Read Clay's Ark for Free Online Page B

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."
    Blake frowned at her. "What are you going to tell me now? That you're telepathic?"
     
     
     
     
    She shook her head. "I wish we were. We read body language. We see things you wouldn't even notice-things we didn't
    notice before. We don't work at it; it isn't a conscious thing. Among ourselves, it's communication. With strangers, it's
    protection."
    "Why haven't you gotten treatment?"
    "What treatment?"
    "You haven't tried to get any treatment, have you? What about Eli's wife? Hasn't she-"
    "She's dead. The disease killed her."
    Blake stared at her. "Good God. And you've deliberately given it to me?"
    "Yes," she said. "I know it doesn't make sense to you. It wouldn't have to me before. But now . . . You'll understand
    eventually. And when you do, I hope you'll accept our way of living. It's so damn hard when people don't. Like having
    one of my kids go wrong."
    Blake tried to make sense of this. Before he could give up on her again, she got up and went over to him.
    "It isn't necessary for you to understand now," she said. "For now, just listen and ask questions if you want to. Pretend
    you believe me." She touched his face. Repelled, he caught her hand and pushed it away. His cheek hurt a little and he
    realized she had scratched him again. He touched his face and his hand came away bloody.
    "What the hell are you going to do?" he demanded. "Keep scratching me as long as you can find a few inches of clear
    skin?"
    "Not that bad," she said softly. "I don't understand why- maybe you will-but people with original infections at the neck
    or above get the disease faster. And infected people who get a lot of attention from us usually survive. The organism
    doesn't use cells up the way a virus does. It combines with them, lives with them, divides with them, changes them just
    a little. Eli says it's a symbiont, not a parasite."
    "But it kills," Blake said.
    "Sometimes." She sounded defensive. "Sometimes people work hard to die. Those bikers, for instance .... I took care of
    Orel-Ingraham, I mean. His first name's Orel. He hates it. Anyway, I took care of him. He didn't like me much then, but
    he let me. He survived okay. But the other biker who had a chance was a real bastard. Lupe stuck with him, but he kept
    trying to kill her-strangling, smothering, beating . . . When he tried to burn her to death in her sleep, she got mad and hit
    him too hard. Broke his neck."
    Blake put most of this aside for later consideration and focused on one implication. "Are you planning to sleep here?"
    he demanded.
    She smiled. "Get used to the idea. After all, I can't very well rape you, can I?"
    He did not answer. He was thinking about his daughters.
    She drew a deep breath, touched his hand without scratching this time. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm told I have the
    sensitivity of a hunk of granite sometimes. None of us are rapists here. No one is going to