The Lord of Opium(132)
And Matt saw the rocks that surrounded the old miner’s cabin and collapsed grapevine. They were some distance away, on three sides with the fourth side opening onto the small lake. In the middle, next to the water, was the campsite where he and Tam Lin had toasted hot dogs.
Now he saw what Listen was talking about. The color and texture were strange. He walked to the nearest one and scratched it with his pocketknife. It was very hard, but a few brown flakes came loose. “This looks like some kind of metal ore,” he said.
“Dr. Rivas had a box that looked like that,” said Listen. “He put an eejit inside. He was trying to block out something, but he wouldn’t tell me what.”
Matt remembered asking Tam Lin why they could sleep so soundly at the oasis with mosquitoes whining in their ears and the hard earth underneath. ’Tis not bodily comfort we need, Tam Lin had replied, but the mind at ease. Something about the rocks holds back the cares of the world. This is the only place in Opium I’ve felt free.
Of course. The metal ore blocked the energy from the Scorpion Star. “What happened to the eejit?” he asked.
“He was okay as long as he was inside, but he went rogue the minute he got out. Dr. Rivas tried it about a hundred times.” Listen yawned and lay down on the sand next to the water.
* * *
That left only the Bug to deal with. If El Bicho had learned anything from being treated kindly—gratitude, for example—no one saw evidence of it. He was as vicious and demanding as ever. Finally, after consulting everyone, Matt asked permission to install the child in the Brat Enclosure. “My opinion, which you won’t listen to, is that we put him to sleep like the rabid coyote he is,” said Cienfuegos.
“I thought you didn’t have homicidal impulses anymore,” said Matt.
“A few may have been overlooked,” admitted the jefe.
“We’ve had bichos like him before,” said the Mushroom Master. “We treat them with love, and if that doesn’t work, we give them an extra-long Dormancy to be sure they don’t do harm when they wake up.”
As for El Bicho, he approached the Brat Enclosure with suspicion. He found the peaceful groups of children threatening, and he immediately destroyed a sand castle they had built. The children only looked at him and began building another. “Do you remember the Scorpion Star?” Matt asked him. “This is its original. When you grow up, you’ll join the scientists. You’ll be one of them and never be lonely again.”
The Bug looked at Matt as though he were a rat dropping. But he went willingly into the enclosure, and the last they saw of him, he was squatting by a pool with other children, feeding giant carp with rice balls. “Do you know,” said Matt, “his hand has started to grow back. It’s like he’s a frog or something.”
“Then he’ll fit right in here,” the Mushroom Master said tranquilly. “We admire frogs.”
* * *
One moonlit night Matt flew María over the sand dunes west of Yuma. They passed the ruins of the old city, a sketchwork of deserted houses and dry fields. To the south was the glow of San Luis on the border of Aztlán, and when they went close to the ground, María gasped. “Those are bones! There are skeletons down there!”
“Cienfuegos told me about this,” said Matt. “They’re only visible under the full moon, and sometimes they’re hidden by shifting sand. Those are the bones of Illegals who tried to cross over.”
“So many,” said María.
“They’ve had a hundred years to accumulate. It’s extremely hot and dry here. El Patrón didn’t bother to send out the Farm Patrol.”
“But why didn’t their own governments stop them?”
Matt looked out over the thousands and thousands of skeletons strewn like a ghost army over the earth. “These were surplus people. They had few skills that Aztlán and the United States wanted. The governments were glad to get rid of them.”
“This must never happen again,” said María, with a firmness that reminded Matt of her mother.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “I have to fix the border so that other people can open it in an emergency. Power has been in the hands of one man for too long. But there are problems with giving people freedom. Some of them will abuse it. Both Cienfuegos and Sor Artemesia say it’s inevitable. Cienfuegos says he can organize the Farm Patrol into a decent police force, and Sor Artemesia will try to look after people’s souls. Our old, predictable lives are going to change.” He idled the hovercraft over the dunes, and it bobbed gently on a cushion of antigravity.