Sortie

Toby changes into a Spa track suit, with a pillowcase torn open for a sun cover on her head. Too bad about the kissy lips and winky eye on the sweatshirt – not very military – and too bad also about the colour pink, which could make her a target. But there are no khaki textiles at AnooYoo.

She checks her rifle, tucks some of her extra bullets into a pink Spa carrybag. There’s some Spa cotton half-socks with fluffy pom-poms at the backs: she puts on a pair of those, takes an extra pair. If Zeb says anything about her getup she’ll be tempted to smack him.

In the main foyer she distributes the water bottles, filled with water that’s been properly boiled by Rebecca earlier with the aid of Ren and Amanda. The AnooYoo Spa emphasized the need for proper hydration during gym workouts, so there are enough plastic bottles. The MaddAddamites have brought some Joltbars with them from the cobb house, and some cold kudzu fritters. “Enough energy to run on, not too much or it weighs you down,” says Zeb. “Keep some for later.” He looks at Toby, her kissy-lipped pink outfit.

“You auditioning for something?” he says.

“It’s vivid,” says Jimmy.

“Like a rock star,” says Rhino. “Kinda.”

“Good camouflage,” says Shackleton.

“They’ll think you’re a hibiscus,” says Crozier.

“This is a rifle,” says Toby. “I’m the only one here who knows how to use it. So button up.” They all grin.

Then they set forth.

The three Pigoon scouts are out in front, snuffling along the ground. To either side of them, two more act as outriders, testing the air with the wet disks of their snouts. Odour radar, thinks Toby. What vibrations well beyond our blunted senses are they picking up? As falcons are to sight, these are to scent.

Six younger Pigoons – barely more than shoats – are running messages between the scouts and outriders and the main van of older and heavier Pigoons: the tank battalion, had they been armoured vehicles. Despite their bulk, they can move surprisingly fast. At the moment they’re keeping a steady pace, conserving their energy: a marathon gait, not a sprint. There’s not much grunting going on, and no squealing: like soldiers on a long march, they’re saving their breath. Their tails are curled but inactive, their pink ears are aimed forward. Lit by the morning sun, they look almost like a cartoon version of cute, huggable, smiling pigs, Valentine pigs clutching red heart-shaped candy boxes, the kind with Cupid wings: If This Little Piggie Could Fly He’d Bring You My Love!

But only almost. These pigs aren’t smiling.

If we were carrying a flag, thinks Toby, what would be on it?

At first the going is easy. They cross the flattened part of the meadow, which still has a few handbags and boots and bones poking out of the ground from where the plague victims had fallen. If they’d been covered by weeds these objects might have tripped up the marchers, but because they’re visible they’re easy to avoid.

The Mo’Hairs have been turned loose and are grazing on the far edge of the meadowland that’s been left for pasture. Five young Pigoons have been deputized to watch over them. They don’t seem to be taking their duties very seriously, which means they smell no danger. Three are rooting around in the plant life, one is rolling in a damp patch of mud, and the fifth is dozing. Would the five of them be a match for a liobam, should one attack? No doubt of it. A pair of liobams? Possibly even that. But before they’d even get close, the youngsters would have the entire Mo’Hair flock rounded up and trotting back to the Spa.

After leaving the meadow the procession takes the roadway to the north, cutting through the forest that borders the AnooYoo grounds and conceals its perimeter fence. The northern gatehouse is deserted: no sign of life in or around it, apart from a rakunk that’s sunning itself on the walkway. It stands up as they approach but doesn’t bother to run away. Overly friendly, those animals: in a harsher world they’d all be hats by now.

The city streets that come next are harder to navigate. Crashed and deserted vehicles clog the pavement, which is littered with shattered glass and twists of metal. Already the kudzu vines are thrusting in, covering the broken shapes with a soft fledging of green. The Pigoons pick their way daintily, avoiding injury to their trotters; the humans have thick footgear. Still, they need to proceed carefully and glance down often.

Toby has anticipated the problems Blackbeard might have on these streets, with their shards and cutting edges. True, his feet have an extra-thick layer of skin on them, and that’s fine for earth and sand and even pebbles; but, as a precaution, Toby has rummaged through the MaddAddamites’ stockpile of gleaned footgear and fitted Blackbeard with a pair of Hermes Trismegistus cross-trainers. At first he was very worried about putting such things on his feet – would they hurt, would they stick to him, would he ever be able to get them off? But Toby showed him how to put them on and then take them off again, and said that if his feet got cut by sharp things he wouldn’t be able to come any farther, and then who would be able to tell them what the Pigoons were thinking? So after several practice sessions he has agreed to wear them. The shoes have appliquéd green wings on them and lights that flash with every step he takes – the batteries haven’t run down yet – and he is now perhaps a little too delighted with them.

He’s up at the front of the main body, listening to the intelligence reports of the Pigoon scouts, if you could call it listening: receiving them, in any case, however he does that. Evidently he hasn’t learned anything yet that’s important enough to pass along. He glances back now and then, keeping track of Zeb, and also of Toby. There’s that jaunty little wave of his hand again, which must mean All is well. Or maybe just I see you, or Here I am, or even, just possibly, Look at my cool shoes! His high, clear singing comes to her on the air in short bursts: the Morse code of Crakerdom.

The Pigoons alongside tilt their heads to look up at their human allies from time to time, but their thoughts can only be guessed. Compared with them, humans on foot must seem like slowpokes. Are they irritated? Solicitous? Impatient? Glad of the artillery support? All of those, no doubt, since they have human brain tissue and can therefore juggle several contradictions at once.

They appear to have assigned three guards to each of the gunbearers. The guards don’t crowd, they don’t herd or dictate, but they keep within a two-yard radius of their charges, their ears swivelling watchfully. The MaddAddamites without sprayguns have one Pigoon each. Jimmy, on the other hand, has five. Are they conscious of his fragility? So far he’s been keeping up, but he’s beginning to sweat.

Toby drops back to check on him. She hands him her water bottle: he seems already to have emptied his own. All eight Pigoons – her three, his five – shift their positions to surround both of them.

“The Great Wall of Pork,” says Jimmy. “The Bacon Brigade. The Hoplites of Ham.”

“Hoplites?” says Toby.

“It was a Greek thing,” says Jimmy. “Citizens’ army type of arrangement. A wall of interlocked shields. I read it in a book.” He’s a little short of breath.

“Maybe it’s an honour guard,” says Toby. “Are you okay?”

“These things make me nervous,” says Jimmy. “How do we know they aren’t leading us astray so they can ambush us and gobble our giblets?”

“We don’t know that,” says Toby. “But I’d say the odds are against it. They’ve already had the opportunity.”

“Occam’s razor,” says Jimmy. He coughs.

“Pardon?” says Toby.

“It was a Crake thing,” says Jimmy sadly. “Given two possibilities, you take the simplest. Crake would have said ‘the most elegant.’ The prick.”

“Who was Occam?” says Toby. Is that a slight limp?

“Some kind of a monk,” says Jimmy. “Or bishop. Or maybe a smart pig. Occ Ham.” He laughs. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

They walk on for a block or two in silence. Then Jimmy says, “Sliding down the razor blade of life.”

“Excuse me?” Toby says. She’d like to feel his forehead. Is he running a temperature?

“It’s an old saying,” says Jimmy. “It means you’re on the edge. Plus, you may get your nuts sliced off.” He’s limping more visibly now.

“Is your foot all right?” Toby asks. No answer: he stumps doggedly onward. “Maybe you should go back,” she says.

“No fucking way,” says Jimmy.

The street ahead is blocked by the rubble from a partially fallen condo. There’s been a fire in it – most likely caused by an electrical short, says Zeb, who has halted the march while the scouts reconnoitre a detour. The smell of burning is still in the air. The Pigoons don’t like it: several of them snort.

Jimmy sits down on the ground.

“What?” says Zeb to Toby.

“His foot again,” says Toby. “Or something.”

“So, we need to send him back to the Spa.”

“He won’t go,” says Toby.

Jimmy’s five Pigoons are snuffling at him, but from a respectful distance. One of them moves forward to sniff his foot. Now two of them nudge him, one on either arm.

“Get away!” says Jimmy. “What do they want?”

“Blackbeard, please,” says Toby, beckoning him over. He huddles with the Pigoons. There’s a silent interchange, followed by a few notes of music.

“Snowman-the-Jimmy must ride,” says Blackbeard. “They say his …” There’s a word Toby can’t decipher, that sounds like a grunt and a rumble. “They say that part of him is strong. In the middle he is strong, but his feet are weak. They will carry him.”

One of the Pigoons steps forward, not the fattest. She lowers herself beside Jimmy.

“They want me to do what?” says Jimmy.

“Please, Oh Snowman-the-Jimmy,” says Blackbeard. “They say you must lie down on the back and hold on to the ears. Two others will go beside you to keep you from falling off.”

“This is dumb,” says Jimmy. “I’ll slide off!”

“That’s your only option,” says Zeb. “Catch a ride, or else you stay here.”

Once Jimmy is in position, Zeb says, “Got any of that rope? It might help a bit.”

Jimmy is tied onto the Pigoon like a parcel, and they all set off once more. “So, its name is Dancer, or Prancer, or what?” says Jimmy. “Think I should pat it?”

“Please, Oh Snowman-the-Jimmy, thank you,” says Blackbeard. “The Pig Ones are telling me that a scratching behind the ears is a good thing.”

When reciting the story in later years, Toby liked to say that the Pigoon carrying Snowman-the-Jimmy flew like the wind. It was the sort of thing that should be said of a fallen comrade-in-arms, and especially one that performed such an important service – a service that resulted, not incidentally, in the saving of Toby’s own life. For if Snowman-the-Jimmy had not been transported by the Pigoon, would Toby be sitting here among them tonight, wearing the red hat and telling them this story? No, she would not. She would be composting under an elderberry bush, and assuming a different form. A very different form indeed, she would think to herself privately.

So, in her story, the Pigoon in question flew like the wind.

The telling was complicated by the fact that Toby could not pronounce the flying Pigoon’s name in any way that resembled the grunt-heavy original. But nobody in the Craker audience seemed to mind, though they laughed at her a little. The children made up a game in which one of them played the heroic Pigoon flying like the wind, wearing a determined expression, and a smaller one played Snowman-the-Jimmy, also with a determined expression, clinging to its back.

Her back. The Pigoons were not objects. She had to get that right. It was only respectful.

At the time, things are somewhat different. The progress of the Jimmy-porting Pigoon is lumpy, and its back is rounded and slippery. Jimmy bumps up and down, and is in danger of sliding off, first on one side, then on the other. When this happens the flanking Pigoons give him a sharp upward nudge with their snouts, under the armpits, which causes him to yell maniacally because it tickles.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t you get him to shut up?” says Zeb. “We might as well be playing the bagpipes.”

“He can’t help it,” says Toby. “It’s a reflex.”

“If I bonk him on the head, that’ll be a reflex too,” says Zeb.

“They probably know we’re coming,” says Toby. “They may have seen the scouts.”

They’re following the lead of the Pigoons, but it’s Jimmy who provides the verbal guidelines. “We’re still in the pleebs,” he says. “I remember this part.” Then: “We’re coming up to No Man’s Land, cleared buffer zone before the Compounds.”

Then: “Main security perimeter coming up.” After a while: “Over there, CryoJeenyus. Next up, Genie-Gnomes. Look at that fucking light-up genie sign! The solar must still be working.”

Then: “Here comes the biggie. The RejoovenEsense Compound.” Crows on the wall: four, no, five. One crow, sorrow, Pilar used to say; more, and they were protectors, or else tricksters, take your choice. Two of the crows lift off, circle overhead, sizing them up.

The Rejoov gates stand open. Inside, dead houses, dead malls, dead labs, dead everything. Tatters of cloth, derelict solarcars.

“Thank God for the pigs,” says Jimmy. “Without them, needle in a haystack. The place is a labyrinth.”

But the Pigoons are sure of the trail. They trot steadily forward, not hesitating. A corner turned, another corner.

“There it is,” says Jimmy. “Up ahead. The gates of Paradice.”