Текст книги "Darwin's children"

Автор книги: Грег Бир

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Flynn stopped the cart, even more nervous. “You don't know?” she asked, her voice rising a notch.

Dicken's mind started to race and he saw he was on the edge of screwing up a golden opportunity. You've worked with . . . As the only married female . . .

They're doing it. They've done it.He felt his pulse going up and hoped it did not show.

“Oh,” he said, with a fair imitation of casualness. “Virus children.”

Flynn bit her lip. “I don't like that phrase.” She pushed the cart forward again with the little control stick. “Jurie never worked directly with them. Only with specimens. Neither has Turner, and of course Presky is an animal guy, no bedside manner whatsoever. We thought of you. Turner said that must be why you're here, and why you're being given shit theoretical work—so you can be pulled loose for something like this when the time comes.”

“Okay,” Dicken said, putting on a mask of professional caution. He pressed his lips together to keep from saying anything revealing or stupid.

“Something's gone wrong at the border, I don't know what. I'm not in that particular loop. Jurie's in Arizona. Turner told me to bring you in before he gets back.” Her smile was fleeting and desperate. “The cat's away.”

It was an in-house conspiracy after all, and not a very convincing one. Flynn seemed to expect him to say something reassuring and glib. The whole damned lab functioned on a morphine high of glibness, as if to hide the gnawing awareness that what they were doing might someday attract the attention of The Hague.

“God bless the beasts and children,” Dicken said. “Let's go.”

On the north side of the array of Pathogenics warehouses, a segmented, inflatable silver enclosure perched on a black expanse of parking lot like some huge alien larva. An access tube led from the enclosure into Warehouse Number 5, which contained most of the primate study labs. Dicken noticed two outside compressors and a complicated, freshly assembled sterilization unit on the south end of the sausage.

He didn't realize how big the enclosure was until they were almost upon it. The whole complex was as big as one of the warehouses and covered at least an acre.

They parked the cart and entered Warehouse 5 through the delivery door. Turner met them in a small clinic inside the warehouse—a hospital clinic, obviously equipped for humans and not just for primates. “Glad you could make it, Christopher,” he said. “Jurie's dealing with some mess at the border. A bunch of protesters blocked a lab bus, refused to let it enter Arizona. They had help from the local police, apparently. Jurie had to order up another bus at the last minute and route it around the roadblocks.”

“No surprise,” Flynn said. Dicken glanced between them both. What he saw chilled him. The glibness had completely evaporated. They knew their careers were on the line.

“The preparations have been obvious, but Jurie only told us yesterday,” Turner said. Their statements piled together.

“She's a very unhappy girl,” Flynn said.

“I'm not sure we should even have her here,” Turner said.

“She's pregnant,” Flynn said.

“A rape, we're told. Her foster father,” Turner said.

“Oh, God, I didn't know it was rape,” Flynn said, and pressed her knuckles to her cheek. “She's only fourteen.”

“They brought her from a school in Arizona,” Flynn said. “Jurie calls it ourschool. That's where we've been getting most of our specimens.”

“She's pregnant?” Dicken asked, dumbfounded, and then wondered if he had blown his cover.

“That's not generally known even in the clinic,” Turner said. “I'd appreciate some discretion.”

Dicken let his astonishment come forward. “That's major.” His voice cracked. “But she's 52 xx. What about polyploidy?”

“I only know what I see,” Turner said grimly. “She's pregnant by her foster father.”

“That's absolutely huge,” Dicken said.

“She arrived at the school a month ago,” Turner said. “We discovered her pregnancy when we processed a set of her blood tests. Jurie almost had a heart attack when he got the results from the lab. He seemed elated. He got her transferred to Pathogenics last week without telling the rest of us.”

“I was so mad,” Flynn said. “I could have clobbered him.”

“What else could we do? The school couldn't take care of her, and it's for damn sure no hospital would touch her.”

Dicken held up his hand. “Who's working the clinic?” he asked.

“Maggie, Tommy Wrigley—you met Tommy at the party, and Thomas Powers. Some people brought in from California; we don't know them. And, of course, Jurie, on the research side. But he's never even visited the girl.”

“What's her condition?”

“She's about three months along. Not doing too well. We think she may have self-induced Shiver,” Flynn said.

“That is not confirmed,” Turner said angrily. “She's acting as if she has the flu, and that's all it may be. But we're being extra cautious. And this information goes nowhere . . . don't even tell anyone else at Pathogenics.”

“But Dr. Dicken would know if it's Shiver, wouldn't he?” Flynn said defensively. “Isn't that why Jurie brought you here?”

“Let's look at the girl,” Dicken said.

“Her name is Fremont, Helen Fremont,” Flynn said. “She's originally from Nevada. Las Vegas, I think.”

“Reno,” Turner corrected. Then, his face collapsing in utter misery, his shoulders slumping, he added, “I don't think I can take this much longer. I really don't.”

34

BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON

Kaye and Marge Cross sat in the back of the taxi in silence. Kaye looked at the passive neck of the driver below his turban, caught a glimpse of his small grin in the rearview mirror. He was whistling to himself, happy. For him, having a SHEVA granddaughter was no great burden, obviously.

Kaye did not know much about conditions for SHEVA children in Pakistan. Generally, traditional cultures—Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists—had been more accepting of the new children. That was both surprising and humbling.

Cross drummed her fingers on her knee and looked out the window at the highway, passing cars. A long semi rolled past with TRANS-NATIONAL BIRMINGHAM PORK emblazoned in huge red letters on the sides of its two trailers.

“Spent lots of money on thatone,” Cross murmured.

Kaye assumed she was referring to pig tissue transplants. “Where are we going, Marge?” she asked.

“Just driving,” Cross said. Her chin bounced up and down, and Kaye could not be sure whether she was nodding or just moving her jaw in time to the truck ruts in the roadway.

“That address is in a residential neighborhood. I know Baltimore and Maryland pretty well,” Kaye said. “I assume you aren't kidnapping me.”

Cross gave her a weak smile. “Hell, you're paying,” she said. “There's some people I think you'll want to meet.”

“All right,” Kaye said.

“Lars came down pretty hard on Robert.”

“Robert's a sanctimonious prick.”

Cross shrugged. “Nevertheless, I'm not going to take Lars's advice.”

“I didn't think you would,” Kaye said. She hated to lose her labs and her researchers, even now. Doing science was her last comfort, her lab the last place she could take refuge and lose herself in work.

“I'm letting you go,” Cross said.

To her surprise, the blow did not feel so heavy after all. It was Kaye's turn to nod in time to the cab's rubbery suspension.

“Your work with me is over,” Cross said.

“Fine,” Kaye said tightly.

“Isn't it?” Cross asked.

“Of course,” Kaye said, her heart thumping. What I have been putting off doing. What I cannot do alone.

“What more would you do at Americol?”

“Pure research on hormonal activation of retroviral elements in humans,” Kaye said, still grasping at the past. “Focus on stress-related signaling systems. Transfer of transcription factors and regulating genes by ERV to somatic cells. Study the viruses as common genetic transport and regulatory systems for the body. Prove that the all-disease model is wrong.”

“It's a good area,” Cross said. “A little too wild for Americol, but I can make some calls and get you a position elsewhere. Frankly, I don't think you're going to have time.”

Kaye lifted her eyebrows and thinned her lips. “If I'm no longer employed by you, how can you know how much time I'll have?”

Cross smiled, but the smile vanished quickly and she frowned out the window. “Robert picked the wrong hammer to hit you with,” she said. “Or at least he did it in front of the wrong woman.”

“How's that?”

“Twenty-three years ago come August, I was beginning to drum up venture capital for my first company. I was packing my schedule with meetings and heavy-duty lunches.” Her expression turned wistful, as if she were recalling an old, wonderful romance. “God dropped in. Bad timing, to say the least. He hit me so hard I had to drive to the Hamptons and hide out in a hotel room for a week. Basically I swooned.”

She was avoiding direct eye contact, like a little girl confessing. Kaye leaned forward to see her face more clearly. Kaye had never seen Cross look so vulnerable.

“I can't tell you how scared I was that He was a sign of madness, epilepsy, or worse.”

“You thought it was a he?”

Cross nodded. “Doesn't make sense for a couple of strong women, does it? It bothered me a lot, then. But no matter how bothered I was, how scared I was, I never thought about visiting a radiology center. That was brilliant, Kaye. Not cheap, but brilliant.”

Kaye glanced at the driver's face in the rearview mirror. He was obviously trying to ignore the words being spoken in the backseat, trying to give them privacy—and not succeeding.

“Love isn't the word, but it's all we have. Love without desire.” Cross reached up to wipe her perfectly manicured fingers beneath her eyes. “I've never told anybody. Someone like Robert would have used it against me.”

“But it's the truth,” Kaye said.

“No, it isn't,” Cross said peevishly. “It's a personal experience. It was real to you and to me, but that doesn't get us anywhere in this old, cruel world. That same vision might have compelled someone else to burn old women as witches or kill Englishmen, like Joan of Arc. Cranking up the old Inquisition.”

“I don't think so,” Kaye said.

“How do you know the butchers and murderers didn't get a message?”

Kaye had to admit that she did not.

Cross said, “I've spent so much of my time trying to forget, just so I could do the work I had to do to get where I wanted to be. Sometimes it was cruel work, stepping on other folks's dreams. And whenever I remembered, it just crushed me again. Because I knew this thing, it, He, would never punish me, no matter what I did or how I misbehaved. Not just forgiveness– no judgment.Only love .He can't be real,” Cross said. “What He said and what He did doesn't make any sense.”

“He felt real to me,” Kaye said.

“Did you ever hear what happened to Thomas Aquinas?” Cross asked.

Kaye shook her head.

“The most admired theologian of all. Furiously adept thinker, logical beyond all measure—and pretty hard to read nowadays. But smart, no doubt about it, and a young fellow when he made his mark. Student of Albertus Magnus. Defender of Aristotle in the Church. He wrote big thick tracts. Admired throughout Christendom, and still revered as a thinker to this day. On the morning of December 6, 1273, he was saying Mass in Naples. He was older, about my age. Right in the middle of the sermon, he just stopped speaking, and stared at nothing. Or stared at everything. I imagine he must have gawped like a fish .” Cross's expression was quizzical, distant.

“He stopped writing, dictating, stopped contributing to the Summa, his life's work. And when he was pressed to explain why he had stopped, he said, ‘I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life.’ He died a few months later.” Cross snorted. “No wonder Aquinas was brought up short, the poor bastard. I know a hierarchy when I see one. I'm little better than a wriggly worm in a pond compared to what touched me. I wouldn't dare try to tell God how to behave.” She smiled. “Yes, dear, I can be humble.” Cross patted Kaye's hand. “And that's that. You're fired. You've done all you need to do, for now, at my company.”

“What about Jackson?” Kaye asked.

“He's limited, but he's still useful, and there's still important work for him to do. I'll have Lars watch over him.”

“Jackson doesn't understand,” Kaye said.

“If you mean he's narrowly focused, that's just what I need right now. He'll cross all the t's and dot all the i's, trying to prove he's right. Good for him.”

“But he'll get it wrong.”

“Then he'll do it thoroughly.” Cross was adamant. “Robert's problem was familiar to Aquinas. He called it ignorantia affectata, cultivated ignorance.”

“God should touch him,” Kaye said bitterly, and then flushed in embarrassment, as if that were any kind of punishment.

Cross considered this seriously for a moment. “I'm surprised God touched me,” she said. “I'd be shocked if He wanted to have anything to do with Robert.”

35

NEW MEXICO

Inside the silver tent were eight single wide mobile home trailers, sitting up on blocks on a wrinkled and patched gray plastic floor and surrounded, at a distance of thirty feet, by a circle of transparent plastic panels topped with razor wire. The trailers did not look in the least comfortable or friendly.

Dicken tried to orient himself in the general gloomy light that seeped through the silver tent. They had entered on the western side. North, then, was where a small Emergency Action van was parked, the same van that had presumably brought Helen Fremont from Arizona. South of the mobile homes and the wall of plastic and razor wire, a small maze of tables and lab benches had been set up and stocked with standard medical and lab diagnostic equipment.

A few klieg lights mounted on long steel poles supplemented the dim sunlight.

Dicken saw no one else under the tent.

“We don't have a team in place yet,” Flynn said. “She just came down sick this morning.”

“Is there a phone connection in the trailer, an intercom, a bullhorn, anything?”

Flynn shook her head. “We're still putting it together.”

“Goddamnit, she's alone in there?”

Turner nodded.

“For how long?”

“Since this morning,” Flynn said. “I went in and tried to do an exam. She refused, but I took some pictures, and of course, there's the video. We're running tests on the waste line fluid and the air, but the equipment here isn't familiar to me. I didn't trust it, so I took the samples over to the primate lab. They're still being run.”

“Does Jurie know she's ill?” Dicken asked.

“We called him,” Turner said.

“Did he give any instructions?”

“He said to leave her alone. Let nobody in until we were sure.”

“But Maggie went in.”

“I had to,” Flynn said. “She looked so scared.”

“You were in a suit?”

“Of course.”

Dicken swung about on his stiff leg and leaned his head to one side, biting his cheek to keep his opinions to himself. He was furious.

Flynn would not meet his eyes. “It's procedure. All tests done under Level 3 conditions.”

“Well, we sure as hell follow the goddamned rules, don't we?” Dicken said. “Haven't you at least asked her to come out and have a doctor inspect her?”

“She won't come out,” Turner said. “We have video cameras tracking her. She's in the bedroom. She's just lying there.”

“Dandy,” Dicken said. “What in hell do you want me to do?”

“We have the pictures,” Flynn said, and took her data phone from her pocket.

“Show me,” Dicken said.

She brought up a succession of five pictures on the phone's screen. Dicken saw a young SHEVA girl with dark brown hair, pale blue eyes with yellow specks, thin features but prominent cheekbones, pale skin. The girl looked like a frightened cat, her eyes searching the unseen corners, refusing even in her misery to be intimidated.

Dicken could tell the girl was exhibiting no obvious signs of Shiver—no lesions on her skinny arms, no scarlet cingulated markings on her neck. A live update chart butted in at the conclusion of the slide show and displayed a temperature of 102.

“Remote temperature sensing?”

Flynn nodded.

“You said her viral titers were high.”

“She cut herself getting into the van. They had been instructed not to draw blood, but they sequestered the stain and we took a sample under controlled conditions. That's why the van is still here. She's producing HERV.”

“Of course she is. She's pregnant. She doesn't present any of the necessary symptoms,” he said. “What makes you think it's Shiver?”

“Dr. Jurie said it might be.”

“Jurie isn't here, and you are.”

“But she's pregnant,” Turner said, scowling, as if that explained their concern.

“Have you tested for pseudotype viruses?”

“We're still running the samples,” Turner said.

“Anything?”

“Not yet.”

“You've had Shiver,” Flynn said sullenly. “You should be even more cautious.” She looked more angry than distressed now. They were wondering whose side he was on, and he was half inclined to tell them.

“I won't even need a suit,” he said contemptuously, and tossed the phone back to Flynn. He walked toward the trailer.

“Hold it,” Turner said, his face red. “Go in there without a suit, and you'll stay. We won't—we can'tlet you out.”

Dicken turned and bowed, holding out his arms in exasperated placation. There was work to do, a problem to resolve, and anger wasn't helping. “Then get me a goddamned suit! And a phone or an intercom. She needs to communicate with the outside. She needs to talk with someone. Where are her parents—her mother, I mean?”

“We don't know,” Flynn said.

The narrow rooms inside the mobile home were neat and cheerless. Rental-style furniture, upholstered in beige and yellow plaid vinyl, lent them an air of cheap and soulless utility. The girl had brought no personal effects, and had touched none of the stuffed animal toys that lined the shelves in the tiny living room, still in their plastic wrappings.

Dicken wondered how long ago the stuffed animals had been purchased. How long had Jurie been planning to bring SHEVA children into Pathogenics?

A year?

Two dining chairs had been upset beside the dinette. Dicken bent to set them right. The plastic in his suit squeaked. He was already starting to sweat, despite the air conditioner pack. He had long since come to sincerely hate isolation suits.

He looked for other obstructions that might snag the plastic, then moved slowly toward the bedroom at the back of the trailer. He knocked on the frame and peered through the half-open door. The girl lay on her back on the bed, still wearing pedal pushers, blouse, and a denim jacket. The bed's green plastic covers had been tossed aside, and she was staring at the ceiling.

“Hello?”

The girl did not look at him. He could see her skinny chest moving, and her cheeks were ruddy with fever or fear or perhaps despair.

“Helen?” He walked along the narrow space beside the bed and bent over so she could see his face. “My name is Christopher Dicken.”

She swung her head to one side. “Go away. I'll make you sick,” she said.

“I doubt it, Helen. How do you feel?”

“I hate your suit.”

“I don't like it much, either.”

“Leave me alone.”

Dicken straightened and folded his arms with some difficulty. The suit rustled and squeaked and he felt like one of the plastic-wrapped stuffed animals. “Tell me how you're feeling.”

“I want to throw up.”

“Have you thrown up?”

“No,” she said.

“That's good.”

“I keep trying.” The girl sat up on the bed. “You should be afraid of me. That's what my mother told me to say to anyone who tries to touch me or kidnap me. She said, ‘Use what you have.’ ”

“You don't make people sick, Helen,” Dicken said.

“I wish I could. I want himto be sick.”

Dicken could not imagine her pain and frustration, and did not feel comfortable probing it out. “I won't say I understand. I don't.”

“Stop talking and go away.”

“We won't talk about that, okay. But we need to talk about how you're feeling, and I'd like to examine you. I'm a doctor.”

“So was he,” she snapped. She rolled to one side, still not looking at Dicken. Her eyes narrowed. “My muscles hurt. Am I going to die?”

“I don't think so.”

“I should die.”

“Please don't talk that way. If things are going to get any better, I have to examine you. I promise I won't hurt you or do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.”

“I'm used to them taking blood,” the girl said. “They tie us down if we fight.” She stared fixedly at his face through the hood. “You sound like you've helped a lot of sick people.”

“Quite a few. Some were very, very sick, and they got better.”

“And some died.”

“Yes,” Dicken said. “Some died.”

“I don't feel that sick, other than wanting to throw up.”

“That might be your baby.”

The girl opened her mouth wide and her cheeks went pale. “I'm pregnant?” she asked.

Dicken suddenly felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. “They didn't tell you?”

“Oh, my God,” the girl said and curled up, facing away from him. “I knew it. I knew it. I could smell something. It was his baby inside of me. Oh, my God.” The girl sat up abruptly. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

Dicken must have showed his concern even through the hood.

“I'm not going to hurt myself. I have to throw up. Don't look. Don't watch me.”

He said, “I'll wait for you in the living room.”

She swung her legs out over the side of the bed and stood, then paused, arms held out as if to keep her balance. She stared down at the fake wooden floor. “He used nose plugs and scrubbed me with soap, and then he covered me with cheap perfume. I couldn't make him stop. He said he wanted to learn whether he would ever have grandchildren. But he wasn't even my real father. A baby. Oh, my God.”

The girl's face wrinkled up in an expression so complex Dicken could have studied it for hours and not understood. He knew how a chimpanzee must feel, watching humans emote.

“I'm sorry,” Dicken said.

“Have you met anyone else like me who was pregnant?” the girl asked, holding, compelling his gaze through the plastic.

“No,” Dicken said.

“I'm the first?”

“You're the first in my experience.”

“Yeah.” She got a panicky look and walked stiffly into the bathroom. Dicken could hear her trying to throw up. He went into the living room. The smell of his sorrow and loathing filled the helmet and there was no way to wipe his eyes or his nose.

When the girl came out, she stopped in the doorway, then sidled through, as if afraid to touch the frame. She held her arms out to her side like wings. Her cheeks were a steady golden brown and the yellow flint-sparks in her eyes seemed even larger and brighter. More than ever, she looked like a cat. She glared at him quizzically. She could see his puffy eyes and wet cheeks through the plastic. “What do you care?” she asked.

Dicken shook his head inside the helmet. “Hard to explain,” he said. “I was there at the beginning.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm not sure there's time,” he said. “We need to find out why you're sick.”

“Explain it to me, and then you can look at me,” the girl said.

Dicken wondered how they would react outside if he spent a couple of hours in the trailer. If Jurie should happen to come back . . .

None of that mattered. He had to do something for the girl. She deserved so much more than this.

He pulled up the covering seal and unzipped his helmet, then removed it. It certainly wasn't the worst risk he had ever taken. “I was one of the first to know,” he began.

The girl lifted her nose and sniffed. The way her upper lip formed a V was so strangely beautiful that Dicken had to smile.

“Better?” he asked.

“You're not afraid, you're angry,” the girl said. “You're angry forme.”

He nodded.

“Nobody's ever been angry for me. It smells kind of sweet. Sit in the living room. Stay a few feet away, in case I'm dangerous.”

They walked into the living room. Dicken sat on a dinette chair and she stood by the couch, arms folded, as if ready to run. “Tell me,” she said.

“Can I examine you while I talk? You can keep your clothes on, and I won't stick you with anything. I just need to look and touch.”

The girl nodded.

Rumors and half-truths were all she had ever heard. She remained standing for the first few minutes, while Dicken pressed his fingers gently under her jaw, into her armpits, and looked between her fingers and toes.

After a while, she sat on the vinyl couch, listening closely and watching him with those incredible flint-spark eyes.

36

ARIZONA

The three cars split off at a crossroads going through a small desert town. Stella looked through the rear window at the diminishing dot of the car that contained Celia and LaShawna and two of the boys. Then she turned to look at Will, who seemed to have fallen asleep.

JoBeth Hayden had talked about her daughter for the first half hour or so, about how she had been glad Bonnie was not on the bus, being taken to Sandia, yet how disappointing it was not to see her and have her be free.

After a while, Stella had felt her muscles tighten from the aftereffects of the crash, and she had tuned out Jobeth, focusing instead on the pile of crumpled pages that Will had arranged on the seat between them.

Will opened his eyes and leaned forward. “Mrs. Hayden,” he said, and ran his tongue over dry lips, avoiding Stella's curious stare.

“Yes. Your name is William, isn't it?”

“Will. I'd like to put these up by you.” He dropped some crumpled pages in the middle of the front bench seat.

“That's trash,” Jobeth Hayden said disapprovingly.

“I can't keep it back here,” Will said.

“I don't see why not.”

Stella could not figure out what Will was up to. She rubbed her nose. The front bench seat was in direct sunlight. Will was fever-scenting. She could smell him now, subtle but direct, like cocoa powder and butter. She had never smelled anything exactly like it.

“Can I?” Will asked.

Jobeth Hayden shook her head slowly. Stella saw her eyes in the rearview mirror; she looked confused. “All right,” she said.

Stella picked up a crumpled page and smelled it. She drew back, rejecting the urge to frith, and stared at Will resentfully. The paperback was a reservoir. Will had been rubbing the pages behind his ears, storing up scent. She poked him with her finger and flashed a query with her cheeks. He took the paper from her hands.

“We don't want to go to this ranch,” Will said to Mrs. Hayden.

“That's where we're going. There's a doctor there. It's a safe place, and they're expecting you.”

“I know a better place,” Will said. “Could you drive us to California?”

“That's silly,” Jobeth Hayden said.

“I've been trying to get there for more than a year now.”

“We're going to the ranch, and that's that.”

Will dropped another wadded-up page onto the pool of sun on the front seat. Stella could smell Will's particular form of persuasion very clearly now, and however much she fought against it, what he said was beginning to seem reasonable.

Mrs. Hayden continued to drive. Stella wondered if too much persuasion would confuse her and make her drive off the road.

Will cradled his head in his arms. “We're fine. I don't need a doctor./ She's fine, she can still drive.”

“We're going to see a doctor in a small town in Arizona, and then we're going straight to the ranch,” Mrs. Hayden said.

“It's right across the state line. You have to drive through Nevada, though. Can I see the map?”

Mrs. Hayden was frowning deeply now, and she started to toss back the pieces of crumpled paper. “I don't think that's a good idea,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“I just want to see the map,” Will said.

“Well, I suppose that's okay, but no more of this trash, please. I thought you children behaved better.”

Stella touched Will's arm. “Stop it,” she whispered, leaning forward so only he would hear.

Will ignored Stella and tossed the paper again onto the front seat, in the pool of sunshine that warmed it and made it release its scent.

“This is really intolerable,” Mrs. Hayden said, but her head straightened and she did not sound angry. She reached over, opened up the glove box, and handed Will an Auto Club map of Arizona and New Mexico. “I don't use them often,” she said. “They're pretty old.”

Will opened the map and spread it across their knees. His finger followed highways going north and west. Stella leaned into the corner where the seat met the door and folded her arms.

“You'll have to sit up straight, sweetie,” Mrs. Hayden told her. “The car has side airbags. It's not safe to slump over.”

Stella sat up. Will looked at her. Her back was really hurting now. Calmly, he reached over and touched her hands, her legs, then her back.

“What are you doing back there?” Mrs. Hayden asked, dimly concerned.

Will did not answer, and she did not press the question. His fingers marched lightly up Stella's spine, and she rolled over to let him examine her back.

“You'll be okay,” Will said.

“How do you know?” Stella asked.

“You'd smell different if you were bleeding inside, or if something was broken. You're just suffering from a little whiplash, and I don't think there's any nerve damage. I smelled a boy with a broken back once, and he had a sad, awful smell. You smell good.”

“I don't like you telling us what to do,” Stella said.

“I'll stop once she takes us to California,” Will said. He did not seem very confident, and he did not smell sure of himself. This was one nervous young man.

“It's a beautiful day/ I learned a lot in North Carolina,” Will doubled. “I'm glad you're here/ That was before they burned our camp.”

Stella had never met anyone more adept at persuasion. She wondered whether his talent was natural, or whether he had been taught somewhere. She also wondered whether they would be in any danger. But Stella was not willing, not yet anyway, to tell Mrs. Hayden her suspicions. She apparently had suspicions of her own. “I'd like to roll down the windows,” Mrs. Hayden said. “It's getting stuffy in here.”

“It's fine, really,” Will said. At the same time, he undered to Stella, “/I need your help. Don't you want to see what we can do?”

Stella shook her head, thinking of Mitch and Kaye, thinking irrationally of the house in Virginia, the last place she had really felt safe, though that had been an illusion.

“Didn't you ever want to run away?” Will asked in a near whisper.