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"Two dead bodies on the sidewalk will hardly do our peaceful reputation any good," said Nuala.
"Accidents. They fell off the roof," said Zeb.
"And one got his throat cut and the other had his eye put out on the way down," said Adam One. "As any forensic investigation will show."
"Dangerous, brick walls," said Katuro. "Things stick. Nails. Broken glass. Sharp things."
"Maybe you'd like a few dead Gardeners better?" said Zeb.
"If your premise is correct," said Adam One, "and this is a CorpSeCorps plot, has it occurred to you that those three may have been sent to provoke exactly such an incident? To cause us to break the law, thus providing an excuse for reprisals?"
"What was our choice?" said Zeb. "Let them squash us like bugs? Not that we squash Bugs," he added.
"He'll come back," said Toby. "Whatever the reason, CorpSeCorps or not. As long as I stay here, I'll be a target."
"I think," said Adam One, "that it would be best for your safety, dear Toby, and also for the safety of the Garden, if we were to place you in one of our Truffle niches in the Exfernal World. You can be of much use to us there. We'll ask our pleebrat connections to spread the news that you are no longer among us. Perhaps your foe may then lack motivation, and we will be protected from aggression from that quarter, at least for the moment. How soon can we move her?" he asked Zeb.
"Consider it done," said Zeb.
Toby went to her sleeping cubicle and packed her most necessary items -- the bottled extracts, the dried herbs, the mushrooms. Pilar's honey, the last three jars. She left some of each thing behind for whoever might be filling her empty Eve Six shoes.
She remembered her early desire to leave the Garden, out of boredom and claustrophobia, and the desire for what she used to think of as a life of her own; but now that she was actually going, it felt like an expulsion. No: more like a wrenching, a severing, a skin peeling off. She resisted the urge to drink some Poppy, to dull the edge. She had to stay alert.
Another hurt: she was failing Pilar. Would she have time to say goodbye to the bees, and if she didn't, would the hives die? Who would take over as beekeeper? Who had the skills? She covered her head with a scarf and hurried out to the hives.
"Bees," she said out loud. "I have news." Did the bees pause in mid-air, were they listening? Several came to investigate her; they lit on her face, exploring her emotions through the chemicals on her skin. She hoped they'd forgiven her for tipping their hives. "You must tell your Queen I've had to leave," she said. "Nothing to do with you, you've performed your duties well. My enemy is forcing me to go. I'm sorry. I hope that when we meet again it will be under happier circumstances." She always found herself using a formal style with the bees.
The bees buzzed and fizzed; they appeared to be discussing her. She wished she could take them with her like a large, golden, furry collective pet. "I'll miss you, bees," she sa
id. As if in answer, one of them started crawling up her nostril. She breathed it sharply out. Maybe we wear hats for these interviews, she thought, so they won't go into our ears.
She went back to her cubicle, where an hour later Adam One and Zeb joined her. "You'd better wear this, dear Toby," said Adam One. He was carrying a furzoot -- a fluffy pink duck with flapping red rubbery feet and a smiling yellow plastic bill. "The nose cone's built in. It's the latest fabric. Mo'Hair NeoBiofur -- it exhales for you. Or so the label claims."
The two of them waited on the other side of the cubicle curtain while Toby took off her sombre Gardener dress and put on the furzoot. NeoBiofur or not, it was hot in there. And dark. She knew she was looking out through a pair of round white eyes with big black pupils, but it felt like peering through a keyhole.
"Flap your wings," said Zeb.
Toby moved her arms up and down inside the zoot arms and the duck suit quacked. It sounded like an old man blowing his nose.
"If you want to make the tail wiggle, stamp your left foot."
"How do I talk?" said Toby. She had to say it again, louder.
"Through the right earhole," said Adam One.
Oh great, thought Toby. You quack with your foot, you talk through your earhole. I won't ask how to do any of the other bodily functions.
She changed back into her dress, and Zeb stuffed the furzoot into a duffle bag. "I'll drive you in the truck," he said. "It's right out front."
"We'll be in touch very soon, my dear," said Adam One. "I regret ... it's unfortunate that ... Keep the Light around ..."
"I'll try," said Toby.
The Gardeners' forced-air truck now had a logo on it that said, PARTY TIME. Toby sat in the front with Zeb. The Hammerhead was in the back, disguised as a box of balloons: Zeb said he was killing two birds with one stone.
"Sorry," he added.
"For what?" Toby asked. Sorry that she was going? She felt a small pulse-beat.
