Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake

He could finish it now, before they see him, while he still has the strength. While he can still stand up. His foot’s like a shoeful of liquid fire. But they haven’t done anything bad, not to him. Should he kill them in cold blood? Is he able to? And if he starts killing them and then stops, one of them will kill him first. Naturally.

“What do you want me to do?” he whispers to the empty air.

It’s hard to know.

Oh Jimmy, you were so funny.

Don’t let me down.

From habit he lifts his watch; it shows him its blank face.

Zero hour, Snowman thinks. Time to go.

My thanks to the Society of Authors (England), as the literary representative of the estate of Virginia Woolf, for permission to quote from To the Lighthouse ; to Anne Carson for permission to quote from The Beauty of the Husband ; and to John Calder Publications and Grove Atlantic for permission to quote eight words from Samuel Beckett’s novel, Mercier and Camier . A full list of the other quotations used or paraphrased on the fridge magnets in this book may be found at oryxandcrake.com. “Winter Wonderland,” alluded to in Part 9, is by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith, and is copyrighted by Warner Bros.

The name “Amanda Payne” was graciously supplied by its auction-winning owner, thereby raising much-needed funds for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (U.K.). Alex the parrot is a participant in the animal-intelligence work of Dr. Irene Pepperberg, and is the protagonist of many books, documentaries, and Web sites. He has given his name to the Alex Foundation. Thank you also to Tuco the parrot, who lives with Sharon Doobenen and Brian Brett, and to Ricki the parrot, who lives with Ruth Atwood and Ralph Siferd.

Deep background was inadvertently supplied by many magazines and newspapers and non-fiction science writers encountered over the years. A full list of these is available at oryxandcrake.com. Thanks also to Dr. Dave Mossop and Grace Mossop, and to Norman and Barbara Barichello, of Whitehorse, in the Yukon, Canada; to Max Davidson and team, of Davidson’s Arnheimland Safaris, Australia; to my brother, neurophysiologist Dr. Harold Atwood (thank you for the study of sex hormones in unborn mice, and other arcana); to Lic. Gilberto Silva and Lic. Orlando Garrido, dedicated biologists, of Cuba; to Matthew Swan and team, of Adventure Canada, on one of whose Arctic voyages a portion of this book was written; to the boys at the lab, 1939—45; and to Philip and Sue Gregory of Cassowary House, Queensland, Australia, from whose balcony, in March 2002, the author observed that rare bird, the Red-necked Crake.

My gratitude as well to astute early readers Sarah Cooper, Matthew Poulikakis, Jess Atwood Gibson, Ron Bernstein, Maya Mavjee, Louise Dennys, Steve Rubin, Arnulf Conradi, and Rosalie Abella; to my agents, Phoebe Larmore, Vivienne Schuster, and Diana Mackay; to my editors, Ellen Seligman of McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Nan Talese of Doubleday (U.S.A.), and Liz Calder of Bloomsbury (U.K.); and to my dauntless copyeditor, Heather Sangster. Also to my hardworking assistant, Jennifer Osti, and to Surya Bhattacharya, the keeper of the ominous Brown Box of research clippings. Also to Arthur Gelgoot, Michael Bradley, and Pat Williams; and to Eileen Allen, Melinda Dabaay, and Rose Tornato. And finally, to Graeme Gibson, my partner of thirty years, dedicated nature-watcher, and enthusiastic participant in the Pelee Island Bird Race of Ontario, Canada, who understands the obsessiveness of the writer.