Clay's Ark by Octavia E. Butler Read Free Book Online

take your kids to bed against
    their wills."
    "So you say!"
    "It's true. Our men don't rape. They don't have to."
    "You haven't had to do any of the things you've done."
    "But we have. Like I said, you'll understand eventually. For now, you'll just have to accept what I tell you. We're
    changed, but we have ethics. We aren't animals."
    Blake thought that was exactly what they were, but he kept quiet. There was no point in arguing with her. But Rane and
    Keira . . . What was happening to them?
    Meda took a chair from the desk on the other side of the room and brought it over so that she could sit next to him. He
    watched her swing her thin body around. She moved like a man. She must have been a powerful-looking woman before
    her illness. Yet the illness had reduced her to wiry thinness. What would it do to Keira who had no weight to lose, who
    already had a disease that was slowly killing her?
    Meda sat down and took his hands. "I wish you could believe me," she said. "This is the worst time for you. I wish I
    could help more."
    "Help!" He snatched his hands away from her, disgusted. She was still perspiring heavily. In a cool room, she was
    soaking wet. And no doubt the perspiration was loaded with disease organisms. "You've 'helped' enough!"
    She wiped her face and smiled grimly. "You still bring out the worst in me. You don't feel or smell like one of us-like
    an infected person-yet."
    "Smell?"
    "Oh yes. Part of your body language, part of your identity is your odor. And one of your earliest symptoms is going to
    be suddenly smelling things you never consciously noticed before. Eli found our place by following his nose. He was
    lost in the desert. We had water, and he smelled it."
    "He came here? This was your home, then?"
     
     
     
     
    ". . . yes."
    He wondered about her sudden pensiveness, but took no time to question it. He had something more important to ask.
    "Where did Eli come from, Meda? Where did he catch the disease?"
    She hesitated. "Look, I'll tell you if you want me to. It's my job to explain things to you. But there are some things
    you'll have to understand before I tell you about Eli. First, like I said, I scratched your face just now so you'd get sick
    sooner. Most people take about three weeks to start feeling symptoms. Sometimes a little longer. You'll feel yours a lot
    sooner-and you should be infectious in a few days."
    "That could mean I'll die sooner," Blake said.
    "I'm not going to give you up that easily," she said. "You're going to make it!"
    "Why did you rush things for me?"
    "We're afraid of you. We want you on our side because you might be able to help us save more converts-that's what Eli
    calls them. We ... we care about the people we lose. But we have to be sure of you, and we can't until you're one of us.
    Right now, you're sort of in-between. You're not one of us yet, but you're . . . not normal either. If you escaped now and
    managed to reach other people, you'd eventually give them the disease. You'd spread it to everyone you could reach,
    and you wouldn't be able to stay and help them. Nobody can fight the compulsion alone. We need each other."
    "Who did Eli have?" Blake asked. "His wife?"
    "He had nobody. That was the problem. But before I get into that, I want to be sure you understand that there's no way
    to leave here without starting an epidemic. The compulsion quiets down a little after you've been sick. You should have
    enough control then to go into town and buy whatever you'll need that isn't in that computerized bag Eli says you
    have."
    "Buy medical supplies?"
    "Yes."
    "You're going to trust me enough to let me go into town?"
    "Yes, but nobody travels alone. There's too much temptation to do harm. Blake, you aren't ever going to be comfortable
    among ordinary people again."
    He didn't know how he would have felt if he had believed her. But in fact, he meant to take any opportunity to escape
    that came his way. He did not intend to live his life as an emaciated carrier of a