Destination Unknown by Katherine Applegate

choice?”

    Olga looked hard at her son and called him by the name she had given him. “Romeo, this thing could kill all of us. I want to help this man, but you have to understand that the parasite could be capable of infesting anyone in contact. God knows what it is. It may not even be of terrestrial origin. Thiscould be an alien life-form. There’s no telling what it might do.”

    “Oh, oh, help me,” Big Bill moaned. “Oh, help me. Oh, help me!” he shrieked, then subsided in sobs.

    Jobs said, “Yago has that sword thing the Riders threw to Errol. May be better than a scalpel. Quicker, anyway. In and out fast.”

    Olga shook her head. “Someone would have to sew up the arteries in his leg or he’d just bleed to death. Someone would have to get in there and do that, with all the risk involved.”

    “I can do that,” a voice said.

    Jobs was startled to see Violet Blake. He hadn’t noticed her joining them.

    “My . . . my dad died from this,” Miss Blake said, assuming that clarified her motive.

    “You could end up going the same way,” Olga said harshly.

    “I’ll hold him down,” Mo’Steel volunteered.

    “We don’t have any thread,” Jobs pointed out. “But we might be able to use optic cable to tie off the arteries.”

    “Look, this is not the time or the place for self-sacrifice,” Olga argued. “That man is probably going to die anyway, no matter what.”

    “We’ll have to get the sword from Yago,” Jobssaid. “Ms. Gonzalez, that would be better coming from you. Being an adult. We just need to borrow it. And some more light from the fire.”

    Olga Gonzalez hesitated. “I can’t endanger all of us. I can’t endanger my son.”

    “Hey, danger is my middle name,” Mo’Steel said, trying to josh her along.

    Jobs could see she was hardening in her opposition. He knew what he felt and what he wanted to say, but putting it into words defeated him. He said, “Ms. Gonzalez, this is . . . We are all that’s left of the human race. We have to act like humans. Right?”

    “We have to survive,” Olga said with finality.

    “No, we don’t,” Violet Blake said. “We don’t have to survive, we have to be worthy of survival. I know you’re a biologist and maybe you see survival in purely evolutionary terms, but we’ve evolved beyond being just another bunch of primates, haven’t we? Isn’t human culture, human morality part of our evolution? Isn’t it part of what defines us as a species? If we give that up and start behaving like savages and survive by being savages, have we saved human life or just devolved into some lesser species?”

    Jobs stared at her openmouthed. He was struck by intense jealousy, an out-of-place emotion, surely,but undeniable just the same. He’d have given anything to be able to speak that way. He noticed Mo’Steel grinning at him.

    “Maybe I should be reading more,” Jobs muttered under his breath.

    Mo’Steel took his mother’s hand and held it gently. “Mom, you’ve never been able to stop me from doing stupid, dangerous stuff that was just about me squeezing the A gland. Now I’m trying to do what’s right. Don’t stop me now.”

    “Okay, honey,” she said quietly. “Okay. I’ll get the sword, or whatever it is.”

    When she was gone Jobs said, “That was a pretty good speech, Miss Blake.”

    “Thank you.” She knelt beside Big Bill and used the lacy sleeve of her dress to mop sweat from his brow. “We’re going to try to help you, Mr. Weir.”

    The only response was a bellow of pain, a noise so loud that Violet jumped back.

    Jobs saw the worm. Or one of the worms, if there were several. It was half out of one hole and digging its way back into untouched flesh. Like a dolphin going in and out of the waves.

    “It’s fine to be noble,” Jobs said to Mo’Steel, “but if that thing gets me . . . don’t let me live.”

    “Don’t think about it, Duck. The Reaper cansmell fear.” He laughed and patted