Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam 1)

"Only Snowman can ever see Crake," Abraham Lincoln says mildly. That seems to settle it.

"This will be a longer journey," Snowman says. "Longer than the other journeys. Maybe I won't come back for two days." He holds up two fingers. "Or three," he adds. "So you shouldn't worry. But while I'm away, be sure to stay here in your home, and do everything the way Crake and Oryx have taught you."

A chorus of yesses, much nodding of heads. Snowman doesn't mention the possibility of danger to himself. Perhaps it isn't a thing they ever consider, nor is it a subject he brings up - the more invulnerable they think he is, the better.

"We will come with you," says Abraham Lincoln. Several of the other men look at him, then nod.

"No!" says Snowman, taken aback. "I mean, you can't see Crake, it isn't allowed." He doesn't want them tagging along, absolutely not! He doesn't want them witnessing any weaknesses or failures on his part. Also, some of the sights along the way might be bad for their state of mind. Inevitably they would shower him with questions. In addition to all of which, a day in their company would bore the pants off him.

But you don't have any pants, says a voice in his head - a small voice this time, a sad little child's voice. Joke! Joke! Don't kill me!

Please, not now, thinks Snowman. Not in company. In company, he can't answer back.

"We would come with you to protect you," says Benjamin Franklin, looking at Snowman's long stick. "From the bobkittens that bite, from the wolvogs."

"Your smell is not very strong," adds Napoleon.

Snowman finds this offensively smug. Also it's too euphemistic by half: as they all know, his smell is strong enough, it just isn't the right kind. "I'll be fine," he says. "You stay here."

The men look dubious, but he thinks they'll do as he says. To reinforce his authority he holds his watch up to his ear. "Crake says he'll be watching over you," he says. "To keep you safe." Watch, watching over, says the small child's voice. It's a pun, you cork-nut.

"Crake watches over us in the daytime, and Oryx watches over us at night," Abraham Lincoln says dutifully. He doesn't sound too convinced.

"Crake always watches over us," says Simone de Beauvoir serenely. She's a yellow-brown woman who reminds Snowman of Dolores, his long-lost Philippina nanny; he sometimes has to resist the urge to drop to his knees and throw his arms around her waist.

"He takes good care of us," says Madame Curie. "You must tell him that we are grateful."

Snowman goes back along the Snowman Fish Path. He feels mushy: nothing breaks him up like the generosity of these people, their willingness to be of help. Also their gratitude towards Crake. It's so touching, and so misplaced.

"Crake, you dickhead," he says. He feels like weeping. Then he hears a voice - his own! - saying boohoo; he sees it, as if it's a printed word in a comic-strip balloon. Water leaks down his face.

"Not this again," he says. What's the sensation? It isn't anger exactly; it's vexation. An old word but serviceable. Vexation takes in more than Crake, and indeed why blame Crake alone?

Maybe he's merely envious. Envious yet again. He too would like to be invisible and adored. He too would like to be elsewhere. No hope for that: he's up to his neck in the here and now.

He slows to a shamble, then to a halt. Oh, boohoo! Why can't he control himself? On the other hand, why bother, since nobody's watching? Still, the noise he's making seems to him like the exaggerated howling of a clown - like misery performed for applause.

Stop snivelling, son, says his father's voice. Pull yourself together. You're the man around here.

"Right!" Snowman yells. "What exactly would you suggest? You were such a great example!"

But irony is lost on the trees. He wipes his nose with his stickfree hand and keeps walking.

Blue

~

It's nine in the morning, sun clock, by the time Snowman leaves the Fish Path to turn inland. As soon as he's out of the sea breeze the humidity shoots up, and he attracts a coterie of small green biting flies. He's barefoot - his shoes disintegrated some time ago, and in any case they were too hot and damp - but he doesn't need them now because the soles of his feet are hard as old rubber. Nevertheless he walks cautiously: there might be broken glass, torn metal. Or there might be snakes, or other things that could give him a nasty bite, and he has no weapon apart from the stick.

At first he's walking under trees, formerly parkland. Some distance away he hears the barking cough of a bobkitten. That's the sound they make as a warning: perhaps it's a male, and it's met another male bobkitten. There'll be a fight, with the winner taking all - all the females in the territory - and dispatching their kittens, if he can get away with it, to make room for his own genetic package.

Those things were introduced as a control, once the big green rabbits had become such a prolific and resistant pest. Smaller than bobcats, less aggressive - that was the official story about the bobkittens. They were supposed to eliminate feral cats, thus improving the almost non-existent songbird population. The bobkittens wouldn't bother much about birds, as they would lack the lightness and agility necessary to catch them. Thus went the theory.

All of which came true, except that the bobkittens soon got out of control in their turn. Small dogs went missing from backyards, babies from prams; short joggers were mauled. Not in the Compounds, of course, and rarely in the Modules, but there'd been a lot of grousing from the pleeblanders. He should keep a lookout for tracks, and be careful of overhanging branches: he doesn't like the thought of one of those things landing on his head.

There are always the wolvogs to worry about. But wolvogs are nocturnal hunters: in the heat of the day they tend to sleep, like most things with fur.