The MaddAddam Trilogy (125 page)

“The small Pig One is for you, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “It is a gift. It is dead already. They have already done their sadness.”

“But we have promised not to eat them any more,” says Toby.

“Not kill and then eat, no. But they say you would not be killing it yourselves. Therefore it is permitted. They say you may eat it or not eat it, as you choose. They would eat it themselves, otherwise.”

Curious funeral rites, thinks Toby. You strew the beloved with flowers, you mourn, and then you eat the corpse. No-holds-barred recycling. Even Adam and the Gardeners never went that far.

The Crakers have moved apart, over to the swing set, where they are chewing away at the kudzu vines and talking together in low voices. The dead piglet lies on the ground, flies settling on it, encircled by a ring of MaddAddamites, pondering over it as if holding an inquest.

“So, you think those pricks were butchering it?” says Shackleton.

“Maybe,” says Manatee. “But it wasn’t hanging from a tree. That’s what you’d do normally, to drain the blood.”

“The pigs told my blue buddies it was just lying on the path,” says Crozier. “In plain view.”

“You think it’s a message to us?” says Zunzuncito.

“Sort of like a challenge,” says Shackleton. “Like they’re calling us out.”

“Maybe that’s how come the rope. It was the rope on
them
last time,” says Ren.

“Nah,” says Crozier. “Why would they use a piglet for that?”

“Maybe like
This will be you next time
. Or
Look how close we can get
. They’re triple-time Painball vets, remember. That’s Painball style: freak you out,” says Shackleton.

“Right,” says Rhino. “They really want our stuff now. Must be running out of cellpack power, getting desperate.”

“They’ll try to sneak in at night,” says Shackleton. “We’ll have to double up on sentries.”

“Better check the fences,” says Rhino. “They’re still pretty makeshift.”

“They may have tools,” says Zeb. “From some hardware store. Knives, wire cutters, stuff like that.” He moves off, around the corner of the cobb house, with Rhino following.

“Maybe it’s not the Painballers who killed it. Maybe it’s persons unknown,” says Ivory Bill.

“Maybe it’s the Crakers,” says Jimmy. “Hey, just joking, I know they’d never do that.”

“Never say never,” says Ivory Bill. “Their brains are more malleable than Crake intended. They’ve been doing several things we didn’t anticipate during the construction phase.”

“Maybe it’s someone in our own group,” says Swift Fox. “Someone who wanted sausages.”

There’s an uneasy, guilty laugh round the circle. Then a silence. “So. What next?” says Ivory Bill.

“What next is, do we cook it or not?” says Rebecca. “Suckling pig?”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” says Ren. “It would be like eating a baby.” Amanda starts to cry.

“My dear lady, what’s all this about?” says Ivory Bill.

“I’m sorry,” says Ren. “I shouldn’t have said
baby
.”

“Okay, cards on the table,” says Rebecca. “Hands up, anyone here who didn’t know that Amanda’s pregnant?”

“I appear to be the only one left in gynecological ignorance,” says Ivory Bill. “Perhaps such intimate feminine material was considered unfit for my elderly ears.”

“Or maybe you weren’t listening,” says Swift Fox.

“Okay, so that’s clear,” says Rebecca. “Now I would like to open up the circle, as we used to say at the Gardeners … Ren, you want to do this?”

Ren takes a breath. “I’m pregnant too,” she says. She begins to sniffle. “I peed on the stick. It turned pink, it made a smiley face … Oh God.” Lotis Blue pats her. Crozier makes a move towards her, then stops.

“Three’s company,” says Swift Fox. “Count me in. Bun in the oven, up the spout. Farrow in the barrow.” At least she’s cheerful about it, thinks Toby. But whose bun?

There’s another silence. “I don’t suppose there is any point,” says Ivory Bill with heavy disapproval, “in speculating as to the paternity of these … these various imminent progenies.”

“None whatsoever,” says Swift Fox. “Or not in my case. I’ve been doing an experiment in genetic evolution. Reproduction of the fittest. Think of me as a petri dish.”

“I find that irresponsible,” says Ivory Bill.

“I’m not sure it’s any of your business,” says Swift Fox.

“Hey!” says Rebecca. “It is what it is!”

“With Amanda, it may be a Craker,” says Toby. “From something that happened the night she was … the night we got her back, from … That’s the best possibility. And that may be what happened with Ren too.”

“It wasn’t the Painballers, anyway,” says Ren. “With me. I know it wasn’t.”

“You know that how?” says Crozier.

“I don’t want to go into the gory details,” says Ren, “because you’d think it was oversharing. It’s girl stuff. We count the days. That’s how.”

“I can definitely rule out the Painballers,” says Swift Fox. “In my case. And I can rule out a few other guys too.” None of the men look at each other. Crozier suppresses a grin.

“And the Crakers as well?” says Toby, keeping her voice neutral. Who’s on her checklist? Crozier, definitely, but who else? Have there been multitudes? Maybe Zeb was one of them, after all; if so, soon there may be an infant Zeb. Then what will she herself do? Pretend she doesn’t notice? Knit babywear? Brood and sulk? The first two options would be preferable, but she’s not sure she’ll be up to them.

“I did have an interlude or two with the big blues,” says Swift Fox. “When no one was looking, which didn’t give me a huge window of opportunity, since everyone here is so snoopy. It was energetic, and I’m not sure I’d want to make a habit of it. Not much foreplay. But the pink smiley face doesn’t lie, and I will soon be heavy with young. The question is, young what?”

“Guess we’ll find out,” says Shackleton.

Zeb and Black Rhino return from their inspection of the fences. “This place is hardly a fortress,” Zeb says. “Thing is – if we take the weapons with us on the hunt, we leave everyone in the cobb house undefended.”

“Which may be what they want,” says Rhino. “Lure us out the front, sneak in the back. Make off with the women.”

“We’re not just packages,” says Swift Fox. “We can fight back! You can leave us a couple of sprayguns.”

“Good luck with that plan,” says Rhino.

“We need to move our whole group out of here when we go hunting for those guys,” says Crozier. “We can’t leave anyone behind. Take the Mo’Hairs too. If we’re all together, it’s harder for them to ambush us.”

“But easier to stampede us,” says Zeb. “How fast can we all run?”

“I’m not running,” says Rebecca. “And I need to point out here that there are three pregnant women in this crowd.”

“Three?” says Zeb.

“Ren and Swift Fox,” says Rebecca.

“When did that happen?”

“They told everyone else when you were checking the fences,” says Rebecca.

“They got knocked up by elves overnight,” says Jimmy.

“Not funny, Jimmy,” says Lotis Blue.

“Point is, bad for them to run,” says Rebecca.

“So, we can’t keep our end of the deal? We can’t go into battle with the pig militia?” says Shackleton. “They’ll have to do it alone?”

“They can’t,” says Jimmy. “They’re fucking lethal but they can’t climb stairs. If the pigs chase those Painball guys into the city, they’ll just move up a floor and shoot down. The pigoons will be decimated.”

“Crozier’s right, we should all relocate,” says Toby. “To a more secure place, with doors that lock.”

“Like where?” says Rebecca.

“We can go back to the AnooYoo Spa,” says Toby. “I holed up in there for months. There’s still some basic food left.” And maybe some seeds, she thinks: I can collect seeds, for the garden. And more bullets, she’d left some there.

“They’ve got real beds,” says Ren. “And towels.”

“And solid doors,” says Toby.

“Could be a plan,” says Zeb. “Vote?”

Nobody votes no.

“Now we must prepare,” says Katuro.

“First we should bury the piglet,” Toby says. “It would be right. Under the circumstances.”

So they do.

It takes them a day to get organized. There are many things they need to take with them: the basic supplies for cooking, a change of daywear bedsheets, duct tape, rope. Flashlights, headlamps: most of the batteries are still good. The sprayguns, of course. Toby’s rifle. And any sharp-edged tools, because you wouldn’t want such things as knives and picks to fall into the hands of enemies.

“Keep it light,” Zeb tells them. “If all goes well, we’ll be back here in a few days.”

“Or else this place may be burned to the ground,” says Rhino.

“So if you really need it, take it with you,” says Katuro.

Toby worries about her hive of bees. Will they be all right? What could attack them? She hasn’t seen any bears, and the Pigoons have made a no-bees deal, or so she must believe. Do wolvogs like honey? No, they’re carnivores. Rakunks, perhaps, but they’d be no match for an angry hive.

She covers her head and speaks to the hive, as she’s been doing faithfully each morning. “Greetings, Bees. I bring news to you and your Queen. Tomorrow I must go away for a short time, so I will not be talking with you for several days. Our own hive is threatened. We are in danger, and we must attack those that threaten us, as you would in our place. Be steadfast, gather much pollen, defend your hive if need be. Tell this message to Pilar, and ask for the help of her strong Spirit, on our behalf.”

The bees fly in and out of the hole in the Styrofoam cooler. They seem to like it here in the garden. Several of them come over to investigate her. They test her floral bedsheet, find it wanting, move to her
face. Yes, they know her. They touch her lips, gather her words, fly away with the message, disappear into the dark. Pass through the membrane that separates this world from the unseen world that lies just underneath it. There is Pilar, with her calm smile, walking forward along a corridor that glows with hidden light.

Now, Toby, she tells herself. Talking pigs, communicative dead people, and the Underworld in a Styrofoam beer cooler. You’re not on drugs, you’re not even sick. You really have no excuse.

The Crakers watch the departure preparations with interest. The children hang around the kitchen, staring at Rebecca with their huge green eyes, keeping a distance between themselves and her flitch of bacon and her dried wolvog jerky.

The Crakers don’t seem to fully understand why the MaddAddams are moving house, but they’ve made it clear that they themselves are coming too.

“We will help Snowman-the-Jimmy,” they say. “We will help Zeb.” “We will help Crozier, he is our friend, we must help him to piss better.” “We will help Toby, she will tell us a story.” “Crake wants us to go there,” and so forth. They themselves have no possessions, so there’s nothing they need to carry; but they want to carry other things. “I will bring this, it is a pot.” “I will bring this, it is a wind-up radio, what is it for?” “I will bring this sharp one, it is a knife.” “This one is a toilet paper, I will carry it.”

“We will carry Snowman-the-Jimmy,” one trio announces, but Jimmy says he can walk.

Blackbeard marches into Toby’s cubicle. “I will bring the writing,” he says importantly. “And the pen. I will bring those, for us to have there.”

He views Toby’s journal as a joint possession of theirs, which is fine, thinks Toby, as it lets her follow his writing progress. Though sometimes it’s hard to get the journal away from him so she can write in it herself, and he has to be reminded not to leave it out in the rain.

So far he’s concentrated mostly on names, though he’s also fond of writing
THANK YOU
and
GOOD NIGHT. CRAK GOODNIT GOOD BAD
FLOWR ZEB TOBY ORIX THAK YOU
is a typical entry. Maybe one of these days she’ll gain some new insights into how his mind works, though she can’t say she’s had any blinding illuminations as yet.

At sunrise the next day they set out from the cobb-house compound in the Tree of Life parkette. It’s an exodus, a move away from civilization, such as it is.

Two Pigoons have arrived as escorts; the rest will meet them at the AnooYoo Spa, says Blackbeard. He’s got Toby’s binoculars, which he’s figured out how to use. Every once in a while he steps off to the side, lifts the binocs, focuses. “Crows,” he announces. “Vultures.” The Craker women laugh gently. “Oh Blackbeard, but you knew that without the eye tube things,” they say. Then he laughs too.

Rhino and Katuro walk ahead with the Pigoons, followed by Crozier and the flock of Mo’Hairs. Some of them have bundles tied onto their backs, which is new for them, though they don’t seem to mind. With their human hair, curly and straight, and the lumpy packages on top of it, they look like avant-garde hats with legs.

Shackleton stays in the middle of the procession, with Ren, Amanda, and Swift Fox, who are surrounded in their turn by most of the Craker women, attracted by their pregnant state. The Crakers make cooing noises, they smile and laugh and pat and stroke. Swift Fox appears to find this annoying, but Amanda smiles.

The rest of the MaddAddamite group is behind them, and then the Craker men. Zeb brings up the rear.

Toby walks near the Craker women, rifle at the ready. It seems a long time since she came this way with Ren, searching for Amanda. Ren must be remembering those days as well: she drops behind to join Toby, slipping her arm through Toby’s free left arm. “Thank you for letting me in,” she says. “At the AnooYoo Spa. And for the maggots. I would have died if you hadn’t taken care of me. You saved my life.”

And you saved mine, thinks Toby. If Ren hadn’t stumbled along, what would she have done? Waited and waited, shut up inside the AnooYoo by herself, until she went bonkers or dried up of old age.