The Lord of Opium

by Nancy Farmer

  Cienfuegos turned the hovercraft to avoid a pillar of rain descending from an enormous thunderhead. The craft shuddered as a lightning bolt flashed at the edge of the cloud. “The electricity interferes with the navigation of this craft. I have to pay attention. I may have killed her father. I don’t remember. There were so many.”

  There was nothing more to say. Matt watched the jefe’s yellow-brown eyes as the man maneuvered around the storm. Cienfuegos’s attention was riveted on his task, and no trace of regret was detectable. If Matt distracted him, they might never reach Paradise. “Can you go faster?” Matt said.

  “No,” the jefe said. Now rain began to lash the side of the craft. Another lightning bolt fell, and Listen counted, “One-thousand-and-one.” That was as far as she got. Thunder rocked the sky. Sor Artemesia silently told the beads of her rosary.

  Matt went into the back of the craft and sat by Listen. “I know you’re only a child. I was angry, but it was out of fear. I’m not angry anymore.” The little girl huddled against him, tears rolling silently down her face. “Did Mirasol say why the music upset her?”

  “She said her father used to sing that song. At first she seemed okay. She talked like any other person. She said her father sang to her when she went to sleep, even when they were running away. That’s how the Farm Patrol found them. And then she screamed.”

  Matt put his arm around the little girl. “I might have done the same thing. It was just chance.”

  Mirasol awoke two more times on the journey, and then they landed outside the hospital in Paradise. Orderlies swarmed out to carry her inside. Matt followed closely. He didn’t trust any of the doctors. Their idea of a cure was a lethal injection.

  She was taken to an operating room and Dr. Rivas came in, dressed in hospital scrubs, with latex gloves on his hands. “This is going to be brutal. I don’t think you should watch,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” Matt asked.

  “The only thing we can do. Open her skull and pick out the microchips one by one.”

  “That doesn’t work. Dr. Kim tried it.”

  “So did we. So did I over the years,” said Dr. Rivas. “I sacrificed hundreds of eejits trying to find a cure for my son. I tried nullifying the magnetism with electrical currents. I engineered a white blood cell to attack microchips. I induced high fevers, hoping they would destroy the chips before they killed the brain. Nothing worked.”

  “So this is hopeless,” Matt said.

  “You can do a procedure a thousand times and sometimes the thousandth time is different. You make a lucky mistake. That’s the only hope I can give you.”

  Matt looked down at Mirasol, her beautiful face composed, for the moment, in sleep. How could he order this mutilation without any hope of success? They said eejits didn’t feel pain, but he knew, deep down where no one could detect it, they did. “Leave her as she is,” he said.

  “Shall I give her a lethal injection?” The doctor removed his gloves.

  “No. Give me the infusers. When she starts suffering, I’ll give her one.”

  “She might linger for an hour or two. No more.”

  Dr. Rivas left, and Matt sat by Mirasol’s bed. She awoke, and for a moment her eyes were clear and she seemed to see him. Then the anguish overtook her and she screamed. The last time she looked directly at Matt and he bent over and kissed her. “I love you, Waitress,” he said.

  She gazed back, really seeing him. “I am called Mirasol,” she whispered, and then, as the infusion flooded her veins, she sighed and did not wake again.

  37

  THE FUNERAL

  Matt did not know how much time had passed. He sat unmoving as the small sounds of a hospital went on around him. Air-conditioning clicked on and off. A blood pressure cuff inflated and deflated on Mirasol’s wrist. A heart monitor searched for a beat, found none, and searched again. Matt was no stranger to death. It had surrounded him all his life. He had seen El Viejo, El Patrón’s grandson, lying in his coffin. He had seen the eejit in the field as a small child. And what he did not see, he was well aware of.

  Except for Tam Lin, it had been remote from him. Matt didn’t really know most of those people. But Mirasol, dulled and silent though she was, had been a living presence. Her eyes followed him as the sunflower, her namesake, turned its face to the sun. Now something had departed, and he did not know what it was.

  Dr. Rivas came into the room. He was no longer dressed for surgery, but had reverted to a white lab coat. “I’m sorry, mi patrón,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “She was a pretty thing and quite bright for an eejit. I imagine you’d like us to take care of the disposal.”

  “The what?” asked Matt, coming out of his trance.

  “We have procedures to deal with this situation. Cienfuegos does it all the time. It isn’t healthy for you to grieve for someone who wasn’t really there.”

  “Just as you never grieved for your eejit son,” Matt said.

  Dr. Rivas winced. “I deserved that. But you see, I knew my son before. I have memories.”

  “And I have memories of Mirasol.” Matt turned back to the motionless figure on the bed.

  The doctor fussed with the equipment, detaching the blood pressure cuff and switching off the heart monitor. “I don’t know whether you have any religious preferences,” he said. “El Patrón was a Catholic, or at least he liked the ceremonies. I could have Sor Artemesia say a prayer over Mirasol.”

  Matt thought of Listen’s quotes from the doctor: Religious holidays are crap. God doesn’t exist. Mbongeni is a happy baby. The rabbits are dee-diddly-dead. “Please go. And send me Sor Artemesia.”

  The nun was as respectful as anyone could wish. She said a rosary over Mirasol and prayed silently. “I don’t think I can give her absolution,” she said hesitantly.

  “What’s absolution?” said Matt.

  “When someone is dying, Catholics give them the last rites. The person confesses his sins and is forgiven so that he can enter heaven. Mirasol couldn’t have confessed to anything. What sins could she have committed in her state?”

  “What happens with dying infants and people in comas?”

  “You’re right, mi patrón. These emergencies do come up, but the rite must be done while the person is alive. Mirasol is dead. It’s too late.” Sor Artemesia tried to pull the sheet over Mirasol’s face, but Matt prevented her.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I say she’s still alive.”

  “But the doctor—”

  “Are you going to believe someone whose lifework is turning people into eejits? I am the Lord of Opium, and I say she’s alive.”

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I don’t even know whether Mirasol has been baptized,” the nun said nervously.

  “Then do it now.”

  Sor Artemesia looked from Mirasol to Matt and back again. “I’m so confused. Perhaps eejits do die in a different way. Perhaps life fades slowly and it would be all right. . . . ”

  Matt knew she was trying to convince herself. “Saint Francis would forgive you,” he said. “He forgave Brother Wolf, after all.”

  Sor Artemesia left and returned with water, olive oil, and flowers. She poured water over the girl’s forehead and made the sign of the cross over her. “I’m doing a conditional baptism,” she explained. “If Mirasol has already been taken into the church, this one won’t count.”

  When the nun was finished, she anointed the girl’s forehead with oil and spoke in a language Matt had never heard before. He didn’t interrupt her, for the ceremony had a quality that moved him deeply. At last she said, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.” She placed the flowers in Mirasol’s hands.

  “What language is that?” Matt asked.

  “Latin. It was used by priests for many hundreds of years. The church prefers modern languages now, but I’ve always thought that God pays more attention to Latin.”

  They stood silently for a few moments, and then Cienfuegos came to the door. “Dr. Rivas said yo
u needed me to dispose of Mirasol.”

  “Dr. Rivas can go to hell,” said Matt. “We’re taking her back to Ajo. She will be buried in the Alacrán mausoleum.”

  A flicker in the jefe’s eyes showed how startled he was, but he didn’t argue. “Very well, mi patrón. I’ll get the hovercraft.”

  * * *

  Matt found Listen curled up in Mbongeni’s crib. “Come on. We’re leaving,” he said.

  “I won’t,” she cried, clinging to the little boy. “Mbongeni needs me.”

  “He’ll forget you the minute you’re out of the room.” Matt roughly pulled her arms away from the boy and dragged her out of the crib. She scratched and kicked him. “Stop that! Mirasol is dead, and we’re taking her body to Ajo.”

  Listen stopped struggling. “Did I kill her?” she wailed. “I didn’t mean to.”

  Mbongeni began wailing too. “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh.”

  “He’s learned to say my name! He won’t forget me! Please, please, please let me stay!”

  Matt didn’t bother to argue. He dragged Listen after him, and the cries of “Lissen . . . Lissen . . . muh muh muh muh muh” died away in the distance. Cienfuegos had the hovercraft at the hospital door. Mirasol’s body, wrapped in a white sheet, lay on the floor. Sor Artemesia had put more flowers on the shroud, and she sat by a window saying her beads.

  Listen shrank away from the body. “She’s not dead. I don’t believe it. She’s not a rabbit.”

  “Don’t be afraid of death, child,” Sor Artemesia said, beckoning to her. “It is when the soul is released to find its true home. Mirasol is not here. She is in heaven and far happier than she ever was on earth. She’s with her father now.” The nun put aside her rosary and took the child into her arms. “Here. We’ll look at trees as we fly.”

  The hovercraft took off. Cienfuegos went around the Chiricahua Mountains by a southerly route, passing the ruins of a town called Douglas. A great battle must have been fought there, because the ground was scorched black and hardly a trace of buildings was left. Matt saw an ancient road going west, with the remains of cars scattered at the side.

  They passed over the ruins of Nogales and crossed a valley filled with deserted farms. “This would be a good place to plant new crops,” said Cienfuegos. “The water table has risen and the soil is good.”

  Matt listened without interest.

  “That’s Kitt Peak,” the jefe said, skirting the highest mountain. At the top were two observatories, smaller versions of the ones in the Sky Village. “This is one of the first places El Patrón captured, and it gave him the idea for the Scorpion Star.” But nothing could rouse Matt. He was numb. Colors, sounds, and voices withdrew to a gray background in his mind. He couldn’t even think of Mirasol.

  They landed at Ajo, and eejits carried Mirasol’s body, completely shrouded, to the large veranda in front of the hacienda. They laid her on a couch. Matt sat down next to her. A peacock wandered onto the veranda and gave a harsh cry.

  Celia, Daft Donald, Mr. Ortega, and the boys came out, and Sor Artemesia cautioned them to keep their distance. She herself went up to Matt and said, “Mi patrón, please let me help. I think you have never arranged a funeral before.”

  Matt looked up. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, dazed. “I don’t want her to be disposed of as though she were an animal.” He looked through the wide portico of the veranda to the distant fields. There were thousands and thousands of bodies out there. Cienfuegos had told him once that he had flown over the sand dunes of Yuma on a full moon night. By day you couldn’t see it, but by night the bones of Illegals showed up like a ghostly army sleeping on the earth.

  “We need a coffin,” Sor Artemesia said. “A beautiful one. Perhaps one of the eejit carpenters could make it. The children’s choir could sing, and I will say the appropriate words. A priest would be better, but unfortunately we don’t have one.”

  “El Patrón had a collection of Egyptian mummy cases,” said Matt. “Some of them are very beautiful.”

  That very evening a procession of eejits dressed in white robes and adorned with flowers carried the coffin of an Egyptian queen. It had been buried thousands of years before in the hot sands of the North African desert. The queen’s likeness was carved on the lid. She wore a crown of gold and lapis lazuli. Her body was sheathed in white linen, and her arms were covered with carnelian bracelets. In her hand was a sacred blue lotus.

  They came to the Alacrán mausoleum, a building as large as a house and covered with so many plaster cherubs it looked like a flock of chickens. Behind them came bodyguards carrying torches. Celia and the other servants, the boys, and Listen came next. Last of all walked the eejit children. They hummed the theme from Pavane for a Dead Princess, and the old choirmaster walked at their side to be sure they did it right.

  Matt and Sor Artemesia met them at the mausoleum. On either side of the glass doors were what looked like chests of drawers. The name of a departed Alacrán was inscribed on each long drawer, but there were several that hadn’t been used yet. One was pulled out, and here the eejits deposited Mirasol’s body in the Egyptian queen’s coffin. Sor Artemesia performed the funeral ceremony, and two burly bodyguards slid the drawer closed.

  They went outside. The sky was clear after rain, and the stars shone brilliantly. One of them fell, a bright streak across the blackness, and Celia turned to Listen and said, “Look, chiquita. That’s a prayer being answered by God. One of the angels is flying down to carry out His orders.”

  38

  THE MUSHROOM MASTER VS. THE SKY

  Matt moved his office to another part of the hacienda. He couldn’t bear to be in the place where Mirasol had danced. He closed up the room and ordered the door to be nailed shut. Ton-Ton hid all the music boxes after Matt smashed one of them.

  There was plenty of work to occupy Matt’s mind. What with sending samples to Esperanza, keeping the opium dealers at bay, and laying out plans for new fields, there was barely time to relax. He moved like a robot from one task to the next. Ton-Ton, Chacho, and Fidelito left him alone, and Listen had been rebuffed so many times that she hid when Matt came into a room.

  He didn’t care. At one point—it was hard to keep track of the days—Cienfuegos told him that the light for the Convent of Santa Clara was blinking on the holoport. Matt was in the kitchen, dining alone as he preferred now. “I don’t want to talk to Esperanza,” he said.

  “It could be María,” suggested the jefe.

  “She’s always with her mother.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” said Cienfuegos.

  “It is nothing.” Matt took another bite of a sandwich that tasted like sawdust to him.

  “That’s no way to treat a friend,” said the jefe, drawing up a chair. “You liked María before Mirasol came into the picture.”

  “I loved her,” Matt said.

  “And still do, mi patrón. Please do not speak of her in the past tense. Es muy antipático. Disagreeable.”

  “You don’t have to call me patrón anymore. I’ve chosen a new name,” said Matt.

  Cienfuegos looked surprised and then pleased. “I hope it’s frightening. I always thought El Picador—the Meat Grinder—had a certain nasty charm.”

  “I want to be called Don Sombra, Lord Shadow.”

  The jefe thought for a moment. “It isn’t as scary as I’d hoped, but then it depends on what you mean by shadow. A lurking danger, an unseen threat. Yes, it could do.”

  “It’s what I want. You can tell the others. Now leave me alone. I want to think.” Cienfuegos withdrew and Matt thought, Mirasol means “look at the sun.” She thought I was the sun, and now that she’s gone, there’s nothing left but shadow. He didn’t answer the holoport call on that day or on the next five occasions.

  The monsoon departed, drifting back now and then to drench the soil and cause flash floods in the hills. The days were hot. Matt wore a hat like the Farm Patrolmen and, when he had time, rode out to inspect the opium
fields. Eejits worked to remove stones from new tracts of land where Matt intended to plant with corn.

  Field eejits were trained to prepare soil, but they understood only one type of crop. Cienfuegos had tried them out on a small stand of corn, and predictably, they slashed the growing cobs with razors and waited patiently for the resin to ooze out. “I’ve tried every command I can think of, but they won’t change,” the jefe had said. “It’s possible to retrain them, but think of the time wasted, not to mention the high mortality.”

  “Are they living longer now?” Matt had asked.

  “Much longer,” Cienfuegos had said. “Of course there are the usual accidents. One of them turned the wrong way and marched out into the desert instead of returning to the pens. No one noticed until the following day. We found him at the bottom of a wash. Two or three go rogue every month.”

  Matt had turned away. He was preparing fields no one would use unless the Farm Patrol and bodyguards could be persuaded to do it. They wouldn’t like it. It was beneath their dignity.

  Now Matt walked alone toward the mushroom house. The experiment had worked better than anyone’s wildest dreams. Polluted soil now sprouted with grass. Waste from the water treatment plant no longer drained into fetid pits but spread into enclosures, where it was set upon by hordes of ravenous Shaggy Manes. Matt could understand why the Mushroom Master was so proud of his pets.

  He saw the Mushroom Master now. The man was carrying a large, brown umbrella that came down past his shoulders and made him look not unlike a mushroom himself. “Hello there!” he called. The man tipped up the umbrella and lowered it again.

  “Please forgive me for not stopping, Don Sombra. I was checking a leak in the sprinkler system and must go back inside at once. You are welcome to visit, of course. I have some excellent pu-erh tea.” The Mushroom Master scurried through the door as though a rattlesnake was lunging at his heels.

  “Is there an emergency?” Matt asked.

  “With me, yes.” The Mushroom Master furled the umbrella and placed it by the door. “Thank Gaia for this umbrella,” he said. “Cienfuegos got it for me. The first time I left the biosphere, I panicked like a newly awakened Dormant at his first mating season. He had to drag me out.”