Dreamcatcher(127)

'Point three. The byrus doesn't work, either, not very well, but given a chance, given time to hide and grow, it could mutate. Learn to fit in. Maybe to rule.'

'We're going to wipe it out,' Underhill said. 'We're going to turn the entire Jefferson Tract into a burn-scar.'

Henry could have screamed with frustration, and some of that must have gotten through. There was a thud as Underhill jerked, striking the flimsy shed wall with his back.

'What you do up here doesn't matter,' Henry said. 'The people you've got interned can't spread it, the weasels can't spread it, and the byrus can't spread itself. If your guys folded their tents and just walked away right now, the environment would take care of itself and erase all this nonsense like a bad equation. I think the grays showed up the way they did because they just can't f**king believe it. I think it was a suicide mission with some gray version of your Mistuh Kurtz in charge. They simply cannot conceptualize failure. "We always win," they think.'

'How do you - '

'Then, at the last minute, Underhill  -  maybe at the last second ?one of them found a man who was remarkably different from all the others with whom the grays, the weasels, and the byrus had come in contact. He's your Typhoid Mary. And he's already out of the q-zone, rendering anything you do here meaningless.'

'Gary Jones.'

'Jonesy, right.'

'What makes him different?'

Little as he wanted to go into this part of it, Henry realized he had to give Underhill something.

'He and I and our two other friends  -  the ones who are dead  -  once knew someone who was very different. A natural telepath, no byrus needed. He did something to us. If we'd gotten to know him when we were a little older, I don't think that would have been possible, but we met him when we were particularly . . . vulnerable, I suppose you'd say . . . to what he had. And then, years later, something else happened to Jonesy, something that had nothing to do with . . . with this remarkable boy.'

But that wasn't the truth, Henry suspected; although Jonesy had been hit and almost killed in Cambridge find Duddits had never to Henry's knowledge been south of Derry in his life, Duds had somehow been a part of Jonesy's final, crucial change. A part of that, too. He knew it.

'And I'm supposed to what? Just believe all this? Swallow it like cough-syrup?'

In the sweet-smelling darkness of the shed, Henry's lips spread in a humorless grin. 'Owen,' he said, 'you do believe it. I'm a telepath, remember? The baddest one in the jungle. The question, though . . . the question is . . .'

Henry asked the question with his mind.

7

Standing outside the compound fence by the back wall of the old storage shed, freezing his balls off, filter-mask pulled down around his neck so he could smoke a series of cigarettes he did not want (he'd gotten a fresh pack in the PX), Owen would have said he never felt less like laughing in his life . . . but when the man in the shed responded to his eminently reasonable question with such impatient directness  -  you do believe it . . . I'm a telepath, remember?  -  ?a laugh was surprised out of him, nevertheless. Kurtz had said that if the telepathy became permanent and were to spread, society as they knew it would fall down. Owen had grasped the concept, but now he understood it on a gut level, too.

'The question, though . . . the question is . . .'

What are we going to do about it?

Tired as he was, Owen could see only one answer to that question. 'We have to go after Jones, I suppose. Will it do any good? Do we have time?'

'I think we might. Just.'

Owen tried to read what was behind Henry's response with his own lesser powers and could not. Yet he was positive that most of what the man had told him was true. Either that or he believes it's true, Owen thought. God knows I want to believe it's true. Any excuse to get out of here before the butchery starts.

'No,' Henry said, and for the first time Owen thought he sounded upset, not entirely sure of himself. 'No butchery. Kurtz isn't going to kill somewhere between two hundred and eight hundred people. People who ultimately can't influence this business one way or the other. They're just  -  Christ, they're just innocent bystanders!'

Owen wasn't entirely surprised to find himself rather enjoying his new friend's discomfort; God knew Henry had discomfited him. 'What do you suggest? Bearing in mind that you yourself said that only your pal Jonesy matters.'

'Yes, but . . .'

Floundering. Henry's mental voice was a little surer, but only a little. I didn't mean we'd walk away and let them die.

'We won't be walking anywhere,' Owen said. 'We'll be running like a couple of rats in a corncrib.' He dropped his third cigarette after a final token puff and watched the wind carry it away. Beyond the shed, curtains of snow rippled across the empty corral, building up huge drifts against the side of the barn. Trying to go anywhere in this would be madness. It'll have to be a Sno-Cat, at least to start with, Owen thought. By midnight, even a four-wheel drive might not be much good. Not in this.

'Kill Kurtz,' Henry said. 'That's the answer. It'll make it easier for us to get away with no one to give orders, and it'll put the . . . the biological cleansing on hold.'

Owen laughed dryly. 'You make it sound so easy,' he said. 'Double-oh-Underhill, license to kill.'