It’s not as if there are any hospitals. Or even any doctors. As far as facilities go it will be like giving birth in a cave.
“She’s over at the swing set,” says Lotis Blue.
Amanda is sitting on one of the children’s swings, moving gently back and forth. She doesn’t quite fit the swing; it’s close to the ground, and her knees are sticking up awkwardly. Slow tears are rolling down her cheeks.
Standing around her are three of the Craker women, touching her forehead, her hair, her shoulders. They’re all purring. Ivory, ebony, gold.
“Amanda,” says Toby. “It’s all right. Everyone will help you.”
“I wish I was dead,” says Amanda. Ren bursts into tears and kneels down, throwing her arms around Amanda’s waist.
“Don’t say that!” she says. “We got this far! You can’t give up now!”
“I want this thing out of me,” says Amanda. “Can’t I drink some kind of poison? Some of your mushroom stuff?” At least she’s showing some energy, thinks Toby. And it’s true, there are plants that were once used. She remembers Pilar mentioning various seeds and roots: Queen Anne’s lace, evening primrose. But she’s not sure of the quantities: it would be too risky to try such a thing. And if it’s a Craker baby, none of that may work on it anyway. They have a different biochemistry, according to the MaddAddamites.
The ivory Craker woman stops purring. “This woman is not blue any more,” she says. “Her bone cave is no longer empty. That is good.”
“Why is she sad, Oh Toby?” says the gold woman. “We are always happy when our bone cave is full.”
Bone cave. That’s what they call it; beautiful in a way, and accurate, but right now all Toby herself can visualize is a cave full of gnawed bones. Which is how it must feel to Amanda: death in life. What can Toby do to make this story better? Not much. Remove all knives and ropes, arrange constant companions.
“Toby,” says Ren. “Can’t you …”
“Please try,” says Amanda.
“No,” says Toby. “I don’t have that knowledge.” It was Marushka Midwife who did the ob/gyn, at the Gardeners. Toby herself stuck to illnesses and wounds, but maggots and poultices and leeches are no use for this. “It might not be as bad as you think,” she continues. “The father might not be a Painballer. Remember that night, around the campfire, on Saint Julian’s, when they jumped on … where there was a cultural misunderstanding? It might be a Craker baby.”
“Terrific,” says Ren. “Great choices! An ultracriminal or some kind of gene-spliced weirdo monster. She wasn’t the only one, anyway, with the cultural misunderstanding or whatever you want to call it. For all I know, I’ve got one of those Frankenbabies inside me too. I’m just scared of peeing on the stick.”
Toby tries to think of something to say – something upbeat and soothing. Genes aren’t a total destiny? Nature versus nurture, good can come of evil? There are the epigenetic switches to be considered, and maybe the Painballers just had very, very bad nurturing? Or how about: the Crakers may be more human than we think? But none of it sounds very convincing, even to her.
“Oh Toby, do not be sad,” says a child’s voice: Blackbeard, nudging up beside her. He takes her hand, pats it. “Oryx will help, and the baby will come out of the bone cave, and then Amanda will be happy. Everyone is very happy when there is a baby that has just come out.”
Farrow
“Lift up, you’re lying on my arm,” says Zeb. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m worried about Amanda,” says Toby, which is accurate, though not the whole story. “It seems that she’s pregnant. She’s not overjoyed.”
“Three cheers,” says Zeb. “First little pioneer born into our brave new world.”
“Anyone ever mention you can be callous at times?”
“Never,” says Zeb. “I’m all quivering heart. The dad’s most likely a Painballer though, judging from what went on, which would triple suck. Then we’d have to drown it like a kitten.”
“Fat chance,” says Toby. “Those Craker women just love babies. They’d go berserk if you did cruel and hurtful things to it.”
“Women are strange,” says Zeb. “Not that I couldn’t have used a mom like that: protective, cuddly, and so forth.”
“It could be a hybrid. Half a Craker,” says Toby. “In view of the mob action during the Saint Julian’s festivities. But if it is, the baby might kill her. Their fetal growth rates are different, their heads are bigger when they’re born, judging from the kids some of those women are toting around, so it could get stuck. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to do a C-section. And even before that, what if there’s a blood incompatibility?”
“Ivory Bill and those others know anything about that? The genetic blood stuff?”
“I haven’t asked them,” says Toby.
“Okay, let’s put it on the crisis list. One pregnancy. Call a group meeting. But if the MaddAddams don’t know what’s likely to happen, I guess it’s wait and see?”
“It’s wait and see anyway,” says Toby. “It can’t be aborted; no one here has that skill, and it would be way too risky to try it. There’s some herbs, but if you don’t know what you’re doing they can be toxic. Nothing else to be done, unless someone at the group meeting has a brilliant suggestion. But before that, I need to do some consulting.”
“With who? None of our brainiacs are doctors.”
“Don’t laugh at me for what I’m about to say.”
“Tongue bitten, mouth stapled. Fire away.”
“Okay, this is going to sound demented: with Pilar. Who, as you know, is dead.”
A pause. “How you planning to do that?”
“I thought I could pay a visit to her, you know, where we …”
“To her shrine? Like a saint?”
“Something like that. Do an Enhanced Meditation. Remember where we buried her, in the park? On the day of her composting? We dressed up as park keepers, we dug a hole in the …”
“Yeah, I know the place. You wore those green parkie overalls I stole for you. We planted an elderberry bush on top of her.”
“Yes. That’s where I’d like to go. I know it’s a bit crazy, as the Exfernal World would have said.”
“First you talk to bees, now you want to talk to dead people? Even the Gardeners never went that far.”
“Some of them did. Think of it as a metaphor. I’ll be accessing my inner Pilar, as Adam One would have put it. He’d be right onside with this.”
Another pause. “Well, you can’t do it alone.”
“I know.” Now it’s her turn to pause.
A sigh. “Okay, babe, whatever you want. I volunteer. I’ll get Rhino and Shackie to come. We’ll keep you covered. One spraygun, plus your rifle. How long you figure it’ll take?”
“I’ll do the short-form Enhanced Meditation. I don’t want to hog too much time.”
“You expect to hear voices? Just so I know.”
“I’ve got no idea what I’ll hear,” says Toby truthfully. “Most likely nothing. But I need to do it anyway.”
“That’s what I like about you. You’re game for anything.” Some rustling, some shifting. Another pause. “Something else eating you?”
“No,” Toby lies. “I’m good.”
“You’re into prevarication?” says Zeb. “Fine with me.”
“Prevarication. That’s a lot of syllables,” says Toby.
“Let me guess. You think I should tell you what happened out in the wilds of the shopping strip with what’s-her-name. Little Miss Fox. Whether I groped her or vice versa. Whether sexual congress took place.”
Toby thinks about it. Does she want bad news about what she fears or good news she won’t believe? Is she turning into a clinging invertebrate with tentacles and suction cups? “Tell me something more interesting,” she says.
Zeb laughs. “Good one,” he says.
So. Stalemate. It’s for him to know and for her to try to refrain from finding out. He loves encryption. Even though she ca
n’t see him in the dark, she can feel him smiling.
They set out the next morning just at sunrise. The vultures that top the taller, deader trees are spreading their black wings so the dew on them will evaporate; they’re waiting for the thermals to help them lift and spiral. Crows are passing the rumours, one rough syllable at a time. The smaller birds are stirring, beginning to cheep and trill; pink cloud filaments float above the eastern horizon, brightening to gold at the lower edges. Some days the sky looks like old paintings of heaven: there should be a few angels floating around, their white robes deployed like the skirts of archaic debutantes, their pink toes daintily pointed, their wings aerodynamically impossible. Instead, there are gulls.
They’re walking along what is still a trail, through what is still recognizable as the Heritage Park. The little gravelled paths leading off to the side have vines creeping across them, but the picnic tables and cement barbecues have not yet been obscured. If there are ghosts here, they’re the ghosts of children, laughing.
Every one of the drum-shaped trash containers has been tipped over, the lids pried off. That wouldn’t have been people. Something has been busy. Not rakunks, though: the trash containers were made to be rakunk-proof. The earth around the picnic tables is rutted and muddy: something’s been trampling, and wallowing.
The asphalted main pathway is wide enough for a Heritage Park vehicle, like the one Zeb and Toby used to transport Pilar to the site of her composting. Already there are weed shoots nosing up through. The force they can exert is staggering: they’ll have a building cracked like a nut in a few years, they’ll reduce it to rubble in a decade. Then the earth swallows the pieces. Everything digests, and is digested. The Gardeners found that a cause for celebration, but Toby has never been reassured by it.
Rhino walks ahead with a spraygun. Shackleton is at the rear. Zeb’s in the middle, beside Toby, keeping a close eye on her. He’s carrying the rifle for safekeeping, since she’s already drunk the short-form Enhanced Meditation mixture. Luckily there were some Psilocybe species from the old Gardener mushroom beds among the assortment of dried mushrooms she’d saved over the years and brought with her from the AnooYoo Spa. To the soaked dried mushrooms and the mixed ground-up seeds she’d added a pinch of muscaria. Just a pinch: she doesn’t want all-out brain fractals, just a low-level shakeup – a crinkling of the window glass that separates the visible world from whatever lies behind it. The effects are beginning: already there’s a wavering, a shift.
“Hey, what’re you doing here?” says a voice. Shackleton’s voice, coming to her along a dark tunnel. She turns: it’s Blackbeard.
“I wish to be with Toby,” he says.
“Oh fuck,” says Shackleton. Blackbeard smiles happily. “And with Fuck too,” he says.
“It’s all right,” says Toby. “Let him come.”
“You can’t stop him, anyway,” says Zeb. “Short of braining him. Though I could tell him to fuck the fuck off.”
“Please,” says Toby. “Don’t confuse him.”
“Where are you going, Oh Toby?” says Blackbeard.
Toby takes the hand he holds up to her. “To visit a friend,” she says. “But it’s a friend you can’t see.” Blackbeard asks no questions; he simply nods.
Zeb looks ahead, looks left, looks right. He’s singing to himself, a habit he’s had ever since Toby’s known him. It usually means he’s feeling stressed.
Now we’re in the muck,
And that can really suck,
And this is why we’re out of luck,
Because we don’t know fuck …
“But Snowman-the-Jimmy knows him,” says Blackbeard. “And Crake. He knows him too.” He beams up at Toby and Zeb for verification, pleased with himself.
“You’re right there, pal,” says Zeb. “That’s what they know. Both of them.”
Toby can feel the full strength of the Enhanced Meditation formula kicking in. Zeb’s head against the sun is circled with a halo of what she realizes must be split ends – he could really use a trim, she must get hold of some scissors – but which nevertheless appears to her as a radiant burst of electric energy shooting out of his hair. A morpho-splice butterfly floats down the path, luminescent. Of course, she remembers, it’s luminescent anyway, but now it’s blue-hot, like a gasfire. Black Rhino looms up out of his own footsteps, an earth giant. Nettles arc from the sides of the walkway, the stinging hairs on their leaves gauzy with light. All around there are sounds, noises, almost-voices: hums and clicks, tappings, whispered syllables.
And there is the elderberry bush, where they planted it on Pilar’s grave so long ago. It’s much larger now. White bloom cascades from it, sweetness fills the air. A vibration surrounds it: honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies large and small.
“You stay here, with Zeb,” Toby says to Blackbeard. She lets go of his hand, steps forward, kneels in front of the elderberry.
She gazes at the clustered flowers, thinks, Pilar. The wizened old face, the brown hands, the gentle smile. All so real, once. Gone to ground.
I know you’re here, in your new body. I need your help.
There’s no voice, but there’s a space. A waiting.
Amanda. Will she die, will this baby kill her? What should I do?
Nothing. Toby feels abandoned. But really, what did she expect? There is no magic, there are no angels. It was always child’s play.
But she can’t help asking anyway. Send me a message. A signal. What would you do in my place?
“Watch it,” says the voice of Zeb. “Stay still. Look slowly. To the left.”
Toby turns her head. Crossing the path, within stone-throw, there’s one of the giant pigs. A sow, with farrow: five little piglets, all in a row. Soft gruntings from the mother, high screechy pipings from the young. How pink and brightly shining are their ears, how crystalline their hooves, how …
“I’ve got you covered,” Zeb says. He’s slowly lifting the rifle.
“Don’t shoot,” says Toby. Her own voice in her ears is distant, her mouth feels huge and numbed. Her heart’s becalmed.
The sow stops, turns sideways: a perfect target. She looks at Toby out of her eye. The five little ones gather in her shadow, under the nipples, which are all in a row too, like vest buttons. Her mouth upturns in a smile, but that’s only the way it’s made. Glint of light on a tooth.
Little Blackbeard moves forward. He’s golden in the sun, his green eyes lambent, his hands outstretched.
“Get back here,” says Zeb.
“Wait,” Toby says. Such enormous power. A bullet would never stop the sow, a spraygun burst would hardly make a dent. She could run them down like a tank. Life, life, life, life, life. Full to bursting, this minute. Second. Millisecond. Millennium. Eon.
The sow does not move. Her head remains up, her ears pricked forward. Huge ears, calla lilies. She gives no sign of charging. The piglets freeze in place, their eyes red-purple berries. Elderberry eyes.
Now there’s a sound. Where is it coming from? It’s like the wind in branches, like the sound hawks make when flying, no, like a songbird made of ice, no, like a … Shit, thinks Toby. I am so stoned.
It’s Blackbeard, singing. His thin boy’s voice. His Craker voice, not human.
The next moment, the sow and her young have vanished. Blackbeard turns to smile at Toby. “She was here,” he says. What does he mean?
“Crap,” says Shackleton. “There go the spareribs.”
So, thinks Toby. Go home, take a shower, sober up. You’ve had your vision.
Vector
The Story of how Crake got born
“Still a little buzzed, are you?” says Zeb as they walk towards the trees where Jimmy’s hammock was once strung up and where the Crakers are waiting. It’s the gloaming: deeper, thicker, more layered than usual, the moths more luminous, the scents of the evening flowers more intoxicating: the short-term Enhanced Meditation formula has that effect. Zeb’s hand in hers is rough velvet: like a cat’s tongue, warm and soft, del
icate and raspy. It sometimes takes half a day for this stuff to wear off.
“I’m not sure buzzed is the appropriate word to use of a mystical quasi-religious experience,” says Toby.
“That’s what it was?”
“Possibly. Blackbeard’s telling people that Pilar appeared in the skin of a pig.”
“No shit! And her a vegetarian. How’d she get in there?”
“He says she put on the skin of the pig just the way you put on the skin of the bear. Except she didn’t kill and eat the pig.”
“What a waste.”
“Also she spoke to me, Blackbeard says. He says he heard her do it.”
“That what you think too?”
“Not exactly,” says Toby. “You know the Gardener way. I was communicating with my inner Pilar, which was externalized in visible form, connected with the help of a brain chemistry facilitator to the wavelengths of the Universe; a universe in which – rightly understood – there are no coincidences. And just because a sensory impression may be said to be ‘caused’ by an ingested mix of psychoactive substances does not mean it is an illusion. Doors are opened with keys, but does that mean that the things revealed when the doors are opened aren’t there?”
“Adam One really did a job on you, didn’t he? He could spout that crap for hours.”
“I can follow his line of reasoning, so I guess in that sense he did a job, yes. But when it comes to ‘belief,’ I’m not so sure. Though as he’d say, what is ‘belief’ but a willingness to suspend the negatives?”
“Yeah, right. I never knew myself how much of it he really believed himself, or believed so much that he’d stick his arm in the fire for it. He was such a slippery bugger.”
“He said that if you acted according to a belief, that was the same thing. As having the belief.”
The MaddAddam Trilogy Page 90
