost enough to make him leave it. They managed to make him feel like a fool for wanting a weapon against armed
people who had kidnapped him and his children at gunpoint. But he would have felt like a bigger fool if he had left the knife behind.
Meda led him into a back bedroom with blue walls, a solid, heavy door, and barred windows.
"My daughter is going to need her medication," he said, wondering why he had not spoken of it to Eli.
"Eli will take care of her," the woman said. Blake thought he heard bitterness in her voice, but her face was expressionless.
"He doesn't know what she needs."
"She knows, doesn't she?" In the instant before he could lie, Meda nodded. "I thought she did. Give me the knife, Blake." She said it quietly as she locked the door and turned to face him. She saw his refusal before he could voice it. "I
didn't want to tear into you in front of your kids," she said. "Human nature being what it is, you probably wouldn't be able to forgive me for that as quickly as you'll forgive me for ... other things. But in here, I'm not going to hold back. I don't have the patience."
"What are you talking about?"
She reached out so quickly that by the time he realized she had moved, she had him by the wrist in a grip just short of bone-cracking. As she forced the knife from his captive hand, he hit at her. He had never hit a woman with his fist before, but he had had enough from this one.
His fist met only air. Inhumanly fast, inhumanly strong, the woman dodged his blow. She caught his fist in her crushing grip.
He lurched against her to throw her off-balance. She fell, dragging him with her, cursing him as they hit the floor. The knife was still between them in one of his captive hands. He fought desperately to keep it, believing that at any moment the noise would draw one or both of the men into the room. What would they do to him for attacking her? He was
committed. He had to keep the knife and, if necessary, threaten to use it on her. His daughters were not the only people
who could be held as hostages.
The woman tried to get him off her. He had managed to fall on top and he weighed perhaps twice what she did. As strong as she was, she did not seem to know how to fight. She managed to take the knife and throw it off to one side so that it skittered under a chair. Angrily, he tried to punch her again. This time he connected. She went limp.
She was not unconscious; only stunned. She tried feebly to stop him when he went after the knife, but she no longer had the strength.
The knife was embedded in the wall behind the chair. Before he could pull it free, she was on him again. This time, she hit him. While he lay semiconscious, she retrieved the knife, opened a window, and threw it out between the bars. Then
she staggered back to him, sat down on the floor next to him, hugging her knees, resting her forehead against them. She did not look as though she could see him. She was temptingly close, and as his vision cleared, he was tempted.
"You start that shit again, I'll break your jaw!" she muttered. She stretched out on the rug beside him, rubbing her jaw.
"If I break your bones, you won't survive," she said. "You'll be like those damn bikers. We had to hurt them because there were too many of them for us to take it easy. All but two wound up with broken bones or other serious injuries. They died."
"They died of their injuries ... or of a disease?" "It's a disease," she said.
"Have I been infected?"
She turned her head to look at him, smiled sadly. "Oh yes." "The food?"
"No. The food was just food. Me." "Contact?"
"No, inoculation." She lifted his right arm, exposing the bloody scratches she had made. They hurt now that she had drawn his attention to them.
"You would have done that even if I hadn't had the knife?" he asked. "Yes."
"All right, you've done it. Get away from me."
"No, we'll talk now. You're our first doctor. We've wanted one for a long time." Blake said nothing.
"It's something like a virus," she said. "Except that it can live and multiply on its own for a few hours if it has warmth and moisture."
Then it wasn't a virus, he thought. She didn't know what she was talking about.
"It likes to attach itself to cells the way a virus does," she continued. "It can multiply that way too. Don't tune me out yet, Blake," she said. "I'm no doctor, but I have information for you. Maybe you can use it to help yourself and your kids."
That got his attention. He sat up, climbed painfully into the antique wooden rocking chair that he had shoved aside when he tried to reach the knife. "I'll listen," he said.
"It's a virus-sized microbe," she said. "Filtrable. I hear that means damned small." "Who told you?"
She looked surprised. "Eli. Who else?"
He could not quite bring himself to ask whether Eli was a doctor.
"He was a minister for a while," she said as though he had asked. "A boy minister at the turn of the century when the country was full of ministers. Then he went to college and became a geologist. He married a doctor."