Free Destination Unknown by Katherine Applegate

think maybe we should stick to talking about ways to deal with the situation. This is not an art seminar.”

    “Could be those Riders just didn’t think it was woolly enough using ray guns or whatever,” Mo’Steel suggested, speaking for the first time. “Maybe they weren’t looking for a gimme. Maybe they were looking to squeeze the A gland.”

    Pretty much everyone stared at him, mystified.

    Jobs translated. “He’s saying maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Riders do have better technology but this isn’t them making war against us, this is just them, you know, engaging in a sport. Maybe they were looking for a challenge, a thrill. Squeeze the A gland — you know, adrenal gland.”

    “You don’t go deer hunting with a tank,” Anamull agreed.

    Violet hadn’t thought he was even listening.

    Then, “What’s that?” D-Caf cried and leaped to his feet. “Shh! I heard something.”

    Silence.

    The sound of something moving through the grass. And then, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

    Two people staggered into the firelight. One, a big man, was leaning for support on a smaller man. Violet could see that the larger man’s right leg was unable to bear any weight.

    The big man dropped to the ground and panted, unable to speak. Then he noticed Billy Weir anduttered a gasp or a sob. He crawled over to him. “Billy! Billy! It’s Dad!”

    No answer. Billy Weir just stared.

    The smaller man said, “Glad to see all of you. I’m very, very glad to see all of you. We saw all the empty berths, we knew others had awakened before us. But we couldn’t figure out where you were. Then we saw the fire.”

    Violet noticed a distinct accent, a sort of lilt. The man was dark-skinned but with Caucasian features. Indian, Violet guessed.

    Olga stood up and carried a water jug to the injured man, then offered it to the other newcomer.

    “My name’s Tathagata Rajagopalachari. I am afraid that my American friends call me T.R. My companion there is William Weir. He said to call him Big Bill. He is hurt, as you can see.”

    “Welcome to both of you,” Wylson said. “What do you do, T.R.?”

    “Do? Oh, yes. I am a psychiatrist.”

    Violet almost laughed at the silent consternation that announcement caused.

    The other man moaned in pain and grabbed his leg hard, as though trying to squeeze the pain out of it. He paid no attention to the group but kept up his effort to get a response from his son.

    “Do you have a doctor?” T.R. asked. “As I said, my friend here is not well. And I am afraid that my medical training occurred a very long time ago indeed.”

    “You’re the closest thing we have to a doctor,” Olga said. “I’m a biologist but I don’t have an M.D., not even one from a long time ago.”

    T.R. nodded. “Oh, that is distressing. Perhaps among the other survivors?”

    Wylson shook her head. “So far we’re it, Doctor. We expect a few more Wakers like the two of you, but as you saw, the rest did not survive the trip.”

    T.R. frowned. “As I saw? But I saw nothing to suggest any such thing.”

    “We’re talking about the variously decomposed corpses in the berths,” Burroway said impatiently.

    “But . . . But I looked carefully. I observed five more individuals in states of rest, two of them beginning to awaken, but there were no dead. The other berths were empty.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“AND MAYBE WE’RE ANTS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A PICNIC.”
     

    Jobs descended the circular stairway slowly, cautiously, on guard despite the fact that Mo’Steel was already halfway down the length of the Mayflower capsule.

    The berths where Jobs’s parents had been were empty. Not only empty, clean. No trace of the hideous mold. No fragments of decayed clothing.

    Level after level, empty berths that had once been coffins. All of them gone but five. Three in deep slumber, two more, as T.R. had said, were waking.

    It was hard to accept. The horrific images were permanently copied onto Jobs’s brain.