Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1)(6)

“Wow,” said Manatee, surveying the Crakers who were crowding in through the gate, talking among themselves. “It’s the Paradice dome circus.”

“So these are them, right?” said Crozier. “The creepo naked people Crake made? The ones who live down by the shore?”

“I don’t think you should call them creepo,” said Ren. “They can hear you.”

“It wasn’t only Crake,” said Manatee. “All of us worked on them at the Paradice Project. Me, Swift Fox, Ivory Bill …”

“Why’d they come with you?” said Crozier. “What do they want?”

“They’re only trying to help,” said Toby. Suddenly she was very tired; all she wanted to do was stumble into her cubicle and conk out. “Has anyone else been here?” Zeb had left the cobb house at the same time she did, on a search for Adam One and any of the God’s Gardeners who might have survived. She wanted to know if he’d returned, but she didn’t want to be obvious about it: pining was whining, as the Gardeners used to say, and she’d never worn her heart anywhere near her sleeve.

“Only those pigs again,” said Crozier. “Trying to dig under the garden fence. We shone the lights on them and they ran off. They know what a spraygun is.”

“Ever since we turned a couple of them into bacon,” said Manatee. “Frankenbacon, considering they’re splices. I still feel kind of weird about eating them. They’ve got human neocortex tissue.”

“I hope Crake’s Frankenpeople aren’t moving in with us,” said a blond woman who’d come out of the main cobb building with Tamaraw. Toby recognized her from the brief time she’d spent at the cobb house before her search for Amanda: Swift Fox. She must have been over thirty, but she was wearing what looked like a twelve-year-old’s ruffle-edged nightie. Now where had she picked that up? Toby wondered. Some looted HottTottsTogs or Hundred-Dollar Store?

“You must be exhausted,” Tamaraw said to Toby.

“I don’t know why you brought them with you,” said Swift Fox. “There’s too many of them. We can’t feed them.”

“We won’t have to,” said Manatee. “They eat leaves, remember? That’s how Crake designed them. So they’d never need agriculture.”

“Right,” said Swift Fox. “You worked on that module. Me, I did the brains. The frontal lobes, the sensory-input modifications. I tried to make them less boring, but Crake wanted no aggression, no jokes even. They’re walking potatoes.”

“They’re really nice,” said Ren. “Anyway, the women are.”

“I suppose the males wanted to mate with you; they’ll do that. Just don’t make me talk to them,” said Swift Fox. “I’m going back to bed. Night all, have fun with the vegetables.” She yawned and stretched, then sauntered slowly away.

“Why’s she so crabby?” said Manatee. “She’s been like that all day.”

“Hormones is my guess,” said Crozier. “Check out the nightie, though.”

“Too small on her,” said Manatee.

“You noticed,” said Crozier.

“Maybe she has other reasons for being crabby,” said Ren. “Women sometimes do, you know.”

“Sorry,” said Crozier, putting his arm around her.

Four of the Craker men detached themselves from the group and began to follow Swift Fox, blue penises waving back and forth. Somewhere they’d picked more flowers; they were starting to sing.

“No!” said Toby sharply, as if to dogs. “Stay here! With Snowman-the-Jimmy!” How to make it clear to them that, even with the aid of floral display and serenading and penis-wagging, they couldn’t just pile on to any young non-Craker woman who smelled available to them? But they’d already disappeared around the corner of the main house.

The two Craker carriers lowered Jimmy down. He slumped limply against their knees. “Where will Snowman-the-Jimmy be?” they asked. “Where can we purr for him?”

“He’ll need to be in a room by himself,” said Toby. “We’ll find a bed for him, and then I’ll get the medicine.”

“We will come with you,” they said. “We will purr.” They picked Jimmy up again, making a chair for him with their arms. The others crowded around.

“Not all of you,” said Toby. “He needs to be quiet.”

“He can have Croze’s room,” said Ren. “Can’t he, Croze?”

“Who’s that?” said Crozier, peering at Jimmy, whose head was lolling to one side, who was drooling into his beard, who was scratching fitfully at himself with one filthy hand through the pink fabric of the top-to-toe, and who noticeably stank. “Where’d you drag him in from? Why’s he wearing pink? He looks like a f*cking ballerina!”

“It’s Jimmy,” said Ren. “Remember, I told you? My old boyfriend?”

“The one who messed you over? From high school? That child molester?”

“Don’t be like that,” said Ren. “I wasn’t really a child. He’s got a fever.”

“Don’t go, don’t go,” said Jimmy. “Come back to the tree!”

“You’re sticking up for him? After how he dumped you?”