Botanicaust

she hiccoughed and met his gaze. This time he was struck by the humanity in her pale blue eyes. “ Tula, ” she repeated.
    She searched his eyes, and he knew what she wanted. It was such a small thing, really. Taking a sharp breath, he said, “ Levi. ”
    “ Levi. ” A smile rivaling a clear sunrise broke out on her face.
    He hoped he hadn ’ t just let in the devil.
    But Tula ’ s face was not one of temptation or evil or atrocity. Her skin might be green, but her eyes were human, and she needed compassion. Awnia had been taken away, and this woman seemed as upset about it as Levi was.
    “ Are they going to kill her? ”
    She seemed to understand the question, because she nodded. Pulling a hand from beneath his, she wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve, then put her palm over his knuckles and beseeched him with her grief-reddened eyes. Her words sounded so much like “ must eat, ” that when she indicated his untouched canister he understood.
    Now that he had talked to her, he ’ d opened a whole range of action he ’ d sworn not to take. But eating the food here had not changed Awnia. It had not sealed her damnation. And if he had any hope of convincing this woman to let him go, he had to maintain his strength.
    In a moment of divine intuition, he felt God might want him to survive.
    At Tula ’ s urging, he swallowed the tepid fluid in the canister and grimaced. His body recognized it as food, but his mouth protested every drop passing over his tongue. She made a face and nodded as if she agreed about the taste. Then she pulled a closed fist out of her pocket.
    “ Dessert, ” she said, holding out her hand. On her palm was a clear nougat the size of his thumbnail.
    The bland drink he ’ d swallowed churned in his gut. Was this the agent to change him forever? She called it dessert, the finish to a meal. Would it also be the end of him?
    He searched her eyes again, and detected no guile there. His insides calmed, and he knew she meant no harm. To get out of here, he was going to have to trust her. And convince her to trust him.
    Taking the nougat between thumb and forefinger he sniffed it before touching a tentative tongue to the surface. Sweet. It was indeed dessert. “ Thank you. ” He put the lozenge into his mouth and allowed the sugars to dissolve. The candy tasted like hope.

    Tula enjoyed a few minutes beneath the circle of fiber optic sunlight in her office while she updated her patient files. She ’ d had far too little photosynthesis, not to mention sleep, over the last few days, but she didn ’ t mind the exhaustion as long as she kept her converts on track.
    Rhomy and Nika were settled together in Albert ’ s classroom. She didn ’ t usually place new converts together, but Albert was the only one Tula trusted with such delicate cases. He wasn ’ t happy about having three new converts to deal with at once, but she played his continuing crush to get him to agree.
    She had to transfer Jobie to a different classroom, anyway. After an altercation with another boy, the rest of the children would no longer include him in their social activities. Violence would not be tolerated among converts. In her report, she glossed over the incident and filed a transfer request stating age difference as the reason for the change.
    And then there was Levi.
    Something about him drew her thoughts, even when she wasn ’ t with him. His language fascinated her, familiar in some words, but so different in others. And his mind was quick, not like the other Outsiders. He grasped the use of the gamma pad immediately, and had even jotted down words sharing an alphabet with Haldanian. She doubted he was a cannibal and wondered if there were more out there like him.
    But when she pulled up the portraits from his paper notebook on the gamma pad, he shut down and refused to talk.
    Today she had a video to teach him the words for different movements. Running, walking, bending. He was progressing quickly, but with only three days left to obtain Verification of Consent, she ’ d petitioned the Board for an extension. She hoped the language barrier would be enough to gain her a few more days to work with him, and had slipped in a referral to her own mistake assuming he was with Awnia as taking away time that could have been used for his conversion.
    She hummed while filling two protein canisters, one for herself and one for her remaining prisoner. She ’ d taken to sharing breakfast with him in his cell. Mo