The Lord of Opium

26

THE BRAT ENCLOSURE

In the kitchen, cooks were busily processing food—mostly vegetables—and servers were laying out banana leaves for plates. Groups of men and women drifted in, seated themselves, and were given rice and stew.

“I think we should wait until we get back to the hovercraft to eat,” said Cienfuegos, putting Listen onto the ground. “Everything is balanced in this place. I don’t know if they have enough food for visitors.”

“I wouldn’t touch that crap, anyway,” said Listen.

The stew consisted of grasshoppers and caterpillars in a thick gluey sauce with chopped-up carrots and onions. The diners ate with gusto, using their fingers. They could have as many helpings as they liked by raising a hand. A server would hurry over and refill the banana leaf.

Matt watched them. “Excuse me,” he began, uncertain how to open a conversation. The diners ignored him. “Excuse me,” he repeated. “Where are the children?” It bothered him that the only child he’d seen was Listen.

A woman looked up. “You must be newly emerged from Dormancy. Everyone knows they’re in the Brat Enclosure.” She gestured at a door.

“Those Dormancy graduates,” a man said, shaking his head. “Their brains don’t wake up for weeks.”

“Do children ever leave the Brat Enclosure?” asked Matt.

“Not if I can help it.” The woman laughed. The others seemed to enjoy the joke too.

“We take turns watching them,” the man explained. “It’s tiring to chase after prehumans, and we prefer to keep them corralled.”

“I’m a visitor from outside and don’t know anything,” said Matt. “Please tell me what you mean by Dormancy.”

“He’s dreaming. Nobody lives Outside,” someone remarked.

“Poor bobo. He must be from one of the outer ecosystems, perhaps Tundra,” said the woman. “I’ve heard they’re not too bright.”

“For shame! They’re all Gaia’s children,” scolded another woman.

“All Gaia’s children are blessed,” murmured the others, as though this were a ritual response. The men and women went back to feeding.

“The job of immatures is to play and to learn to love Gaia,” said a man, taking pity on Matt’s ignorance. “They don’t work. But when they reach the age of fourteen, they are put into a dormant phase for a year or so, and knowledge of the tasks they must perform as adults is fed into their brains. It’s very intense, and Dormants take a while to recover from it. You probably went through it recently, and that’s why you can’t think straight. Don’t worry. You’ll get better soon. Everyone does before the first mating season.”

“I remember those days,” said an older man. He wiped thick, bug-infested gravy off his chin with a finger and licked off the results. “I was allowed to produce three offspring because Gaia took the first one to Herself. I always wondered which ones were mine when I tended the Brat Herd—not that it mattered. All were children of Gaia.”

“All Gaia’s children are blessed,” murmured the group. They started a discussion of past mating seasons. Matt was aware of Cienfuegos watching him with a wicked smile.

“I only wanted to find out about the children,” he protested.

“Me too,” cried Listen, and before anyone could stop her, she ran over and threw open the door. A din of high-pitched voices, shouts, and laughter poured out. Beyond was a vast space filled with gentle hills and reed-shadowed pools. Flowering bushes surrounded perfect lawns, where children of all sizes, from toddlers to the early teens, engaged in every sort of activity. Babies were being rocked in cradles by adult caretakers. Children of Listen’s age were making mud pies. Older ones observed animals and plants under the watchful gaze of teachers. Still others played games or splashed in pools or climbed trees. They shrieked for the pure joy of shrieking.

Adults in white tunics gravely comforted those who had fallen down or who’d been upset. Some of the smaller children were asleep in beds lined up under trees. Matt felt a lump in his throat. So many! All perfect, with no deadness in their eyes. They were loved. They were wanted. They were happy.

“Where did you come from?” said a caretaker from the Enclosure, sweeping Listen up in his arms. “You’re too little to be running around by yourself.”

She screamed, and Cienfuegos reacted instantly, snatching the little girl from the man’s grasp. “She’s a visitor. She’s from Outside. We’re leaving now.” He slammed the door in the face of the startled caretaker and said, “Come along, you little prehumans. We have a hovercraft to catch.”

* * *

Leaving was far easier than coming in. A shuttle cart from Exit took them to the room where their clothes were. After changing, a door opened and they found themselves outside, next to the holoport. “¡Vete!” shouted Cienfuegos, scaring off a coyote that was sniffing around the door of the hovercraft. “You’d like some owl tacos, wouldn’t you?” He hurled a stone after the fleeing animal.

The jefe produced bottles of water and sandwiches for all of them. Listen was so tired, she started crying. Cienfuegos unrolled a foam mattress in front of the owl cages and told her to lie down. “I forgot how short your legs are, chiquita. I’m not used to little kids.”

“Y-you rescued me.” She sniffled. “That man was going to lock me up in the Brat Enclosure, and I’d never see Mbongeni again.” She broke into loud sobs exactly like her night terrors that had awakened Matt.

“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” he said, his hand trembling over the distraught girl as though she were a flame he dared not touch. “Oh, damn all microchips! Damn everything!” Cienfuegos hurled himself from the hovercraft and disappeared among the mesquite trees. It was so sudden and unexpected that Listen was stopped in mid-howl. She stared at the empty door, still shaking.

Matt scooted over and held her as he’d seen the adults hold unhappy children in the Brat Enclosure. “It’s all right,” he said, rocking her back and forth. “People like Cienfuegos are warriors, muy feroz. They don’t know how to be gentle. He’s like the coyote, always running, and sometimes he bites. But trust me, he’s not angry at you.” He’s angry at the microchip in his brain, Matt thought. Something about Listen upset him. I wonder what it was.

The little girl sucked her thumb and watched the door. Eventually she stretched out on the mattress and fell asleep.

Cienfuegos didn’t return, and Matt worried about what to do. He couldn’t fly such a complicated hovercraft. He checked the water in the owl cages, and they fluffed their feathers at him. He pulled the door closed. Who knew what was lurking outside? When Listen woke up, he told her one of Celia’s stories about how Noah put all the animals in a boat and saved them from a flood.

“How big was this boat?” Listen asked suspiciously.

“Very big,” Matt said. “Shut up and pay attention.” He continued with the tale, explaining that only two of each kind could go. All the rest drowned.

“Is that what happened to the dinosaurs?” said the little girl.

“Yes. Noah couldn’t fit the dinosaurs in. They swam and swam, but eventually they got tired and sank,” Matt said, improvising. He hadn’t heard the story for years and was surprised at how good it made him feel. He remembered Celia’s serious face in the lamplight next to his bed, where he lay with his stuffed toys. Noah sent out a crow to see if there was any dry land around, said Celia. You know how selfish crows are. They don’t care about anyone but themselves, so this one found a cornfield and stayed there. She didn’t like crows because they raided the garden behind the house.

“When the crow didn’t return, Noah sent out a dove,” said Matt now.

“Was it a white-winged dove?” Listen asked, and after a second added, “Zenaida asiatica.”

He remembered that she’d been stuffed full of facts by Dr. Rivas. “It didn’t have a scientific name,” he said. “It was a lady dove called Blanca Luz, and her husband was called El Guapo. They had a nest with six baby chicks.”

“I don’t believe that,” the little girl said.

“How do you know? You weren’t there.” Matt finished the story, and Listen announced that she was hungry. He searched and found two more sandwiches, which he divided between Listen and Mirasol. They had enough water for several days, but no more food. He told Mirasol to curl up on the foam mattress with Listen, and he kept watch from the pilot’s chair. What he would do if a lion got inside he couldn’t imagine.

As often happened in the desert, the temperature dropped forty degrees after dark. Matt searched farther and found thermal blankets he used to cover the girls and the owls. The birds began a mournful hooting. Their feet scratched the bottom of the cages, while outside an excited bark told Matt that the coyote was back. He could hear the beast scuffling around the edge of the door.

Tomorrow I’ll have to turn the owls loose, he thought. I’ll take Mirasol and Listen back to the biosphere. Except that he didn’t know the combination for opening the door. Could he bang on the walls? Would the inhabitants even notice?

He heard a thump and a yelp from outside. “¡Maldito sea! I’ll kick you so hard you’ll spit out shoelaces,” swore Cienfuegos. The man threw open the door. “Why didn’t you turn on the outside light? I couldn’t see anything in the dark.”

Matt was so relieved he didn’t take offense. “I didn’t know how.”

“Tomorrow I’ll teach you. You might as well learn to fly, too. ¡Bueno! You looked after the girls and the livestock, and I see you were standing guard like a real man. Move over. I’ll do the driving.”

Matt happily vacated the seat. You were standing guard like a real man played over and over in his head like a piece of music. He’d done the right thing. He was worthy to be patrón. He smiled into the darkness as the hovercraft took off and didn’t worry that Cienfuegos said not another word until they arrived in Ajo.