Botanicaust

Unwanted memories tore through her, flashes of a past best kept forgotten. Add to that the dizzying effect of the unfiltered UV, and she wasn ’ t sure she ’ d be able to drive the skimmer back.
    She dug through the skimmer ’ s first aid kit for allelopathic suppression pills. The medication compromised the immune system, but helped the body resist chemicals in the bloodstream for a while.
    If only her shameful memories could be so easily suppressed.
    Staring through the windscreen at the blackened area outside, she drew a final breath of air inside the skimmer. As an afterthought, she grabbed the first aid kit before hurrying to get a briefing from the Team Leader.
    “ We landed to check for survivors, and that one there was still gasping. ” He tossed his head toward Bats crouched in the sand near a charred body. “ He thinks he knows her. Says she asked him not to waste her once she dies. You know what that means. ” The Leader glanced at the pink skin of her scar, and Tula flinched. Yes, she was a convert. But she didn ’ t remotely relish the thought of consuming human flesh. Or flesh of any sort, for that matter. But she was used to the insults.
    “ Any survivors? ” She peered inside the duster, hoping there might be more converts out of this catastrophe.
    The leader shook his head.
    Bolstering her senses against the smell of burned hair and skin, she approached Bats where he cradled the upper body of a woman in his lap. He mumbled in Cannibal dialect.
    Tula called to mind his name before Albert nicknamed him Bats. “ Mbato. ”
    He looked up at her with tawny, feral eyes. His pupils were fully dilated, in spite of the blinding sun — a common sign of UV overdose. Sweat beaded his olive green skin. The woman in his arms sucked in a rattling breath and he looked down again.
    “ Mbato, would you like to take her with us? We can have the doctors look at her. ” She knew the woman was too far gone to save, but if she could redirect Mbato ’ s thinking, maybe she could swerve him from reversion.
    “ At least when we killed, we honored the dead. ” He croaked in Haldanian. A good sign.
    Tula nodded. “ We honor the dead in different ways now, remember? ”
    His face twisted into a snarl. “ We don ’ t honor them. ” Spittle flew from his mouth as his eyes lanced fire. “ We slaughter them without any concern for their spirits. We pretend we ’ re cleaning the world and then we leave their bodies to rot in the sun. ”
    A shudder passed through Tula. The boy still believed in spirits. But then, who was she to judge? Sometimes she woke from slumber with the name of a half-remembered god on her lips.
    She dug a water pouch from the first aid kit, twisted off the top and put the opening against the woman ’ s lips. Bats ’ visage eased a little.
    “ Who is she? ”
    Bats - Mbato - stroked what remained of the woman ’ s fire-frazzled hair. “ Zutu. My sister. I never knew she had escaped … the flames. ” He raised his face to look around at the scorched ground. Two more bodies sprawled among the smoldering shrubs.
    “ We can take her with us. Take them all. They can find their final rest within the city graveyard, where you can visit them whenever you like. ” Although the Haldanians didn ’ t officially believe in life after death, they still treated the bodies of their dead with respect. A tiny crematorium at one end of the city maintained a plot of land where families could inter the ashes of their loved ones, if they so wished.
    “ That will honor her spirit? ”
    “ She ’ ll be very content there. ”
    Bats hesitated a moment, then rose and lifted the woman in his arms. Tula breathed a sigh of relief, despite the sick smell in the air.

    “ I wish you ’ d take the pills some of the time. ” Tula pushed Mo away as he drunkenly sought her lips, the resinous scent of UV intoxication wafting from his breath. The privacy screens along the walls of her nuvoplast apartment blocked the final, blinding rays of the desert sunset. She had a headache from the allelopathic suppression pills, the skimmer had quit running just outside the fence, forcing her to walk back, and she hadn ’ t had time to get Nika into gene therapy before the techs went home for the night.
    And then there was Awnia.
    “ I thought you liked the high, baby. ”
    “ Not every day, Mo. ”
    He swayed over to the sofa and sprawled across the cushions in a pout. “ Want to tell me what ’ s really going on?