CHAPTER 6

“Understand,” Abner said grimly. “We’re not doing this because we like violence or killing, but because the criminals are trying to kill us and we have to be rid of them. We want them to conclude that this section of town is simply too dangerous for them to operate freely, so they will go elsewhere and leave us alone.”

“We know, daddy,” Dreda said. “It’s like killing sopaths.”

“Exactly. We are using Nefer because she can best do the job, not because we prefer her to you.”

“We know,” Clark said. “She doesn’t mind killing.”

“This is dangerous. We could both get killed. If so--”

“We know,” Bunty said. “If you die, I will look for another man in Pariah, to maintain the family.” She paused, then added “But please don’t die.”

“I’ll certainly try. I love you.”

Bunty paused again, opened her mouth, then dissolved into tears. They all clustered together, sharing another grief session, only this one was for him. In case he died. Bunty had tried to pass the prospect off incidentally, but gotten overwhelmed. They had all experienced the awful loss of their families, and didn’t want it to happen again. And the fact was they did love each other, and the children. Their assembly as a de facto family might have been haphazard, but it had become quite real emotionally and practically.

Then Bunty was kissing him passionately. The children departed, letting her savagely seduce him. They understood.

That night he went out alone, fetched the wagon with the mine, and quietly wheeled it along the dark street. The heavy load was covered by a tarpaulin; it could have been anything from potatoes to children. They had considered a fancier camouflage, but concluded that it was pointless; the gangsters would quickly check it regardless. This needed to be brutally fast. He did not head directly to his destination, and checked everything around him to be sure no one was watching.

Nefer appeared, stepping from the shadow. “I have it, Mr. Slate.”

“Not yet. It’s heavy.”

“Haul it to the low hill beyond the site. Then I’ll ride it down.”

“Nefer, it’s a bomb!”

“It won’t go off until I pull the plug.” That was her way of describing the catch mechanism they had used to secure the mine. It was armed, but stifled; removal of that catch would set it off.

He did not argue further. He hauled the wagon along, and she paced him, peering around to be sure they were alone. He was highly conscious of the bomb, because they had packed it with kerosene-soaked wood chips and newspaper, hoping that it would set a fire when it went off. They did not want it going off prematurely.

In due course they were on the hill. A slight slope led down to the gangster’s center of operations. “My turn,” Nefer said, putting her hand on his on the handle.

“Remember, when you activate it, you will have perhaps ten seconds to get well away before it detonates,” he reminded her. “It doesn’t have a proper timing mechanism. Do it and run.”

“I got it, Mr. Slate. Kiss me.”

It was part of her price. He squatted before her, put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her on the mouth. She pressed her lips into his, savoring it. She was good at kissing. She was behaving, but he knew she still wanted to seduce him if she could.

He broke the kiss and released her. “I love you,” she said. Then she lifted the handle, faced the target house and started walking. She had no trouble hauling the wagon behind her, because of the slope.

Abner moved behind a tree and watched. His heart was pounding from the danger and perhaps something else. It was all up to Nefer now, as it had been with the pedophile.

She proceeded resolutely down the street. When she approached the house, a man intercepted her. Abner could hear his challenge in the quiet night. “Who are you?”

“I’m a sopath,” Nefer replied boldly, continuing to move forward. “News is you need runners. I brought my wagon, so I can carry a full load. Just give me the stuff and the addresses and the money.”

The man paced her. “Not so fast, little so-bitch. What’s under that tarp?”

“Its just a box for holding the stuff. I don’t want to lose any. Where’s the stash?”

But he was suspicious. “What’s there? It stinks of kerosene.”

She accelerated her pace, drawing close to the house. “Well so do you, creep.”

“Hey, we got a smartass!” the man called.

Immediately several other men emerged from the house, surrounding them. One of them ripped the tarpaulin off, exposing the wooden box with its packing. The kerosene odor intensified. Abner could almost smell it from his distant vantage. In another moment they would discern the nature of this package.

Nefer reached inside and yanked off the protective tie, activating the bomb. She bolted away.

“Grab her!” the first man cried, apparently not catching on to the danger they were in.

The man closest to Nefer reached out to snag her as she passed him. She brought her head down and bit his hand.

“Yow!” he bellowed, grabbing for her again. He caught her and hauled her into him.

The bomb detonated. It was a splendid explosion. The blast hurled the men outward, set their clothing on fire, and ignited the overhanging roof of the house. The man holding Nefer seemed to leap through the air, carrying her with him. His body was inadvertently shielding her from both the blast and the flames.

Then they fell, and both lay still as the fire spread across the house.

Abner was running toward them before he knew it. He saw Nefer’s slight body pinned under that of the man. He hauled the man off her, then picked her up and carried her away. No one tried to stop him; they were all unconscious or dazed.

He halted only when he was well clear of the burning house, panting with the effort. Nefer lay in his arms, inert. Was she alive or dead?

“Oh, Nefer!” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to get caught like that! You were so brave! I’ll never forgive myself if you die!”

She did not react. Then, chiding himself for his foolishness, he lifted her head to his face and kissed her with the passion of guilt and fear.

Now she responded, weakly. “You kissed me.”

“I did,” he agreed, relieved. This was the first time he had kissed her of his own volition. “You were unconscious.”

“Like kissing the princess awake.”

“Like that,” he agreed. “Are you all right? Can you walk?”

“I don’t know. I feel woozy and sort of bruised.”

“You were too near the explosion. That man landed on you, although his body shielded you from the flames. Oh, Nefer, I’m so glad you made it!”

“So am I.” She looked sharply at him, her wooziness dissipating. “You could have left me there.”

“They would have killed you!”

“Yes. Saved you some trouble. You know I still want to get you into my pants.”

“And you know I won’t do it.”

Again that calculating look. “Are you sure, Mister Slate?”

He had to be painfully honest. “No. Call me Abner; I think you have earned it.”

She was pleased. “Gee. Thanks, Abner.” Then she got serious. “You could have been sure, if you’d let me die. It would have been easy.”

“Not for me. I have a soul and a conscience. I couldn’t let you die if I could prevent it.”

“And maybe you want me, a little.”

He was supposed to play her along, not cutting off her hope, so that she would continue to help him. Was that really all there was to it? “Maybe.”

“And as you said, if you pretend long enough, you can maybe start being what you pretend to be.”

She had him in a neat trap. There was a guilty twinge of desire. She had become more of a person to him, less of a sopath. She was playing him as he was playing her. “Maybe by the time I’m ready to let you seduce me, you’ll have developed a conscience and won’t do it.” The subtext there was that she would never develop a conscience, and his capitulation was similarly unlikely.

“Maybe,” she agreed, satisfied. She was still a child and some things escaped her. All she saw was the chance she might succeed. He was deceiving her in her expectation, not his actual words. That was perhaps a fair compromise.

Nefer remained weak and dizzy, so he carried her back to her home. “You’ll tell your family something,” he said. “You need several days of rest.”

“I do. Kiss me again, Abner.”

He kissed her, feeling her passion again, appalled at himself for the temptation to respond to it, and then let her fade into the shadow.

Abner returned home. “We took it out,” he reported. “Nefer did it, really. I owe her, and she knows it. I’m letting her call me Abner. We’re using each other, but I can’t be sure who is winning.”

“We do play a dangerous game, in more than one respect,” Bunty said. “With luck this will finish our association with her.”

“With luck,” he agreed, not believing it. For one thing, he now owed her two get out of jail free cards.

Abner abruptly lost his job. Someone had sent his employer a note connecting him to a supposedly malign Pariah organization, and that was enough to promote a spot layoff. He could neither prevent the layoff nor prove the accusations were untrue. Paranoia was rampant, and he was just another casualty. The criminals had found another way to score.

“We can get by,” Bunty said. “My job will sustain us.” But they both knew that would only delay their bankruptcy.

“Pariah,” Clark said. “They need recruiters.”

Abner nodded. He put in an application.

News came down immediately from the national pariah office, as though they had anticipated his need. Maybe it was common among Pariah activists. They needed a traveling organizer, and he was a prime prospect. But there might be danger.

They hardly hesitated. Abner took the job. They decided to sell the house, buy a motor home, and travel as a family. That would get them out of their neighborhood while doing Pariah some good. Between the war with the criminals and his joblessness, this had become an awkward neighborhood to live in. It was summer, so school for the children was not a problem.

They got busy quietly organizing for the change of lifestyle. Abner discussed it with other Pariah members, arranging for another person to take over the local reins. They would not give up the campaign, but would be more cautious than Abner had been.

His caution was justified. Several days later Nefer appeared at his house. Bunty let her in the front door. She was coated in ashes and her hair was wild. “Mister Slate, I need your help.”

Abner exchanged a fleeting glance with Bunty. That formal address was surely significant. “What is it?”

“The crooks must’ve recognized me. They fire-bombed my house. I got my folks out, but I can’t stay with them any more.”

Clark and Dreda had joined them. “Why?” Clark asked.

“Because I’m dead.”

“You mean they will kill you, now that they have identified you and failed the first time?” Bunty asked.

“No. It’s complicated. Damn!” She looked confused, not able to speak coherently. It was getting to her.

Bunty looked meaningfully at Abner. He responded by going to Nefer, picking her up, then sitting in the easy chair, holding her close on his lap, her head against his chest. “Take your time,” he told her.

She melted, much as a real girl would. Her lack of a conscience did not affect her need for comfort, and he was perhaps the only one who could provide it. Then she talked. “I was out scouting around. Crooks are like sopaths; you can’t trust them. So I was alert. I heard something, so I sneaked around to watch without being seen. Someone was pouring water or something behind our house. It was a girl about my size. Then I saw a flash, and realized what it was: kerosene. They sent a sopath to firebomb my house, the same way as we firebombed theirs. It was another warning. They are striking back. They don’t care if I live or die, they just want me to stop bothering them.”

She paused, collecting her thoughts. Abner held her close and stroked her hair. He saw Dreda nod approvingly: he was pacifying the sopath. “True,” he agreed. “But that was not the whole of it.”

“It was too late to stop the fire,” Nefer continued. “But not too late to act. I ran up behind her and stabbed her through the back. Then I heaved her into the fire. Then I ran around, went inside where it wasn’t burning yet, and screamed to my folks to wake up, the house was burning. I really made a racket. I got them up and out. Then I told them: the firebombing was because of me, and they wouldn’t be safe as long as I lived. So I had to be dead. I told them how I caught the girl who set the fire and threw her into it. She had to be me, burned to death, and they had to accept that. So they would be left alone. They looked at the fire and believed. I left them and came here. Mister Slate, I need you to get me out of here, somehow, where I’ll never be recognized.”

“Yes you do,” Abner agreed.

“We can do it,” Bunty said. “We are about to travel.”

“I didn’t mean you had to be with me,” Nefer said. “I meant to put me in an orphanage or something where I’ll be anonymous and safe. I can’t do that myself, but maybe Pariah could.”

“No local orphanage would take you,” Bunty said. “You’re a sopath. They’ll be alert for that.”

“Some other town, then, where they don’t know about sopaths.”

Clark and Dreda laughed. The whole world knew about sopaths by now. But they had to do something for her.

A look passed around the family. The children nodded. Bunty pursed her lips, but nodded also.

“We’ll take you,” Abner said. “We owe you.”

“You owe me a get out of jail free card,” Nefer said. “Only I want to be put in jail, to save my hide and leave my folks safe. I owe them that.”

And the girl did honor the deals she made, not from conscience but because she had learned that it paid in the long term to do so. She had to make it safe for her family.

“That’s a rational assessment,” Bunty said. “But we’re not entirely rational. We have consciences. You incurred this problem because you helped us fight the criminals. We’ll take care of you.”

“But you know I want to--” Nefer shrugged. “You know what I want.” She gazed at Abner, letting her longing show. Her desire for him seemed to have intensified rather than faded. He reminded himself again that as a sopath she lacked natural restraints. She was a child, but it was naked lust she felt.

“We do,” Bunty said. “But as I said, we are not entirely rational. We are prepared to take the risk, if you are prepared to behave like a family member. In fact, we can probably use you, because of your ability to identify other sopaths.”

“I’d rather be with you,” Nefer said. “But you don’t owe me that. I’m trying to be fair. It’s not easy for me.”

“It’s not easy for anyone,” Bunty said. “We will guide you. You know the general rules.”

“I do.” Then, relieved, the girl relaxed. They were settling their debt to her the hard way.

It was in the newspaper next day: a house had burned down, the adults had escaped, but their daughter had burned to death. There would be a funeral for her.

Nefer was officially dead.

They kept her out of sight, but did not change her name. It was a nickname anyway, not her legal one. She cooperated perfectly, knowing that discovery was likely to mean her death. She slept in a nook in the cellar, her rat hole as she called it. She donned a blond wig that transformed her appearance, and very innocent childish clothing. She was probably unrecognizable, even to those who had known her reasonably well.

“We need to incorporate Nefer in such a way that no one will ever suspect her nature,” Bunty said.

“You have something in mind?”

“She looks angelic. Maybe we could make her act angelic.”

“I am not following you.”

“We’ll be traveling as a close-knit family. We could be religious. At least to the point of attending local church services. Participating in their events.”

“I’m still not following.”

“Singing in the choir, for example. We can sing average, but Nefer can sing well. She told me she sang in her family’s choir.”

“But sopaths don’t give half a crap for religion.”

“But they can fake it, when they want to.”

Maybe it would help. “Let’s ask her, and hear her sing.”

“Nefer!” Bunty called.

The girl appeared almost immediately. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

“We understand you can sing.”

“Sure, when I have to. I was the best singer they had in the choir.” Modesty was not a sopath trait.

“We’re thinking of singing in local churches as we travel,” Bunty said. “To seem more like a religious family. Will you join us?”

“You want me to?” Nefer asked Abner.

He was unwilling to let his leverage on her be the only reason. “Yes. But this is optional. Let me state my points.”

“That’s okay, Abner. I’ll do it for you.”

“First, it would help the Pariah culture effort, because not everyone can sing, and few can sing well. If you can sing well—well, a good lead singer can help the others stay on track, and make them seem better too.”

“I know. I did it all the time.”

“Second, it would help conceal your nature, because no one would think a sopath could sing a religious song.”

“That’s crazy! I don’t care about religion, but I do like to sing, because it’s a way to soften people up for whatever I want, and some of those hymns are really good for that.”

Bunty smiled. “We soulers have some crazy notions.”

Abner made a mental note: sopaths had no emotional appreciation for the arts, because those stemmed from symbolism and empathy. Nefer cynically used her talent to get things for herself, not for its own sake.

“Okay, let’s see what we have here,” Abner said. “See how we integrate.”

They assembled the family. “We’re about to see how well Nefer can sing,” Abner told the children. “And whether she can help us to sing a hymn better.” He looked at Nefer. “Is there one you prefer?”

“Oh Holy Night. It’s got flow and power, and people get all mushy over that.”

“Can you sing it a cappella?”

For answer, Nefer simply started singing. “Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.” The others listened silently, surprised first that she clearly had no trouble with the tune, words, or religious theme, and second by the quality of her voice. She had not exaggerated; she was an excellent singer. Her tone was like a bell, and she had perfect pitch. It was a pleasure to listen to her. They were indeed getting mushy, as she put it.

Nefer continued through the whole hymn, hitting the high notes seemingly without effort, filling the room and the house with the power of her voice. “...oh night divine!”

Then she looked at Abner.

“You have a really beautiful singing voice,” he said, awed. “It sends shivers down my spine.”

“Okay,” Nefer said. “I’ll do it because I’ll do anything to oblige you, Abner, and because you’re right, it’ll hide me so I won’t get killed as a sopath. But mainly because the thought of sending shivers down your spine maybe all the way to your, your--”

“Manhood,” Bunty supplied with a smile.

“Yeah. That sends shivers through me. Maybe I can evoke your passion with my voice.” She was learning not to say “Get you to fuck me.” Abner appreciated that.

“Maybe you can,” he agreed, not insincerely.

That night he confessed his concern to Bunty. “That girl is too pretty, too clever, too talented. She is gaining on me. I fear where this is leading. I am revolted, but it’s there.”

“Don’t be concerned.”

“But Bunty, sometimes I even think I would like having sex with her. You mean everything to me, but she’s so ardent, so persistent. I am no longer seeing her quite as a sopath, or a child. She’s a cynical young woman.”

“Get real, Abner,” she said firmly. “We don’t live in the ‘nice’ culture we once did. We have to do things that would have been unthinkable before. We lie, we use people like her, we kill children, we kill grown criminals with souls. The old morality is dead. If I thought your having sex with a more-than-willing rational child would enable us to solve the problem of sopaths, I’d put you in bed with her and not let you out until you satisfied her. I know the children would agree.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am serious. But I don’t believe it would do the job, so it’s academic. If she had sex with you once, she’d expect it again, and there would be no end to it. It remains her best expression of the love she feels for you.” She smiled briefly. “I know exactly how that is. You have that magnetism springing from your soul, bending women to your will.”

“That’s really no credit on me.”

“The credit is your discipline and conscience. You are not allowing your power to corrupt you.”

“Thank you,” he said, bemused.

“We can use her, we need her, and she’s settling for little enough, considering her passion. Let’s let it rest there.”

“You frighten me almost as much as she does.”

“We’re women.” Then she set about seducing him, which required very little effort. He might feel some temptation for touching the girl, but he had a full-blown passion for the woman, and she knew it and shared it.

There was a problem with the motor home they found on sale: it slept four, two adults and two children. They could not afford more, and more would have been suspicious. Space was tight; there simply was not room for another person.

It was Nefer who came up with the answer. “We hope this puts off the criminals, and that they’re not after any of us anymore. But we can’t be sure. Someone needs to be on watch all the time. We can take turns around the clock, and when it’s my turn I swear I’ll be as good a watch as you can find. When I sleep, it will be in whichever bed isn’t being used by the one who is on watch. Or I’ll sleep in the daytime, hiding.”

“Something like that should work,” Abner agreed. Her intelligence also attracted him, but he couldn’t say that.

It took another two weeks to finally get things cleared and start moving. During that time they also practiced family singing, and Nefer continued to cooperate fully, enchanting them all with her beautiful voice. “She’s trying to be a full member of the family,” Bunty murmured during a tryst. “As she was with her original family. She’s eerily good at it. I confess I’m coming to like her.”

“She’s a sopath,” he reminded her.

“That’s what makes it eerie. It’s like having a tame rattlesnake in the house, uncaged.”

It was, indeed.

They departed without ceremony, the Pariahs knowing only that Abner had become a traveling organizer who didn’t want publicity because of the general prejudice against Pariahs.

The first night they parked in a park without connections, so it was little used despite being cheap. They were prepared with plenty of food and water. Bunty cooked a respectable dinner, they practiced singing a hymn, and they settled down for the night.

“I’ll take first watch,” Nefer said. “I’ll prowl the neighborhood to make sure no one is sneaking up on us.”

“Not just yet,” Abner said. “First we’ll have a family mission meeting. You can move around and peer out the windows, but you need to hear this.”

“There’s something we don’t know?” Clark asked.

“There is,” Bunty said. She knew the details, but had kept silent.

Then in darkness Abner informed the children of the rest of his mission. “The organization mission is a cover,” he said. “I will do it, going to a list of towns across the country, meeting with local Pariah groups and showing them how to organize and establish relations with the national organization. It will do them good, because they will have information and support. But the real mission is to investigate two mysterious towns, Sweetpea and Sauerkraut.”

They all laughed, thinking it a joke. Which made Abner think again. Nefer had laughed too, which meant that sopaths could appreciate humor. Which meant in turn that humor was not connected to the soul. He hadn’t thought about it before. Thinking it was funny when a fat man slipped on a banana peel and fell on his bottom required no empathy, no real feeling for the man, who might be hurt. Humor could be cruel, as when bullies joked at a victims’ expense. Most humor was innocent, as this was, an oddity of names.

“No joke,” Abner said. “Those really are the names. Sweetpea formed around a large diabetes treatment complex.”

There was silence, so Bunty explained. “Diabetes is an illness affecting the metabolism of sugar. The body uses insulin to metabolize sugars, and diabetics either lack insulin or are unable to use it effectively. So sugar accumulates in the blood. To reduce it, the body gets extremely thirsty and produces a lot of urine, which can be quite sweet because of the sugar. The larger picture is more complicated than that, but that explains the name.”

There was a pause as the children figured it out. “Pee!” Clark said. “They pee a lot!”

“And it’s sweet from the sugar,” Dreda said.

“Sweetpea,” Nefer concluded. “It is a joke.”

“In origin, yes,” Abner agreed. “But diabetes can be lethally serious. Today, with more effective treatments, most sufferers get by tolerably well. Some take daily or hourly insulin shots, while some can get by on diet and exercise.”

“Type One and Type Two,” Clark said. “Now I remember. I had an uncle with it. He took shots.”

“Most Type Ones need shots,” Abner agreed. “Most Type Twos don’t. The complex was for type ones. At any rate, that’s in the past. In due course the complex moved elsewhere, and the town foundered economically but kept the name. Later a madman with a machine-gun mowed down half the remaining population before someone shot him to death. It was the worst tragedy to strike that part of the country. We don’t know whether that history is relevant to the current phenomenon.”

“Something’s going on,” Dreda said wisely. “A mystery.”

“A mystery that relates to Pariah,” Clark agreed.

“Yes,” Abner agreed. “It is this: there are no sopaths there. None are born.”

Now Nefer took note. “How can they be sure? Some sopaths are pretty good at hiding their nature. I’m one. I can always spot another sopath, but most soulers can’t.”

“Pariah has investigated,” Abner said. “Quietly, of course. But they’re sure. They think it was a sopath who gunned them down—he was just a child—but that’s the last one reported. Pariah wants to know why. Did the massacre shock the survivors into taking action to stop it from ever happening again? If there’s a secret to eliminating sopath births despite the shortage of souls, we really want to know it. That’s part of my mission: to ascertain the reason, if I can. Without alerting others to my investigation.”

“That’s going to be tricky,” Nefer said. “For one thing, how can you organize Pariahs if there are no sopaths? No sopaths means no sopath survivors. You have no connections.”

“Exactly,” Abner agreed, impressed again by her insight. “It’s likely to be difficult. But I understand there are survivors there, who have moved in from elsewhere. I may have to pose as an amateur researcher writing a book, a history of odd towns, gathering all the obscure information I can. Hoping that somewhere in there is the answer.”

“What about Sauerkraut?” Clark asked. “What’s its history?”

“It was settled by a semi-religious outfit as a commune. They believed in being fruitful and multiplying, trying for ten or more children per mother. It was really a fertility cult, and the suspicion is that many of the children were fathered by the cult leader. Its population expanded rapidly and it was a thriving community. They evidently had plenty of money to support their population. Then the commune abruptly moved to a distant location, leaving their facilities to be sold off relatively cheaply. It was a mystery why. There were rumors of a curse on the premises. But bargain hunters soon moved in, obtaining nice residences at dirt-cheap prices. It became a viable town again.”

“Where’s the catch?” Dreda asked.

“It was that curse. There were a number of bad accidents, and some whole families got wiped out. Nothing they could pinpoint, just extremely bad luck. More folk moved in, but they too were soon dogged by mischief as the curse caught up with them. Before long there was a mass exodus. A number of families moved to neighboring Sweetpea. But others moved in, because of the bargain houses. So Sauerkraut is a violent place, in contrast to Sweetpea, with especially violent children.”

“Sopaths!” Nefer exclaimed. “Sauerkraut has sopaths!”

“That would explain it,” Abner agreed. “But why would sopaths be born there, and not at nearby Sweetpea? That’s the current mystery.”

“Sweetpea didn’t share their secret,” Clark suggested.

“But the two towns get along very well. Shipments from outside, such as fuel, food, and building materials, come to central warehouses in Sweetpea, which then shares them with Sauerkraut. Sauerkraut workers go to Sweetpea for employment. There’s considerable economic and probably social exchange.”

The children were thoughtful. “Sopaths in one town, none in the other, but they work together,” Clark said. “That’s funny.”

“Not funny,” Dreda said. “Odd.”

“That’s what I meant, twerp.”

“Sweetpea has to know about the sopaths,” Nefer said. “And maybe lets them work there, if they behave. They can behave if they have reason to.” She herself being an example.

“But nobody wants more sopaths,” Clark said. “Except maybe sopaths themselves.”

“Sopaths don’t want more sopaths either,” Nefer said. “They can’t be trusted.”

“Not even you?” Dreda asked her.

“I don’t want more sopaths,” Nefer said. “They’re nothing but trouble. And you know the only reason I’m behaving is because I want to stay close to Abner and maybe some day get him into my pants. You can’t trust me to look out for anyone’s interest but my own.”

Clark looked at her. “What would you do if he did?”

Nefer paused thoughtfully. “If he fucked me? I mean, had sex with me?” She glanced quickly at Bunty. “Indulged me? I’d want him to do it again and again. I don’t think I’d ever get enough of it.”

Which was exactly what Bunty had said. Trust a woman to know the nature of such passion.

“So we could still trust you,” Dreda said, neither surprised nor shocked. “Because you’d have to keep behaving to get him to keep doing you.”

Nefer seemed surprised. “I guess so. I’m hooked. But I’m a rare case. Few sopaths ever get to know a souler well enough to fall in love, and few soulers would even give them the chance. You can’t trust any other sopaths.”

Abner and Bunty let the dialogue run its course. It actually was relevant to their mission, and it was confirming their prior judgment of Nefer’s motives.

“And Sweetpea must know not to trust them,” Clark said. “Unless there’s something just as big to make them behave. Maybe not love, but something else.”

“Fear,” Nefer said. “We value our own hides.”

“How could Sweetpea make them afraid?” Dreda asked.

“Beats me,” Nefer said.

“They must have something,” Abner said.

Dreda got a bright idea. “No sopaths in Sweetpea, because maybe they can wipe them out, and the sopaths know it, so they’re afraid.”

Nefer glanced at Abner. “Are they afraid?”

“There’s no indication of that,” Abner said. “It must be subtle, and sopaths aren’t much for subtlety.”

“The stupid ones aren’t,” Nefer said. “But smart ones can appreciate subtlety. I do. It’s smart sopaths you have to be wary of.”

“Yet the two towns get along well,” Bunty said. “That doesn’t seem like fear. More like respect.”

“Sopaths respect only love and power,” Nefer said. “Mostly power.”

Clark struggled to work it out. “If sopaths don’t want more sopaths born, and Sweetpea knows how to stop them, why doesn’t Sweetpea share?”

“And why isn’t Kraut mad if they don’t?” Dreda asked.

Nefer spread her hands. “Beats me,” she repeated.

The three looked at Abner. “So what’s the answer?” Clark asked.

“That is what we are going there to find out,” Abner said. “Because it could have global implications. I will need all of us to contribute to our effort. Someone may say something in the presence of a child, not thinking the child is listening or will understand.”

“We’ll do it,” Dreda said confidently.

“Focus on two things,” Bunty said. “Is there a way to stop sopaths being born? And is there a way to control sopaths without violence? We get along as a family, but as Nefer says, that’s unlikely to work on the scale of two towns. We are surely not going into a paradise of love.”

“What about sex?” Nefer asked. “We sopaths like sex and have no shame. Is Sweetpea a brothel?”

“Again, there is no evidence of that,” Abner said. “They don’t seem to have a red-light district.”

“So there’s something weird going on,” Clark concluded. “We’ll figure it out.”

“A caution,” Abner said. “There may be danger. The secret, whatever it may be, has been well kept. We have to appear as a naïve, innocent family. We don’t want them to catch on that Nefer isn’t a souler.”

“I can play the part,” Nefer said. “But I can tell a sopath when I see one. They’ll probably have smart sopaths who will recognize me regardless.”

“An alternative may be to let them believe that we don’t know your nature, as your family didn’t,” Bunty said.

Nefer nodded. “That could work. Sopaths infiltrate regular families all the time. We aren’t all destructive. Smart ones know they need the families.”

“Then I think we are done,” Abner said. “We can go about our family routine.”

They did. Nefer kept watch, while the other children went to bed. Bunty and Abner went to bed too. They made quiet love, knowing Nefer was tuning in on it, but inured to it. Nefer seemed not to be jealous; she merely wanted to seduce Abner to have his ultimate attention, and to prove she could do it. She knew that any hostility to Bunty on her part would turn him off and get her in instant trouble.

Abner slept. They had agreed to one hour shifts for the children, two hours for the adults. That would carry them through a seven hour night.

He woke later to find Nefer settling down beside him, having taken Bunty’s place in the shift change. Her bed was whichever one was unoccupied. She was unlikely to try anything, because Bunty was alert, being on watch, and because she knew Abner would reject it. But she did do one thing.

“Will you hold my hand, Abner?”

He smiled, took her hand, and returned to sleep. He hoped it would continue this easy, but suspected it would not.

Two hours later Bunty returned, having awakened Clark. The children had insisted on taking their turns rather than being coddled. Nefer went to take Clark’s bed. “Thanks, Abner,” she whispered as she departed.

“Welcome,” he answered, bemused.

“She never slept,” Bunty murmured. “She lay there thrilling to your touch. I believe she feels your soul, and that contact is like a drug, making her high.”

“Damn, this is dangerous,” he said. “As I said, I’m beginning to feel something for her.”

“She knows it. That’s what keeps her in line.”

“But Bunty, this can’t lead anywhere we want to go.”

“Would you ever knowingly be seduced by a sopath, even if she was mature and breathtakingly lovely?”

“No!”

“Or a child?”

“No.”

“Even one with a superlative singing voice?”

“No.”

She was silent. She had made her case. His emotions might be tempted by Nefer, but his logic would always triumph. The real danger would be when Nefer herself came to that conclusion. In that sense his guilty slight temptation was an advantage, because she picked up on it, underestimating the formidable restraints, and continued her courtship. But it still bothered him.

In the morning they handled the early routine and got back on the highway. All of them were pleased: they had successfully navigated their first night on the road.

The children took turns sitting up front with Abner as he drove. The first was Dreda. “I never saw her so happy,” she said. There was no need to clarify whom she meant. “She almost glowed in the dark.”

“I held her hand while I slept,” he said.

“I think she’d rather do that than get you into her pants, daddy.”

And here he was discussing sex with his five-year-old daughter. But the world had changed, and she had learned about sex the hard way. “Why?”

“‘Cause sex is over soon, but hands last.”

Could that be true for the sopath? Nefer surely knew that if he had sex with her, he would lose interest in sex for several hours thereafter, as any man did. But they could hold hands continuously, even while he slept. For her, that might well be preferable. That would be marvelous. “That much I can give her.”