Margaret Atwood - MaddAddam

I hope they aren’t getting drunk, thinks Toby. That wouldn’t be good, drunk Pigoons. “How are you doing?” she asks Jimmy.

“I remember this place,” says Jimmy. “In every detail. Shit. I wish I didn’t.”

Ahead of them is the roadway leading through the forest. Untrimmed branches reach into the corridor of light above it, opportunist weeds push into it from the margins, renegade vines overhang it. Out of the swelling foam of vegetation the curved dome rises like the white half-eye of a sedated patient. It must once have seemed so bright and shining, that dome; so much like a harvest moon, or like a hopeful sunrise, but without the burning rays. Now it looks barren. More than that, it looks like a trap: for who can tell what’s hidden in it, and what’s hiding?

But that’s only because of what we know, thinks Toby. There’s nothing in the image itself that would signal death to an innocent observer.

“Oh Toby!” says Blackbeard. “Look! It is the Egg! The Egg where Crake made us!”

“Do you remember it?” says Toby.

“I don’t know,” says Blackbeard. “Not very much. Trees were growing in it. It rained, but it did not thunder. Oryx came to visit us every day. She taught us many things. We were happy.”

“It might not be the same any more,” says Toby.

“Oryx is not there,” says Blackbeard. “She flew out because she wanted to help Snowman-the-Jimmy when he was sick, didn’t she?”

“Yes, I’m sure she did,” says Toby.

The young Pigoon scouts have been sent ahead to sniff out possible roadside ambushes. They’re racing back now, along the leaf-strewn asphalt. Their ears are back, their tails out straight behind them: cause for alarm.

The elders leave their rooting party among the fallen avomangoes; Blackbeard runs over to them; there’s a quick huddle. The MaddAddamites gather around. “What’s up?” Zeb asks.

“They say the bad ones are near the Egg,” says Blackbeard. “Three. One with ropes tied on. He has white feathers on his face.”

“What’s he wearing?” Toby asks. Is it for instance a caftan, like those Adam One always wore? But how to ask that? She revises: “Does he have a second skin?”

“Shit,” says Jimmy. “Keep them out of the emergency storeroom! They’ll get all the sprayguns, and then we’re toast!”

“Yes, he has a second skin, like you,” says Blackbeard. “Only not pink. It is different colours. It is dirty. He has only one of these, on his foot. A shoe.”

“How’ll we do that?” says Rhino. “We can’t move fast enough.”

“We send some of the pigs,” says Zeb. “The faster ones. They can cut through the woods.”

“Then what?” says Rhino. “They can’t hold the main door. Those guys have a spraygun. We don’t know how much of their cellpack is left.”

“We can’t just let the Pigoons be shot down like rats in a barrel,” says Toby. “Jimmy. When you go through the Paradice entranceway, where’s the storeroom?”

“There’s the two doors, the airlock door, the inner one. They’re both open, I left them open. You go down the hall to the left, take a right, another left. The fucking pigs need to get into that room and hold the door shut from the inside.”

“Okay, how do we tell them this?” says Zeb. “Toby?”

“Right and left could be a problem,” says Toby. “I don’t think the Crakers know about those.”

“Think hard,” says Zeb. “Clock’s ticking.”

“Blackbeard?” says Toby. “This is a picture of the Egg, if you were up at the top looking down at it.” She draws a round circle in the dirt, with a stick. “Do you see?”

Blackbeard looks at it and nods, though not with much assurance. We hang by a thread, thinks Toby. “Good,” she says with false heartiness. “Can you say this to the Pig Ones? Tell them they need to run very fast. Five of them, through the trees. They need to go past the bad men, right into the Egg. Then they need to go here” — she traces with the stick — “and in here. That right?” she asks Jimmy.

“Right enough,” says Jimmy.

“They need to shut the door. They need to lean against it, to keep the bad ones from going into that room,” says Toby. “Can you tell them all of that?”

Blackbeard looks puzzled. “Why do the men want to go into the Egg?” he asks. “The Egg is for making. They are already made.”

“They want to find some killing things,” says Toby. “The sticks that make holes.”

“But the Egg is good. It does not have killing things.”

“It does now,” says Toby. “We have to hurry. Can you tell them?”

“I will try,” says Blackbeard. He kneels on the ground. Two of the largest Pigoons lower their huge heads, one to either side of his face. There’s a white tusk right beside his neck. Toby shivers. He begins to sing while tracing over Toby’s marks in the sand with her stick. The Pigoons sniff at the diagram. Oh no, thinks Toby. This isn’t going to work. They think it’s something to eat.

But then the Pigoons lift their snouts and move to join the others. Low grunting, restless tail movements. Indecision?

Five of the medium-sized ones detach from the group and head off at a canter, two to the left of the road, three to the right. The undergrowth swallows them up.

“Looks like they got it,” says Rhino. Zeb grins.

“Good,” he says to Toby. “Always knew you had potential.”

“They are going to the Egg,” says Blackbeard. “They say they will not move too close to those men. They will be careful about the stick things, with blood coming out.”

“Hope they make it,” says Zeb. “Let’s hike.”

“It’s not far,” says Jimmy. “Anyway, they can’t shoot us from the windows because there aren’t any windows.” He laughs feebly.

“Zeb?” says Toby as they move off down the road. “The third guy? I’m not sure. But I think it’s Adam One.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Zeb. “I figured that for a while.”

“What can we do to get him back?”

“They’ll want to trade him,” says Zeb.

“For what?”

“Sprayguns, supposing the pigs block them out. Other stuff.”

“Like, for instance?”

“Like, for instance, you,” says Zeb. “In their place, it’s what I’d do.”

Right, thinks Toby. They’ll want revenge.

The Paradice dome lies in front of them. All is silent. The airlock door is open. Three shoats go through it, then come out again. “They are inside, the men,” says Blackbeard. “But far inside. Not near the door.”

“I need to go in first,” says Jimmy. “Just for a minute.” Toby stays close behind him.

There are two destroyed skeletons on the floor of the airlock. The bones have been gnawed and jumbled, no doubt by animals. Rags of mouldering cloth, a small pink and red sandal.

Jimmy falls to his knees; his hands are over his face. Toby touches his shoulder. “We need to go now,” she says, but he says, “Leave me alone!”

There’s a dirty pink ribbon tied in the long black hair of one of the skulls: hair decays very slowly, the Gardeners always said. Jimmy unties the bow, twists the ribbon in his fingers. “Oryx. Oh God,” he says. “You fucker, Crake! You didn’t have to kill her!”

Zeb is standing beside Toby now. “Maybe she was already sick,” he says to Jimmy. “Maybe he couldn’t live without her. Come on, we need to get in there.”

“Oh fuck, spare me the fucking clichés!” says Jimmy.

“We can just leave him here for now, he’ll be safe; let’s go in,” says Toby. “We need to be sure they didn’t get into the storage room.”

The others are right outside the doorway — the MaddAddamites, the main body of the Pigoons. “What’s up?” says Rhino.