Morte (34 page)

“That’s not how she thinks.”

“The human resistance is a testament to the power of belief,” she said. “This belief is a weapon more dangerous than any the Queen has invented. It is something that she cannot understand.”

“Like death-life?”

This made her pause for a moment. “Let me show you something,” she said. “This might put things in perspective.” From a deep pocket in her robe, she pulled out a glass tube. Unscrewing the lid, she revealed an eyedropper filled with an oily liquid. She held it close to Mort(e). The liquid gave off a soapy odor.

“Do you recognize that smell?” she asked.

“No.”

She unscrewed a cap on the side of the ant farm. The opening was large enough for her to fit the eyedropper into it. She placed the point over a worker ant, who sensed the intrusion. As the ant probed the object, the Archon dripped the substance onto the insect. She withdrew the dropper and put it back into its vial. Meanwhile, the worker shuddered. Her sisters nearby went into a frenzy, first feeling one another’s antennae in consultation, then charging toward their drenched comrade, who remained still, awaiting her fate. The ants bit into her legs and thorax and dragged her toward the opening in the case, pulling so hard that Mort(e) thought they would rip her apart. The mass of ants exited the farm, so intent on removing their infected sister that they did not notice that they were free at last.

The Archon’s skeletal hand slammed down on top of them. With her other hand, she removed a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped the remains of the ants from her palms. Then she screwed the cap into place, sealing the ant farm shut.

“That substance is called oleic acid,” the Archon said. “The ants use it as a signal to indicate that something is dead and needs to be discarded from the colony.”

She laughed and shook her head. “For all their cleverness,” she said, “they are still slaves to the instincts of their species. The Queen’s war only masks her own weaknesses. This ‘experiment,’ as you call it, is merely an admission on her part that the Colony can never defeat us. She’s going mad down there, you see. Her lair has turned into an insane asylum. She is the only inmate, and her daughters have become the guards. She claims to be rational, but she envies what she cannot have. She hates what she cannot understand. She destroys what she cannot control.”

Even the Queen could not have planned the events that had unfolded, the Archon said. If Mort(e) went forward with his search, it would signal to the Queen that even the most hardhearted among the animals could be converted to the faith—and could become a new symbol of hope for the resistance. The humans had chosen their messiah, and the messiah would fulfill his destiny. And the Queen would respond by destroying everything, wiping everyone out, keeping any survivors as livestock. A final quarantine.

“Or,” the Archon said, “the messiah will lead both the humans and the animals to victory over the horde of Satan.”

Mort(e)’s love for Sheba, she said, shone like a sun on the horizon, second only to God’s love for his people. Mort(e)’s journey inspired the underground believers as much as it frightened the Queen.

“So you have a choice,” she said. “Continue on this path and trigger the final conflict between the Colony and the armies of God. Or return to the surface, abandon your quest, and roam the earth until the day you die, all the time wondering what happened to your friend.”

“You think you’ll win this final conflict?” Mort(e) asked.

“We’ll be doing God’s will. That’s more important.”

“How do you know that?”

“We know because we know,” she said, a smile curling her thin lips. “It is as simple as that.”

But this was not simple. It was a snake eating its own tail. Mort(e) had been working for the ants for so long, convinced that no one could survive without thinking rationally. And here was this cult leader speaking of magic. Mort(e) did not have the energy to question it further. It was EMSAH. There was no arguing with it. He had been trained to recognize the symptoms, not find a cure. The only cure was quarantine.

“Tell me why,” he said. “Why am I the messiah?”

“I would be honored,” she said.

AS MORT(E) SUSPECTED,
the
Vesuvius
came equipped with a house of worship, located on the level underneath the promenade. All the humans waited for him there. Unlike the artificial surfaces of the rest of the ship, this church had wooden planks on the floors. An oak podium faced the congregation. Four children and a young woman stood at the front. In the first row, completely out of place but maintaining her calm, was Wawa. When she made eye contact with Mort(e), both shrugged. Mort(e) figured that she, too, was thinking of better ways to utilize such a large space in this city-in-the-sky.

The Archon directed him to a seat beside Wawa, then took the podium. Mort(e) nudged the lieutenant to ask if she was all right. Wawa nodded. The Archon raised her hands, and everyone quieted. For once, their eyes were focused on something other than Mort(e).

“Our God is strong,” the Archon said. There were shouts of approval over this, until everyone was applauding and stomping their feet. Mort(e) now knew why they installed wooden floors. The planks were so loud when they rattled that the ants on the ground must have sensed the vibrations.

“Our God,” the Archon continued, “has delivered our savior as promised. And now, our savior will deliver us.”

More call-and-response followed. “All right!” someone shouted in Mort(e)’s ear. “That’s right,” another said. As Mort(e) looked around at the shouting faces, he caught sight of a child at the far end of the row where he sat. The child, a boy, lay on a hospital stretcher. There was a makeshift respirator attached to his mouth and nose, with a bellows made out of a powder-blue hot-water bottle, pumping air into him. A nurse stood next to him. It was odd that they were keeping someone in this condition alive. Culdesac would have laughed at this waste of resources. Then he probably would have eaten the kid.

“Now,” the Archon said, “Miss Teter’s class of young ones will reenact the story of the Exile, as adapted from the Word.”

The Archon’s hands rested on a slim book, bound in a plain green cover. She lifted the book to her lips, kissed it, and handed it to Miss Teter. The children were poised and ready. Mort(e) noticed the costumes the students had made for themselves. One girl wore what appeared to be antlers—probably meant to be antennae, fashioned out of cardboard paper. Another girl wore fake dog ears and a tail. A boy wore cat ears. Mort(e) assumed that this child would be playing the messiah. Another boy was meant to be a plain old human. The rest of Miss Teter’s class—about fifteen students—sat cross-legged on the floor nearby.

Miss Teter opened the book. “A reading from ‘The Warrior and the Mother,’ ” she said. The people clasped their hands in reverent prayer. Many of them spoke the words along with the teacher.

“In the days of the war with no name,” she began, “all God’s children—man, beast, bird, and insect—bowed before the Queen.” The girl with the antennae kept her arms haughtily crossed. The other children knelt on the ground before her.

“The Queen of Dirt, the Monarch of the Underworld. The Devil’s Hand. She slaughtered seven times seven times seven of the humans and raised the lower species to their unnatural state.”

The boy dressed as the cat stood up. Curiously, the dog—whom Mort(e) assumed represented Sheba—remained kneeling.

The Archon nudged him and said, “Don’t worry about that ‘lower species’ stuff. It’s from an older translation.”

“The animals dreamt that they were men,” Miss Teter said, “never knowing the grace of God. And so these slaves of the New Pharaoh hunted down the last of the race of men.”

As Miss Teter described the horror of the war, several boys wearing fake dog and cat ears surrounded the children and pretended to claw at them. One by one, the children feigned death and toppled over. Some of them giggled, which caused a few of the adult audience members to laugh with them. Mort(e) and Wawa looked at each other.

“In defiance of God, the Queen raised up her own Garden of Eden,” Miss Teter said. “She said to her daughters …”

“ ‘Come, let us build ourselves a great city in the sea, an island of our own, and make a name for ourselves,’ ” the girl dressed as the Queen said.

Several of the formerly “dead” children lay down beside the Queen, acting like the landmass of the Island spreading into the sea. The Queen stood in the middle of the formation and grinned.

“But the Lord came down to see the island,” Miss Teter said. “And the Lord said, ‘These creations of mine have defied me with their arrogance. They believe now that nothing is impossible for them. They even imprison my chosen ones on their shores. Come, let us go down and thwart their plans, so that I may see a new day dawning for my people.’

“So the Lord called upon his favorites among the animals, one cat and one dog, and the boy who had been their guardian. The boy was named Michael.”

Mort(e) had heard the word Michael so many times when he was a pet—often affectionately, sometimes out of anxiety or anger. Michael was the name of Daniel’s son, the child who was placed on a bed when he was first brought home. Back when the world was much smaller.

Now the boy, Sebastian, and Sheba were alone on the stage. Their classmates quietly donned paper antennae and stood up.

“Michael was brave, a true child of the One God,” Miss Teter said. “He and his friends, Sebastian the Warrior and Sheba the Mother, represented God’s will on earth, the promise of Eden that had been abandoned. When the Queen learned of their presence in her false Jerusalem, she ordered her minions to descend upon them.”

The children dressed as ants let out a terrible scream as they surrounded the three actors. The audience joined in. Mort(e) would have thought that the adults were cheering them on if not for the genuine expressions of terror on some of their faces.

“Sebastian the Warrior fought off ten of the beasts so that Michael and his family could escape,” Miss Teter said. Meanwhile, the boy-cat pretended to claw at the horde of ants. “But Sheba was lost in the battle,” Miss Teter continued. “Wounded, Sebastian pursued her into the wilderness.”

Sebastian darted offstage.

Mort(e) shook his head. This was not how it had happened. He could not understand why the humans would have made something up when they clearly did not know what they were talking about.

“Before Sebastian could find them,” Miss Teter said, “Sheba the Mother and her friend Michael were captured and brought
to the Island to stand before the Queen.” All the ant-children stood before the tyrannical monarch again. Michael and Sheba were in the center, their heads lowered in reverence.

“ ‘Who do you think you are?’ ” the little Queen asked. “ ‘How dare you defy the empire?’ ”

“But Michael was not afraid,” Miss Teter said. “He said …”

“ ‘I am Michael, a child of the Chosen,’ ” the boy replied. “ ‘Your weapons cannot strike us down. We have nothing to fear from you, for one day our Warrior will return from the wilderness to destroy every last one of your species and restore the true Eden. He has come for his friend. He fights for love, not for dominion or treasure or soil.’ ”

The congregation chanted those lines with him. Some were urging him along, but others were whipped into a trancelike state, jumping up and raising their hands, pleading for more.

“When the Queen asked what made the boy so confident,” Miss Teter said, “he responded …”

“ ‘Those who fight for God have love in their hearts. This animal returns for the love of his friend. You have no weapon to fight against this power. He will scrape your empire from the soles of his feet.’ ”

“The Queen grew vexed,” Miss Teter said, “and ordered the child and his dog to be imprisoned for the Colony’s amusement.”

“ ‘Let this warrior of yours come to us,’ ” the girl-Queen said. “ ‘We will greet him with the respect that he deserves.’ ”

“But God had mercy on Michael and said, ‘Michael, child, I shall make straight a path for you, so that you may tell the world what you have witnessed.’ And God sent his angel to shut the beasts’ jaws so that they would not hurt the boy, because he was found blameless. Thus Michael led an escape from the Island, along with his faithful disciples.”

The ant-children lay down prostrate before Michael as he calmly strolled by. Several other children represented his disciples. People in the audience clapped. Mort(e) thought that these humans had been in the zeppelin too long if they thought such an escape were possible.

“The journey to the mainland was arduous,” Miss Teter said. “Many of the disciples died. Floating on a tiny raft, Michael grew weak from lack of food and water. When they landed on the shore, a band of human fighters discovered them. They, too, were of God’s army, the last of their kind. The Lord had spoken to them in dreams, foretelling this day when a prophet would arrive. Michael’s disciples said …”

“ ‘Protect this prophet,’ ” the disciples intoned. “ ‘Do what he tells you.’ ”

“When they found the boy half-alive, half-dead,” Miss Teter said, “he whispered …”

“ ‘I have fulfilled God’s plan for me,’ ” Michael said. He was lying face up while the other children attended to him. “ ‘Another will come to take my place. He will lead you to the false Jerusalem, where you will reclaim the heritage of your ancestors. Make straight a path for him. But until then, love one another as the Warrior has loved the Mother.’ ”

The audience grew quiet, save for some intermittent weeping.

“The soldiers of God brought Michael to their camp,” Miss Teter said, “and bound up his wounds. And they continued to gaze into the wilderness, waiting for the day when the Warrior would deliver them.”

The children gazed at the wall of the church, pretending to watch the horizon. And then the boy dressed as Sebastian jumped out from behind the podium. Only this time he had a plastic sword and a crown on his head. This was apparently unexpected, for the congregants rose to their feet and
applauded. Mort(e) assumed that they had been performing this little play for years, and only now could they tack on the ending that they wanted.