Chapter Twenty-Five

In his military days, Sayid would have immediately reported his discovery to a superior. But here, where he was not forced to regard anyone as his superior, and where it had become second-nature for the survivors to keep secrets from one another, his inclination was to privately survey the house. This he did, circling it cautiously three times, determining every possible entrance and exit, and scrutinizing the surroundings. He felt no doubt that the building stood entirely alone, and he saw evidence of only the one inhabitant, although he could not rule out the possibility that others were inside.

It was the satellite dish that teased his spirit the most. If he could get a good sight on the man with the eye patch, he could simply kill him, enter the house, and then see if he could use the communications device. No doubt the man was an Other, and therefore an enemy. Shooting him would be no cause for remorse. On the other hand, if employing the satellite required the use of some sort of code, then Sayid would have dispensed with his only source of information.

These thoughts ran systematically through Sayid's mind as he made his way back to the clearing, where Locke, Kate, and Danielle still sat awaiting fruit. Sayid, however, was by this time empty handed. Danielle viewed his barren hands with annoyance. "I'll gather the fruit," she said, and began walking past him.

He placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "I've found something," he said. "Something quite interesting."

Soon enough, all four were surveying the house. Sayid asked Danielle if this was the radio tower she had mentioned, and she confessed to never having seen the house before. Sayid handed Kate his rifle and assured her that if he was unarmed, the inhabitant would not feel threatened. He did not tell Kate he already believed the man to be an Other. It was better to take things slowly and learn what he could. Then, in a vulnerable moment, after he had obtained the information he thought necessary, Sayid could attack. Kate might not approve of the plan. She might favor charging in armed and shooting.

Just as Sayid began to move forward, Danielle moved back. When Kate asked where she was going, the Frenchwoman shot Sayid a look of biting caution. "I have survived on the island precisely by avoiding these types of encounters." He could feel the judgment in her eyes boring into him; she might as well have said, "You are an incompetent fool, Sayid, a dreamer of dreams, and if you regard your life as dispensable, so do I." Instead she said, "I'll wait for you by the stream," and then, looking at Sayid directly, her voice dripping with a humorless brand of sarcasm, "for those of you who survive."

Sayid let her go without comment, and he persisted in his plan. Yes, perhaps it was foolish. He admitted as much to himself. But he would not become Danielle; he would not hide in the belly of the earth and go mad with idleness. As long as there was a glimmer of hope, he must strive to save not just Jack, but the beach camp as well. He had once been forced to read Robert Browning poems in his English classes at Cairo. They had bored him. Yet he recalled one such poem now, and one line in particular: "A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?" He was not grasping for heaven, just for earth—the earth as he knew it, the world outside this island, and with it, perhaps, the chance for a normal life.

As he walked toward the house with his hands raised, he spied a gray cat. It could have been the offspring of the cat Amira had stroked so many years ago as she sat courageously before him, withholding her tears, telling her story, and offering a forgiveness he did not deserve. He saw the cat, and in that instant he saw again the scarred arm, and above it the face of Amira, the face that was a hundred faces. It did not matter if he had confessed to a crime he had not committed, for he had committed it. Amira's deadened eyes were the eyes of every man he had ever tortured. Perhaps it was true that he had never touched a woman. The only woman he recalled being brought to him for questioning was Nadia. He had not touched Nadia, not once. But she had touched him.

At that moment, he felt the hot pull of lead within his shoulder, and then came the searing pain.