Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)(122)

And Zeb took with him Black Rhino and Katuro. And Manatee and Zunzuncito and Shackleton and Crozier wanted to go too, but Zeb said they needed to stay, because there were young children to be protected. And Toby had to stay as well, with the gun thing we should not touch. So they did not go. And Zeb said that it was just a scouting trip, to see; and if it was bad news he would set a fire, another fire, and we would see the smoke, and then more could be sent to help him, and the Pig Ones could be told, though first we would have to find them, because they move from one place to another.

And we waited a long time, but Zeb did not return. And Shackleton took three of our blue men to see if the tall and thin smoke was still there. And they came back and told us it was not there any more. Which meant those making it had not been good, and Zeb our Defender must have done a sudden Battle, to make sure that those ones did not get any closer to us. But because he did not come back, he too must have died in the Battle, and Rhino, and Katuro as well.

And when she heard that, Toby cried.

Then we were all sad. But Toby was more sad than anyone, because Zeb was gone. And although we purred over her, she did not ever become happy again.

Then she became thinner and thinner, and shrunken; and after several months, she told us that she had a wasting sickness that was eating parts of her away, inside her body. And it could not be healed with purring, or with maggots, or with anything that she knew of; and the wasting sickness was increasing, and soon she would not be able to walk. And we said we could carry her wherever she wanted to go, and she smiled and said, Thank you.

Then she called each one of us to her, and said good night, a thing she herself taught us long ago. And it is a way of hoping that the other person will sleep well, and will not be troubled by bad dreams. And we said good night to her as well. And we sang for her.


Then Toby took her very old packsack, which was pink; and into it she put her jar of Poppy, and also a jar with mushrooms in it that we were told never to touch. And she walked away slowly into the forest, with a stick to help her, and asked us not to follow her.

Where she went I cannot write in this Book, because I do not know. Some say that she died by herself, and was eaten by vultures. The Pig Ones say that. Others say she was taken away by Oryx, and is now flying in the forest, at night, in the form of an Owl. Others said that she went to join Pilar, and that her Spirit is in the elderberry bush.

Yet others say that she went to find Zeb, and that he is in the form of a Bear, and that she too is in the form of a Bear, and is with him today. That is the best answer, because it is the happiest; and I have written it down. I have written down the other answers too. But I made them in smaller writing.

The three Beloved Oryx Mothers cried very much when Toby went away. We cried as well, and purred over them, and after a while they felt better. And Ren said, Tomorrow is another day, and we said we did not understand what that meant, and Amanda said, Never mind because it was not important. And Lotis Blue said it was a thing of hope.

Then Swift Fox told us that she was pregnant again and soon there would be another baby. And the fourfathers were Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon and Picasso and me, Blackbeard; and I am very happy to have been chosen for that mating. And Swift Fox said that if it was a girl baby it would be named Toby. And that is a thing of hope.


This is the end of the Story of Toby. I have written it in this Book. And I have put my name here – Blackbeard – the way Toby first showed me when I was a child. It says that I was the one who set down these words.

Thank you.

Now we will sing.





Acknowledgements


Although MaddAddam is a work of fiction, it does not include any technologies or biobeings that do not already exist, are not under construction, or are not possible in theory.

Most of the central characters in MaddAddam appear in the first two books in this series, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Several of their names originated through donations in aid of various causes, including the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (“Amanda Payne”) and The Walrus magazine (“Rebecca Eckler”). Joining them in MaddAddam are “Allan Slaight,” courtesy of his daughter, Maria (his biography is called Sleight of Hand); “Katrina Wu,” courtesy of Yung Wu; and “March,” courtesy of a blind draw on Wattpad.com that was won by Lucas Fernandes. Saint Nikolai Vavilov came from Sona Grovenstein, and beekeeping tips from Carmen Brown of Honey Delight in Canberra, Australia.


My gratitude, as always, to my editors, Ellen Seligman of McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Nan Talese of Doubleday (U.S.A.), and Alexandra Pringle of Bloomsbury (U.K.).

Thanks also to my first readers: Jess Atwood Gibson; my U.K. agents, Vivienne Schuster, Karolina Sutton, and Betsy Robbins of Curtis Brown; and Phoebe Larmore, my North American agent; and to Timothy O’Connell. Thanks also to Ron Bernstein. And special thanks to Heather Sangster of Strongfinish.ca for the marathon copy-editing session, after which she was faced with a blizzard and a car that wouldn’t start.

And thanks to my office staff, Sarah Webster and Laura Stenberg; and to Penny Kavanaugh; and to VJ Bauer, vjbauer.com, VFX artist; and to Joel Rubinovich and Sheldon Shoib. And to Michael Bradley and Sarah Cooper, and to Coleen Quinn and Xiaolan Zhao. Also, to Louise Dennys, LuAnn Walther, and Lennie Goodings, and to my many agents and publishers around the world. I’d also like to thank Dr. Dave Mossop and Grace Mossop, and Barbara and Norman Barricello, all of Whitehorse, Yukon; and the many readers who have encouraged the writing of this book, including those on Twitter and Facebook.