She shook her head. “One of the guys.”
“Are there any other muties?”
“Four others. Five if you count Jommy, but he’s just got extra fingers. Then there was some born dead. One was born kind of insideout, but he lived long enough to be christianed.”
“How many normal ones?”
“Eight, counting Jommy.”
“And how many women, I mean old enough to be mothers?”
“I’m the fourth. Then Sharon, she’s sixteen, she bleeds but don’t catch. She gets it two or three times a day but she don’t catch.”
“Does she bleed regularly?”
“Nah. She never can tell.”
“Then I might be able to help her, next time I come by.” He took out his pad and made a note. There were crates of birth control pills back at Plant City, but he didn’t bother to carry any. Maybe they could straighten out her cycle and make her more fertile. “Any other sick people?”
“Two upstairs, really sick. I’ll show you.” She picked up the baby and was all the way across the room before Jeff could make his joints stand up. “You hurt?”
“Just don’t move so well. Part of being old.”
She nodded soberly. “Charlie must hate you.”
He followed her up a broad staircase and into a bedroom. “I’m the only one comes in here,” she said. “Tad don’t want it to spread, whatever it is.”
In separate beds, two boys: emaciated, pale, beaded with sweat. One was asleep; the other was moaning and twitching. The sleeping one had crops of tiny pink spots on his chest.
“Let me see your tongue,” Jeff said to the one who was awake. When he didn’t respond, Jeff clamped his chin and forced his mouth open. The tongue was brown and dry.
“They been to Tampa recently?”
“Yeah, about a month ago, Tad sent ‘em down to get some hose. How come you know that?”
“There’s an epidemic down there. You know what an epidemic is?”
She shook her head. “That little thing in your belly?”
“No, it’s a disease that spreads all around, gets out of control. In Tampa they’ve got an epidemic of typhoid fever. These guys picked it up there.”
“Are they gonna die?”
“Probably not. I’ve got medicine for it. What do you do with their shit?”
“What?”
“You carry out the shit, don’t you? Where does it go?”
“Oh, we got a compost machine out back.”
“Does it burn it?”
“No, it’s, uh, ultra something. Tad knows.”
“Good.” He rummaged through his saddlebags and found the chloramphenicol and cortisone. “How have you been feeling? Have you been sick?”
She looked at the floor. “Huhuh. Just tired all the time. Maybe I got the runs.”
“Nosebleed?”
“Little bit.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it. Probably that’s what’s wrong with the baby, too.” He studied the chloramphenicol label and set the hypo gun for three-quarters of an adult dosage. “That’s how the disease spreads. In Tampa they just shit anywhere. Flies get on the shit and then on the food.”
“They’re real animals down there,” she said.
“Sure are.” He gave shots to both of the boys. “That’s how you got it, being in too close contact.”
“I’m real careful,” she said in a hurt voice.
“Doesn’t take much. Turn around and lift up your robe.” She twitched at the cold alcohol. Jeff scrubbed her buttock a little longer than was necessary. Except for her feet, she was very clean, which had more of an effect on him than her boyish figure. Five years of filthy children, his sex life limited to mental pictures of Marianne and a handful of surgical lubricant. He swallowed saliva and told himself this girl was young enough to be his daughter. But he had to use both hands to keep the hypo gun steady.
“The baby now.” He set it on minimum dosage, scrubbed, and shot.
She pointed at his obvious erection and giggled. “You want me to fix that?”
He paused. “What would Tad say?”
“I wouldn’t tell him nothing.”
Jeff knew a little about child psychology and a lot about gunshot wounds. “Let’s wait. I’ll talk it over with Tad first.”
“He won’t let you. No one outside the family. Besides, if I got a baby it might get old like you.”
“There are ways not to catch.”
“Sure, front-to-back and front-to-top. Tad says Charlie says they’re sinful.” She laughed. “I did them both when I was pregnant, though, even with Tad. It was fun.”
Jeff closed his eyes and slowly let out the breath he’d been holding. Anal intercourse with a typhoid carrier. That wasn’t covered in the text he’d read. Well, he could always take a booster shot.
“Let’s go downstairs.” There were voices.
Tad was sitting at a table, giving dinner instructions to a couple of children. He motioned Jeff over and told one of the children to bring in a bottle of wine. “Could you do anything for them?”
Jeff sat down and told him about the typhoid epidemic. “I have enough vaccine to immunize everyone in the family. The girl with the two-headed baby, I think she already has it. The boy, too. I gave them all shots and they should get another in the morning. Then I’ll leave some pills.”
A girl brought in a bottle of pale wine and two glasses, actual stemware. Tad pulled the cork and poured. It tasted like harsh port with a musty aftertaste, like rotten oranges, but was drinkable.
“What can we give you in exchange? We have lots of food.”
“No, I’ve got all I can carry from the last family. What I really need is a charged fuel cell. You must have some.”
He frowned. “We don’t have any to spare. Seven on line and two backups.”
“I’d bring it back in a week or so.”
“I don’t know. Anybody knew you had it, they’d kill you for the silver.” He stared into the wine, swirling it. “What do you want with one, anyhow?”
“There’s a powerful radio back at the hospital where I keep my medicine. I want to see if I can raise anybody.”
Tad pulled on his beard. “Maybe… you leave the scattergun here, though. You have another weapon?”
Jeff nodded. “Pistol. But nobody ever bothers me.”
“That’s what I hear. How come you didn’t die, do you know?”
“Charlie’s will.”
Tad shook his head slightly and lowered his voice. “You don’t really believe in that.” He looked at the holo pictures over the fireplace: a beatific Manson, a bloody Christ, and three smaller pictures, two women and a man who resembled Manson in hair and beard. “My father and mothers were Family when I was growing up. I thought it was the craps and still do. The timing of the war was just coincidence. Charlie Manson was just a crazy goof. I don’t know about Jesus.”
“Does the rest of your family feel the same?”
“No. Or if they do, they keep it to themselves.” When Jeff didn’t say anything, he went on. “I’ve heard of a few other old people, and I even saw one once, Big Mickey over in Disney World. He was big like you, but crazy. All of the old ones are supposed to be big and crazy. How come you’re different? Tell me and I’ll let you use the fuel cell.”
“I can tell you what I think, but it won’t save you from the death.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s an accident of birth. I’m a kind of mutie, like the other old people. It’s called acromegaly; something goes wrong with your glands and you keep growing after normal people stop. It usually affects your mind, but it started late in my case, and I had medicine.”
“So how does that keep you from the death?”
“All I know is that it does. I’ve traveled around a lot since the war, and never met or heard of anybody over twenty-some who didn’t have acromegaly.”