the tower blocks in the water, illuminating an unbroken pane here and there, as if a scattering of lamps has been turned on. Several of the buildings once held roof gardens, and now they’re top-heavy with overgrown shrubbery. Hundreds of birds are streaming across the sky towards them, roostward bound. Ibis? Herons? The black ones are cormorants, he knows that for sure. They settle down into the darkening foliage, croaking and squabbling. If he ever needs guano he’ll know where to find it.
Across the clearing to the south comes a rabbit, hopping, listening, pausing to nibble at the grass with its gigantic teeth. It glows in the dusk, a greenish glow filched from the iridicytes of a deep-sea jellyfish in some long-ago experiment. In the half-light the rabbit looks soft and almost translucent, like a piece ofTurkish delight; as if you could suck off its fur like sugar. Even in Snowman’s boyhood there were luminous green rabbits, though they weren’t this big and they hadn’t yet slipped their cages and bred with the wild population, and become a nuisance.
This one has no fear of him, though it fills him with carnivorous desires: he longs to whack it with a rock, tear it apart with his bare hands, then cram it into his mouth, fur and all. But rabbits belong to the Children of Oryx and are sacred to Oryx herself, and it would be a bad idea to offend the women.
It’s his own fault. He must have been stupefied with drink when he was laying down the laws. He should have made rabbits edible, by himself at any rate, but he can’t change that now. He can almost hear Oryx, laughing at him with indulgent, faintly malicious delight.
The Children of Oryx, the Children of Crake. He’d had to think of something. Get your story straight, keep it simple, don’t falter: this used to be the expert advice given by lawyers to criminals in the dock.
Crake made the bones of the Children of Crake out of the coral on the beach, and then he made their flesh out of a mango. But the Children of Oryx hatched out of an egg, a giant egg laid by Oryx herself. Actually she laid two eggs: one full of animals and birds and fish, and the other one full of words. But the egg full of words hatched first, and the Children of Crake had already been created by then, and they’d eaten up all the words because they were hungry, and so there were no words left over when the second egg hatched out. And that is why the animals can’t talk
.
Internal consistency is best. Snowman learned this earlier in his life, when lying had posed more of a challenge for him. Now even when he’s caught in a minor contradiction he can make it stick, because these people trust him. He’s the only one left who’d known Crake face to face, so he can lay claim to the inside track. Above his head flies the invisible banner of Crakedom, of Crakiness, of Crakehood, hallowing all he does.
The first star appears. “Star light, star bright,” he says. Some grade-school teacher. Big-bum Sally.
Now close your eyes right uptight. Tighter! Really tight! There! See the wishing star? Now we will all wish for the thing we want the very, very most of all in the whole wide world. But shhh – don’t tell anyone, or the wish won’t come true!
Snowman screws his eyes shut, pushes his fists into them, clenches his entire face. There’s the wishing star all right: it’s blue. “I wish I may, I wish I might,” he says. “Have the wish I wish tonight.”
Fat chance.
“Oh Snowman, why are you talking to no one?” says a voice. Snowman opens his eyes: three of the older children are standing just out of reach, regarding him with interest. They must have crept up on him in the dusk.
“I’m talking to Crake,” he says.
“But you talk to Crake through your shiny thing! Is it broken?”
Snowman lifts his left arm, holds out his watch. “This is for
listening
to Crake.
Talking
to him is different.”
“Why are you talking to him about stars? What are you telling to Crake, oh
Across the clearing to the south comes a rabbit, hopping, listening, pausing to nibble at the grass with its gigantic teeth. It glows in the dusk, a greenish glow filched from the iridicytes of a deep-sea jellyfish in some long-ago experiment. In the half-light the rabbit looks soft and almost translucent, like a piece ofTurkish delight; as if you could suck off its fur like sugar. Even in Snowman’s boyhood there were luminous green rabbits, though they weren’t this big and they hadn’t yet slipped their cages and bred with the wild population, and become a nuisance.
This one has no fear of him, though it fills him with carnivorous desires: he longs to whack it with a rock, tear it apart with his bare hands, then cram it into his mouth, fur and all. But rabbits belong to the Children of Oryx and are sacred to Oryx herself, and it would be a bad idea to offend the women.
It’s his own fault. He must have been stupefied with drink when he was laying down the laws. He should have made rabbits edible, by himself at any rate, but he can’t change that now. He can almost hear Oryx, laughing at him with indulgent, faintly malicious delight.
The Children of Oryx, the Children of Crake. He’d had to think of something. Get your story straight, keep it simple, don’t falter: this used to be the expert advice given by lawyers to criminals in the dock.
Crake made the bones of the Children of Crake out of the coral on the beach, and then he made their flesh out of a mango. But the Children of Oryx hatched out of an egg, a giant egg laid by Oryx herself. Actually she laid two eggs: one full of animals and birds and fish, and the other one full of words. But the egg full of words hatched first, and the Children of Crake had already been created by then, and they’d eaten up all the words because they were hungry, and so there were no words left over when the second egg hatched out. And that is why the animals can’t talk
.
Internal consistency is best. Snowman learned this earlier in his life, when lying had posed more of a challenge for him. Now even when he’s caught in a minor contradiction he can make it stick, because these people trust him. He’s the only one left who’d known Crake face to face, so he can lay claim to the inside track. Above his head flies the invisible banner of Crakedom, of Crakiness, of Crakehood, hallowing all he does.
The first star appears. “Star light, star bright,” he says. Some grade-school teacher. Big-bum Sally.
Now close your eyes right uptight. Tighter! Really tight! There! See the wishing star? Now we will all wish for the thing we want the very, very most of all in the whole wide world. But shhh – don’t tell anyone, or the wish won’t come true!
Snowman screws his eyes shut, pushes his fists into them, clenches his entire face. There’s the wishing star all right: it’s blue. “I wish I may, I wish I might,” he says. “Have the wish I wish tonight.”
Fat chance.
“Oh Snowman, why are you talking to no one?” says a voice. Snowman opens his eyes: three of the older children are standing just out of reach, regarding him with interest. They must have crept up on him in the dusk.
“I’m talking to Crake,” he says.
“But you talk to Crake through your shiny thing! Is it broken?”
Snowman lifts his left arm, holds out his watch. “This is for
listening
to Crake.
Talking
to him is different.”
“Why are you talking to him about stars? What are you telling to Crake, oh
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