Oryx and Crake

But any would do, thinks Snowman as the rain runs down his face. They are all time present, because they are all here with me now.

Oh Jimmy, this is so positive. It makes me happy when you grasp this. Paradice is lost, but you have a Paradice within you, happier far. Then that silvery laugh, right in his ear.

Jimmy hadn’t spotted Oryx right away, though he must have seen her that first afternoon when he was peering through the one-way mirror. Like the Crakers she had no clothes on, and like the Crakers she was beautiful, so from a distance she didn’t stand out. She wore her long dark hair without ornament, her back was turned, she was surrounded by a group of other people; just part of the scene.

A few days later, when Crake was showing him how to work the monitor screens that picked up images from the hidden minicams among the trees, Jimmy saw her face. She turned into the camera and there it was again, that look, that stare, the stare that went right into him and saw him as he truly was. The only thing that was different about her was her eyes, which were the same luminescent green as the eyes of the Crakers.

Gazing into those eyes, Jimmy had a moment of pure bliss, pure terror, because now she was no longer a picture—no longer merely an image, residing in secrecy and darkness in the flat printout currently stashed between his mattress and the third cross-slat of his new Rejoov-suite bed. Suddenly she was real, three-dimensional. He felt he’d dreamed her. How could a person be caught that way, in an instant, by a glance, the lift of an eyebrow, the curve of an arm? But he was.

“Who’s that?” he asked Crake. She was carrying a young rakunk, holding out the small animal to those around; the others were touching it gently. “She’s not one of them. What’s she doing in there?”

“She’s their teacher,” said Crake. “We needed a go-between, someone who could communicate on their level. Simple concepts, no metaphysics.”

“What’s she teaching?” Jimmy said this indifferently: bad plan for him to show too much interest in any woman, in the presence of Crake: oblique mockery would follow.

“Botany and zoology,” said Crake with a grin. “In other words, what not to eat and what could bite. And what not to hurt,” he added.

“For that she has to be naked?”

“They’ve never seen clothes. Clothes would only confuse them.”

The lessons Oryx taught were short: one thing at a time was best, said Crake. The Paradice models weren’t stupid, but they were starting more or less from scratch, so they liked repetition. Another staff member, some specialist in the field, would go over the day’s item with Oryx—the leaf, insect, mammal, or reptile she was about to explain. Then she’d spray herself with a citrus-derived chemical compound to disguise her human pheromones—unless she did that there could be trouble, as the men would smell her and think it was time to mate. When she was ready, she’d slip through a reconforming doorway concealed behind dense foliage. That way she could appear and disappear in the homeland of the Crakers without raising awkward questions in their minds.

“They trust her,” said Crake. “She has a great ma

Jimmy’s heart sank. Crake was in love, for the first time ever. It wasn’t just the praise, rare enough. It was the tone of voice.

“Where’d you find her?” he asked.

“I’ve known her for a while. Ever since post-grad at Watson-Crick.”

“She was studying there?” If so, thought Jimmy, what?

“Not exactly,” said Crake. “I encountered her through Student Services.”

“You were the student, she was the service?” said Jimmy, trying to keep it light.

“Exactly. I told them what I was looking for—you could be very specific there, take them a picture or a video stimulation, stuff like that, and they’d do their best to match you up. What I wanted was something that looked like—do you remember that Web show?…”

“What Web show?”

“I gave you a printout. From HottTotts—you know.”

“Rings no bells,” said Jimmy.

“That show we used to watch. Remember?”

“I guess,” said Jimmy. “Sort of.”

“I used the girl for my Extinctathon gateway. That one.”

“Oh, right,” said Jimmy. “Each to his own. You wanted the sex-kiddie look?”

“Not that she was underage, the one they came up with.”

“Of course not.”

“Then I made private arrangements. You weren’t supposed to, but we all bent the rules a little.”

“Rules are there to be bent,” said Jimmy. He was feeling worse and worse.

“Then, when I came here to head up this place, I was able to offer her a more official position. She was delighted to accept. It was triple the pay she’d been getting, with a lot of perks; but also she said the work intrigued her. I have to say she’s a devoted employee.” Crake gave a smug little smile, an alpha smile, and Jimmy wanted to smash him.

“Great,” he said. Knives were going through him. No sooner found than lost again. Crake was his best friend. Revision: his only friend. He wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on her. How could he?

They waited for Oryx to come out of the shower room, where she was removing her protective spray, and, Crake added, her luminous-green gel contact lenses: the Crakers would have found her brown eyes off-putting. She emerged finally, her hair braided now and still damp, and was introduced, and shook Jimmy’s hand with her own small hand. (I touched her, thought Jimmy like a ten-year-old. I actually touched her!)

She had clothes on now, she was wearing the standard-issue lab outfit, the jacket and trousers. On her it looked like lounge pyjamas. Clipped to the pocket was her name tag: ORYX BEISA. She’d chosen it herself from the list provided by Crake. She liked the idea of being a gentle water-conserving East African herbivore, but had been less pleased when told the animal she’d picked was extinct. Crake had needed to explain that this was the way things were done in Paradice.

The three of them had coffee in the Paradice staff cafeteria. The talk was of the Crakers—this is what Oryx called them—and of how they were doing. It was the same every day, said Oryx. They were always quietly content. They knew how to make fire now. They’d liked the rakunk. She found them very relaxing to spend time with.

“Do they ever ask where they came from?” said Jimmy. “What they’re doing here?” At that moment he couldn’t have cared less, but he wanted to join the conversation so he could to look at Oryx without being obvious.

“You don’t get it,” said Crake, in his you-are-a-moron voice. “That stuff’s been edited out.”

“Well, actually, they did ask,” said Oryx. “Today they asked who made them.”

“And?”

“And I told them the truth. I said it was Crake.” An admiring smile at Crake: Jimmy could have done without that. “I told them he was very clever and good.”

“Did they ask who this Crake was?” said Crake. “Did they want to see him?”

“They didn’t seem interested.”

Night and day Jimmy was in torment. He wanted to touch Oryx, worship her, open her up like a beautifully wrapped package, even though he suspected that there was something—some harmful snake or homemade bomb or lethal powder—concealed within. Not within her, of course. Within the situation. She was off limits, he told himself, again and again.

He behaved as honourably as he could: he showed no interest in her, or he tried to show none. He took to visiting the pleeblands, paying for girls in bars. Girls with frills, with spangles, with lace, whatever was on offer. He’d shoot himself up with Crake’s quicktime vaccine, and he had his own Corps bodyguard now, so it was quite safe. The first couple of times it was a thrill; then it was a distraction; then it was merely a habit. None of it was an antidote to Oryx.