Botanicaust

shock of yellow hair continued walking. Stumbling. “ Water! ” Tula called. He did not look back.
    “ Tula, what did they do to you? ” Levi ran his hands down her arms, taking stock of her entire body like a parent looking for bumps and bruises.
    She shook her head. “ Too much light. Too many chemicals. ”
    “ But you ’ re okay, now? ”
    She shrugged and nodded. Whatever Dr. Kaneka had put into her system hadn ’ t killed her. Not yet. She had no idea what the long-term repercussions might be. But there was nothing Levi could do, so why worry him?
    Satisfied, he sat back and took another drink. “ They don ’ t come outside. They won ’ t follow us. ”
    “ They have cameras. We ’ re not safe. ” The need to move skittered through her, but her legs wouldn ’ t obey. She watched the boy disappear down a swale and wished him well.
    “ What about them? ” Levi pointed at the remaining converts.
    She closed her eyes, and tears seeped from the corners. She didn ’ t have the words to describe everything in Haldanian, let alone in Levi ’ s tongue. “ They … they were converts . Reversions. I thought they ’ d been euthanized. ”
    “ So … they can ’ t go back? ”
    Tula ’ s eyes flew open. What was going to happen to these converts? What was going to happen to her? She focused on Levi ’ s concerned face. He ’ d invited her to come home with him, but she had the feeling that didn ’ t apply to everyone. “ They have nowhere. ”
    Levi ’ s shoulders slumped. He pressed his mouth into a tight line but remained silent.
    “ They are children. ” She looked at the twins, bones showing where baby fat should be. If she remembered right, they were about eleven or twelve years old, but they looked like little old women. Even their dark hair had lost all shine, cropped close to their gaunt skulls.
    Turning toward the horizon where the plains spread for miles and miles below the mountain, Levi said, “ I need to pray. ” He rose and, trudged down the path toward the edge of the mountain, leaving Tula alone with her fellow converts.

L evi could not find the words to pray. Exhausted from making choices gone wrong, even the amazing vista below him would not come into focus. His intuition had always been a gift from God, but everything he did lately led him into more and more trouble. He ’ d failed to obtain a cure for Josef. He ’ d killed a man. And he ’ d allied with abominations.
    Twisting, he looked at the four Blattvolk. Five, counting Tula. Not one. Five. What was he supposed to do with five abominations? What would he tell his people? I didn ’ t get the forbidden genetic therapy for Josef, but here, I brought home some abominations .
    If he ’ d had any humor left, he would have chuckled. Instead, he stared at the tangle of green skin sprawled over the dusty red path. Tula ’ s once jade limbs had a strange purple undercast. Whatever the Fosselites had done to her, it was a worse atrocity than the Blattvolk conversion. Saving them was not a mistake . But he didn ’ t know where to go from here.
    With each blink, he saw a different picture. Abominations. People. Abominations. People. These … people … needed him. What made them evil in the eyes of God? Tula had proven herself more capable of Christ-like compassion and self-sacrifice than many Old Order. And two of the Blattvolk were barely more than children. How could God condemn children?
    The same way He ’ d condemned Josef. An unfamiliar heat boiled inside Levi, an ugly, helpless rage. His son ’ s fate was sealed. It always had been.
    He faced the skyline, fists clenched at his sides. The plains below rolled in brown and green hills until the hazy horizon swallowed the land. A few fat, white clouds cast shadows on the ground but offered no precipitation. To the north, the dark bank of a thunderhead crouched like a dog after sheep. Like death waiting for Josef. Waiting for them all.
    “ I don ’ t understand. ” Levi grated into the wind. To the rocks. The bio-altered plant life at his feet. Perhaps there was no God. God was a creation of man, not the other way around.
    Guilt washed over him in a flood and brought him to his knees on the unyielding rocky edge. No. He shook his head to clear the blasphemous thought. God had spoken to him. Many times. God wasn ’ t the problem. He bent until his forehead touched the earth, hands clasped before him in supplication. “ Tell me what to do, God. ”
    The only