Botanicaust (8 page)

She passed the last string of convert barracks in slow motion. It was already feeling like a long day.

Levi picked up the gamma pad the Blattvolk woman had left and toyed with the plastic pencil. His fingers itched to put down his thoughts on paper even as his vision swam with hunger. He didn
’
t feel the pangs in his gut anymore, and he hoped the end would come soon.

One cell over, Awnia sat catatonic on the cement floor next to the cage door. Her eyes were puffy and red, her naked arms and face covered with scratches where she had torn at herself in despair. The last time the Blattvolk brought the food canisters, she hadn
’
t risen to claim her share.

Of its own accord, Levi
’
s hand traced the lines of an infant
’
s face on the pad. He looked down through hazy vision and swallowed. This was not Josef. This was Awnia
’
s child. Did the baby even have a name? He
’
d never heard her speak one. Just
baby
.

With deft fingers, he fleshed out the drawing, and when satisfied, he held the gamma pad against the bars toward Awnia.
“
Baby,
”
he said, his voice raw from disuse.
“
Baby,
”
he repeated before skidding the device across the floor to her. He couldn
’
t get her baby back, but perhaps the drawing would be of some comfort, as his drawings had been when Sarah died.

For a few seconds, he wasn
’
t sure she
’
d heard him. Then she crawled toward the gamma pad. A small gasp escaped her lips and she grappled through the bars for the device, immediately cradling it against her breast. Rocking the gamma pad to and fro, as if it were her child, she mumbled words he didn
’
t understand.

After a time, her rocking slowed. She pulled the plastic pencil from the indentation and stared at it with beetled brows. He thought she might try her hand at drawing. But she didn
’
t. Clenching the implement in her fist until her knuckles grew white, she locked eyes with him. Sharp words exploded from her lips, and he was glad he was not in the same cell with her. She returned to the spot on the floor next to the cage door, but her posture was no longer limp. Instead, she seemed coiled, rigid.

When the next food canisters arrived, Awnia remained sitting until the Blattvolk man drew next to her. With lightening speed, she grabbed the man
’
s wrist and yanked him forward, smashing his body against the bars with a strength that belied her small size. The tray and remaining canisters clattered to the floor as the man shrieked.

Levi lurched upright toward the bars.
“
No!
”
But there was nothing he could do.

The Blattvolk
’
s green face paled as blood fountained down his naked chest. He jerked away, the pencil protruding from a spot above his collarbone. Gasping, the man shouted toward the stairs.

The Blattvolk pulled the pointed plastic from his flesh and flung it to the floor. His gasping turned to sharp words as two other Blattvolk arrived. One carried the device used to subdue Awnia before. Within a heartbeat she was
prone, eyes
rolled back in her head. Opening the cell, the two newly arrived Blattvolk gripped Awnia by her arms, and dragged her from the prison room. On their way out, Levi caught a single unmistakable word.

Euthanize
.

Tula set one foot on the cracked, red-brown desert floor and immediately ducked back inside the skimmer. The salty tang of seared flesh mixed with the scent of flashed weeds churned her stomach, pushing bile up her throat. Unwanted memories tore through her, flashes of a past best kept forgotten. Add to that the dizzying effect of the unfiltered UV, and she wasn
’
t sure she
’
d be able to drive the skimmer back.

She dug through the skimmer
’
s first aid kit for allelopathic suppression pills. The medication compromised the immune system, but helped the body resist chemicals in the bloodstream for a while.

If only her shameful memories could be so easily suppressed.

Staring through the windscreen at the blackened area outside, she drew a final breath of air inside the skimmer. As an afterthought, she grabbed the first aid kit before hurrying to get a briefing from the Team Leader.

“
We landed to check for survivors, and that one there was still gasping.
”
He tossed his head toward Bats crouched in the sand near a charred body.
“
He thinks he knows her. Says she asked him not to waste her once she dies. You know what that means.
”
The Leader glanced at the pink skin of her scar, and Tula flinched. Yes, she was a convert. But she didn
’
t remotely relish the thought of consuming human flesh. Or flesh of any sort, for that matter. But she was used to the insults.

“
Any survivors?
”
She peered inside the duster, hoping there might be more converts out of this catastrophe.

The leader shook his head.

Bolstering her senses against the smell of burned hair and skin, she approached Bats where he cradled the upper body of a woman in his lap. He mumbled in Cannibal dialect.

Tula called to mind his name before Albert nicknamed him Bats.
“
Mbato.
”

He looked up at her with tawny, feral eyes. His pupils were fully dilated, in spite of the blinding sun
—
a common sign of UV overdose. Sweat beaded his olive green skin. The woman in his arms sucked in a rattling breath and he looked down again.

“
Mbato, would you like to take her with us? We can have the doctors look at her.
”
She knew the woman was too
far gone
to save, but if she could redirect Mbato
’
s thinking, maybe she could swerve him from reversion.

“
At least when we killed, we honored the dead.
”
He croaked in Haldanian.
A good sign.

Tula nodded.
“
We honor the dead in different ways now, remember?
”

His face twisted into a snarl.
“
We don
’
t honor them.
”
Spittle flew from his mouth as his eyes lanced fire.
“
We slaughter them without any concern for their spirits. We pretend we
’
re cleaning the world and then we leave their bodies to rot in the sun.
”

A shudder passed through Tula. The boy still believed in spirits. But then, who was she to judge? Sometimes she woke from slumber with the name of a half-remembered god on her lips.

She dug a water pouch from the first aid kit, twisted off the top and put the opening against the woman
’
s lips. Bats
’
visage eased a little.

“
Who is she?
”

Bats - Mbato - stroked what remained of the woman
’
s fire-frazzled hair.
“
Zutu. My sister. I never knew she had escaped
…
the flames.
”
He raised his face to look around at the scorched ground. Two more bodies sprawled among the smoldering shrubs.

“
We can take her with us. Take them all. They can find their final rest within the city graveyard, where you can visit them whenever you like.
”
Although the Haldanians didn
’
t officially believe in life after death, they still treated the bodies of their dead with respect. A tiny crematorium at one end of the city maintained a plot of land where families could inter the ashes of their loved ones, if they so wished.

“
That will honor her spirit?
”

“
She
’
ll be very content there.
”

Bats hesitated a moment, then rose and lifted the woman in his arms. Tula breathed a sigh of relief, despite the sick smell in the air.

“
I wish you
’
d take the pills some of the time.
”
Tula pushed Mo away as he drunkenly sought her lips, the resinous scent of UV intoxication wafting from his breath. The privacy screens along the walls of her nuvoplast apartment blocked the final, blinding rays of the desert sunset. She had a headache from the allelopathic suppression pills, the skimmer had quit running just outside the fence, forcing her to walk back, and she hadn
’
t had time to get Nika into gene therapy before the techs went home for the night.

And then there was Awnia.

“
I thought you liked the high, baby.
”

“
Not every day, Mo.
”

He swayed over to the sofa and sprawled across the cushions in a pout.
“
Want to tell me what
’
s really going on?
”
He might be high, but he could still read her better than any person on the planet.

Tula sighed and flopped backwards onto the sofa next to him.
“
The pregnant woman you brought in a few days ago attacked Faran today. She gets euthanized in the morning.
”

“
Aw, baby, I
’
m sorry.
”
He put a hand behind her neck and squeezed the muscles gently.
“
I wish you wouldn
’
t get so invested in these captives. You know most of them never make it to conversion.
”

“
My patients do.
”
Tula sat up and glared at him.
“
I just need more time to get through to them. To convert them body
and
mind.
”