Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)(116)

And we, the Children of Crake, we sang together.

We slept there that night, and ate. And all who had been in the battle were very tired. They talked in low voices, and looked very carefully at the dead one Adam, and said he was not dead because of the chaos-clearing seed that Crake made but because of the holes with blood coming out. And they said anyway that it was a mercy that he was not dead of the Crake seed thing.

I will ask Toby later what a mercy is. She is tired now, she is sleeping.

And they wrapped the man Adam in a pink bedsheet, with a pink pillow under his head, and they were very quiet and sad. And some of the Pig Ones went swimming in the pool, which they liked very much.

And the next day we walked here, to the cobb house. And the Pig Ones carried Adam, on branches, with flowers, and the dead Pig One too, which was harder for them because she was big and heavy.

And they carried Snowman-the-Jimmy in the same way, though he was not dead, not when we began to walk. And Ren walked beside him, holding his hand and crying, because she was his friend; and Crozier walked on the other side of her, and he helped her.

But Snowman-the-Jimmy was travelling in his head, far, far away, as he had travelled before, when he was in the hammock and we purred. But this time he went so far away that he could not come back.

And Oryx was there with him, and she was helping him. I heard him talking to her, just before he went too far, out of sight, and stopped breathing. And now he is with Oryx. And with Crake too.

That is the Story of the Battle.

Now we can sing.





Moontime





Trial


The next morning they hold a trial.

They sit around the dining table – or the MaddAddamites and the God’s Gardeners sit. The Pigoons sprawl on the grass and pebbles; the Crakers graze nearby, chewing their eternal mouthfuls of leaf, taking it all in.

The prisoners themselves are not present. They don’t need to be there: what they’ve done isn’t in question. The trial is about the verdict only.

“So, we’re here to decide their fates,” says Zeb. “Worse luck we didn’t blow them away in the heat of the proceedings, but since we didn’t, we have to make some decisions in cold blood. Vote now, or is there any discussion?”

Toby says, “Are they common prisoners? Or prisoners of war? Because it’s different, no?” She feels impelled to advocate for them in some way, but why? Is it simply because they don’t have a lawyer?

“How about soul-dead neurotrash?” says Rebecca.

“Fellow human beings,” says White Sedge. “Though I realize that this in itself is not a defence.”

“They killed our brother,” says Shackleton.

“Scumsucking f*ckbuckets,” says Crozier.

“Rapists and murderers,” says Amanda.

“They shot Jimmy,” says Ren, starting to cry. Amanda puts an arm around her, gives her a hug. She herself is not crying: she looks flinty-eyed, like a wood carving of herself. She’d make a good executioner, thinks Toby.

“Who cares what we call them,” says Rhino. “So long as it’s not people.”

Hard to choose a label, thinks Toby: three sessions in the once notorious Painball Arena have scraped all modifying labels away from them, bleached them of language. Triple Painball survivors have long been known to be not quite human.

“I vote for all of the above,” says Zeb. “Now let’s get on with it.”

White Sedge enters a halfhearted clemency plea. “We shouldn’t judge,” she says. “Surely their viciousness is a result of what was done to them earlier in their lives, by others. And considering the plasticity of the brain and how their behaviour was shaped by harsh experience, how are we to know that they had any control over what they did?”

“Are you f*cking serious?” says Shackleton. “They ate my little brother’s f*cking kidneys! They butchered him like a Mo’Hair! I want to rip out all their teeth! Through their *s,” he adds, perhaps unnecessarily.

“Let’s not get too fired up,” says Zeb. “Hold the outrage. We all have cause. Though some more than others.” He looks older, thinks Toby. Older and grimmer. Finding Adam and then losing him again has dragged him down. We’re all in mourning: even the Pigoons. Their tails are drooping, their ears are limp; they nuzzle one another in a consoling way.

“We shouldn’t fight over what should be a purely philosophical and practical decision,” says Ivory Bill. “The question is, do we have the facilities for correctional guardianship, or, on the other hand, the theoretical justification for …”

“It’s not a time for hair-splitting,” says Zeb.

“Taking life under any circumstances is reprehensible,” says White Sedge. “We shouldn’t let our own moral standards slip, just because —”

“Just because most of the human race has been wiped out and the surviving remnant can hardly get enough solar going to run a light bulb?” says Shackleton. “So you want to let these two cesspools bash your brains out?”

“I don’t know why you’re being so hostile,” says White Sedge. “Adam One would have advocated clemency.”

“Maybe he’d have been wrong,” says Amanda. “You weren’t there, you don’t know what they did to us. Me and Ren. You don’t know what they’re like.”