And Zeb ran forward to Adam, and Toby raised her gun thing and pointed it, and it made a sound, and the bad man that made the hole in Adam dropped the stick; and he fell down, holding on to his leg and screaming.
And Toby wanted to run to help Zeb with the man Adam, at the bottom of the stairs, and Snowman-the-Jimmy was trying to hold her back with one hand on her pink second skin. And Snowman-the-Jimmy pushed me behind him, but I could still see.
The other bad man was partway behind a wall, but his head and arm came out, and he had the stick now, and he was pointing it at Toby. But Snowman-the-Jimmy saw it, and he went very fast in front of her, and he had the holes punched in him instead. And he fell down too, with blood coming out, and he did not get up.
And then Zeb used his stick thing, and the second bad man dropped his own stick thing and took hold of his own arm. And he screamed as well. And I put my hands over my ears because there was so much pain. It hurt me very much.
And Rhino and Shackleton and the other ones with two skins went up the stairs, and caught the two men, and tied them with ropes, and pulled them down the stairs. But Zeb and Toby were with Adam, and also with Snowman-the-Jimmy. And they were sad.
And we all went outside the Egg, which had smoke coming out, and then flames. And we walked very fast away from it. And there were some loud noises from inside.
And Zeb was carrying Adam, who was very thin and white-looking; and Adam was still breathing. And Zeb said, “I’ve got you, best buddy. You’re gonna be okay.” But his face was all wet.
And Adam said, “I’ll be fine. Pray for me.” And he smiled at Zeb and said, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t have lasted long. Plant a good tree.”
And I said to Toby, “Oh Toby, who is Bestbuddy? This one is Adam, that is his name, you said so.”
And Toby said that Bestbuddy was another name for brother, because Adam was the brother of Zeb.
But after that, the man Adam stopped breathing.
And it was evening, and we walked slowly back, with the bad men being carried by the Pig Ones because of the holes in them, and the ropes. The Pig Ones were angry because of the deads, and they wanted to stick their tusks into those men, and roll on them, and trample on them, but Zeb said it was not the time.
And Snowman-the-Jimmy and Adam were carried too, and the dead Pig One. And in the night we reached the building where the children were, and the mothers, and the Mo’Hairs, and the Pig One mothers and babies, and the other two-skinned ones — Ren and Amanda and Swift Fox and Ivory Bill and Rebecca, and the others. And they came to meet us, and all of the people said very many things, such as “I was so worried” and “What happened?” and “Oh God!”
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 fuckbuckets,” 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 fucking serious?” says Shackleton. “They ate my little brother’s fucking kidneys! They butchered him like a Mo’Hair! I want to rip out all their teeth! Through their assholes,” 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 —”