The Book of Strange New Things(139)

His arm, stretched out toward them, dripped blood into the soil. The bite was not just a puncture, but had lifted a flap of skin. His leg, too, was grisly.

‘You will die, you will die!’ moaned Jesus Lover Five.

‘Why? Are those things poisonous?’

‘You will die, you will die!’ ‘You will die, you will die!’ ‘You will die, you will die!’ Several of the Jesus Lovers had joined in the moaning. Their raised voices, jumbled together, so different from their usual gentle utterances never spoken out of turn, unnerved him.

‘Poison?’ he asked loud and clear, pointing at the swarm of vermin. He wished he knew the ????? word for ‘poison’. ‘Bad medicine?’

But they did not reply. Instead they hurried away. Only Lover Five hesitated. She’d been in a strange state all through the harvest, hardly working, mostly watching, occasionally lending just one hand – her left – to a simple task. Now she came to him, walking as if drunk or in a daze. She laid her hands – one glove grubby, the other clean – on his hips, then pressed her face hard into his lap. There was nothing sexual in her intent; he doubted if she even knew where or what his genitals were. He guessed she was saying goodbye. And then she was hurrying after the others.

Within minutes, he stood alone in the whiteflower fields, his injured arm and leg itching and burning, his ears filled with the hideous noise of hundreds of rodent mouths gnashing on slimy pulp that, only a few minutes before, had been destined for transformation into bread, lamb, beancurd, ravioli, onion, mu??hroom, peanu??? bu???er, chocola???e, ??oup, ??ardine, ??innamon and a host of other things.

When Peter limped back to his church, he found a pickup truck parked outside and a USIC employee called Conway sipping from a $50 bottle of pop. A short, bald man in immaculate lime-green overalls and polished black boots, he cut a remarkable contrast to Peter’s filthy, blood-spattered appearance.

‘Are you OK?’ said Conway, then laughed at the absurdity of the question.

‘I got bitten,’ said Peter.

‘By what?’

‘Uh . . . I don’t know what word you guys finally decided on. Flabbits? Chicadees? Whatever.’

Conway raked a hand through his non-existent hair. He was an electrical engineer, not a medic. He pointed behind the church, at a brand-new structure that resembled a washing machine with a miniature Eiffel Tower stuck on top. ‘Your Shoot relay,’ he explained. In normal circumstances, copious expressions of thanks and admiration would have been in order, and Peter could see that Conway was having trouble letting go of his moment of well-deserved praise.

‘I think I’d better get some treatment for this,’ said Peter, holding up his gory forearm.

‘I think maybe you better,’ agreed Conway.

By the time they reached the USIC base hours later, the bleeding had stopped but the flesh around his wounds was turning dark blue. Necrosis? Probably just bruising. The vermin’s jaws had punched him with the force of a power tool. During the drive, he’d had ample opportunity to examine his arm and he couldn’t see any bone peeping out, so he supposed the injury could be classified as superficial. He’d tucked the loose flap of skin back into place but he guessed it would need stitches to stay there.

‘We got us a new doctor,’ said Conway. ‘Just arrived.’

‘Oh yes?’ said Peter. He was losing sensation in his mangled leg.

‘Nice guy. And good at his job, too.’ It seemed a fatuous remark to make: everyone chosen by USIC was nice and good at their job.

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘So,’ pursued Conway, ‘let’s go see him. Now.’

But Peter refused to go straight to the infirmary, insisting that he must first stop off in his quarters. Conway wasn’t keen.

‘It won’t make any difference to the doctor how you’re dressed,’ he pointed out. ‘And they’ll clean you up with disinfectant and stuff.’

‘I know,’ said Peter. ‘I want to check for messages from my wife.’

Conway blinked in bemusement. ‘Can’t it wait?’ he said.

‘No, it can’t wait,’ said Peter.

‘OK,’ said Conway, and nudged the steering wheel. Unlike Peter, who couldn’t distinguish one concrete fa?ade from another, he knew exactly where to go.

As soon as Peter walked into the USIC building, he was overcome with a fit of shivering. His teeth chattered as Conway led him to his quarters.

‘You’re not gonna keel over, are you?’

‘I’m fine.’ The atmosphere inside the complex was glacial, a vacuum laced with chilled, sterile oxygen lacking any of the other natural ingredients that would have made it air. Each breath hurt his lungs. The light seemed bunker-dim, ghastly. But didn’t he always feel this way, whenever he’d been in the field for a while? He always needed to acclimatise.

By the time they got to his room, Conway was very agitated indeed. ‘I’ll be right outside,’ he said. ‘Try to make it quick. I don’t want a dead preacher on my hands.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Peter, and shut him away from view. Fever, or some other disorder, was swelling the vessels in his head, and his teeth were still chattering so hard that his cheeks and jaw ached. Dizziness and lethargy came in waves, trying to knock him off his feet.