The-Infinite-Sea-Pdf

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This is the bind. This is the trap. This is where the road of impossible promises dead-ends. This is the only possible outcome of the antiquated belief that the insignificant life of a seven-year-old kid still matters. I’m sorry, Teacup. I should have finished this back in the woods. I lower the gun.
53 THE MONITOR FLICKERS on. Pulse, blood pressure, breathing, temperature. The kid I took down is back up, leaning against the door, one hand massaging his throat, the other holding the gun. He glowers at me lying on the bed. “Something to help you relax,” the woman with the soft voice and kind eyes murmurs. “A little stick.” The bite of the needle. The walls disappear into colorless nothing. A thousand years pass. I am ground to dust beneath the heel of time. Their voices lumber, their faces expand. The thin foam beneath me dissolves. I am floating on an unbounded ocean of white. A disembodied voice emerges from the fog. “And now let’s return to the problem of rats, shall we?” Vosch. I don’t see him. His voice has no source. It originates from everywhere and nowhere, as if he’s inside me. “You’ve lost your home. And the lovely one—the only one—that you’ve found to replace it is infested with vermin. What can you do? What are your choices? Resign yourself to live peaceably with the destructive pests or exterminate them before they can destroy your new home? Do you say to yourself, ‘Rats are disgusting creatures, but nevertheless they are living things with the same rights as me’? Or do you say, ‘We are incompatible, these rats and I. If I am to live here, these vermin must die’?” From a thousand miles away, I hear the monitor beeping, marking the beat of my heart. The sea undulates. I rise and fall with each roll of the surface. “But it isn’t really about the rats.” His voice pounds, dense, thick as thunder. “It never was. The necessity of exterminating them is a given. It’s the method that troubles you. The real issue, the fundamental problem, is rocks.” The white curtain peels away. I’m still floating, but now I’m far above the Earth in a black void awash with stars, and the sun kissing the horizon paints the planet’s surface beneath me a shimmering gold. The monitor beeps frantically, and a voice says, “Oh, crap,” and then Vosch’s: “Breathe, Marika. You’re perfectly safe.” Perfectly safe. So that’s why they sedated me. If they hadn’t, my heart probably would have stopped from shock. The effect is three-dimensional, indistinguishable from reality, except I would not be breathing in space. Or hearing Vosch’s voice in a place where sound does not exist. “This is the Earth as it was sixty-six million years ago. Beautiful, isn’t it? Edenic. Unspoiled. The atmosphere before you poisoned it. The water before you fouled it. The land lush with life before you, rodents that you are, shredded it to pieces to feed your voracious appetites and build your filthy nests. It may have remained pristine for another sixty-six million years, unsullied by your mammalian gluttony, if not for a chance encounter with an alien visitor one-quarter the size of Manhattan.” It whizzes past me, pockmarked and craggy, blotting out the stars as it barrels toward the planet. When it breaks through the atmosphere, the lower half of the asteroid begins to glow. Bright yellow, then white. “And thus the fate of the world is decided. By a rock.”
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G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Published by
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Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Ch
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For Sandy, guardian of the infinite
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THE WHEAT THERE WOULD BE no harvest
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BOOK ONE
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“Because bad thoughts do what?”
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2 UNDIMMED, THE STARLIGHT sears thr
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3 BY SUNRISE, I reach the southern
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The pellet in its bed of blood. The
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It isn’t fear that will defeat th
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I scan the woods but don’t hear o
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7 I FEEL HIM THEN, the one standing
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“Here’s how the bishop moves, T
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9 I SEE THE CHOPPERS closing in thr
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11 FROM THE TIME I could barely wal
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A lead ball of silence the size of
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I looked at her for a minute. “Le
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to do was sit back and let the stup
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I shook my head. He didn’t unders
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ack, hitting the edge of the mattre
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Up to now, I always thought that th
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helpful was the fact that the Walke
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14 I STEPPED INTO the lobby, our br
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16 HE WOKE TO PAIN. Blinding pain i
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she floated in the water stained pi
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18 GRACE’S STATION WAS an old, on
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19 HE WAITED UNTIL her footfalls fa
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20 NIGHT HAD FALLEN by the time Gra
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21 WHEN IT WAS DONE, he crawled to
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23 AT DUSK, the lights of the Ferri
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24 THE CAR’S UNDERCARRIAGE agains
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25 LATER THAT EVENING on the day th
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“It would be like one of them fal
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naïve, kind, cruel, soft as down,
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29 FOR OVER FIVE YEARS he’d relie
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30 THE BOY STOPPED talking the summ
Page 79: ate all his baby brother’s mac an
Page 82 and 83: deer-in-headlights look, like You g
Page 84 and 85: His lips moved and a word leaked ou
Page 86 and 87: 34 I STAYED WITH HIM till dawn. Sit
Page 88 and 89: “Oh. Good.” He seemed relieved.
Page 90 and 91: That’s when the girl appeared, st
Page 92 and 93: He rubbed his chin. I rubbed my nec
Page 94 and 95: the lip for an eternity. Before ete
Page 96 and 97: “That doesn’t answer my questio
Page 98 and 99: I wasn’t holding up well. He was
Page 100 and 101: lowered her carefully onto Evan, le
Page 102 and 103: 41 “IT’S A TEST,” Evan said.
Page 104 and 105: 42 OH, BROTHER. Guys. I tossed Bear
Page 106 and 107: “No, and you want to know why? Be
Page 108 and 109: 44 THEN DUMBO, with perfect timing,
Page 110 and 111: “Evan, I’m not even sure I unde
Page 112 and 113: “Don’t be an idiot!” he shout
Page 114 and 115: 47 THE SPOTLIGHT HIT NEXT: Brillian
Page 116 and 117: 48 I PAUSED FOR a half second at th
Page 119 and 120: 49 HE DIDN’T LIKE being around th
Page 121 and 122: from melted snow, rising up, floppi
Page 124 and 125: 50 I’M SITTING ALONE in a windowl
Page 126 and 127: “You’re referring to the Wonder
Page 128 and 129: 51 MY REACTION IS months in the mak
Page 132 and 133: Now I’m standing on the shores of
Page 134 and 135: teacher. “That’s what I’ve co
Page 136 and 137: Nodding seriously. “I’ll get ri
Page 138 and 139: “I needed to prove something to m
Page 140 and 141: 57 CLAIRE TIES a rubber strap aroun
Page 142 and 143: 58 THERE IS NO DAY or night anymore
Page 144 and 145: He turns, surprised. My face is hot
Page 146 and 147: “You said you didn’t play,” I
Page 148 and 149: “He’s safe!” Razor bellows. N
Page 150 and 151: the truth was that most days my fat
Page 152 and 153: He’s quiet for the next couple of
Page 154 and 155: 64 I HADN’T SEEN Vosch in days. T
Page 156 and 157: when the door opens and Claire come
Page 158 and 159: “Seriously? You don’t know?”
Page 160 and 161: 67 CLAIRE STAGGERS AWAY, blood pour
Page 162 and 163: 68 JUMBO SHOULD HAVE a knife on him
Page 164 and 165: doesn’t like dogs wouldn’t be G
Page 166 and 167: 70 IN THE BATHROOM, the gush become
Page 168 and 169: 71 THE WINDOW BESIDE the bed jiggle
Page 170 and 171: “Bob, we really have to go,” I
Page 172 and 173: “Don’t be racist. And I’m thr
Page 174 and 175: 73 I HEAD BACK to the cockpit, wher
Page 176 and 177: 75 I AM FALLING at terminal velocit
Page 178 and 179: the location.” “I’ve seen not
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77 AS WE APPROACH, the complex seem
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78 ROTTEN MILK. The stench of the p
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79 THERE’S LITTLE DIFFERENCE betw
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80 HE LIFTS ME from the floor. He c
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81 FOR A WEEK, he is my sole compan
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Outside, the bitter harvest burns.
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83 ON THE EIGHTH DAY, the chopper r
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84 COVERED IN ASH and dust, five gr
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