Botanicaust

good mother.
    Rising from the floor, he held out his hands. “ Let me try? ”
    This caused the woman to clutch the baby tighter and back against the cage, obviously assuming he meant to harm the child.
    Tone deaf himself, Levi hummed a few bars of a common lullaby. The girl showed no recognition. No surprise there. He made a rocking motion with his arms.
    She bounced the squalling baby and glared at him.
    He wondered how often cannibals ate their young.
    Shaking off the awful thought, he sat against the bars and tried not to look at the unclothed woman sharing his cage. The problem was, there wasn ’ t anything else to look at. His stomach rumbled loudly.
    And then the thought occurred to him; maybe he was in Hell already.

    Tula watched the little family on the monitor, fascinated by the dynamics of the couple. Normally, the baby would have been converted and moved to the infant Gardens — without her mother. But this was a rare opportunity to observe a real, live, nuclear family, untainted by the necessity of the protective Gardens. She ’ d stayed up most of the night searching the database for old psych evaluations on nuclear ties, hoping to understand their interactions and apply what she learned with future potential converts.
    The woman paced the cell, jostling the baby as the man watched. They seemed to distrust each other, and yet the huge man obviously wanted to care for the child. Was this normal cannibalistic parental interaction? She seldom dealt with adults, and never adults in a relationship.
    Maybe he just wants to eat the baby.
    She couldn ’ t shake the feeling the man on the monitor didn ’ t belong in the picture. Normally, she didn ’ t bother with the items prisoners had on them when they were captured. All items went to the incinerator, since such things only served to remind converts of a life they needed to forget if they were to properly integrate.
    As she watched the cell monitor, she flipped through the pages of the crude notebook, the paper dry and brittle between her fingers. Had the man made these drawings? The woman in the sketches looked nothing like the woman in the cell, and Tula wondered who she might be. Not even the Fosselites used paper any more, as far as she knew. Had he stolen the book from some ancient treasure trove in the wilderness?
    She watched the screen and skimmed the pages until it was time for the next feeding, then delivered the protein drinks to the prisoners. The children in the front cells scrambled toward her when she entered, begging for sweets.
    “ How are you today, Rhomy? Did you draw something for me? ” She held the treat just out of the girl ’ s reach, waiting for an answer.
    “ Good. I ’ m good. ” Rhomy stretched through the bars as far as she could.
    “ What did you draw? ” Tula pointed to the flat sheet of a child ’ s gamma pad on the floor of the cage. One of her exercises with potential converts was putting Haldanian words to things they drew.
    “ Tula. ” The girl retrieved the gamma pad and showed the crude picture of a green face to her. Rhomy had taken to color quickly, once she had learned to activate the palette, but her fine motor skills were lacking.
    “ You drew me yesterday. What else can you draw? ”
    The girl in the next cage produced her gamma pad as well, and clamored for attention. “ I draw. I draw. Food. I draw food. ”
    Tula stepped over and accepted the gamma pad. The picture clearly depicted a stylized bone with meat on it. She repressed a shudder. Training the carnivore out of the cannibal was not easy. “ Can you draw sunshine? ”
    The child traced a circle in the air and indicated spikes coming off it.
    “ Great! ” Tula handed the girl a sweet.
    Rhomy cried out, “ Me! ”
    “ What else can you draw? ”
    The girl again showed the gamma pad. “ Me! ” It was the same face, and Tula thought a moment.
    “ Is this you? ” The girl might not have many words yet, but if she was already thinking of herself in terms of a convert, she might be ready for the gift of conversion.
    Rhomy nodded, a fierce grin on her face, and held out her hand. Tula handed her a sweet. She ’ d have to spend some time with Rhomy, once she ’ d seen to the family.
    After leaving protein canisters with the children, she continued past the row of empty cages to the cell with the family. The smell of urine emanated from the cage, undoubtedly from the unswaddled baby. She ’ d have to get a cleanup crew in here. Why