Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam

“They’re coming from the west,” says Crozier. The Mo’Hairs surround him.

“They’re … It’s weird. They’re marching. It’s like a pig parade.”

The Crakers are gathering by the swing set. They don’t seem in any way frightened. They talk together in low voices, then the men begin to move west, as if to meet whatever’s coming down the path. Several women go with them: Marie Antoinette, Sojourner Truth, two others. The rest stay behind with the children, who clump together and stand silently, though no one has ordered them to do that.

“Make them come back!” says Jimmy, who has joined the MaddAddamite group. “Those things will rip them open!”

“You can’t make them do anything,” says Swift Fox, who is holding — somewhat awkwardly — a pitchfork from the garden.

“Rhino,” says Zeb, handing over another spraygun. “Don’t get trigger-happy,” he says to Manatee. “You could hit a Craker. As long as the pigs don’t charge us, don’t fire.”

“This is creepy,” says Ren timorously. She’s standing beside Jimmy now, holding on to his arm. “Where’s Amanda?”

“Sleeping,” says Lotis Blue, who’s on the other side of Jimmy now.

“More than creepy,” says Jimmy. “They’re sly, the pigoons. They’ve got tactics. They almost cornered me one time.”

“Toby. We’ll need your rifle,” says Zeb. “If they split into two groups, go around to the back. They can root under the fence fast if they’ve got us distracted out front. Then they’ll attack from both sides.”

Toby hurries to her cubicle. When she comes out carrying her old Ruger Deerfield, the herd of giant pigoons is already advancing into the clearing in front of the cobb-house fence.

There are fifty or so in all. Fifty adults, that is: several of the sows have litters of piglets, trotting along beside their mothers. In the centre of the group, two of the boars are moving side by side; there’s something lying crossways on their backs. It looks like a mound of flowers — flowers and foliage.

What? thinks Toby. Is it a peace offering? A pig wedding? An altar-piece?

The largest pigs are acting as outriders; they seem nervous, pointing the moist discs of their snouts this way and that, snuffing the air.

They’re glossy and greyish pink, rounded and plump and streamlined, like enormous nightmare slugs; but slugs with tusks, at least on the males. A sudden charge, an upward slash with those lethal scimitars, and you’d be gutted like a fish. And soon they’ll be so close to the Crakers that even a direct hit with a spraygun wouldn’t stop their momentum.

A low level of grunting is going on, from pig to pig. If they were people, Toby thinks, you’d say it was the murmuring of a crowd. It must be information exchange; but God knows what sort of information. Are they saying, “We’re scared?” Or “We hate them?” Or possibly just a simple “Yum, yum?”

Rhino and Manatee are stationed just inside the fence. They’ve lowered their sprayguns. Toby has thought it best to conceal her rifle; she’s carrying it at her side, a fold of her bedsheet tucked around it. No need to remind them of her boar-murdering exploits, though they probably need no reminders.

“Cripes,” says Jimmy, who’s standing behind Toby. “Would you look at that. They’ve got to be planning something.”

Blackbeard has left the other Craker children and has clutched himself on to Toby. “Do not be afraid, Oh Toby,” he says. “Are you afraid?”

“Yes, I am afraid,” she says. Though not as afraid as Jimmy, she adds to herself, because I have a gun and he doesn’t. “They have attacked our garden more than once,” she says. “And we have killed some of them, to defend ourselves.” She thinks uneasily of the pork roasts, the bacon, and the chops that have resulted. “And we have put them into soup,” she says. “They have turned into a smelly bone. A lot of smelly bones.”

“Yes, a smelly bone,” says Blackbeard thoughtfully. “A lot of smelly bones. I have seen them near the kitchen.”

“So they are not our friends,” Toby says. “You are not the friend of those who turn you into a smelly bone.”

Blackbeard thinks about this. Then he looks up at her, smiling gently. “Do not be afraid, Oh Toby,” he says. “They are Children of Oryx and Children of Crake, both. They have said they will not harm you today. You will see.” Toby’s far from sure about that, but she smiles down at him anyway.

The advance deputation of Crakers has joined the herd of pigoons and is walking back with them. The rest of the Crakers wait silently by the swing set as the pigoons advance.

Now Napoleon Bonaparte and six other men step forward: piss parade, it looks like. Yes, they’re peeing in a line. Aiming carefully, peeing respectfully, but peeing. Having finished, they each take a step back. Three curious little piglets scamper forward, snuffle at the ground, then run squealing back to their mothers.

“There,” says Blackbeard. “See? It is safe.”

The Crakers move into a semicircle behind their demarcation line of urine. They begin to sing. The herd of pigoons divides in two, and the pair of boars moves slowly forward. Then they roll to either side, and the flower-covered burden they’ve been carrying slips onto the ground. They heave to their feet again and move some of the flowers away, using their trotters and snouts.

It’s a dead piglet. A tiny one, with its throat cut. Its front trotters are tied together with rope. The blood is still red, it’s oozing from the gaping neck wound. There are no other marks.

Now the whole herd is deploying itself in a semicircle around the — what? The bier? The catafalque? The flowers, the leaves — it’s a funeral. Toby remembers the boar she shot at the AnooYoo Spa — how, when she went to collect maggots from the carcass, there were fern fronds and leaves scattered over it. Elephants, she’d thought then. They do that. When someone they love has died.

“Crap,” says Jimmy. “I hope it wasn’t us who nuked that little porker.”

“I don’t think so,” says Toby. She would have heard about it, surely. There would have been some culinary chitchat.

The two piglet-bearers have gone forward to the line of piss. Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth are on the other side of it. They kneel so they’re at the level of the pigoons: head facing head. The Crakers stop singing. There’s silence. Then the Crakers start singing again.

“What’s happening?” says Toby.

“They are talking, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “They are asking for help. They want to stop those ones. Those ones who are killing their pig babies.” He takes a deep breath. “Two pig babies — one with a stick you point, one with a knife. The Pig Ones want those killing ones to be dead.”

“They want help from …” She can’t say the Crakers , it isn’t what they call themselves. “They want help from your people?”

If killing is the request, how can the Crakers help? she wonders. According to the MaddAddamites, Crakers are nonviolent by nature. They don’t fight, they can’t fight. They’re incapable of it. That’s how they’re made.

“No, Oh Toby,” says Blackbeard. “They want help from you.”

“Me?” says Toby.

“All of you. All those standing behind the fence, those with two skins. They want you to help them with the sticks you have. They know how you kill, by making holes. And then blood comes out. They want you to make such holes in the three bad men. With blood.” He looks a little ill: he isn’t finding this easy. Toby wants to hug him, but that would be condescending: he has chosen this duty.

“Did you say three men?” Toby asks. “Aren’t there only two?”