Fledgling

nineteen

There was a great deal of telephoning, conference calling, faxing, and e-mailing.

First, what Hayden called “the rule of seven” had to be satisfied. Seven families with whom both the Silks and I share a common ancestor within seven generations of the oldest living Silk or Matthews had to

agree to send representatives to Punta Nublada for a Council of Judgment that would judge the accusations that I and the Gordon family were making against the Silk family. Once that was done, Preston phoned the Silk family. First Russell Silk, one of the elderfathers, denied all responsibility for

wiping out my families, denied any knowledge of it. Then Milo Silk, the oldest living family member, came on and he denied everything, too. They had both heard of a mass murder in Washington State but had

not realized that it involved two Ina communities. They were very sorry for me, of course, but none of it had anything to do with them.

Preston put the call on speaker phone and let all of us hear it.

“Nevertheless,” he told Milo Silk, “we’ve heard evidence that your family is responsible, and we’ve called for a Council of Judgment. We’ve met the rule of seven.”

“This is madness,” Milo argued. “We didn’t do it, Preston. I swear to you. Look, we don’t care for the genetic engineering experiments that the Matthews and Petrescu families have been carrying out, and we’ve made no secret of it, but—”

“Milo,” Preston said, “this is the required notification. The first seven families are Braithwaite, Fotopoulos, Akhmatova, Leontyev, Rappaport, Nagy, and Svoboda. We will also be asking the Dahlmans, the Silvesters, the Vines, the Westfalls, the Nicolaus, and the Kalands. Do you object to any of these?”

“I object to all of them,” Milo said angrily. “This is insanity!” “The rule of seven has been met,” Preston repeated.

After a moment of absolute silence, Russell’s voice replaced Milo’s. “I object to the Vines,” he said. “They are not friends of the Silk family, even though they are related to us. During the ninth century, their family fought ours in a long feud.”

Preston stared at the floor, thinking. “Will you accept the Marcus?”

There was another silence, longer this time. Then finally, “Yes. We accept the Marcus. We also object to the Silvesters. Three of my sons had a financial dispute with two of them five years ago. It was not settled amicably.”

Preston looked at Hayden. Hayden asked, “Will you accept the Wymans?”

“No!” a third voice said. “Not that pack of wolves. Do you realize—” Then the voice was cut off, and

there was a long silence. Finally Milo came on again.

“We will not accept the Wymans,” he said. And after a pause, he said, “Individual animus.” He had a deep, quiet voice that somehow made everything he said sound important.

“The Andreis?” Preston asked, looking at his own family as though he were asking them. His family offered no objection.

There was a silent pause from the Silks. Finally, Milo said, “Fine.” “Are you content with the list now?” Preston asked.

More silence.

“The Kalands,” Russell said. “We would prefer the Morarius.”

Preston stretched out a long forefinger and pressed the button on the phone marked “hold.” “Objections to the Morarius?” he said.

The Gordons looked at one another.

“I don’t like them,” Daniel said. They’re proud people with not that much to be proud of. But I don’t suppose that’s reason enough to object to them.”

The others shrugged.

Preston touched the hold button again and said, “We accept the Morariu family, Milo. Ten nights from tonight, we will all meet here at Punta Nublada for a Council of Judgment. You should begin to prepare for your family’s journey. And maybe you should talk to your sons, especially the younger ones. You may not know everything.” He switched the phone off.

Just before dawn, Manning and Wayne drove in with their symbionts and Theodora.

She got out of the Hummer and looked around at the houses. All of them were still lit from within in the early-morning darkness. There were people moving around both inside and out, and although she could not know it, there were people watching. I had been asleep, but I awoke at the sound of the car coming in. I looked out, saw her climb out of the car and look. Quickly, I put on jeans, pulled a T-shirt over my head, and ran out shoeless to meet her. She didn’t see me until I reached her and took her hand.

She jumped, turned, saw me, and to my surprise, grabbed me, lifted me off the ground, and hugged me hard against her.

I found myself laughing with joy and hugging her back. When my feet were on the ground again, I took her into the guest house. “Have you eaten?” I asked. “Brook and Celia went shopping yesterday so we have plenty of food.” Joel had taken them to a distant mall where they could get groceries, some more clothes, and whatever else they might need. Wright and I had each provided them with a list so we were all taken care of for a while.

“I had a late dinner,” Theodora said. “The other people, the symbionts—is that what they’re called?” “It is, yes. It’s what you’ll be called, too, if you stay with me.”

She gave me a shy smile and looked downward. “They said I should have a hearty meal before I reached you.”

I laughed again, hungry for her, suddenly eager. “Come on upstairs. How are you? Is everything all right with your family?”

She got ahead of me and stopped me, hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to have to phone my daughter in a few hours. She’s worried about me. She tried to stop me from leaving. Sometime soon, she’s going to want to visit.”

“Phone her whenever you like,” I said. “I have to tell you more of what’s going on here so you’ll understand why she won’t be able to visit you for a while. But you can go see her.”

“Sounds like bad news.”

“Difficult, I think, but not bad. This is a time to be careful. We’ve found out who has been attacking us, and we’re going to have something called a Council of Judgment to deal with them.”

She looked at me as though she were trying to read my expression. “Is there danger right now?”

In the early-morning darkness with all the Gordon men awake and alert? With the Council of Judgment already being organized? “No, not now.”

“Good,” she said. “Then tell me about it in the morning.”

I smiled. “It is morning. But you’re right. First things first.”

I took her to the spare room. I had changed the bedding myself and made certain that the room was clean and ready for her. “I know I promised you more than this,” I said as she looked around. “I will keep my promise. It’s just going to take longer than I thought.”

“I want to be with you,” she said. “It’s all I’ve wanted since you first came to me. I don’t truly understand my feelings for you, but they’re stronger than anything I’ve ever felt, stronger than anything I ever expected to feel. We’ll find a way.”

I shut the door, went to her, and began to undo her blouse. “We will,” I said.

The next night I met with Wayne and Manning to find out what I could about my families’ land and business affairs.

“Your mothers and father understood how to live by human rules,” Manning said. “Their affairs are very much in order. You will have to work through the lawyers, but everything your families owned will be yours, and there’s cash enough for you to be able to pay your taxes without selling anything you don’t want to sell.”

“I don’t know what I want to do, really,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know anything.” I looked at Manning—one of the fathers of Daniel, Wayne, William and Philip. He was a quiet, kindly man, and there was something about his expression that looked uncomfortably close to pity.

“Tell me about the lawyers,” I said quickly. “Are there one or two who would make good symbionts?” Manning shrugged. “I’m not sure what a good symbiont might be for you. Your Theodora is too old, but

she loves you absolutely. She’s exactly the kind of person I would expect to be able to resist one of

us—older, educated, well-off—but she couldn’t wait to get to you.” “She was lonely,” I said. “Tell me about the lawyers.”

“One of the ones I bit might be good for you,” Wayne said.

I liked Wayne’s long, quiet face. He was the only one of the four sons who towered over me even when he was sitting down. “Tell me about that one,” I said.

He nodded. “She’s thirty-five. She has a good reputation among the others at her firm. She’s a good attorney even though she hates her work. She feels that she made a mistake going to law school, but now, she does n’t know what else she might do. She’s an orphan with a brother who died six years ago. She’s divorced and has no children.”

“You investigated her. You planned to suggest that I go after her.”

“Yes. You’ll need a lawyer. She’ll help you, she’ll teach you, she’ll be your connection to the rest of the legal world, and once you have her—if you’re as right for each other as I think—she’ll be completely loyal to you.” He took a folded paper from his pants pocket and handed it to me. “Her name, home address, and work address.”

“Thank you,” I said and put the paper in my own pocket. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go see her until after the Council of Judgment.”

“I think that would be best,” Manning said. “The lawyers Wayne and I bit will look after your interests until then. But you should find her as soon as the Council ends. You need more than five symbionts.”

I continued to keep watch every day. I didn’t believe there would be another attack, but why take chances?

I saw the bodies of the attackers buried with a great deal of a powder called quicklime in a long, deep trench dug by a small tractor around one of the gardens well away from the houses. I saw the attackers’ cars driven away by gloved symbionts, followed by a Punta Nublada car. And, of course, only the Punta Nublada car returned.

I saw the three living attackers taken away to San Francisco where they would be three ordinary men catching three different Greyhound buses back to southern California where they lived. They wouldn’t attract attention. No one would be likely to remember them. The Gordons had supplied them with money, and I had supplied them with the outline of a memory of going north to do some work driving trucks, hauling cargo up and down the coast. They could each fill in the details according to their own past work experience. As it happened, they had all driven trucks of one kind or another professionally, so they would be able, as Hayden put it, to confabulate to their hearts’content. But they would not remember one another, Punta Nublada, my families’ communities, or the house near Arlington. I told them to forget those things completely and to remember only the truck-driving job. It was unnerving to

see that I could do such a thing, but clearly, I could. I did. I even helped the pimp decide that he was sick of abusing women for a living. His cousin had a landscaping company. He would work for his cousin for

a while or for someone else and then go back to school. He was only twenty-one. I made him tell me what he believed he should and could do. Then I told him to go do it.

Meanwhile, the Gordons and their symbionts worked hard to prepare for the fact that they were soon going to have a great deal of company. The Silk family—all their Ina and most of their symbionts—would be coming. Two representatives from each of thirteen other families would be coming, each bringing three or four symbionts. A Council of Judgment traditionally lasted three days.

Most of the Gordon symbionts were excited and looking forward to meeting friends and relatives they hadn’t seen for months or even years. Would Judith Cho sym Ion Andrei be there? Or Loren Hanson sym Elizabeth Akhmatova? Did anyone know? What about Carl Schwarcz sym Peter Marcu? No one bothered asking me since it was clear that I knew nothing, but they chattered among themselves around me, happily ignoring me except to say that it was a shame I wouldn’t get to enjoy any of the parties.

Only a few of them were apprehensive. To most, the Council of Judgment was an Ina thing that had little to do with them. Their Ina had disputes to settle. The symbionts planned to have parties. I enjoyed watching and listening to them. It was comforting somehow.

Several went out to buy the huge amounts of food and other supplies that would be needed to keep well over a hundred extra symbionts comfortable. Others prepared the guest quarters in each of the houses and transformed offices, studios, storage space, and even space in the two barns into places fit for human and Ina habitation. Every house had guest quarters—three or four bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms. These would be enough for a couple of traveling Ina and a few symbionts. And then there was the guest house itself, intended especially for human guests. My symbionts and I had arrived at a time when the Gordons’ symbionts had no guests visiting, so we had had the whole guest house to ourselves. Now we would have to share the kitchen and the dining room and give up the downstairs bathroom, as well as the living room and family room.

The Council meetings would be held in one of the metal storage buildings. Martin Harrison, Joel’s father and William’s symbiont, the man who had given me a cell phone and taught me to use it, now seemed to be in charge of preparations for the visitors. Once I understood that, I found him and asked if I could follow him around for a while to see what he did and to ask him questions.

“I really want you to tell me if I’m in the way or if I’m being too irritating, because I can’t always tell,” I said, and he laughed. It was a loud, deep, joyful-sounding laugh that was a pleasure to hear even though I knew he was laughing at me.

“All right, Shori, I’ll do that,” he said. “I was a high-school history teacher when Hayden found me. It will be good to have a student again.”

“Hayden found you? Not William?”

“Hayden found me for William.” He shook his head. “William hadn’t yet come of age, and Hayden thought the boy could stand to learn more of human history. Hayden thought I’d make a good bodyguard, too, since William goes completely unconscious during the day. He said I smelled right, for godsake. I understand that now, but I didn’t then. I wanted to believe he was crazy, but he’d bitten me by then, and I couldn’t just ignore what he told me.”

“Did you mind that you would be symbiont to another man?” I asked, remembering the question that

Wright had asked Brook.

He gave me an odd look. “You don’t care what you pry into, do you?” I didn’t answer—since I didn’t know what to say.

“There are plenty of women here,” he said. “I married one of them shortly after I decided to stay.” He lifted an eyebrow. “How’s your new symbiont—the one who came in last night?”

“Theodora?” I smiled, seeing the connection. “She says she doesn’t understand her feelings for me but that they are important to her.”

“I’ll bet. I saw you two. You were all over each other. That’s the way it goes. It doesn’t seem to matter to most humans what our lives were before we meet you. You bite us, and that’s all it takes. I didn’t understand at all. Hayden ambushed me as I got home from work one day. He bit me, and after that I never really had a chance. I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into.”

“Are you ever sorry you got into it?”

He gave me another strange look, this broad, tall black man. Joel had his coloring but would never have his size. Martin just stood, looking down at me as though trying to decide something. After a while, he said, “The Gordons are decent people. Hayden brought me here, showed me around, introduced me to William, who was tall and spindly but looked almost as young as you do now. Hayden let me know what was going to happen if I stayed. He let me know while I could still leave, and I did leave. They didn’t

stop me. William asked me to stay, but that made me run faster. The whole thing was too weird for me. Worse, I thought it sounded more like slavery than symbiosis. It scared the hell out of me. I stayed away for about ten months. I’d only been bitten three times in all, so I wasn’t physically addicted. No pain, no sickness. But psychologically . . . Well, I couldn’t forget it. I wanted it like crazy. Hell, I thought I was crazy. All of a sudden, I lived in a world where vampires were real. I couldn’t tell anyone about them. Hayden had seen to that. But I knew they were real. And I wanted to be with them. After a while, I quit my job, packed my things, put what I could in my car, gave the rest away, and drove here. God, it was a relief.” He stopped and smiled down at me. “Your first doesn’t want any other life, girl, no more than

Joel does. The only difference is Joel knows it. Wright is still finding out.” “You’ve talked to him?”

“Yeah. He’ll be all right. How’s he getting along with Joel?”

“When he can, he pretends Joel isn’t there. When he can’t do that, he’s civil.”

“It’s rough on him. Rough on both of them, really. Ease their way as best you can. This Council of

Judgment should help a little—distraction, excitement, new people, plenty to do.” “It scares me a little.”

“The Council? Sensory overload for you and the other Ina. That’s why Councils are only three days long.”

“No, I mean . . . having Wright and Joel as well as Brook, Celia, and Theodora. It scares me. I need them. I care about them more than I thought I could care about anyone. But having them scares me.”

“Good,” he said. “It ought to. Pay attention. Help them when they need help.” He paused. “Only when they need help.”

I nodded. “I will.” I looked into his broad dark face, uncertainly. “Do you want your son to be with me?” “It’s what he wants.”

“Is it all right with you?”

“If you treat him right.” He looked past me at nothing for several seconds. “I wanted him to live in the human world for a few years, get more education than we could give him here. He did that. But to tell the truth, I wanted him to stay out there, make a life for himself, forget about vampires. Then he comes back, and all he wants to do is find himself a nice vampire girl.” He smiled, and it wasn’t an altogether happy smile. “I think he’ll want to do more once he’s been with you for a while. He’ll want to write or teach or something. Too much energy in that boy for him be to just some kind of house-husband.”

“Theodora wants more, too. Once this Council of Judgment is finished, I’ll have to decide what to do, how best to build a home for us all. When that’s done, my symbionts will be able to do what they want to do.”

“Good girl.” He took a deep breath and started toward the nearest building of offices and studios. “Now let’s go figure out how many people can be jammed into these studios. Thank God the weather hasn’t

gotten cold yet.”

twenty

The night before the Council was to begin, members of the Leontyev family arrived. I didn’t know them, of course, and until they arrived and Martin mentioned it, no one had bothered to tell me that Leontyev was the name of my mothers’male family—the family of their fathers, elderfathers, brothers, and brothers’ sons.

The Leontyevs and their symbionts arrived in two cars—a pair of Jeep Cherokees—while I was coming back from showing the very cool and distant Zoë and Helena Fotopoulos and their symbionts to their rooms in one of the office complexes. Martin had given me a list of who was coming and where they were to sleep. He said, “If you want to learn, you might as well help. This will give you a chance to meet people.” He was, I had noticed, good at putting people to work.

The Leontyevs were older males, Konstantin and Vladimir, each with three symbionts. Martin intended them to stay with Henry Gordon. I came to get them, introduced myself, and realized from their expressions that something was wrong.

“I’ve had a serious head injury,” I told them. “As a result of it, I have amnesia. If I knew you before, I’m sorry. I don’t remember you now.”

“You don’t remember ... anything?” the one Martin had pointed out to me as Konstantin asked.

“Not people or events. I remember language. I recognize many objects. Sometimes I recall disconnected bits about myself or about the Ina in general. But I’ve lost my past, my memory of my families,

symbionts, friends . . . The people of my families who are dead are so completely gone from me that I

can’t truly miss them or mourn them because, for me, it’s as though they never existed.”

Konstantin gazed down at me with almost too much sympathy. A human who looked that way would surely cry. After a moment, he said, “Shori, we’re your mothers’ fathers. You’ve known us all of your life.”

I looked at them, took in their tall leanness, trying to find in them something I recognized. They looked more like relatives of Hayden and Preston Gordon—just two more pale blond men who appeared to be in their mid-to-late forties but who were actually closer to their mid–four hundreds.

And suddenly, I found myself wondering what that meant. What had their lives been like so long ago? What had the world been like? I should ask Martin who had once been a history teacher.

The faces and the ages of these two elderfathers—my elderfathers, my mothers’ fathers—triggered no memories. They were strangers.

“I’m sorry,” I told them. “I’ll have to get to know you all over again. And you’ll have to get to know me. I can’t even pretend to be the person I was before the injury.”

“I’m grateful the Gordons were able to take you in and care for you,” the one called Vladimir said. “How did they find you?”

I stared at him, surprised, suddenly angry. “I found them. I’ve survived three attacks, and twice helped fight the attackers off. I helped to question the surviving attackers who came here a few days ago. Only my memory of my life before I was hurt is impaired.”

They looked at each other, then at me. “My apologies,” Vladimir said. He lifted his head a little and smiled down his long nose at me. He managed to look more amused than condescending. “Whether you remember or not, you still have my Shori’s temper.”

I took them to the rooms that Henry Gordon had set aside for them in his house. Before I left, I showed them Martin’s list and asked one more question. “Are any of these people close female relatives of mine?”

They looked at the list, then looked at one another, each of them frowning. In that moment, they looked almost identical. Then Vladimir said, “I believe your closest surviving female blood relatives are too young to be involved it this. They’re children or young women busy with children. For instance, your brothers were mated and had two girls and a boy, all of whom are still very young children. Your mothers’ brothers have adult female children, but those children are too young for Council duty.”

“Wouldn’t they be around my age or older? Some of them must be adults.”

“Yes. They’re mated so the youngest of them is years older than you. But, unless they’re directly involved, people aren’t usually called to Councils of Judgment unless their children are adult and mated.”

That explained why everyone I’d seen so far seemed to be around the ages of Hayden and Preston.

“All right,” I said. “I’ve been told that all Council members are related to me in one way or another. Who among the women members are my closest relatives? And did any of them know me before?” I asked.

Again the two paused to think. At last, Konstantin said, “The Braithwaites. The Braithwaite eldermothers are Joan, Irene, Amy, and Margaret. Two of them will be coming. They’re the daughters of your second elderfathers.”

I frowned trying to understand that.

“They are the daughters of your father’s father’s father,” Vladimir clarified. “They know you, knew you before. You can talk to them. But, Shori, you can talk to us, too. We are your family. We’ve come here to see that your interests are protected and that the people responsible for what happened to you and to so many of our relatives pay for what they’ve done.”

I remembered hearing from Hayden that Joan and Margaret Braithwaite would be coming. In fact, they were arriving tonight. “Thank you,” I said. “I ... I just need to see and talk to an Ina female. I have no memory of ever doing that before today. I’ve met several males since my injury, but until I met Zoë and Helena Fotopoulos this morning, no females. It’s very strange to be an Ina female and yet have no clear idea of what Ina females are like.”

Konstantin smiled. “Talk to the Braithwaites then. Elizabeth I was on the throne of England when Joan and Irene were born, so I’m not sure you’ll learn much from them about being a young Ina woman now. But all four sisters have met you, Shori, and I think they like you. Go ahead and talk with them when they come.”

I kept watch for the Braithwaite women, pestering Martin to look whenever female Ina drove in. The Braithwaites arrived just after midnight. Before I could ask Martin about them, Daniel came out to welcome them. I heard him call them by name. I watched as he stood talking with them.

Joan and Margaret Braithwaite were a head shorter than Daniel, but still taller than Celia or Brook. They were very straight, very pale women in white shirts and long black skirts. Their hair was twisted and pinned up neatly on their heads. One was brown-haired—the first brown-haired Ina I’d seen—and one

was blond. Their chests, beneath their clean, handsome, long-sleeved shirts, were as flat as mine. I suspected that that meant I would not be growing the breasts Wright liked on women. Yet as ignorant as I was, even I wouldn’t have mistaken these two for men. There was something undeniably feminine and interestingly seductive about them, even to me. Was it their scents? Did my scent make me seem interesting to other people?

I realized that I wanted Joan and Margaret to think well of me, to like me. That was important somehow. Their scent was definitely influencing me. Was it something they were doing deliberately, I wondered. Could they control it? Could I? I would ask them if I could manage to be alone with one of them.

“Shori?” the brown-haired one said to me as I stood off to one side, almost hiding in the shadows, watching them. Daniel had called the blond woman Joan, so this one must be Margaret.

I was immediately ashamed of myself for hiding and staring. “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping forward. “I have no memory of seeing Ina females before today. I’ve been waiting for you because I was told you are my closest female relatives on the Council.”

Daniel looked at me with that strange, strained look of his that ranged between hostility and hunger. I had come to see that look more and more as my stay with the Gordons lengthened. I had seen it on Daniel, William, Philip, and Wayne. Without saying a word, Daniel turned and walked away. I was fairly sure his longing made him seem even more ill-mannered than my ignorance made me. We would have to talk, Daniel and I. If my presence was disturbing him so much, we should at least take a few moments to

speak privately together, to get to know each other a little.

“That was interesting,” Joan Braithwaite said. She looked at Daniel’s retreating back.

“When this is over, I’m hoping I can leave here for a while and stop irritating Daniel and his brothers,” I

said.

Margaret said, as though we’d known one another for a long time, “Will you mate with them?”

“I think so. I was afraid at first that they might not want me, now that I have to get to know everything all over again ... and now that I’m alone.”

“You truly don’t remember anything about your mothers, your sisters?” Margaret asked. “You don’t remember any other women?”

“I don’t remember anyone,” I said. “As I said, I haven’t seen an Ina woman since my injury until today. I’ve only seen males.”

The two Braithwaite sisters looked at one another. After a moment, Margaret said, “Take us to our quarters, then I’ll talk with you.”

I hesitated, remembering the list. “Your quarters are in the offices. This way.” I took them and their six symbionts, each carrying a suitcase or a garment bag or both to the offices and the studio that were to be their living quarters. The symbionts were four men and two women. All four of the men were large and strong looking. They must have smelled very interesting before the Braithwaites claimed them. Two of the men were brown with very straight, very black hair. They were enough alike to be brothers. The other two were pale, muscular men. One of the women—the smallest of them—was startlingly beautiful. She was smaller than Celia, my smallest symbiont, and I’m not sure I would have chosen her as a symbiont

out of fear that I would take too much blood from her. The other woman was tall and strong looking and deeply interested in one of the brown men.

“Those two got married last week,” Margaret told me when we had left the symbionts in their rooms and Joan in hers. I was alone with Margaret in the office she had chosen as her bedroom. Her arrangement seemed to be to have a room of her own and have her symbionts come to her when she needed them. “Eden, the young woman, is mine and Arun is Joan’s,” she said. I realized she had noticed me noticing

the affectionate pair.

“Do they mind sharing each other with you and Joan?” I asked. “I mean, are they still content to be symbionts?”

“Oh yes.” She smiled. “Symbionts usually choose to mate with one another because, as symbionts, they share a life that other humans not only couldn’t understand or accept, but . . . well, think about it, Shori. Symbionts age much more slowly than other humans, depending on how young they are when then

accept us. How could they have a long-term relationship with someone who ages according to the human norm? People have tried it, but it doesn’t work.”

I nodded. “I have no coherent idea of what does work. I’m still finding out how Ina families live. I know I

should leave here as soon as I can, but then what? I can provide for myself and my symbionts, but I

don’t know how to be part of the web of Ina society that obviously exists. How can I offer my symbionts the contacts they’ll need with other symbionts?” I sighed. “I’ve forgotten almost everything I spent

fifty-three years learning.”

“But you’re still a child,” Margaret Braithwaite said. “You could be adopted into one of your secondary families. Once this business with the Silks is attended to, you’ll be welcome in a number of communities.”

“If I did that, what would happen to my connection with the Gordons?”

She thought about that, then shook her head. “If you’re adopted into another community, you mate where they mate unless you could convince them to accept the Gordons. And you’d have to find a community with unmated daughters so that you can join them before the group of you mated. First adoption, then mating.”

“My family was negotiating with the Gordon sons to mate with my sisters and me, and the Gordons have helped me, taken risks for me.”

“You want to mate with them, then? It isn’t just that at the moment, they’re all you’ve got?” “I think I do. I like them. But it’s true that right now, I don’t know any other eligible mates.”

“Then you’ll have to do what your father did. He lost his family in the European wars. Your mothers lost a few people, too. You had five eldermothers. Three were killed. At that point, your mothers left eastern Europe. Did you know that you were the only one of your sisters to be born here in the United States?”

“I didn’t know. The others were born in Romania?”

“Two in Romania and one in England. I met your mothers in England. They had young children, and two of them were pregnant when they reached England. They made themselves over, became English women, and begged your fathers to join them. But your fathers had once owned a great estate in Romania until it was taken from them after World War I and broken up and sold to small farmers. Your

fathers’family had lived there for at least two thousand years under several different names, and they truly didn’t want to leave. My own family lived there long enough for my mothers to mate with the fathers of your elderfathers. Eventually, though, we went to Greece, then to Italy, then to England. We were always willing to move to avoid trouble or to take advantage of opportunity. From England, we moved to the United States just after World War I. My mothers said there would be another war soon, and they

wanted to avoid it as much as possible. No place on Earth was safe, of course, and we lost people, but we were never winnowed down to one person as your father’s family was. He had absolutely no primary relatives left who were of his age or older.”

“He said my mothers were his distant relatives,” I said. “You remember him?” Margaret asked.

“I met him after my injury.” I told her about finding my father, my brothers, then almost at once losing them again.

When I’d finished, she shook her head. “You’ll tell of that several more times during the nights of the Council.” She drew a deep breath. “Your father fled Romania just before the Communists took over. Most Ina had already left or died. I don’t believe any stayed after the war, and I don’t think any family has gone back.

“Anyway, your father went to your mothers. He and his four remaining symbionts had little more than

their clothing and a few pieces of jewelry that had belonged to his mothers, who were dead. He and your mothers and their symbionts left England for the United States shortly after he joined them. When your mothers settled in the state of Washington, they invited him to live with them for a while, until his oldest son came of age, but your father chose to follow our ways and live apart from his mates. Until his sons grew up, he was alone with his symbionts, acquiring property and money, building his first houses, and acquiring a few more symbionts—people who could help him establish a community and help prepare his sons for adult life.”

“So that when his sons were men and went to him, he was able to help them begin their adult lives,” I

said.

“Yes. He must have been very lonely, but he was a proud man. He did what he believed he should do.” I watched her as she spoke. “It’s not the same for me,” I said at last. “When my father’s kinsmen were

killed, he was an adult, already mated, and most of his children already born. I’ll be alone with my symbionts, growing up, then bearing and raising my children. I’ll have no one to help me, no one to teach them how to be an adult Ina.”

She nodded. “That will happen if you permit it. It would be wiser, though, to make friends with several communities of your female secondary families and work for them. Learn from them. I’ve been told that you can stay awake during the day and go out in the sun like humans. Is this true?”

“I can stay awake,” I said, “but when I go outside, I need to cover as much skin as possible and wear dark glasses. Otherwise, I burn, and I can’t see very well except with very dark glasses. The sun hurts my eyes.”

“But you’ve walked in it?”

“I have. I think it makes me hungrier to walk it in, though. I burn a little—my face mostly—then I have to heal. My first wants me to wear sunblock, and one of the Gordon symbionts told me I should get something called a ski mask to cover my face. With that and with dark glasses and gloves, I would be completely covered, but I think I would look very strange.”

“That’s . . . Child, do you understand your uniqueness, your great value?” “The Silks don’t see me as valuable.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Stupid, stupid people,” she whispered almost to herself. Then to me, “Are you sleepy during the day? Is it hard to stay awake? Hard to think?”

“No, I’m alert,” I said. “I tire faster during the day than I do at night, but it isn’t important. I mean, it doesn’t stop me from doing anything. And I can sleep as comfortably at night as during the day.”

“You are a treasure. You would be an asset to any community since most of humanity works during the day. Most human troublemakers cause trouble during the day. We’ve evolved methods for dealing with this, but there isn’t a community that wouldn’t be happy to have an Ina guardian who could be awake and alert during the day. I know of several cases where it would have saved lives.”

“It didn’t save my families,” I said. “It did save the Gordons, although I’m pretty sure that it was my being here that put them in danger to begin with.”

“Only because some of us are fools.” She looked at me for several seconds, then said, “When this business is over, spend a year or two with each of your secondary families if they’ll permit it. They can teach you and you can guard them. Later, when you come of age, you might even adopt a sister from among their more adventurous young daughters before you mate. Find a young girl who feels lost among too many sisters and eager to go out on her own.” She paused. “Do you remember how to read?”

“I read English and Ina,” I said. “Those are the only two languages I’ve seen in written form since my injury.”

“You read Ina? Excellent! I hope you’ll teach your children that skill. Some of our people don’t bother to teach their children to read Ina any longer. Some day our native language will be forgotten.”

I frowned. “Why should it be forgotten? It’s part of our history.” “Shori,” she said sadly, wearily, “what do you know of our history?”

“Almost nothing,” I said, echoing her tone. “I’ve been reading it, though. Hayden loaned me some of his books. That’s how we found out that I could read Ina.”

“I see,” she said, and she seemed happier. “What are you reading?”

“The Book of the Goddess ,” I said. “I don’t know yet how much of it is truly history. It seems to be some combination of religion, metaphor, and history.”

“Perhaps. But that’s a very long conversation in itself. Someday, when you’ve had time to relearn more of what you’ve lost, I would love to discuss it with you.”

She gave me a card that contained her name and address, her phone number, her fax number, and her

e-mail address. She laughed as I looked it over. “We used to be so isolated from one another,” she said. “We sent messages by travelers or hired humans to carry messages or packages. We rarely traveled because it was so uncomfortable and so dangerous. Not only were there highwaymen, but local authorities who had to be bribed, and there was always, always the sun. Now travel and communication are so easy. If you need to talk, call me.”

I thanked her and turned to go but then stopped at the door for a last question. “I wanted to ask you something that is probably very personal,

but I think I need to know.” She nodded, waiting.

“Your scent ... do you deliberately use it to influence people? I mean, can you control the way it effects people or who it affects?”

She laughed aloud, laughed for several seconds, stopped, then laughed again. Finally, she said, “Shori, child, I’m an old woman! My scent is barely interesting compared to yours. I don’t want to imagine what you’ll be like by the time you come of age.”

twenty-one

Iran into Daniel on my way out of the building where the Braithwaites were staying. I got the impression he was waiting for me. “Leave the greeting of guests for a little while,” he said. “You and I should talk.”

I agreed with him, so I followed him back to his house, enjoying the dark, smoky scent of him. It contrasted oddly with his pale, almost translucent skin and his white-blond hair. There were more people than ever milling around the grounds. Peter and Thomas Marcu and their several symbionts were hauling suitcases into Daniel’s guest quarters. Daniel led me past them back toward his own rooms. He kept almost taking my hand. He would reach a little, then catch himself, and drop his hand to his side.

His quarters were two large wood-paneled rooms, a room-sized closet, and a big bathroom. He sat down in a tall chair and said nothing while I explored. In the bathroom was a huge tub—large enough for two, perhaps three people. There was also a huge walk-in shower with a built-in seat and two shower heads. One shower head was fixed to the tile-covered wall, and the other could be held like a hair dryer and directed anywhere. I had no memory of ever having seen such an opulent bathroom, but there was nothing in it that confused me.

The bedroom contained a huge bed in the middle of the floor surrounded by bookcases, a stereo system, and a large television.

I went back to the first room where Daniel waited, looking impatient but not complaining. There was a desk there, a computer, more bookcases, a telephone, file cabinets—like Theodora’s office but much tidier. There were other tall chairs. I pulled one of them close to him, placing it in front of him, and I sat down.

“Is there any way for me to be here without tormenting you?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter. I want you here. I’ve wanted you here since I first saw you before you lost your memory. You will mate with us.”

“I will if you and your brothers still want me.”

He seemed to relax a little, to let his body sag in the chair. “Of course we do.” “Hayden says I’m too young to make such a commitment,” I said.

He shook his head. “Hayden says a great many things. He says you’re too great a risk because you’re all alone. He says we should look around, find a family with several unmated females. He says you might leave us with only one son or none. He says he would welcome you in a moment if you had even one sister, but you alone . . . He says it’s too dangerous for our family.”

I drew a deep breath, and I think I sagged a little, too. “I thought he liked me, that he wanted me as your mate.”

“Did he say he did?”

“He didn’t. But he seemed . . . I don’t know.”

“Preston wants you. He thinks you’re worth the risk. He says your mothers made genetic alterations directly to the germ line, so that you’ll be able to pass on your strengths to your children. At least some of them will be able to be awake and alert during the day, able to walk in sun-light. Preston says you have the scent of a female who will have no trouble producing children. His sense of smell is legendary among Ina. I believe him.” He paused, leaned forward, took my hands. “My brothers and I will mate with you.”

I smiled and answered, “I will mate with you and your brothers.” It felt like the thing I should say. It felt formal and right.

Daniel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them and without warning came to his feet, pulling me up with him, lifting me off the floor to wrap me in a rough, hard embrace. Nothing more.

It didn’t frighten me, didn’t even startle me. On some level, I had expected it. I accepted it. I touched my closed lips to his face, his throat, but not his mouth. I gave him small, chaste kisses. I didn’t bite him. I was surprised that I wanted to. He was Ina, not human, not a potential symbiont, not a temporary food source. And yet, I wanted very much to bite into the tender flesh of his throat, to taste him, to let the sweet, smoky scent of him become a flavor as well.

I rubbed my face against him, caught up in his scent and my unexpected longing. Then I drew back. He didn’t put me down, but held me comfortably against him. “Why do I want to bite you?” I asked.

He grinned. “Do you? Good. I thought you might actually do it.” “Shall I?”

“No, little mate, not yet. Not for a few more years. I admit, though, that I half-hoped you would, that maybe with your memory gone, you would simply give in to my scent, my nearness. If you had, well ... If you had, no one could prevent our union. No one would even try.”

“You would be tied to me, wouldn’t you? You would be infertile with other Ina.” “I’m already tied to you.”

“You’re not. I haven’t tied you to me. I won’t until I’m fully adult. I’ll come to you then, if you and your brothers are still unmated and if you still want me. If I live to become adult, then I’ll tie you to me.”

“Of course you’ll live!”

I kissed his neck again. This time I licked his throat. He shuddered and let me slide down his body to the floor. “I’ll live if this Council of Judgment is able to stop the attempts on my life,” I said. “Can we just sit and talk about the Council for a few minutes, or would it be easier on you if I went to Preston?”

“Stay here,” he said. “I’d rather have you with me for a little longer. Here, I can touch you without people thinking that I’m a selfish monster who doesn’t care about his family.”

I smiled, thinking about the feel of his hands. “You can touch me. You can trust me.” He smelled even more enticing than Joel, but I would not taste him.

He sat down, reached out with his long wiry arms, caught me around the waist, and lifted me onto his lap. Wright did the same thing whenever he could, and Joel had begun to do it. I decided I liked it and wondered whether I would someday grow too big for them to be able to do it. I hoped not. I leaned

against him, content, listening to the deep, steady beat of his heart. “What will happen?” I asked. “Tell me about the Council.”

“I’ve witnessed seven Councils of Judgment,” he said. “Hayden and Preston take me or one of my brothers along whenever they’re invited to one. They want us to experience them. We won’t be called to serve until we’re around their age, but at least we can begin to understand how things work. We can see that our Councils aren’t games like the trials humans have. The work of a Council of Judgment is to learn the truth and then decide what to do about it within our law. It isn’t about following laws so strictly that

the guilty go unpunished or the innocent are made to suffer. It isn’t about protecting everyone’s rights. It’s about finding the truth, period, and then deciding what to do about it.” He hesitated. “Have you seen or read about the trials that go on in this country?”

I thought for a moment, hoping some memory would come to the surface, but none did. “I don’t remember any,” I said. “Except on a fictional show I saw on Wright’s TV.”

“Good and bad,” he said. “Human trials are often games to see which lawyer is best able to use the law, the jury’s beliefs and prejudices, and his own theatrical ability to win. There’s talk about justice, of course, but if a murderer has a good lawyer, he might go unpunished even though his guilt is obvious. If an innocent person has a bad lawyer, he might lose and pay with his life or his freedom even though people can see that he’s innocent. Our judges are our elders, people who have lived three, four, five centuries. They sense truth more effectively than people my age, although I can sense it, too.”

He settled me more comfortably against him. At least I was more comfortable.

“The problems arise when friendship or family connections get in the way of honest judgment. That can happen to humans and to us. That’s why there are so many on a Council. And that’s why everyone on the Council is related to both sides.”

“Is a Council ever wrong?” I asked.

“It’s happened.” He drew a deep breath. “And when it happens, everyone knows it. It’s usually a result of friendship or loyalty causing dishonesty. Or the problem might be fear and intimidation. That kind of injustice hasn’t happened for over a thousand years, but I’ve read about it. It dishonors everyone involved, and everyone remembers. Members of the families that profit from it have difficulty getting mates for their young. Sometimes they don’t survive as families.”

“They are punished?” I asked.

“They are ostracized,” he said. “They might survive, but only if they move to some distant part of the world and manage to find mates. Today, with communication so improved, even moving might not work.

“But you need to know procedure and propriety for this trial. Will you remember what I say? Do you have any trouble remembering new things?”

“None at all,” I said.

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “You will speak after everyone is welcomed and the proceedings are blessed. Preston will welcome them as host and moderator. Then the oldest person present will offer blessing. Then you’ll speak. You’re making the accusations, so you’ll need to tell your story. You must be tired of doing that, but you’ll do it one more time, very thoroughly and accurately. No one will interrupt you, and most will remember exactly what you say. The Council will listen. Some of them will just want to learn enough to make a decision based on the truth or falsity of what you say. Others will want to find reason to doubt you so that they can better attack you and defend the Silks. And

then there are those who will want to defend you against attack.” “Why should I need to be defended? The Silks need to be defended.” “They will be. And their advocate will probably—”

“Wait a moment. Their advocate? Who’s that?”

“You and the Silks will both be asked to choose an advocate from among the Council members. You should think about who you’ll want. I suggest you consider Joan Braithwaite, Elizabeth Akhmatova, or either of the Leontyev brothers. We won’t know for sure which member of each family will be on the Council until the first session.”

“I haven’t met Elizabeth Akhmatova at all.”

“She’s smart, and she was a good friend of your eldermothers’. She or one of the others will help you if anyone on the Silks’ side tries to show that because of your memory loss, you may be lying or confused or perhaps not even sane.”

I frowned, feeling pulled toward several questions. “Even if I were all those things, it would not make the

Silks less responsible.”

“But it could, Shori. It could mean that you might not know the difference between lies and truth. You might be delusional, for instance, and able to tell lies that you actually believe. If you’re delusional, if you could be shown to be delusional, then anything you say becomes suspect. Anything you’ve sensed or done may not be as it seems. Tell the complete truth, and remember what you’ve said.”

“Of course. I would have done that anyway. But what about the Silks’ lies? If they say they didn’t do it, even though they did, how could my being delusional matter?”

“It might not. But you’re one small person, one child, and the Silks are a large and respected family. There may be people on the Council who are sorry that your two families are dead and who see the guilt of the Silks, but who don’t want to see a third Ina family destroyed. You can count on us—my whole family—to back you up on what almost happened here at Punta Nublada and on what we learned from the prisoners, but you must represent your mothers and your father. You must bring them into the room with you and stand them beside you whenever you can. Do you understand?”

I frowned. “I think so. I wonder, though, if the Ina way is so much better than the one the you say the humans have.”

“It’s our way,” he said. “It’s the system you must work within if you’re to be safe, if you’re to keep your symbionts safe, and if, someday, you’re to keep our children safe.”

I took one of his long hands and held it in my lap. “All right,” I said.

“And don’t lose your temper. There will be a lot of questions. Tomorrow, after you’ve told your story, you’ll be questioned by whomever the Silks choose as their family representative, you’ll be questioned by the advocate of the Silks, and you’ll be questioned by any other member of the Council who chooses to question you. It won’t be easy. You shouldn’t make it easy on them either. You get to ask questions,

too. And you can—should, in fact—call on us to support your memory of what happened here. On the first night, you and the Silk representative will be the ones asking and answering questions. On the second, both of you can call others to support what you’ve said, and they will be questioned. On the third, the Council will ask any final questions it has, and a decision will be made. This can be flexible. If you or the Silks need to ask more questions on the third day, you can. But that’s the way it will go in

general.” He hesitated, thinking. “It will probably provoke the hell out of you. The Council members can question you or the Silks’ representative or anyone either of you call for questioning. So if you get asked the same question ten times or twenty or fifty, give the same answer, briefly and accurately, and don’t let it bother you.”

“I won’t.”

“And never answer an accusation that hasn’t been made. Even if you believe someone is hinting that you’re delusional or otherwise mentally damaged, don’t deny what they say unless they make the accusation out-right.”

“All right.”

“Someone might offer you pity and sympathy for your disability. Make them state the disability. Make them say what they mean. Make them support it with evidence. If they say that you’re delusional or mentally deficient or too grief stricken to know what you’re saying—which, I believe, you definitely would be if your memory were intact—make them explain how they’ve come to that conclusion. Then, by your questions and your behavior, prove them wrong. If, on the other hand, they can’t say what it is they’re pitying you for, they must be the ones who are confused. You see?”

“I see.”

“Someone might pretend to misunderstand you, might misstate what you’ve said, then ask you to agree with them. Don’t let them get away with it. Pay attention.”

“I will.”

“Everything will be recorded. Every Ina family gets to see and hear Council proceedings these days. It didn’t used to be that way, of course, but now that we can keep an accurate audio-visual record, we do. That means you can ask for a replay if anyone tries to insist on a misstatement of anything you’ve said.”

“How likely is that?”

“I don’t know. Most of us have excellent memories. That’s why your amnesia will cause some Council members to distrust you at first. Just be yourself. They’ll know your intellect is all right as soon as they’ve heard your story. Anyway, it’s dangerous for anyone to lie about someone else’s questions or answers. I’ve seen it happen, though. People feel that things are going against them. They’re afraid. We have no prisons, after all.”

I thought about that and found that I knew what prisons were. Humans often locked up their lawbreakers in cages—prisons. “No Ina prisons? Why?”

“None of us are willing to spend our lives in prison with the lawbreakers. Maintaining a prison isn’t quite as unpleasant as being a prisoner in one, but it’s bad enough. And levying fines would be meaningless. It’s too easy for us to get money from the human population. For lesser crimes, most likely we amputate something. An arm, a leg, both arms, both legs . . . If the sentence is death, we decapitate the lawbreakers and burn their bodies.”

“Decapitate?” I stared up at him. “Amputate . . . ? Cut off people’s heads, arms, or legs?”

“That’s right. Amputations and executions are also recorded. Amputations are punishments of pain, humiliation, and inconvenience. Limbs grow back completely in a few months, maybe a year or two for legs taken off at the hip. Of course, when it’s done, people are given nothing for the pain, and the pain is terrible. It hurts for a long time, although once people are returned to their families, the families can help

them with the pain. They’re permitted to, not required to.” “You’re sure that arms and legs cut off . . . grow back?”

He held his left hand in front of me. “I was in a traffic accident ten years ago. I lost three fingers and part of my hand. In about a month and a half, I had a whole hand again.”

“That long?” I hesitated, then asked, “Did you eat raw meat?”

“At first. I don’t digest it well, though. If I had been able to eat more of it, I probably would have healed faster.”

“You probably would have,” I said. And I wondered if he would heal more quickly once he was mated with me. I thought I would like to give him that.

He continued: “The Silks won’t be having anything amputated, though. What they’ve done is too serious for that. If the Council condemns them, they’ll either be killed—the adults will be killed, I mean—or they will be broken up as a family. Their youngest members will be scattered to any families that will have them, and the older ones will be left to wither alone. They might try anything they can think of to avoid those possibilities.”

“They . . . they would lose their children?”

“Yes. They would not be seen as fit to raise them.”

“That seems cruel to the children. And . . . what if they have more children?”

“It might happen. Or their mates might shun them, blame them for the loss of young sons who have been separated and sent to live thousands of miles apart, probably on different continents. Adoption is not cruel, by the way. There are blood exchanges to ease it and seal it. People miss one another, of course, but by letter, phone, and computer, they can keep contact. I hear they tend not to, but they can. Adoptees are truly accepted and accepting once they’re in their new circumstances. But for the adults, it’s the end. What adult wouldn’t fear such a thing and do almost anything to avoid it?”

“If they had let my families alone, they wouldn’t be facing it.”

“They must have felt very strongly compelled to do what they did. And . . . Shori, if you had been anyone else, they would have succeeded. You not only survived twice, but you came to us with what you knew, and you led the fight to destroy most of the assassins and to question the survivors. They thought mixing human genes with ours would weaken us. You proved them very wrong.”

We sat together for a while longer in warm, easy silence. I felt that I had known him much longer than the few days that I’d been living at Punta Nublada.

I turned toward him and opened his shirt.

“What are you doing?” He was shocked, but he did nothing to stop me.

“Looking at you. I wanted to see whether you had hair on your chest.” He didn’t. “We tend not to have much body hair.”

He had very smooth skin. I kissed it and ran my hands over it, loving the feel of him. Then I stopped and slipped down off his lap because I wanted so badly to taste him, drink him, to lie beneath that tall, lean body and feel him inside me.

He watched me, left the decision to me. If I tried to bite him, even now, he would let me do it. And then what? If I died, he, at least, might age and die childless. His brothers might mate elsewhere, but he could not. “How can you risk yourself this way?” I whispered.

“I know what I want,” he said.

I decided that I had better protect him from his wants. He wouldn’t send me away, and he should have. I

took his hands, his broad hands with long, long fingers that were almost unlined, that were like, but unlike, the hands of my symbionts, larger versions of my own. I took his hands and I kissed them. Then I left him.

On the first night of the Council of Judgment, proceedings were to begin at nine. They would be held in a large storage building a few dozen yards beyond the last

house—Henry’s—along the private road. The building had been emptied, and the equipment usually

stored in it was sitting outside in the cold, rainy weather—two pickup trucks, two small tractors, a small crane that I’d heard called a cherry picker. Lesser tools had been stored in other buildings. Stacks of metal folding chairs and tables had been rented and trucked in. All this had been done quickly and efficiently by the Gordons and their symbionts with my symbionts and me helping where we could.

Attending were all thirteen of the Silks, all ten of the Gordons, of course, and two representatives each from the thirteen other families, all strangers to me, or near strangers like the Leontyevs and the Braithwaites. They would judge the Silks ... and me and perhaps make it possible for me to get to know myself again and get on with my life without having to be on guard every day against another attack.

Could a Council of Judgment really do that? What if it couldn’t?

The thirteen families were Fotopoulos, Marcu, Morariu, Dahlman, Rappaport, Westfall, Nicolau, Andrei, Svoboda, Akhmatova, Nagy, and of course, Leontyev and Braithwaite. One representative would act as a Council member and the other as a substitute. There were six male families and seven female. I asked Preston whether the balance of sexes meant anything.

“Nothing at all,” he told me. I was working with my symbionts to set up rows of metal chairs, and he was doing something to one of the video cameras that would be recording the Council sessions. “You heard how the decisions were made. The Silks traded names with us until we had a group that both would accept. We have acted as your representative in this because you no longer know these people.”

“Did I know them all before?” I asked.

“You knew them. Some you knew well. Others you knew only by family and reputation.” “If you tell me about them now, I’ll remember what you say.”

“I don’t doubt it. But for now, you shouldn’t know them. They must see that you don’t know them, see how much has been taken from you. Just be yourself. They should see that you have been seriously wounded, but that it hasn’t destroyed you.”

“It has destroyed who I was.”

“Not as thoroughly as you think, child.” He gave me a long, quiet look. “Did you taste Daniel’s blood?” The question surprised me. “I will taste it,” I said. “I will when I’ve survived all this,” I said. “When I

believe I can join with someone and not have it be a death sentence for either of us. And when I’ve grown a little more.”

“He said he offered himself to you.”

“And I promised that I would mate with him and his brothers. But not now.”

He smiled. “Good. Even alone, you’re the best mate my sons’ sons could hope for. They all want you.” “Daniel said that Hayden—”

“Don’t worry about Hayden. He likes you, Shori. He’s just afraid for the family, afraid for so much to depend on one tiny female. Once we get through this Council, I’ll convince him.”

I believed him.

He left us—Wright, Joel, Theodora, Celia, Brook, and me—to finish making neat rows of a hundred and fifty chairs. There was room for more, and there were more chairs if it turned out that more symbionts wanted to observe, but most of them had intended to be outside roasting meat over contained fires—barbeque pits—and eating and drinking too much. With the rain, many were partying inside the houses. There was even a small party for the children of the Gordon symbionts.

Wright had decided to stay with me through the proceedings, although I had told him he could go enjoy himself if he wanted to. After the chairs and the folding tables had been set up as Preston had instructed, I told Celia, Brook, Joel, and Theodora that they could go or stay as they chose. Joel stayed, probably because he knew Wright was staying. Brook and Celia went off to renew old friendships, and Theodora went with them. Theodora seemed cheerful and excited.

“I’ve moved to Mars,” she told me. “Now I’ve got to go learn how to be a good Martian. Who better to teach me than the other immigrants?”

It surprised me that I understood what she meant. And it pleased me that she was so happy. There was no feeling of stress or falseness about her; she was truly happy.

“She’s exactly where she wants to be,” Wright said when she was gone. “She’s with you, and you’re going to keep her with you. As far as she’s concerned, she’s died and gone to heaven. People keep falling in love with you, Shori—men, women, old, young—it doesn’t seem to matter.”

I looked up at him, surprised that I understood him, too. “Why don’t you want to learn from the other immigrants?” I asked.

“Oh, I do,” he said and grinned at me. “Of course I do. But right now, I want to learn from the Martians themselves.”

“You want to see how the Council works.” “Exactly.”

“So do I, although I wish I were doing it as just an interested spectator.” We finished our part of the preparation—bringing trays with covered pitchers of water and plastic cups to the storage building. We distributed them among the front tables for the Council members and put some on the tables next to the wall in the back for everyone else. Then we chose seats in the first row. I thought I should be in the front so that I could stand and speak when necessary, and I wanted Joel and Wright beside me since they’d chosen to stay.

“Have you ever been to one of these Council meetings?” Wright asked Joel, surprising me. With me encouraging them, giving them small commands, they had recently begun to speak to one another beyond

what was absolutely necessary.

“I never have,” Joel said. “There’s never been one here during my lifetime, not while I was at home, anyway.”

There was something comforting about having them on either side of me. They eased the stress I had been feeling without their doing anything at all.

Ina and some symbionts had begun to come in and choose seats. This first night of the Council was to begin at nine and run until five the next morning.

There was no special clothing worn by members of the Council or by audience members except for the many jackets and coats. The building was unheated, and the symbionts seemed to need extra clothing over their jeans and sweatshirts, their casual dresses, or their party clothing. Several symbionts came in from their parties, apparently deciding that they preferred to watch the proceedings of the Council to eating, drinking, and dancing. Earlier that evening, just after it was fully dark, Joel and I had wandered into the noisiest party—the one at William’s house—for a few moments to see, as Joel said, what was going on. It was the first time I could remember seeing people dance to music that was being played on a stereo.

“It looks like fun,” I said.

Joel smiled. “It is fun. Want to learn?”

“I do,” I said. “But not now. Not tonight.” And we had gone back to help with the preparations. I looked back, though, liking the joy and the sweat and the easy sexiness of it all, wishing I could have stayed and let him teach me.

twenty-two