From The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook

When I wake up, Toby’s already sitting in her hammock doing some arm stretches. She smiles at me: she’s smiling more lately. Maybe she does it now to encourage me. “What day is today?” she says.

I think for a moment. “Saint Terry, Saint Sojourner,” I say. “All Wayfarers.”

Toby nods. “We should do a short Meditation,” she says. “The path our feet will travel on today will be a dangerous one; we’ll need inner peace.”

When any of the Adams or the Eves tells you to do a Meditation, you don’t say no. Toby climbs out of her hammock, and I stand watch in case of surprises while she goes into the Lotus: she’s quite flexible for someone her age. But when it’s my turn, although I bend myself into the shape just like rubber, I can’t do the Meditation properly. I can’t manage the first three parts: the Apology, the Gratitude, the Forgiveness – and especially not the Forgiveness, because I don’t know who I need to forgive. Adam One would say I’m too fearful and angry.

So I think about Amanda, and everything she did for me, and how I never did anything for her. Instead I allowed myself to feel jealous of her about Jimmy, though Jimmy was in no way her fault. Which wasn’t fair. I have to find her, and get her away from whatever may be happening to her. Though maybe she’s already hanging in a tree with parts of her cut out, like Oates.

But I don’t want to picture that, so instead I imagine myself walking towards her because that’s what I’ll have to do.

It is not only the body that travels, Adam One used to say, it is also the Soul. And the end of one journey is the beginning of another.

“I’m ready now,” I say to Toby.

We eat some of the dried Mo’Hair meat and drink some water, and cache the hammocks under a bush so we won’t have to carry them. We should take the packsacks, though, says Toby, with the food and stuff. Then we look around to make sure we haven’t left any obvious traces of ourselves. Toby checks the rifle. “I’ll only need two bullets,” she says.

“If you don’t miss,” I say. One for each Painballer: I picture the bullets moving through the air, straight into – what? An eye? A heart? It makes me flinch.

“I can’t afford to miss,” she says. “They’ve got a spraygun.”

Then we rejoin the pathway and continue on in the direction of the sea, towards where I heard the voices coming from in the night.

After a while we hear those voices, but they aren’t singing, just talking. There’s the smell of smoke – a wood fire – and children laughing. It’s Glenn’s made-on-purpose people. It has to be.

“Walk slowly,” she says in a low voice. “The same rules as for animals. Stay very calm. If we have to leave, back away. Don’t turn and run.”

I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it isn’t what I see. There’s a clearing, and in the clearing there’s a fire, and around the fire there are people, maybe thirty of them. They’re all different colours – black, brown, yellow, and white – but not one of them is old. And not one of them has any clothes on.

A nudist camp, I think. But that’s only a joke I make to myself. They’re too good-looking – way too perfect. They look like ads for the AnooYoo Spas. Bimplants and totally waxed – no body hair at all. Resurfaced. Airbrushed.

Sometimes you can’t believe in a thing until you actually see it, and these people are like that. I didn’t quite believe that Glenn had really done it; I didn’t believe what Croze told me, even though he’d actually seen these people. But now here they are, right in front of me. It’s like seeing unicorns. I want to hear them purr.

When they spot us – first one of the children, then a woman, then all of them – they stop whatever they’re doing and turn to stare at us, all together. They don’t look frightened or threatening: they look interested but placid. It’s like being stared at by the Mo’Hairs, and they’re chewing like the Mo’Hairs as well. Whatever they’re eating is green: a couple of the kids are amazed enough by us that they keep their mouths open.

“Hello,” says Toby. To me she says, “Stay here.” She steps forward. One of the men stands up – he’d been squatting beside the fire – and moves out in front of the rest.

“Greetings,” he says. “Are you a friend of Snowman?”

I can hear Toby pondering her choices: Who is Snowman? If she answers yes, will they think she’s an enemy? What if she answers no?

“Is Snowman good?” says Toby.

“Yes,” the man says. He’s taller than the others, and seems to be their spokesman. “Snowman is very good. He is our friend.” The rest nod, still chewing.

“Then we are his friends too,” says Toby. “And we are your friends as well.”

“You are like him,” says the man. “You have an extra skin, like his. But you have no feathers. Do you live in a tree?”

“Feathers?” says Toby. “On his extra skin?”

“No, on his face,” says the man. “Another came, like Snowman. With feathers. And one with him, who had short feathers. And a woman who smelled blue but did not act blue. Perhaps the woman with you is like that?”

Toby nods as if she understands all of this. Maybe she does. I can’t ever tell exactly what she understands.

“She smells blue,” says another man. “That woman with you.” All the men are now sniffing in my direction, as if I’m a flower or maybe a cheese. A number of them have sprouted huge blue erections. Croze warned me about this, but I’ve never seen anything like it, even at Scales, where some of the clients went in for body paint and extenders. Several of these men are giving out a strange humming sound, like the kind you make by rubbing your finger around the rim of a crystal glass.

“But the other woman that came was frightened when we sang to her and offered her flowers, and signalled to her with our penises,” says the chief one.

“Yes. The two men were frightened also. They ran away.”

“How tall was she?” says Toby. “The woman. Taller than this one?” She points to me.

“Yes. Taller. She was not well. Also she was sad. We would have purred over her and made her better. Then we could have mated with her.”

It must be Amanda, I think. So she’s still alive, they haven’t killed her yet. Hurry up! I want to shout. But Toby’s not going anywhere yet.

“We wished her to choose which four of us she would copulate with,” says the main one. “Perhaps the woman with you will choose. She smells very blue!” At this, the men all smile – they have brilliantly white teeth – and their penises point at me and wag from side to side like the tails of happy dogs.

Four? All at once? I don’t want Toby to shoot any of these men – they seem so gentle, and they’re very good-looking – but also I don’t want those bright-blue penises anywhere near me.

“My friend isn’t really blue,” says Toby. “It’s just her extra skin. It was given to her by a blue person. That’s why she smells blue. Where did they go? These two men and the woman?”

“They went along the shore,” says the main one. “And then, this morning, Snowman went to find them.”

“We could look under her extra skin and see how blue she is.”

“Snowman has a hurt foot. We purred over it, but it needs more purring.”

“If Snowman was here, he would find out about the blue. He would tell us how we should act.”

“Blue should not be wasted. It is a gift from Crake.”

“We wanted to go with him. But he told us to stay here.”

“Snowman knows,” says one of the women. So far the women have been taking no part in the conversation, but now they all nod and smile.

“We must go now and help Snowman,” says Toby. “He is our friend.”