room.
PRESENT 16
When Blake and Meda had gone, when Ingraham had led Rane away, Eli and Keira sat alone at the large dining room table. Keira looked across at Eli bleakly.
'My sister,' she whispered. Rane had looked so frozen when Ingraham led her out, so terrified. 'She'll be all right,' Eli said. 'She's tough.'
Keira shook her head. 'People think that. She needs to have them think that.'
He smiled. 'I know. I should have said she's strong. Maybe stronger than even she knows.'
A woman carrying a crying child of about three years came into the house. The child, Keira could see, was a little girl wearing only underpants. She had a beautiful face and a dark, shaggy head of hair. There was something wrong with the way she sat on the woman's arm, though-something Keira could not help noticing, yet could not quite identify.
The woman smiled wearily at Eli. 'Red room,' she said. Eli nodded.
The woman stared at Keira for a moment. Keira thought she stared hungrily. When she had gone into a room off the living room and shut the long, sliding door, Keira faced Eli.
'What's going on?' she said. 'Tell me.'
He looked at her hungrily, too, but then leaned back in his chair and told her. No more hints, no more delays. When he finished, she asked questions and he answered them. At one point, the woman and child came out of the red room and Eli called them to him.
'Lorene, bring Zera over. I want you both to meet Kerry.'
The woman, blond and thin, came over with her hungry eyes and her strange child. She looked at Keira, then at Eli. 'Why is there still a table between you two?' she asked. 'I'll bet there's no table between that guy and Meda.'
'Is that what I called you over here for?' he asked, annoyed. 'Don't you want to brag about your kid a little?' Lorene faced Keira almost hostilely.
Keira and the child had been staring at each other. Keira roused herself, met Lorene's suspicious eyes. 'I'd like to see her.'
'You see her,' Lorene said. 'She's no freak. She's supposed to be this way. They're all this way.'
'I know,' Keira said. 'Eli has told me. She's beautiful.'
Lorene put her daughter on the table and the child immediately sat down, catlike, arms braced against the floor. 'Stand up,' Lorene said, pushing at the little girl's hindquarters. 'Let the lady see you.'
'No!' Zera said firmly. To Keira, that proved something about her was normal. Before Keira's illness, she had been called on to take care of little toddler cousins who sometimes seemed not to know any other word.
Then Zera did get up, and in a single fluid motion, she launched herself at Eli. He seemed to pluck her out of the air, laughing as he caught her.
'Little girl, I'm going to miss some day. You're getting faster.'
'What would happen if you did miss?' Keira asked. 'She wouldn't hurt herself, would she?' 'No, she'd be okay. Lands on her feet like a cat. Lorene does miss sometimes.'
'I never miss,' Lorene said, offended. 'I just step aside sometimes. I'm not always in the mood to be jumped on.' Eli put Zera back on the table and this time, she walked a few steps, leaped off the table, and stood beside Lorene.
Keira smiled, enjoying the child's smooth, catlike way of moving. Then she frowned. 'A kid that age should be kind of clumsy and weak. How can she be so coordinated?'
'We've talked about that,' Eli said. 'They do go through a clumsy period, of course. Last year, Zee fell down all the
time. But if you think she's agile now, you should see Jacob. He's four.' 'What will they be like when they're adults?'
'We don't know,' Lorene said softly. 'Maybe they peak early-or maybe they're going to be as fast as cheetahs some day. Sometimes we're afraid for them.'
Keira nodded, looked at the child. She was perfect. A perfect, lean, little four-legged thing with shaggy uncombed hair and a beautiful little face. 'A baby sphinx,' Keira said, smiling.
'Think you could handle having one like this someday?'
Keira glanced at her, smiled sadly, then turned back to Zera. 'I think I could handle it,' she said.
Zera took a few steps toward her. Keira knew that if the child scratched or bit her, she would get the disease. Yet she could not bring herself to be afraid. The child was as strange a being as Keira had ever seen, but she was a child. Keira
reached out to her, but Zera drew back.
'Hey,' Keira said softly. 'What do you have to be afraid of?' She smiled. 'Come here.'
The little girl mirrored the smile tentatively, edged toward Keira again. She was a little cat not sure it should trust the strange hand. She even sniffed without getting quite close enough to touch.
'Do I smell good?' Keira asked. 'Meat!' the child said loudly.
Startled, Keira drew back. She expected to be scratched or bitten eventually, but she did not want to have to shake Zera
off her fingers. Anything as sleek and catlike as this child probably had sharp teeth. 'Zee!' Lorene said. 'Don't bite!'
Zera looked back at her and grinned, then faced Keira. 'I don't bite.'
The teeth did look sharp, but Keira decided to trust her. She started to reach out again, this time to lift the child into her lap, but Eli spoke up.
'Kerry!'
She looked across the table at him. 'No.'
His voice made her think of a warning rattle. She drew back, not frightened, but wondering what was wrong with him. Lorene seemed angry. She picked up Zera and faced Eli. 'What kind of game are you playing?' she demanded. 'What's the kid here for? Decoration?'
Eli looked up at her.
'Don't give me that look. Go do what you're supposed to do. Then you can take care of her! And if she doesn't make it, you can-'
Eli was on his feet, inches from her, looming over her. Keira held her breath, certain he would hit the woman and perhaps by accident, hurt the child.
Lorene stood her ground. 'You're soaking wet,' she said calmly. 'You're putting yourself through hell. Why?'
He seemed to sag. He touched Lorene's face, then Zera's shaggy head. 'You two get the hell out of here, will you?' 'What is it!' Lorene insisted.
'Leukemia,' Eli said.
There was silence for a moment. Then Lorene sighed. 'Oh.' She shook her head. 'Oh shit.' She turned and walked away.
When she had gone through the front door, Keira spoke to Eli. 'What are you going to do?' she asked. He said nothing.
'If you touch me,' she said, 'how soon will I die?' 'It isn't touch.'
'I know. I mean-' 'You might live.'
'You don't think so.'
More silence.
'I'm not afraid,' she said. 'I don't know why I'm not, but. . . You should have let me play with Zera. She wouldn't have known and Lorene wouldn't have cared.'
'Don't tell me what I ought to do.'
She could not fear him-not even when he wanted her to. 'Is Zera your daughter?' 'No. She calls me Daddy, though. Her father's dead.'
'You have kids?' 'Oh yes.'
'I always thought someday I'd like to.'
'You've prepared yourself to die, haven't you?' She shrugged. 'Can anyone, really?'
'I can't. To me, talking about it is like talking about the reality of elves and gnomes.' He smiled wryly. 'If the organism were intelligent, I'd say it didn't believe in death.'
'But it will kill me.'
He got up, pushing his chair away angrily. 'Come on!'
He led her into the hall and to a large bedroom. 'I'm going to lock you in,' he said. 'The windows are locked, but I guess even you could kick them out if you wanted to. If you do, don't expect any consideration from the people you meet outside.'
She only looked at him.
Abruptly, he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Keira lay down on the bed feeling listless, not quite in pain, but unable to worry about Eli, his guilt, the compulsion that would surely overcome him soon. Her body was warning her. If she did not get her medication soon, she would feel worse. She closed her eyes, hoping to fall asleep. She had the beginnings of a headache, or what felt like the beginnings
of one. Sometimes the dull, threatening discomfort could go on for hours without really turning into a headache. She
rolled over, away from the wet place her sweating body had made. Clay's Ark victims were not the only people who could sweat profusely without heat. Her joints hurt her when she moved.
She had decided she was to be left alone for the night when Eli came in. She could see him vaguely outlined in the moonlight. Apparently, he could see her much better.
'Fool,' he said. 'Why didn't you tell me you felt bad? You've got medicine in the car, haven't you?' Not caring whether he could see or not, she nodded.
'I thought so. Get up. Come show me where it is.'
She did not feel like moving at all, but she got up and followed him out. In the dining room, she watched him pull on a pair of black, cloth-lined, plastic gloves.
'Town gloves,' he said. 'People take us for bikers in stores sometimes. I had a guy serve me once with a shotgun next to him. Damn fool. I could have had the gun anytime I wanted it. And all the while I was protecting him from the
disease.'
Why are you protecting me? she thought, but she said nothing. She followed him out to the car, which had been moved farther from the house. There, she showed him the compartment that contained her medicine. She had left it on the seat once, not thinking, and someone had nearly managed to smash into the car to get it, no doubt hoping for drugs. They would have been
