Read Clay's Ark for Free Online

Blake suspected this was the first meal he had eaten that contained
    almost nothing from boxes, bags, or cans. Not even salt on most of the food, he realized unhappily. He wondered
    whether the food was clean and free of live parasites. Could some parasite, some worm, perhaps, be responsible for
    these people's weight loss? Parasitic worm infestations were almost unknown now, but these people had not chosen to
    live in the present. They had adopted a nineteenth-century lifestyle. Perhaps they had contracted a nineteenth-century
    disease. Yet they were strong and alert. If they were sharing their bodies with worms, the worms were damned unusual.
    Blake picked at the barely seasoned food, eating little of it. He wasn't concerned about any possible worm infestation.
    That could be taken care of easily once he was free. And since everyone took food from the same serving dishes,
    selective drugging was impossible. He let the girls eat their fill. And he watched the abductors-especially Eli-eat
    prodigious amounts.
    Keira tried to talk to him during the meal, but he gave the impression of being too busy eating to listen. Blake thought
    he tried a little too hard to give that impression. Eli was attracted to Keira; that was obvious. Blake hoped his ignoring
    her meant he was rejecting the attraction. The girl was sixteen, naive, and sheltered. Like most enclave parents, Blake
    had done all he could to recreate the safe world of perhaps sixty years past for his children. Enclaves were islands
    surrounded by vast, crowded, vulnerable residential areas through which ran sewers of utter lawlessness connecting
    cesspools-economic ghettos that regularly chewed their inhabitants up and spat the pieces into surrounding
    communities. The girls knew about such things only superficially. Neither of them would know how to handle a grown
    man who saw them as fair game. Nothing had ever truly threatened them before.
    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