Toby laughs. “I thought you said it was a meaningless empty symbol.”
“Even a meaningless empty symbol can mean something sometimes,” says Zeb. “You rejecting me?”
“No,” says Toby. “How could you even think it?”
“I fear the worst,” says Zeb.
“Would that be the worst? Me rejecting you?”
“Don’t push a guy when he’s feeling skinless.”
“I just have trouble believing you’re serious,” says Toby.
Zeb sighs. “Get some sleep, babe. We’ll work it out later. Tomorrow’s on the way.”
Eggshell
Muster
Peach-coloured haze in the east. Day is breaking, so cool and delicate at first, the sun not yet a hot spotlight. The crows are abroad, signalling to one another. Caw! Cawcaw! Caw! What are they saying? Look out! Look out! Or maybe: Party time soon! Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot.
Dump the morbid soliloquies, Toby tells herself. What’s needed is a positive outlook. That was what trumpet fanfares were for, and drums, and march music. We are invincible, that music told the soldiers. They had to believe in them, those lying melodies, because who can walk intrepidly towards death without? The bear-shirted berserkers were said to have doped themselves up before battle with northern hallucinogenic fungus: Amanita muscaria, perhaps, or so said Pilar, at the Gardeners. Historical Mushroom Practices, for senior students only.
Maybe I should spike the water bottles, she thinks. Poison your brain, then stride forth and kill people. Or be killed.
She stands, unwinds herself from the pink bedspread, shivers. There’s been a dew: dampness beads her hair, her eyebrows. Her foot’s asleep. Her rifle is where she left it, within reach; and the binoculars as well.
Zeb’s already up, leaning on the railing. “I dozed off last night,” she says to him. “Not much of a watchperson. Sorry.”
“So did I,” he says. “It’s okay, the Pigoons would’ve sounded the alarm.”
“Sounded?” she says, laughing a little.
“You’re such a stickler. Okay, grunted the alarm. Our porky pals have been busy.”
Toby looks where he’s looking: over and down. The Pigoons have levelled the meadow, all the way around the spa building, wherever there were tall weeds or shrubs. Five of the larger ones are still at work, trampling and rolling on anything higher than an ankle.
“Nobody’s going to be sneaking up on them, that’s for sure,” says Zeb. “Clever buggers, they know about cover.” They’ve left one tuft of foliage in the middle distance, Toby notes. She peers at it with the binoculars. It must mark the remains of that boar she’d killed, back when there was a turf war between her and the Pigoons over the subject of the AnooYoo garden. Oddly enough they hadn’t devoured the carcass, though they’d seemed willing enough to eat their dead piglet. Was there a hierarchy in such matters, among them? Sows eat their farrow, but nobody eats the boars? What next, commemorative statues?
“Too bad about the lumiroses,” she says.
“Yeah, planted them myself. But they’ll grow back. Darn things are as hard to kill as kudzu, once they get going.”
“What will the Crakers have for breakfast, though?” says Toby. “Now that the foliage is gone. We can’t have them wandering over there, close to the forest.”
“The Pigoons thought of that too,” says Zeb. “Look beside the swimming pool.”
Sure enough, there’s a heap of fresh fodder. The Pigoons must have gathered it, since there’s no one else around.
“That’s considerate,” says Toby.
“Crap, they’re smart,” says Zeb. “Speaking of which.” He points.
Toby lifts the binoculars. Three medium-sized Pigoons, two spotted ones and a third that’s mostly black, are approaching from the north at a brisk trot. The squad of huge bulldozing Pigoons assiduously levelling the meadow roll themselves upright and lollop out to meet them. There’s some grunting, some nuzzling. All ears are forward, all tails are curled and twirling: they’re not frightened or angry, anyway.
“I wonder what they’re saying?” Toby asks.
“We’ll find out,” says Zeb, “when they’re damn ready to tell us. We’re just the infantry as far as they’re concerned. Dumb as a stump, they must think, though we can work the sprayguns. But they’re the generals. I’d bet they’ve got their strategy all worked out.”
Rebecca must have been ferreting around, discovering odds and ends. For breakfast they have soybits that have been soaked in Mo’Hair milk and sweetened with sugar. On the side, for a treat, a teaspoonful of Avocado Body Butter. The AnooYoo Spa had gone in for cosmetic products that sounded a lot like food: Chocolate Mousse Facial, Lemon Meringue Exfoliating Masque. And the various body butters, so rich in essential lipids.
“There was some of that stuff left?” says Toby. “I was sure I ate it all.”
“It was in the kitchen, hidden in one of the big soup tureens,” says Rebecca. “Maybe you put it there yourself, and forgot. You must’ve been building up an Ararat cache somewhere in this building, all the time you worked here.”
“Yes, but it was in the supply room,” says Toby. “Here and there. I disguised it inside the colon cleanser bulk packaging. I wouldn’t have left any of my own supplies in the kitchen; someone might have found them. It was most likely one of the staff who hid it. They used to try that — make off with a little of the high-end AnooYoo line, sell it on the pleebland grey market. But I did an inventory every two weeks, so usually I caught them.”
Not that she always reported them: the help was not overpaid. Why wreck a life?
Breakfast concluded, they assemble in the main foyer, where once a welcoming pink fruit-based drink, with or without alcohol, was served to the arriving clients. The MaddAddamites are all present, and the former God’s Gardeners. One of the boars is also in attendance, and, staying close to it, little Blackbeard. The rest of the Crakers are still out by the swimming pool munching on their pile of breakfast fodder. So are the rest of the Pigoons, similarly munching.
“So,” says Zeb. “Here’s where we stand. We know the direction the enemy is taking. There are three of them, not two. The pigs — the Pigoons — are sure of that. They haven’t seen these guys clearly — the pig scouts kept well out of sight to avoid being shot — but they’ve tracked them.”
“How far away?” says Rhino.
“Far enough. They’ve got a head start on us. But, in our favour, the Pigoons say they can’t go really fast because one of the three is limping. Dragging a foot. That right?” he says to Blackbeard, who nods.
“A smelly foot,” he says.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re heading towards the RejoovenEsense Compound. Which most likely means the Paradice dome.”
“Oh fuck,” says Jimmy. “The spraygun cellpacks! They’ll find them!”
“Think they’re going for those?” says Zeb. “Sorry. Stupid question. We have no way of knowing what they intend.”
“If they aren’t just wandering around, we can assume they have a goal,” says Katuro. “The third one — he might be directing them.”
“We need to head them off,” says Rhino. “Keep them out of there. Otherwise they’ll be well armed, and for a long time.”
“And after a short time we won’t be,” says Shackleton. “We’re already running low on the cellpacks.”