horrible, sickening moment, I think those nails are about to slice through and draw blood. He lets go immediately, of course, even takes a step or two back. A glazed, distant look is stil clouding his eyes, but it is dissipating fast.
Three nail indentations are planted in my wrist, dangerously deep.
But no blood.
“Apologies,” he says.
“Don’t worry about it.” I hold my arm behind my back, feeling the indentation with the fi ngers of my other hand. Stil no moisture: stil no blood. If a drop of a drop of blood had seeped through, he’d already be at me.
THE HUNT 49
“Did I demonstrate it wel enough for you?” His voice is pleading.
“Do you understand how to use the binoculars now?”
“I think I can give it a try.”
“Perhaps one more demonstration wil—”
“No. I can handle it.” Keeping the binoculars behind my back, I turn to look outside. A crescent moon shines behind a scrim of clouds, its thin, sickly light faling down. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
be looking at?”
He doesn’t say anything, so I turn to look at him. For a moment, the clarity in his eyes turns slightly opaque again. A line of drool that hasn’t yet been wiped away thickens down his chin. “Hepers,”
he whispers.
I don’t want him hovering behind me, pestering me for another
“demonstration,” so I wait until he leaves. I’m fi led with a strange dread but also an excitement as I pick up the binoculars. Other than my family, I’ve never laid eyes on a heper.
At fi rst, I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Then moonlight spils through a break in the clouds, iluminating the swath of land. I swivel the binoculars slowly, searching: a brief burst of cactus, a boulder, nothing—
A smal colection of mud huts sitting inconspicuously off in the distance. The heper vilage. My guess is it’s about a mile away. A pond of some sort— no doubt man- made; no body of water could possibly survive in this terrain— lies in the center. Nothing moves.
The mud huts are as nondescript as the desert.
Then I see something.
Moonlight glimmers above the mud huts in a concave shimmer.
Then I realize: There’s a transparent dome covering it. It rises high, 50 ANDREW FUKUDA
about fi fty yards at its highest point above the mud huts. Its cir-cumference encapsulates the entirety of the vilage.
Of course; it al makes sense now.
Without the dome, the hepers would be a free- for- al. What would prevent the people from marauding the mud huts at night when the hepers lay asleep and unprotected? Who could stop themselves from feasting on them unless they were sealed in completely?
They’d never have survived a single night hour without that dome of protection.
I zoom in on the mud huts, searching for some sign of life. But nothing moves. The hepers are asleep. Not a chance of seeing them to night.
A heper steps out of one of the huts.
Even with binoculars, I make out very little. A thin fi gure, walking toward the pond, female. It appears to be holding a bucket of some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi ls the bucket. I play with the dial until it comes sharper into focus.
Then I recognize it: the female heper on TV, the one that picked out the last lottery number.
I watch as it stands up, takes a sip of water from cupped hands.
Its back is to me, its head staring east at the mountains. For a long time, it does not move. Then it bends down, cups its hands, takes another sip. Its movement, even for so simple an act, is graceful and sure. Its head suddenly swings in my direction; I fl inch back.
Perhaps it has caught a refl ection off the binoculars’ lens. But it is looking past me, at the Institute. I zoom in on the face. Those eyes: I remember them from earlier this eve ning, on my deskscreen, their brown tone like the trunk of a wrongly feled tree.
After a few moments, it turns around and disappears into
Three nail indentations are planted in my wrist, dangerously deep.
But no blood.
“Apologies,” he says.
“Don’t worry about it.” I hold my arm behind my back, feeling the indentation with the fi ngers of my other hand. Stil no moisture: stil no blood. If a drop of a drop of blood had seeped through, he’d already be at me.
THE HUNT 49
“Did I demonstrate it wel enough for you?” His voice is pleading.
“Do you understand how to use the binoculars now?”
“I think I can give it a try.”
“Perhaps one more demonstration wil—”
“No. I can handle it.” Keeping the binoculars behind my back, I turn to look outside. A crescent moon shines behind a scrim of clouds, its thin, sickly light faling down. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
be looking at?”
He doesn’t say anything, so I turn to look at him. For a moment, the clarity in his eyes turns slightly opaque again. A line of drool that hasn’t yet been wiped away thickens down his chin. “Hepers,”
he whispers.
I don’t want him hovering behind me, pestering me for another
“demonstration,” so I wait until he leaves. I’m fi led with a strange dread but also an excitement as I pick up the binoculars. Other than my family, I’ve never laid eyes on a heper.
At fi rst, I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Then moonlight spils through a break in the clouds, iluminating the swath of land. I swivel the binoculars slowly, searching: a brief burst of cactus, a boulder, nothing—
A smal colection of mud huts sitting inconspicuously off in the distance. The heper vilage. My guess is it’s about a mile away. A pond of some sort— no doubt man- made; no body of water could possibly survive in this terrain— lies in the center. Nothing moves.
The mud huts are as nondescript as the desert.
Then I see something.
Moonlight glimmers above the mud huts in a concave shimmer.
Then I realize: There’s a transparent dome covering it. It rises high, 50 ANDREW FUKUDA
about fi fty yards at its highest point above the mud huts. Its cir-cumference encapsulates the entirety of the vilage.
Of course; it al makes sense now.
Without the dome, the hepers would be a free- for- al. What would prevent the people from marauding the mud huts at night when the hepers lay asleep and unprotected? Who could stop themselves from feasting on them unless they were sealed in completely?
They’d never have survived a single night hour without that dome of protection.
I zoom in on the mud huts, searching for some sign of life. But nothing moves. The hepers are asleep. Not a chance of seeing them to night.
A heper steps out of one of the huts.
Even with binoculars, I make out very little. A thin fi gure, walking toward the pond, female. It appears to be holding a bucket of some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi some kind. When it reaches the edge of the pond, it bends over, fi ls the bucket. I play with the dial until it comes sharper into focus.
Then I recognize it: the female heper on TV, the one that picked out the last lottery number.
I watch as it stands up, takes a sip of water from cupped hands.
Its back is to me, its head staring east at the mountains. For a long time, it does not move. Then it bends down, cups its hands, takes another sip. Its movement, even for so simple an act, is graceful and sure. Its head suddenly swings in my direction; I fl inch back.
Perhaps it has caught a refl ection off the binoculars’ lens. But it is looking past me, at the Institute. I zoom in on the face. Those eyes: I remember them from earlier this eve ning, on my deskscreen, their brown tone like the trunk of a wrongly feled tree.
After a few moments, it turns around and disappears into
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