Clay's Ark Read Online Free PDF Page B

it first to family and friends.
    The ship had died, the three people he had come to love. most had died with it to prevent the epidemic he had probably
    just begun. He should have died with them. But of the four, only his enhanced survival drive had saved him-much
    against his will. He had been a prisoner within his own skull, cut off from conscious control of his body. He had
    watched himself running for cover, saving himself, and thus nullifying the sacrifice of the others. To his sorrow, to his
    ultimate shame, he, and he alone, had brought the first extraterrestrial life to Earth.
    What could he do now? Could he do anything? Was not the whole matter literally out of his hands? Had it ever been
    otherwise?
    A woman came into the room. She was tall and rangy and about fifty-too old to attract his interest in any dangerous
    way.
    "So," she said, "you're among the living again. I thought you might be. Are you hungry?"
    "Yes," he croaked. He coughed and tried again. "Please, yes."
    "Coming right up," the woman said. "By the way, what's your name?"
    "Jake," he lied. "Jacob Moore." Jake Moore had been his maternal grandfather, a good man, an old-style, shouting
    Baptist preacher who had stepped in and taken the place of his father when his father died. It was a name he would not
    forget, no matter how his body distracted him. His own name would send this woman hurrying to the nearest phone or
    radio or whatever people in this desolate place used to communicate with the world outside. She would call the would-
    be rescuers he had hidden from for three days after the destruction of the ship, and she would feel that she had done
    him a great favor. Then how many people would he be driven to infect before someone realized what was happening?
    Or was he wrong? Should he give himself up? Would he be able to tell everything he knew and dump the problem and
    himself into the laps of others?
    The moment the thought came to him, he knew it was impossible. To give himself up would be an act of self-
    destruction. He would be confined, isolated. He would be prevented from doing the one thing he must do: seeking out
    new hosts for the alien microorganisms that had made themselves such fundamental parts of his body. Their purpose
    was now his purpose, and their only purpose was to survive and multiply. All his increased strength, speed,
    coordination, and sensory ability was to keep him alive and mobile, able to find new hosts or beget them. Many hosts.
    Perhaps three out of four of those found would die, but that magical fourth was worth any amount of trouble.
    The organisms were not intelligent. They could not tell him how to keep himself alive, free, and able to find new hosts.
    But they became intensely uncomfortable if he did not, and their discomfort was his discomfort. He might interpret
    what they made him feel as pleasure when he did what was necessary, desirable, essential; or as pain when he tried to
    do what was terrifying, self-destructive, impossible. But what he was actually feeling were secondhand advance-retreat
    responses of millions of tiny symbionts.
    The woman touched him to get his attention. She had brought him a tray. He took it on his lap, trying, and in the final,
    driven instant, failing to return the woman's kindness. He could not spare her. He scratched her wrist just hard enough
    to draw blood.
    "I'm sorry," he said at once. "The rocks . . ." He displayed his jagged nails. "Sorry."
    "It's nothing," the woman said. "I'd like to hear how you wound up out here so far from any other settlement. And
    here." She handed him a linen napkin-real linen. "Wipe your hands and face. Why are you perspiring so? It's cool in
    here."
     
    PRESENT 6
     
     
     
    In surprisingly little time, Meda served a huge meal. There was a whole ham-Blake wondered whether it was
    homegrown -several chickens, more salad than Blake thought six people could possibly eat, corn on the cob, buttered
    carrots, green beans, baked potatoes, rolls . . .