Botanicaust (42 page)

Finally, she had to stop. She sank to the ground at the edge of the road, where a fallen boulder provided a small amount of shade, and bowed her head between her knees. If she
’
d had anything in her stomach, it would be coming up, right now. The young converts collapsed next to her, their hands joined. Levi retrieved a water bottle from his backpack and sucked down a long drink, then offered it to Tula. She sipped, her stomach flipping upside down. Then she offered it to each convert. The twins turned their heads and closed their eyes.

“
Water.
”
She
’
d been speaking Haldanian, but now she used Cannibal. These children had barely been Haldanian long enough to remember their assimilation.

With reluctance, the girls sipped, then slumped into fetal positions, back to back. Two other converts sat with hands around their knees and rocked or lay belly down, clutching the earth. The boy with the shock of yellow hair continued walking. Stumbling.
“
Water!
”
Tula called. He did not look back.

“
Tula, what did they do to you?
”
Levi ran his hands down her arms, taking stock of her entire body like a parent looking for bumps and bruises.

She shook her head.
“
Too much light. Too many chemicals.
”

“
But you
’
re okay, now?
”

She shrugged and nodded. Whatever Dr. Kaneka had put into her system hadn
’
t killed her. Not yet. She had no idea what the long-term repercussions might be. But there was nothing Levi could do, so why worry him?

Satisfied, he sat back and took another drink.
“
They don
’
t come outside. They won
’
t follow us.
”

“
They have cameras. We
’
re not safe.
”
The need to move skittered through her, but her legs wouldn
’
t obey. She watched the boy disappear down a swale and wished him well.

“
What about them?
”
Levi pointed at the remaining converts.

She closed her eyes, and tears seeped from the corners. She didn
’
t have the words to describe everything in Haldanian, let alone in Levi
’
s tongue.
“
They
…
they were
converts
. Reversions. I thought they
’
d been euthanized.
”

“
So
…
they can
’
t go back?
”

Tula
’
s eyes flew open. What was going to happen to these converts? What was going to happen to her? She focused on Levi
’
s concerned face. He
’
d invited her to come home with him, but she had the feeling that didn
’
t apply to everyone.
“
They have nowhere.
”

Levi
’
s shoulders slumped. He pressed his mouth into a tight line but remained silent.

“
They are children.
”
She looked at the twins, bones showing where baby fat should be. If she remembered right, they were about eleven or twelve years old, but they looked like little old women. Even their dark hair had lost all shine, cropped close to their gaunt skulls.

Turning toward the horizon where the plains spread for miles and miles below the mountain, Levi said,
“
I need to pray.
”
He rose and, trudged down the path toward the edge of the mountain, leaving Tula alone with her fellow converts.

L
evi could not find the words to pray. Exhausted from making choices gone wrong, even the amazing vista below him would not come into focus. His intuition had always been a gift from God, but everything he did lately led him into more and more trouble. He
’
d failed to obtain a cure for Josef. He
’
d killed a man. And he
’
d allied with abominations.

Twisting, he looked at the four Blattvolk.
Five, counting Tula.
Not one. Five. What was he supposed to do with five abominations? What would he tell his people?
I didn
’
t get the forbidden genetic therapy for Josef, but here, I brought home some abominations
.

If he
’
d had any humor left, he would have chuckled. Instead, he stared at the tangle of green skin sprawled over the dusty red path. Tula
’
s once jade limbs had a strange purple undercast. Whatever the Fosselites had done to her, it was a worse atrocity than the Blattvolk conversion.
Saving them was not a mistake
. But he didn
’
t know where to go from here.

With each blink, he saw a different picture. Abominations. People. Abominations. People. These
…
people
…
needed him. What made them evil in the eyes of God? Tula had proven herself more capable of Christ-like compassion and self-sacrifice than
many
Old Order. And two of the Blattvolk
were
barely more than children. How could God condemn children?

The same way He
’
d condemned Josef. An unfamiliar heat boiled inside Levi, an ugly, helpless rage. His son
’
s fate was sealed. It always had been.

He faced the skyline, fists clenched at his sides. The plains below rolled in brown and green hills until the hazy horizon swallowed the land. A few fat, white clouds cast shadows on the ground but offered no precipitation. To the north, the dark bank of a thunderhead crouched like a dog after sheep. Like death waiting for Josef. Waiting for them all.

“
I don
’
t understand.
”
Levi grated into the wind.
To the rocks.
The bio-altered plant life at his feet. Perhaps there was no God. God was a creation of man, not the other way around.

Guilt washed over him in a flood and brought him to his knees on the unyielding rocky edge. No. He shook his head to clear the blasphemous thought. God had spoken to him. Many times. God wasn
’
t the problem. He bent until his forehead touched the earth, hands clasped before him in supplication.
“
Tell me what to do, God.
”

The only answer was the wind.

At a switchback in the road, they decided to set up camp. Tula sagged next to an ancient pipe jutting from the rock where some long ago builder had diverted a spring. Multi-colored spots swam before her eyes as she watched the fresh,
cold water
splash into a gully and cut down the mountain. The sun had fallen behind the peaks in the west, but the cool evening breeze couldn
’
t relieve the heat racing through her skin.

She lowered her head beneath the stream and allowed the water to sluice down her hair and spine. Symbiotic fungi, Dr. Kaneka had said. Experimental. The technology would be groundbreaking. It could possibly allow her to live without the protection of nuvoplast UV screens.
If the fungi didn
’
t kill her first.

The other converts seemed to be recuperating. The second man had disappeared earlier this afternoon, and Tula knew Greta would leave them, too, if not for the bullet hole in her leg. The twins stayed close, possibly remembering Tula from their conversion. She tried to remember their names, but couldn
’
t. They
’
d remained silent during the walk, but now they mumbled to each other behind their hands.
“
It
’
s all right,
”
Tula reassured them.
“
You
’
re free now.
”

Where would they go? Although he continued to keep the group moving, Levi had remained silent on the issue. With the adult converts going their own ways, it might be of less concern than he imagined. She let her gaze travel to where he stood at the downward edge of the bend in the road, looking out over the plains. The bulging backpack rested at his feet, and the green,
form-fitting
, Fosselite clothing parodied the skin of the rest of the group.

Tula approached him from behind, scuffing her bare, abraded feet to alert him. He didn
’
t turn or acknowledge her. The wind skittered leaves and dust over her toes. He bent and reached into the backpack, removing the palm-sized box Dr. Kaneka had given him. After staring at the object briefly, Levi hooked his arm back and hurled the beacon over the edge of the mountain. In the orange reflection of the setting sun, the box sailed straight out toward the plains,
then
plummeted to the red rocks far below, exploding into a hundred pieces.

His hope for Josef.
Gone.

She wanted to comfort him. But there was no comfort. She wished she believed in his God so she could offer the platitudes of his religion. The little song she often sang to herself came to her mind, but her vocal cords were too tight to emit a sound. It wouldn
’
t mean anything to him, anyway. After a long period of silence, she turned to leave him alone, but he reached out an arm and pulled her against him to rest his chin on her head.

In spite of her exhaustion, of the nearly unbearable heat in her skin, the sadness in him overwhelmed her.
“
My heart hurts,
”
she said against his chest, not knowing the word for sad.

He only nodded against her hair and squeezed her tighter.

A strange repetitive sound made Levi
’
s eyes spring open to darkness. Clouds had rolled in with the sunset, obliterating any light from the stars and moon. The evening breeze had grown into a nighttime howl, forcing the travelers to hunker in the lee of some rocks and shrubs near the spring. But the sound of branches rattling was not what had awakened him.