Fledgling

Ironically, the oldest person present was Milo Silk. He was 541 years old—ancient even for an Ina. According to the world history I had been reading, when he was born, there were no Europeans in the Americas or Australia. Ferdinand and Isabella, who would someday send Christopher Columbus out exploring, were not yet even married. All Ina were in Europe and the Middle East, traveling with Gypsies, blending as best they could into more stationary populations or even finding their ways into this or that aristocracy or royal court. That world was Mars to me, and if Milo Silk were anyone else, I

would have wanted very much to spend time with him and hear any stories he would tell about the worlds of his childhood and youth.

As things were, though, I had avoided him and his family until now. And yet, he was asked to bless the opening of Council proceedings. I thought they should have changed the custom and invited an elder who was less involved in causing suffering and death to speak what Preston had told me should be words of unity and peace. But everyone seemed to expect Milo to do it. After all, he hadn’t been judged guilty of anything—yet.

Milo Silk stood up in his place directly across from where I had eventually been told to sit. He and I were at opposite ends of a broad arc of cloth-draped, metal-framed tables. Twelve members of the Council sat two to a table. The odd Council member, Peter Marcu, had a table to himself, as did Milo Silk and I and Preston Gordon, who sat at the center of the arc and who was moderating and representing the host family.

The Gordon symbionts had set up a sound system. They’d scattered speakers along the length of the big room and put on each of the tables a slender, flexible microphone for each person. There was also a standalone microphone centered between the two prongs of the arc of tables.

Martin Harrison had shown me how to use my microphone—how to turn it on or off, how to take it from its stand and hold it if I wanted to, how close to it I should be when I spoke into it. Wright and Joel had watched all this, looking around as the other Council members and Milo were seated. Then Wright

kissed me on the forehead and said, confusingly, “Break a leg.” Then he’d gone back to his seat in the front row where he had left his jacket holding his chair and sat there alone.

Joel had stayed with me a little longer, holding my hands between his. “Are you afraid?” he asked. I shook my head. “Nervous, but not afraid. I wish it were over.”

He grinned. “You’ll impress the hell out of them.” He kissed the palms of my hands—each of them—then went back to sit one seat from Wright, my former seat empty between them.

No one had told them they couldn’t sit at the table with me, and I would have been happy to have them there. Even before I sat down at the table, it had looked like a lonely place. But both men had seen, as I had, that there were only Ina at the tables, and they had drawn their own conclusions. They were probably right. Moments later, Brook came in and sat down between them.

Then Preston stood up, introduced himself, welcomed everyone, and asked Milo to bless the meeting. Milo stood up and, microphone in hand, began to speak.

“May we remember always that we are Ina,” he said in his deep, quiet voice. “We are an ancient and honorable people with more than ten thousand years of recorded history. We are a proud and powerful people, well aware of our duty to our families, to our kind, and to the truths that make us who we are. May we look after our human symbionts with kindness and firmness. May we care for them and keep them from harm. May we be loving, loyal, and generous to our mates. May the proceedings of this Council of Judgment be carried on with honor, justice, and truth. May we remember and honor the Goddess as we strive to do and to be all that she expects of us. May we put aside those things that do not honor her. May we put them aside and take care never again to be touched by them, never seduced by them, never soiled by them. May we remember always that our strength flows from our uniqueness and our unity. We are Ina! That is what this Council must protect. Now, then! Let us begin.” He closed his straight line of a mouth and sat down.

Milo had looked directly at me as he spoke his last few sentences. He was straight bodied and white haired, six and a half feet tall, and even leaner than most Ina. He was sharp featured and fierce looking somehow. If he were human, I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that he was sixty, perhaps sixty-five years old. He had, I thought, spoken condescendingly of human symbionts and contemptuously of me, and yet in his deep voice, his words had had a majestic sound to them.

Preston Gordon straightened in his seat at the center of the arc. I got the impression Preston was actually enjoying his position. He repeated his welcome to the members of the Council, their deputies, and their symbionts. He assured them that if they needed or wanted anything at all, they had only to speak to a member of the Gordon family. Then he introduced each Council member, although probably everyone knew them except me, some of the newer symbionts, and, ironically, some of the younger Silks. I listened carefully and remembered. Preston had already told me a little about each of the visiting families. Now I was getting a chance to put faces to the names.

There was Zoë Fotopoulos, whose family had once lived in Greece, but who, for a century now, lived on

a cattle ranch in Montana.

There was Joan Braithwaite, whom I was glad to see again and whose family lived in western Oregon where they raised, among other things, Christmas trees.

There was Alexander Svoboda, whose family had come from what was, at the time, Czechoslovakia a few years before World War II to establish a community in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains where they now owned a vacation resort.

Peter Marcu had come down from British Columbia where his family owned several touristoriented businesses, including one that helicoptered tourists to isolated areas and guided them on memorable mountain hikes.

Vladimir Leontyev and his family had lived in Alaska since Alaska was still Russian territory. They owned a fleet of fishing boats and interests in a cannery and a plant that processed frozen food.

Ana Morariu’s family were neighbors of the Gordons, living only about two hundred miles away in Humboldt County where several of her people were teachers, writers, and artists and owned two hotels that served people visiting the national and state parks.

Katharine Dahlman’s family ran a ranch that was a tourist resort in Arizona, but they were planning to move to Canada, away from the sun and toward the longer nights of northern winters. Katharine and her sister Sophia were noticeably short for Ina women. In fact, that was the first thing I noticed about them. Other Ina females who had come to the Council were at least six feet tall. But the Dahlmans were only Celia’s height, and Celia had told me she was five feet seven inches tall. She’d said she liked being around me since other Ina females made her feel short. She had measured me gleefully and discovered I was an inch under five feet tall. But I still had some growing to do. I wondered how Katharine and Sophia Dahlman felt about their height.

Alice Rappaport’s family had a ranch in Texas where she was, for legal reasons, actually married to her first. He had taken her name legally and was enjoying himself, doing what he had always wanted to do: run a ranch and run it profitably. Alice, her sister, and the six symbionts they had brought with them were using the living, dining, and family rooms of the guest house as their quarters so I’d had a chance to talk

to them. According to Alice, female Ina families had passed for human for thousands of years by marrying male symbionts and organizing their communities to look like human villages.

Harold Westfall was also married to his first for legal as well as social reasons. He lived in South Carolina and felt that anything he could do to seem normal and unworthy of notice was a good thing. He and his family had been in South Carolina for 160 years, and yet I got the impression that he still was not comfortable there. I wondered why he stayed.

Kira Nicolau and her family had left Romania for Russia, then left Russia just before the Communist Revolution in 1917, and had eventually settled in Idaho in a valley so isolated that they felt they had no reason to put on a show of human normality. They’d dug wells, cut their own logs, built their own cabins. They used the wind and sun to make their electricity, planted their crops and kept enough chickens, hogs, goats, and milk cows to supply their symbionts with food and make a small profit. They shopped maybe twice a year to buy the things they either couldn’t make or didn’t want to bother making. If they hadn’t had to visit their mates and attend the occasional Council of Judgment, they might have vanished completely from the awareness of other Ina.

Ion Andrei, on the other hand, lived in a suburb of Chicago. His family, too, were planning to move to Canada. They owned interests in several Chicago businesses. They had been in the Chicago area for over a century, but now they were beginning to feel swallowed by the growing population.

During the northern hemisphere’s winter, Walter Nagy and his family lived on a farm on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. During the southern hemisphere’s winter, the whole family moved to a ranch in Argentina. In fact, they had just gotten back from Argentina. “We could get even more hours of darkness if we moved farther north and farther south,” he had told me when I met him. “But we like comfort, too. We don’t mind a little cold weather, but do mind snow and ice.” His family also owned income property in New York City and in Palo Alto and San Francisco. The few among them who bothered to work

were artists, writers, and musicians.

Finally, there was Elizabeth Akhmatova, whose family lived in Colorado in a Rocky Mountain community. They had gradually developed the land surrounding their community, building houses, stores, shops, and a nearby resort area until a fair-sized town had grown around them. They had held on to the property until it became popular and highly valued, and now, they were gradually selling it off at very high prices. She and her family had come to North America in 1875, and they were about to make their third major move, this time to Canada. They liked to find areas with potential, acquire vast stretches of land, and develop it.

Preston introduced them all, then introduced me and welcomed me. Finally, he asked me to stand and tell my story.

I stood, holding my microphone the way Milo had. I began my story with my first memory of awakening in the cave, confused, in pain, without my memory, and racked with intense hunger. I told them about Hugh Tang—all of it—about the ruin that I had not recognized as my home, about Wright and my father and the destruction of my father’s community—the whole story up to and including the raid on the Gordons and the capturing and questioning of Victor and his two friends. The telling took more than an hour.

At last, I finished and sat down. There were several seconds of absolute silence. Then Milo Silk stood up. “Does this child have an advocate?” he demanded. He spoke the word “child” as though he wanted to say a much nastier word but restrained himself.

Before I could say that I didn’t yet have an advocate, Vladimir Leontyev spoke up.

“I am one of the fathers of Shori Matthews’s mothers,” he said. “I believe I’m her nearest living relative on the Council. My brothers and I may be her nearest living relatives period. If Shori wishes it, I will be her advocate.”

I leaned forward so that I could see him and said, “I must ask questions because of my memory loss. I mean no offense, Vladimir, but if you become my advocate, will it be a problem that you and I don’t really know each other anymore?”

“It won’t be a problem,” he said. “Family is what matters here. You are of great importance to me because you are one of my descendants.”

“Will you speak for me or will you help me understand rules and customs so that I can speak for myself?”

“Both, probably,” he said, “but I would prefer the latter.”

I nodded. “So would I. I understand that the Silks will also have to have an advocate.”

Vladimir gave me a small smile, then looked at Milo Silk. “Who on the Council will be your family’s advocate, Milo?”

“I speak for my family,” he said.

Preston Gordon said, “Milo, in our negotiations with your family, one of your sons mentioned that a member of the Dahlman family might be persuaded to be your advocate.”

“When have you known me to need someone to speak for me?” he demanded.

Preston looked at him, looked down at his own spidery hands resting on the table, then faced Milo again. “Let me advise you, just this once. Your family needs more protection than you can give it. Don’t let your pride destroy your family.”

Milo looked away from him, kept quiet for several seconds. After a while, he said, “Katharine Dahlman is the oldest daughter of my sisters,” Milo said. “I ask that she be my advocate.”

Katharine Dahlman managed, by sitting very straight, to look not only important, but a little taller. She lowered her head in a slow nod. “Of course,” she said in a deep, quiet contralto—a female version of Milo’s voice. It was the voice of a larger woman, somehow. “Will you question the child, Milo, or shall I?”

Milo looked down at the table, and I remembered that he had been writing while I spoke. Perhaps he had not trusted the two video cameras that were being used to record the session. Perhaps he had made notes of the questions he wanted to ask me. Or perhaps he had his own memory problems. I faced him across the arc, ready to be questioned, but he turned his body and tried to face Preston.

“I have my doubts, Preston, whether this child should even be here,” he said. “She has suffered terrible losses, and she admits that she hasn’t recovered from her injuries.”

I resisted an impulse to say that I had recovered, or had recovered as much as I was likely to. Instead, I

waited to see what Preston would say. He looked at me, then at Vladimir. Vladimir said, “Shori, have you recovered from your injuries?”

“I am recovered,” I said. “My memory may or may not return. I’m beginning to relearn what I’ve lost, and I remember clearly all that has happened to me since I awoke in the cave.” I looked across at Milo and decided that he would speak directly to me in a minute or two. He didn’t want to, but he would.

“Has the child been examined by a physician?” Milo asked. “I understand there is a human physician among the symbionts here. If not, one of my family’s symbionts is a physician.”

That was too much. I had been at Punta Nublada long enough to recognize that Milo was being openly insulting. He was saying that my body was not Ina enough to heal itself, that the human part of me had somehow crippled me.

“Milo!” I said, not loudly, but sharply. He looked at me before he could stop himself and then looked away smoothly, as though he had only glanced at me by accident. I leaned forward, facing him across the arc. “I am Ina, Milo.”

He stared at me, then turned again to Preston. “For the child’s own sake, I request that she be examined by a physician.”

I said, “What are those notes you’re making there, Milo? No one else is taking notes. Are you having difficulties with your memory, too?”

He glared at me. Katharine Dahlman glared at me.

“I am Ina, Milo, and if the doctor must examine me, then for your own sake, I request that she also examine you.”

“You’re not Ina!” he shouted. He slammed his palm down on the table, making a sound like a gunshot. “You’re not! And you have no more business at this Council than would a clever dog!”

People jumped. Katharine Dahlman said, “Preston, could we break for a few minutes?” She didn’t wait but stood up and went around to Milo who had risen to his feet and was leaning forward, fists on the table, glaring at me.

“Fifteen minutes,” Preston said and glanced at his watch.

People poured themselves glasses of water, got up to stretch their legs, or turned to talk to one another. At first no one on the Council spoke to me. Most didn’t even look at me.

Some went to speak to audience members, and Wright, Joel, and Brook took this to mean that they could come talk to me. They reached me at the same moment as Vladimir Leontyev and Joan Braithwaite.

The two Ina and the three humans stared at one another for a moment, then Joan leaned on the table, clicked off my microphone, and said, “Shori, there are people in this room who have loved that old man for centuries.”

I focused on her and bit back all the things I could have said. She knew them as well as I did. That old man either ordered my families killed or sat by and watched while his sons did it. That old man had just told me I was no better than a dog because I had human as well as Ina genes. That old man is not sane. All true, all obvious.

“What should I have done?” I asked her.

She looked surprised. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”

“You should have let me do it,” Vladimir said. “I’m only about ninety years younger than he is. A rebuke from me would have been more easily accepted.”

“Would you have done it?” Wright asked him. Vladimir took a deep breath. “Eventually.” “It’s done,” I said. “What happens now?”

“You didn’t think of that question before you humiliated him?” Joan asked. “You didn’t wonder what would happen afterward?”

“I didn’t humiliate him,” I said, finally stating the obvious. “I would not have humiliated him. I just stood back and let him humiliate himself.”

“Others won’t see it that way.”

“Are we rid of him?” I asked. “Will he step aside and let one of his sons represent the family?”

She looked at me as though she didn’t particularly like me. “He might,” she said. “What good do you imagine that will do you?”

“Perhaps the new representative will at least dislike me as one-individual-to-another, and not as

man-to-animal.”

“And no doubt that will make you feel better,” she said. “But it won’t help you. You’ve shown your teeth, Shori. They’re sharp and set in strong female jaws. You are now less the victim and more the potentially dangerous opponent. You begin to overshadow your dead.”

I thought about that, although I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to go on feeling angry and justified. But finally I sighed. “You’re right. What shall I do?”

She nodded. Apparently I had asked the right question. “Remember your dead,” she said. “Keep them around you. And remember what you want. What do you want?”

“To punish them for what they’ve done,” I said. “To stop them from hunting me. To stop them from killing anyone else.”

She nodded once, then turned and walked across the arc toward where people were very gently arguing with Milo.

“She’s right,” Wright said to me, “but she’s cold.” “She’s just female,” Joel said.

“And oldest sister,” Brook added. “I’ll bet the younger one, Margaret, is gentler.” “She is,” I said.

“Nevertheless, Joan’s advice is good,” Vladimir told me. “I know,” I said.

“The truth is your best weapon,” he said. “Put aside that temper of yours. Use the truth intelligently.” He turned and went back to his place in the arc.

Brook watched him go. Then she stepped behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. She massaged my neck and shoulders so that I began to relax before I realized I needed to. I looked up at her.

“Good?” she asked. “Good,” I said.

Joel laughed. “Ina need to be touched, especially young Ina. I don’t think you always realize how much you need it, Shori.”

“We’ll have to see that she gets what she needs,” Wright said, looking at me. The look made me smile and shake my head.

“You should all go back to your seats,” I said. “They’re about to start the Council again.”

They went back to their seats, and on the other side of the arc, another of the Silks—Russell, I had heard him called—sat down in Milo’s place.

twenty-three

Russell Silk had no story to tell. He denied all involvement in the death of my families and in the attacks

on the Arlington house and on the Gordons. He denied that his family was involved in any of it. He suggested that I was confused or mistaken or that the humans who had been used as weapons had been given false information intended to incriminate the Silk family—which happened to be the only male Ina family in Los Angeles County. Who would create such a fiction? He did not know. He and his family were victims . . . just as I was.

That was a sickening enough lie to make me wonder if I would have been able to keep my temper had I not lost my memory. If I could remember my mothers, my sisters, and my symbionts, if I could recall my father and my brothers as anything more than kindly strangers, I might not have been able to bear it. I thought Russell might have said it hoping to make me angry, hoping to pay me back for what I said to Milo.

Vladimir Leontyev spoke up. “Russell, are you saying that you know as a matter of fact that neither your father, your brothers, your sons, or their sons were involved in collecting a group of human males, making them your tools, and then sending them to kill the Petrescu, Matthews, and Gordon families?”

Russell looked offended. “I don’t believe any member of my family would do such a thing,” he said. Vladimir shook his head. “That isn’t what I asked. Do you know for a fact that no member of your family

did this?”

“I haven’t investigated my family,” he said. “I’m not a human police detective.” “So you don’t know for certain whether or not members of your family did this?”

“I don’t believe they did!” He paused and looked away fromVladimir. “But I don’t know with absolute certainty.”

I didn’t believe him. I don’t think I would have believed him even if I hadn’t helped to question Victor and his friends. Russell knew what his relatives had been up to, and now he was lying about it. By his silence or by his active participation, he had helped to murder my families.

“I have a question for Shori,” Katharine Dahlman said.

I looked at her with interest. I hadn’t made up my mind about her yet. How close was she to the Silks and what they had done?

“I’m sorry to ask you about things that may be painful to you,” she said, “but what do you remember about your mothers and your sisters?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.” “Their names?”

“I’ve been told that my sisters were named Barbara and Helen.” “And your mothers? Your eldermothers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your symbionts . . . how many symbionts did you have?” “I’m told I had seven. I don’t remember any of them.” “You recall no names? Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“So you feel nothing for these people who were once closer to you than any others?”

I looked downward. “It’s as though they’re strangers. It’s terrible to me that I can’t recall them even enough to mourn them. I hate that they are dead—my families—but for me, it’s as though they never lived.”

“Thank you for your honesty,” she said. I still didn’t know what to think of her. She didn’t like me, but she was polite. Did she dislike me because what I said endangered the Silks? Or did she dislike me because I was part human?

“Do you know how old you are, Shori?” Russell asked. “My father told me I am fifty-three.”

“And . . . do you know how tall you are, how much you weigh?” “I’m 4 feet 11 inches tall. I don’t know what I weigh.”

“Do you know what the average height is for an Ina female your age?” “I have no idea.”

“The average is 5 feet 6 inches. What does that say to you?”

I stared at him, then gave the 5 foot 7 inch Katharine Dahlman a long look. Finally, I faced him again. At least I wasn’t the only person who asked questions without fully considering the effects of the answers. “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” I told him.

He glared at me for a moment, then said, “Apart from what you say the three captive human captives told you, do you have any evidence at all that the Silk family has done anything to harm your families?”

“Three humans questioned separately and all telling the same story? Yes, that’s all I have, Russell.” We questioned each other repeatedly, Russell Silk and I and our advocates. Factual questions only.

Were you told ...? Did you see ...? Did you hear ...? Did you scent ...? Did you taste ...?

No speeches were permitted, no arguments except through questions, no interrupting each other. Preston Gordon could and did cut us off, though, whenever he heard us stray from these guidelines. He did this with a fairness that infuriated both Russell and me, and he paid no attention when we glared at him.

The Council members could ask us questions and question our answers. The purpose of accused and accuser questioning one another was to give the Council the opportunity to make use of their formidable senses. They watched, listened, and breathed the air as we spoke. Together, they had thousands of years of experience reading body language.

When our questions to one another waned, we began the second night’s work early. By mutual agreement, we began to question others, first Russell, then me. Any of the Silks or the Gordons could be asked to speak. If asked, they could not refuse. I intended to work my way through the two youngest of the four generations of Silks—four fathers and five unmated young sons—and have them come to the free-standing micro-phone one by one to answer my questions and any that Russell or the Council members might want to put to them. The unmated young ones were of the greatest interest to me. They were the ones I most wanted to be heard and seen by the Council. I thought my own scent would reach

them and trouble them, and perhaps they would have a harder time keeping their minds on any lies they meant to tell. But now it was Russell Silk’s turn. The first person he called was Daniel Gordon.

“Did you actually see the attack on your community that the child Shori Matthews says she defeated?” Russell demanded.

“She did not say she defeated it,” Daniel answered. “She and several Gordon symbionts worked together to defeat it.”

“Did you see this!”

“It happened during the day,” Daniel said. “No Ina other than Shori could have seen it. Over half of our symbionts saw it, though. They not only helped fight off the attack, but captured two of the attackers alive so that they could be questioned. Shori captured the third. She prepared the captives for interrogation but did not touch any of our symbionts.”

Russell stared at him, frowned as though he did not believe him, and changed the subject. “Have you

ever known Shori to seem confused or uncertain of her surroundings, her intentions, her perceptions?” he asked.

Daniel shook his head. “Never.”

“Have you ever heard Shori show disregard for the welfare of other Ina?” “No, never.”

Russell shook his head, as though in disgust. “And yet, isn’t it true, Daniel, that Shori Matthews has bound you to her as her mate?”

“She has not,” Daniel said.

Russell looked at the Council members. “I believe this to be untrue,” he said. “He was seen taking the child into his quarters.”

There was a moment of silence. Council members looked carefully at Daniel, breathing deeply to examine his scent. Finally two of them spoke.

“He is not bound,” Alexander Svoboda said. Elizabeth Akhmatova echoed, “He is not bound.”

They were, according to what I’d heard, the oldest male and female Council members. One by one, the other members of the Council nodded, either accepting their elders’ perceptions and judgment or coming to the same conclusion by way of their own senses. Alice Rappaport took several deep breaths, making

a show of taking in Daniel’s scent and judging it. She was the last to nod.

I wondered who had seen Daniel and me together, come to their own conclusions about what we were up to, and then run to tell the Silks all about it. Had it been the Marcu family who was staying in Daniel’s house? Or perhaps it had been someone outside who saw him approach me and take me into his house. Or was it a Silk symbiont? If symbionts could be used as weapons, they could also be used as spies.

Russell looked surprised by the Council’s conclusion. “You have no connection with Shori then?” he asked Daniel.

“We are promised to one another,” Daniel said. “When this is over, when she’s older and physically

mature, my brothers and I will mate with her.” He looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t help smiling back at him.

Council member Ana Morariu said, “Do you believe the things Shori has told us tonight?”

“I do,” Daniel said. “I’ve seen some of it for myself. I was present when the captives were questioned. Shori and my fathers and elderfathers questioned them. I saw, I heard, I breathed their scent. Because of that, I believe her.”

“Are you sure that’s why you believe her?” Russell demanded. “Would you believe her if Shori were already mated with other people or if you were?”

He repeated, “I was present when the captives were questioned. I know what I saw and heard.”

They didn’t make him say it a third time. I think they saw that they could not move him, and their senses told them that he believed that he was speaking the truth. Martin Harrison, of all people, had explained this to me days before. “Of course, the Ina can’t sense absolute truth,” he’d said. “At best, they can be fairly certain when someone fully believes what he’s saying. They sense stress, changing degrees of stress. You do that yourself, don’t you? You smell sweat, adrenaline, you see any hint of trembling, hear any difference in the voice or breathing or even the heartbeat.”

“I do,” I said. “I notice those things and others that I don’t always have names for, but I don’t always know how to interpret what I sense.”

“Experience will take care of that,” he said. “That’s why the older Ina are so good at spotting truth and untangling lies. They use their senses, their intelligence, and their long experience.”

“How can you know all that?” I asked him.

“It’s what we all do, Ina and human,” he said. “The Ina are just a lot better at it. They do it consciously and with more acute senses. They usually have better memories, and they can pile up more years of practice than humans can. We humans do a little of it and give it names like ‘intuition’ or ‘instinct’ or even

‘ESP.’ In fact, it’s just good old conscious and unconscious use of your senses, your experience, and your intelligence.”

I asked Preston about it later, and he grinned. “Been talking to Martin?” “I have,” I said. “Is he right?”

“Oh, yes. The man loves to teach. You’re a blessing to him.”

“How can he know what very old Ina are doing? Did you tell him?”

“No, he just keeps his eyes and ears open. His nose is no better than most other humans’, but his intelligence is firstrate. His son is a lot like him.”

That left me thinking again of Joel and wondering how like his father he would turn out to be.

The first day of the Council of Judgment ended with an effort on the part of the Silks to make me look irresponsible (at best) and make Daniel and, by extension, the Gordons look as though they were lying. They failed in both efforts. They would have one more day to try to undermine us. On the third day, judgment would be argued, truth acknowledged, and the Council would say, according to Ina law, what must be done.

That was all. It seemed almost . . . easy. Would the Silks simply give themselves up to be killed or allow their unmated young sons to be sent away to other communities? Could anyone do that?

As the Council ended its session just a hour before dawn, I felt the need to talk to someone. Then Brook, Wright, and Joel came to collect me, and I realized I was almost weak with hunger. Joel and Brook both recognized the signs, though I don’t think Wright did yet.

“Let’s go home,” Brook said.

I nodded. I wanted to go find Martin Harrison and ask him questions, but I thought that might be better done during the day when other Ina could not listen.

I let my symbionts walk me home, then kissed each of them, and went to find Celia. I had not touched her for four nights. Tonight she would be expecting me. She was not entirely mine yet, not bound to me, as Daniel would say. Not quite. Tonight would be her turning point. Her scent told me she was almost there. Tonight, she would be mine.

She was asleep, warm and smelling of the soap she had used when she bathed earlier that night. In spite of her bath, she also smelled of the man she had had sex with before washing. I took in the scent and, after a moment, was able to picture the man—a symbiont of Peter Marcu’s. He was a short, muscular man with very smooth skin—skin so dark it looked truly black. Someone had said he was from Ghana and that his name was Kwasi Tuntum. He had tired her out, made her sleepy. Eventually I would wake her up. I didn’t think she would mind.

But when I slipped into bed beside her, she opened her eyes. I didn’t think she could see me, but she said, “Hey, Shori, I thought you forgot about me.”

“You didn’t think that,” I said. “You were enjoying yourself too much with Kwasi to worry about me forgetting you.”

She froze next to me. I could feel her body go rigid.

I kissed her face, then her mouth. “Do you really care that I know?” I asked. “I can’t help knowing.” “You . . . don’t mind?”

“Should I mind?”

She shrugged against me. “Stefan didn’t mind. He said I had the right to have human partners and have kids if I wanted them. After all, he couldn’t give me kids.” She frowned.

I said, “Why did it bother you that he didn’t mind?”

She was silent for a long time. I used the time to explore what Kwasi had done with her. He had kissed her mouth and her neck and her breasts. He had kissed her between her breasts and taken her nipples into his mouth . . . I tried that, and she giggled. I’d never heard her giggle before. Then her scent changed, and she made a different sort of noise in her throat.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Learning,” I said after a moment. “Why did it bother you that Stefan didn’t mind your having sex with other people?”

“I think I wanted him to love me more—love me so much that he couldn’t not care that I went with

another guy.”

“He cared. I’m female and I care. But if you’re mine, I can accept the rest. And you do have the right to have your own human mate, your own children, or just have pleasure with a man when that’s what you want.” I lay on my back and moved her so that her body rested against mine. “I know how to take my pleasure with you,” I said. “Will you teach me to pleasure you?”

“You will pleasure me this time, I think. I want you to feed. I love the feel of you against me. I almost feel the way I did when I knew Stefan wanted me, when I wanted him.”

I smiled, hungry for her, starved for her, but taking my time enjoying the anticipation as much as I would soon enjoy feeding.

She looked up at me, perhaps able to see me a little now. “I’ll teach you more when this Council thing is over. And you can teach me what else I can do to make you feel good. But for now, you’re hungry. You have that scary, gaunt look.” She rubbed the back of my neck. “You’d think I’d be afraid of you when you look like that, wouldn’t you? Come here to me.” She rolled us over onto our sides, facing one another, holding me against her, so welcoming that I couldn’t wait any longer. I bit her deeply, hurt her a little, but also pleased her. She held me as though she thought I might leave her too soon. She held me as though laying claim to me.

That afternoon, right after Celia and I got up, Martin Harrison came to see me. I had intended to find him eventually. I was surprised that with all the work he had to do satisfying the Gordons’ guests, he had time to come looking for me. And I was surprised at the way he looked—tired, angry, sad, but struggling to keep his expression under control.

“You and I have gotten to know each other a little,” he said. “I’ve come to you now because I believe it’s better for you to hear what you have to hear from someone who isn’t a stranger.”

I stared back at him suddenly afraid, although I didn’t know what I was afraid of. His expression made me not want to know.

“Hear what?” Celia asked. She spoke to Martin, but she was looking at me. She got up and came over to stand beside me. I had been keeping her company while she cooked and ate a huge meal and took vitamins and an iron supplement that she’d had in her luggage. She said Stefan had always made her take vitamins and an iron supplement because she had been his smallest symbiont, and he worried about her health. She had stopped taking them when he died. Now she had dug them out of her suitcase and begun using them again.

She was wearing a pullover sweater that fully displayed her half-healed bite. As it happened, Martin also had a half-healed bite on his neck. It showed just above the collar of his shirt. “What do you want her to hear?” Celia asked again. Wright, Joel, and Brook came in just then, flanked by two Gordon symbionts. I realized suddenly that the Gordon symbionts had gone out and found my symbionts and brought them

to me, and I could see by their faces that they didn’t know why any more than I did.

Martin glanced at them, then looked at Celia—a kind look. A frighteningly kind look. “Stay close to her today and tonight,” he said to Celia. “All of you, stay close. She’ll need you.”

“What do you mean?” Celia demanded.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that someone was missing. “Theodora!” I said. “What’s happened to

Theodora?”

Martin sighed and turned to face me. “Carmen was going into San Francisco today,” he said. “She needed some medical supplies, and she wanted to see her youngest sister who’s just had twins. Carmen found Theodora lying on the ground between Hayden’s house and his garage. Theodora’s dead, Shori.”

twenty-four

Several Gordon symbionts had gathered around Theodora’s body, but they had not touched it. Only

Carmen had done that, checking to see whether Theodora was alive, whether she could be helped ...

Martin told me that when Carmen told him Theodora was dead, he asked her to stay with the body and keep everyone else away while he went to find me and send others to find the rest of my symbionts.

I was not fully in control of myself as I approached Theodora. I had demanded that Martin take me to her, but I was not truly seeing or understanding what was happening around me. I could not believe my Theodora was dead. It made no sense that she would be dead. None. Then I touched her cold flesh.

“She’s been dead since early this morning,” Carmen said behind me.

My own eyes and nose had already told me that much. Hours dead. Dead well before sunrise. Dead while Russell Silk and I tore at one another. Dead while I lay making Celia my own. Dead.

I found myself on my knees beside Theodora making sounds I could not recall ever having made before. She had come to me because she trusted me, loved me. She had been so happy when I asked her to join me here at Punta Nublada where she should have been safe. I had promised her a good life, had had every intention of keeping my promise. I would have kept her with me for the rest of her life. How could she be dead?

I wanted the people around me gone. I wanted to be let alone to examine Theodora, to understand her death. I must have made some gesture because the watching symbionts all took a few steps back. I knelt on the ground alongside Theodora, selecting out scents that were not her own, separating them into

odors and groups of odors that I recognized. Theodora had gone to at least one of the parties, and that made for a confusion of scents—sweat, blood, aftershave, cologne, food and drink of several kinds, sexual arousal, many personal scents. There were fourteen distinct, personal human scents.

The odor that screamed loudest at me was the strong blood-scent in Theodora’s hair—her blood. I looked and found the wound there. Her hair was stiff and matted with dried blood. Dead blood. I touched her head, ran my fingers over it, and found the place where there was a softness, an indentation. Someone had hit her so hard that they broke her skull.

Someone had murdered her.

Who had done it? Why? No one knew her here. No one had reason to harm her. No one would have harmed her . . . except, perhaps, to harm me. Would someone do that? Murder one person in the hope of causing pain to another? Why not? Someone—the Silks, surely—had murdered nearly two hundred people, human and Ina, in the hope of killing me, killing all that my eldermothers had created.

I closed my eyes, tried to quiet my thoughts and focus on Theodora. After a moment, I breathed deeply again and continued sorting through the scents. She had been in contact with fourteen different humans—Gordon symbionts and visitors. I didn’t recognize all of them, but six I could picture. These were people I had met or had had pointed out to me. The others ... the other scents I would remember. When I found the people they belonged to, I would know them. Any of them could have killed her, or

perhaps they had only brushed against her at one of the parties. Perhaps they had danced with her or touched her in some other casual way. She had not had sex with anyone recently.

There seemed no way to tell which of the fourteen might have hit her, but . . . Had her blood splashed on the killer? Had the killer kept the weapon used to kill her? Had the killer touched her at all beyond battering her to death, perhaps to examine her to be certain she was dead?

I put my face down closer to her broken, bloody head. But then the scent of dead blood, of Theodora’s beloved body, ten or more hours dead, became all that I could smell, and I had to turn away from it after a moment. I stood up and stepped a short distance away, gasping, sick, desperate for clean air.

Someone spoke to me, came near, and I shouted, “Let me alone! Get away from me!” A moment later, I

realized that I had shouted at Wright, my first. I had told him to go away. Stupid of me. Stupid! I looked up at him, saw that he was already backing away, not wanting to go but going.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Stay here, Wright. Stay near me while I finish this.”

I breathed deeply for a moment, then turned back to Theodora and tried again. I rolled her from her back onto her side so that I could see and smell whatever had been trapped under her. The significant odors were more blood, of course, and the scents of five more people. Again, I recognized some of them—three of the five. Through the night, then, nineteen people had had enough contact with Theodora to leave their scents on her—nineteen people, any one of whom might be her murderer. I would have to find each of them and speak to them or to their Ina.

I stood up, finally, and went on looking at my dead Theodora. I would have to go to her daughter and son-in-law and tell them that she was dead. They couldn’t know everything, but they had a right to know that. After I found her killer, I would go to her family.

I looked around for Martin. He was still there. The onlookers had gone away, but Martin and my four symbionts still waited.

“Has anyone left the community today?” I asked. He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“Could someone have left without your knowing?” “Of course. I have to sleep, too, girl.”

And William Gordon had bitten him early this morning. I looked back at Theodora. “I don’t know what should be done with the dead, Martin.”

“She should be cleaned up, given a funeral, and ... well, buried. We have our own cemetery here.”

I still didn’t know what to do. Theodora should be prepared for burial. A memorial service of some kind should be arranged. Her killer should be caught, should be killed. And yet in a few hours the Council of Judgment would begin its second night, and I would have to be there.

“Shori, girl,” Martin said. He spoke with such gentleness that I wanted to run away from him. I could not dissolve emotionally and lose myself in grief. I did not dare. There was no time.

“Shori, we’ll take care of her body. We’ll prepare her for burial. We can have services for her after the

Council is over. You go find out who did this. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

I looked at him, and all I could do was nod.

“Leave her to us.” He almost turned away, then stopped and drew a deep breath. “Two things, Shori. They’re important.”

“All right,” I said.

He looked down and met my gaze with a different expression—harder, unhappy, but determined.

“Tell me, Martin,” I said. “You’ve been a friend. Go ahead and say whatever it is that you don’t want to say.”

He nodded. “Don’t kill anyone. No matter how certain you are that you’ve found the right person, don’t kill. Not yet. Chances are, the murderer is one of the visitors—one of the Gordon family’s guests. You are more than a guest. You’ll be mated to the sons of the family in a few years. But still ... Tell Preston or Hayden what’s happened before you take a life.”

I stared at him, unable to answer at first. Until that moment, if I had learned that Martin himself had killed Theodora, I’m not sure I could have stopped myself from killing him. And yet, I understood on some murky emotional level and from slivers of recovered memory that it would be a serious offense against

the Gordons to kill one of their guests. I could n’t remember anyone ever doing such a thing, but I felt enough horror and disgust at the thought of doing it to know that I must not.

“I won’t kill anyone,” I said finally. Another nod.

“And don’t bite anyone.”

That one was even harder. But I could see the reason for it. If I found the killer, he or she would be the symbiont of someone here. Again, I knew—again without understanding fully how I knew—that it would be wrong to interfere with someone else’s symbiont.

“The Ina might be the guilty one,” I said. “Probably would be.” “All the more reason not to abuse the symbiont.”

“I won’t bite unless someone attacks me,” I said. “I would rather bite than break bones or tear flesh.” And I walked away from him. My symbionts followed me.

When we were alone, Wright pulled me to him and hugged me and held me for a while. I felt as though I wanted to stay that way, safe with him, breathing his good, familiar scent. It mattered more than I would have thought possible that he was alive, that he loved me and wanted somehow to comfort me. I knew that if I let him, he would take me home and put me to bed and stay with me until I fell asleep. I knew he would do that because I had come to know him that well. I longed to let him do that.

But there was no time. If possible, by the time tonight’s Council session began, I wanted to know who had killed Theodora. I wanted to prevent the murderer from leaving or killing anyone else, and I wanted to put this new crime before the Council to see whether they would deal with it. If they didn’t, I would.

I pushed back from Wright and realized that he had lifted me off the ground and was holding me so that I could look at him almost at eye level. I kissed the side of his mouth, then kissed his mouth and said, “Put me down.”

He set me on my feet. “What do you want us to do?” he asked.

And I almost disintegrated again. He understood. Of course he did. “I need you to stay together,” I said. “Protect one another.” I looked at each of them, missing immediately the face that was not there. “I don’t know whether Theodora’s murder has anything to do with the other attempts on us or with Council of Judgment, but it seems likely.” I paused. It hurt to say her name. I took a breath and went on. “Go talk to Jill Renner sym Wayne. She spent some time with Theodora last night and left her scent for me to find. She wouldn’t have hurt Theodora, but she might have seen her having trouble with someone or leaving a party with someone. Was there a party at Wayne’s house last night?”

“Sym Wayne?” Wright said, frowning. “Is that how you say it, then, when someone is a symbiont? That’s what happens to our names? We’re sym Shori?”

“You are,” I said.

“Something you remembered?”

“No. Something I learned from hearing people talk. What about Wayne’s house? Was there a party?” “Not at Wayne’s,” Celia said. “But there was a party at Edward’s and a big party at Philip’s. Jill,

Theodora, and I were at both of them. Theodora was a little shy at first, and she kind of hung out with me at Edward’s. We ate there and talked with a lot of people. But at Philip’s she met a couple of guys. They got her dancing, and the three of them just sort of stayed together, dancing and flirting and enjoying themselves.”

Wright frowned at Celia as though she had said something wrong, but Celia ignored him. “Who were the two men?” I asked.

“A couple of older guys. I don’t know their names or who their Ina is. They were both graying, maybe five-ten, well built. They could have been brothers. They looked a lot alike.”

“Did you touch them?” I asked. “Shake hands or squeeze past them?” She shook her head.

“Tell me what you can about them. See them in your memory, and tell me what you see.” We were walking toward Wayne’s house where Jill Renner was probably still asleep.

Celia frowned and looked desperate for a moment, as though she were grasping for something that she couldn’t quite reach but had to reach. She glanced at me, then closed her eyes, focusing, remembering. Finally she said, “They both had the same salt-and-pepper hair—black with a lot of white. One of them had a mustache. It was salt-and-pepper, too. They aren’t with the Gordons. I’m sure of that. Westfall! I think they’re the two male Westfall symbionts. The rest of the Westfall syms are women. These guys talk like they’ve been here for a long time, but every now and then you could hear a little English accent . . .” She let her voice trail away. Then she said, “The one with the mustache, he has a scar on his forehead, or maybe it’s a birthmark. I’m not sure which. I don’t know how big it is. It starts just below the hairline and goes back into the hair. It’s a red oval, or I think it would have been oval if I could have seen all of it.”

“All right,” I said. “Relax. I know who you mean. I’ve never spoken to them, but I saw them and got their scent when the Westfalls arrived. Their scents were on Theodora. You’re right. They probably are brothers. I’ll find them. The rest of you go talk to Jill Renner.”

“Let me stay with you,” Joel said. “I know a lot of the visitors, and they know me. I might be able to

help.”

I glanced up at him and nodded. “You three, watch out for one another.”

Brook, Celia, and Wright went off to knock on Wayne’s door, and Joel and I went down the road to Wells Gordon’s house where the Westfalls—Harold and John—were staying with their eight symbionts, including the two who may have been among the last people to see Theodora alive.

I didn’t suspect them of killing Theodora. The Westfalls, from what Preston had told me, were not closely related to me or to the Silks, but they were very interested in the success my eldermothers had had mixing human and Ina DNA and giving me the day. They were not offended by it as the Silks were.

I thought about Milo, about his contempt for me and his less lethal, but no less real, contempt for symbionts—probably for all humans. Ina could not survive without humans, and yet Milo seemed to consider them little more than useful domestic animals. What must life be like for his symbionts?

And how did families who thought like the Silks get along with other Ina? Joan Braithwaite had said that there were many who loved Milo. They must have loved him in spite of his arrogance. Or perhaps they loved him for what he had been when he was younger. He was far from lovable now.

I had read in one of the books I’d borrowed from Hayden about the periods of feuding between Ina families during which Ina fought mainly by doing what the Silks had done to my families—using humans as weapons—using them to kill members of one another’s families. Hayden said that hadn’t happened anywhere in the world for centuries. It was considered as barabaric among Ina as boiling people in oil was among humans.

And yet, somehow it had come back into fashion.

“I need to see the two male Westfall symbionts, “I told Dulce Ramos, the Wells Gordon’s symbiont who happened to be awake.

She nodded and said, “Okay.” Then, “Hey, Joel,” and took Joel and me upstairs and into to the house’s guest quarters. “Those two are brothers—twins, I think—Gerald and Eric Cooper. Eric’s the one with the mustache.” She paused. “I heard what happened. I’m sorry.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Do you think the Westfall syms did it?” “No. But they might have seen something.”

The Westfall symbionts were asleep, keeping the same hours as their Ina. Awakened, the Cooper brothers came out together, short salt-and-pepper hair standing up in spikes all over their heads. They wore hand-some robes made of very smooth, deep red material. They were just as Celia had described them, now sleepy but interested.

“I had heard you could stay awake during the day,” Eric said. “But I didn’t believe it until now.”

I shrugged. “I can,” I said, “but while I was asleep this morning someone killed one of my symbionts.” Both men went very still. “Theodora?” Gerald asked.

“Theodora,” I said.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Killed? Someone killed her? My God.”

“Early this morning. She’s been dead now for about ten hours.”

He nodded. “And you’re talking to us because we spent some time talking to her last night.” “I’m talking to you because both your scents are on her,” I said.

“We both danced with her,” Eric said. “She was so happy, having such a good time. She was a delight.”

“She talked mainly about you,” Gerald said. “She made us remember what it was like to be in a brand-new symbiosis. She was very much in love with you, said she thought her life was pretty much over until you broke into her house one night, swept her off her feet, and confused the hell out of her.”

I wanted to laugh about that. Then I wanted to run away from these strangers, find a dark corner, and huddle there rocking my body back and forth, moaning and mourning. They were speaking honestly about Theodora as far as I could sense, and yet I hated them. They had been with her talking to her,

listening to her, touching her during her last hours. They were strangers, and they had been there with her. I had not.

Beside me, Joel took my hand and held it. That helped a little, steadied me a little.

I struggled to keep my voice and my expression neutral because frightening these men would not get me the information I wanted. And I couldn’t just stir their memories by telling them to remember. They weren’t mine. The best I could do would be to ask their Ina to nudge their memories when he awoke. For now, I could only try to persuade them. “Do you remember what time it was when you left her?” I asked.

“She left us,” Gerald said. “She said she was tired and wanted to go to bed. Said she wasn’t used to having a social life again. I think it was around two this morning.” He looked at his brother. “Two?”

“Closer to three,” Eric said. “We offered to walk her home, but she just smiled and kissed us both and went on her way. I saw her go out the front door. That’s the last time I saw her.”

“Did you see anyone paying attention to her?” I asked.

Both men frowned, then Eric shook his head. “I was looking at her. I might have missed what someone else was doing.” He glanced at me. “No offense, but I would have taken her to bed if I could have.”

I nodded. I had understood that. “I don’t think she was ready for that yet.”

“She wasn’t.” He paused. “As soon as she was gone, though, two men left. I don’t know them or which families they’re with. Hell, I don’t even know if they were together. They did leave at the same time, though.”

“Tell me what you remember about them,” I said. “Did you see their faces?”

“Only for a moment,” Eric said. “Young-looking men. Brown hair. Medium brown. Both of them.” “Another pair of brothers?” I asked.

They looked at one another, then back at me. “No, I don’t believe so,” Gerald said. “They were a

Mutt-and-Jeff pair.” I frowned.

“A tall fellow and a short one,” Gerald explained. “And they didn’t look alike at all except for the hair.

Just two guys.”

“How short was the short guy?” Joel asked.

Gerald frowned. “Too short to be a symbiont, really. I think most Ina would worry about taking on a such a small man.”

Mentally, I went through the list of people who had left their scents on Theodora’s body. Of the ones I could identify, three of them were brown-haired men. Only one might be called short by everyone except me. Gerald was right. The man I was thinking of was slender and short, actually too small to be a symbiont. Most Ina worried about hurting smaller humans. In great need, even I might take more blood than a small human could survive losing. “Estimate the height of the shorter man,” I said, just to be sure.

“He was maybe five-three or four,” Eric said.

Joel whistled. “That might mean his Ina was female,” he said.

“Jack Roan,” I said. “His scent was on Theodora. Jack Roan sym Katharine Dahlman. And Katharine

Dahlman and her sister are the shortest adult Ina I’ve ever seen. Did Jack dance with Theodora at all?”

“If he did, it was before we arrived,” Eric said. “We were at another party at Manning’s house. She would have had plenty of time to dance with other people before we arrived.”

But she probably hadn’t. Theodora had not left Celia until Eric and Gerald took an interest. I needed to talk with Jack Roan as soon as possible.

But Jack Roan had gone—had left Punta Nublada. I went to the office complex where the Dahlmans were staying and he wasn’t there.

The complex was also where the Braithwaites were staying, and one of Margaret Braithwaite’s symbionts, a man named Zane Carter, told me he had seen Roan go—had seen him take one of the Dahlman cars and leave that morning. Carter assumed Roan had been sent out on some errand for Katherine or her sister Sophia.

Also, the other brown-haired man from the party turned up—the one who had left the party at the same time as Roan. He turned out to be someone that I knew or, at least, that I was aware of. He was Hiram Majors sym Preston, and his scent had not been on Theodora. I was relieved to know that once I knew he was with the Gordons. He came to me on his own when he heard that I was looking for Roan . . . and heard why I was looking for him.

“I was talking to Jack last night,” he told me when he caught up with me as Joel and I were leaving the office complex. “Turns out he and my sister both went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh at the same time. He knew her. Saw her in some play—she was a drama major—and then ran into her the next day and invited her to have coffee with him.” Hiram shrugged. “I’m cut off from my family out here. It was good

to talk to someone from home.”

“Did he leave abruptly last night?” I asked.

“Yes,” Hiram admitted. “I think he had been watching your . . . Theodora?” “That was her name.”

“I hadn’t really noticed her until she walked past us and out the door, and Jack looked at her and said he had to go do something for Katharine. Said he’d forgotten until that minute.” Hiram shook his head.

“That’s why I remember him so clearly.”

“God,” Joel said. “What a stupid thing for one symbiont to say to another.” “Why?” I asked, not thinking.

They both stared at me. Joel answered, “You don’t forget something your Ina tells you to do. You can’t. That’s one of the first things you learn as a symbiont. Jack Roan was—I guess—so eager to go after Theodora that he told a really stupid lie.”

twenty-five

I asked Layla Cory, Preston’s first, to let me know when he was awake. Then I went back to the guest house to talk with Wright, Brook, and Celia. “Jill Renner saw Jack talking to Theodora,” Brook said when I told them about Jack Roan. “She recognized him because he’s so short,” Wright said. “She’d noticed him before.”

“Where were they talking?” I asked.

“Outside,” he said. “Near Hayden’s house. It was around two thirty or three this morning. She was on her way home.”

“Jill said she couldn’t hear what they were saying,” Celia said. “But it didn’t look like anything bad was happening. I mean, Jill said he wasn’t touching her or anything.”

As soon as Layla Cory phoned me, I left my symbionts at the guest house, went to Preston, and told him what had happened and what I had learned. We talked in his den, next to his bedroom. The den was a windowless, wood-paneled room with leather-covered chairs, oriental rugs on the floor, and many shelves of old, leather-covered books. It felt, somehow, like a cave—the cave Preston was born from each day.

“Katharine Dahlman,” he said, and he shook his head. “I’ve known Katharine for three centuries. Her family and mine . . . well, I can’t say we’ve been friends, but we’ve usually gotten along. Are you sure?” We sat facing one another in the vast leather chairs. I had slipped off my shoes and curled up in the chair because it was easier than sitting with my legs sticking straight out or sitting forward on the edge with my feet dangling well above the floor. It was a comfortable chair to curl up in.

Under different circumstances, I would have been completely content there.

“I’m sure my Theodora is dead,” I said, “murdered by being hit so hard that part of her skull was broken. I’m sure Jack Roan sym Katharine Dahlman followed her from the party at Philip’s house after lying about why he was leaving the party. Jill Renner went to the same parties as Theodora, and she said early this morning she saw Roan talking to Theodora near Hayden’s house. Sometime after that, Zane Carter saw Roan leaving Punta Nublada. I can’t claim to know more than that, but that should be enough.”

Preston looked at me for a moment, then shook his head.

“I loved Theodora, and she was mine,” I said. “She came to me willingly, eagerly. And now, because she loved me, she’s dead.”

“You don’t know that,” he said.

“I can’t prove it,” I said. “But I know it. So do you.” I took a deep breath. “I promised Martin Harrison I wouldn’t kill anyone before I talked to you or Hayden. And because the Council goes on tonight, I can’t try to track Roan.” I took another breath. “Preston, what can I do? She trusted herself to me. I want a life for her life. I will have a life for her life.”

Preston turned his face away. “Roan’s life?” “Katharine’s life!”

“No.”

I said nothing more. I would have Katharine Dahlman’s life. We would not play the game of killing off one another’s symbionts as though they weren’t even people, as though they were nothing.

I jumped down from the chair, grabbed my shoes, and started to walk away from him.

“Who will protect the rest of your symbionts if you kill Katharine?” Preston demanded. “Her family will come after you. You’ll have stepped outside the law, and they will be free to protect themselves. They’ll kill you, and they’ll kill your symbionts, too, if they try to help you. And of course they will try. Do you want the rest of your people dead?”

“The Dahlmans are the ones who stepped outside the law!”

“I agree with you; they almost certainly have. But that isn’t yet proved.”

“My family is gone!” I said, turning to face him again. “My memory of them is gone. I can’t even mourn them properly because for me, they never really lived. Now I have begun to relearn who I am, to rebuild my life, and my enemies are still killing my people. Where is there safety for my symbionts or for me?”

“Go on with the Council of Judgment.”

If he had been anyone other than Preston, I would have walked away without bothering to comment. But

Preston had become important to me. It wasn’t only that I liked him. He was Daniel’s elderfather. And he favored a mating between his sons and me. “Why?” I demanded. “Why should I wait?”

“Think about why this was done, Shori. Think. You were very much in control of yourself last night. If your memory were intact, you wouldn’t have been, you couldn’t have been so calm as you sat in the same room with the people who probably had your families killed. I don’t think you were expected to be calm. I think the Silks and perhaps the Dahlmans expected you not only to look unusual with your dark skin, but to be out of your mind with pain, grief, and anger, to be a pitiable, dangerous, crazed thing. We Ina don’t handle loss as well as most humans do. It’s a much rarer thing with us, and when it happens,

the grief is . . . almost unbearable.”

I looked away from him. “I know what the grief is like!”

“Of course you do. You stand there hugging yourself as though you were trying to hold yourself together. They did this to you, Shori. They want you this way!”

I found myself leaning against the wall, wanting to slide down it, wanting to dissolve to the floor. “What can I do?” I said. “How can Katharine be punished when the Silks are the only ones everyone is paying attention to?”

“The facts are what the Council is supposed to pay attention to.”

“But Katharine Dahlman is a member of the Council.”

“Challenge her tonight. Tell the Council what has happened just as you told me. Facts only. Let them draw their own conclusions. Let them question you. Then ask that Katharine be removed from the Council.”

“And they’ll do it? All I have to do is ask, and they’ll do it?”

“Yes. They’ll question her. Then they’ll do it because they’ll know you’re telling the truth, and they’ll decide her guilt or innocence as well as her punishment—if there is to be punishment—tomorrow night, when they decide what to do about the Silks. But once she leaves the Council, someone else will have to go, too. Chances are it will be Vlad.”

If there was to be punishment? If? If they didn’t punish her, I would. I would kill her. I would find a way to do it, a way that would not leave my symbionts unprotected. Perhaps I could find a human criminal—a murderer—and have him kill her and then die himself before he could be made to say who had sent him. Katharine’s people would know as I knew, but if she could get away with it, so could I. I had to do something. What I wanted to do was tear her apart with my teeth and hands. Maybe it would come to that.

Then my mind registered the other thing that Preston had said. Vladimir Leontyev, my advocate, one of my mothers’ fathers, off the Council. “Why?” I demanded.

“Numerical balance. All Councils of Judgment must have an odd number of members. If Katharine were to leave the Council because of an injury or an emergency at home, her sister Sophia would take her place. Under the circumstances, I don’t think you or your advocate would find Sophia any more acceptable than Katharine.”

“I agree,” I said. Who knew whether this was something both sisters had agreed to do or something

Katharine had thought of on her own.

“Also,” Preston said, “it will strike people as reasonable that both you and the Silks lose your advocates.”

“It’s as though they’re playing a game. After all, I’m not trying to get at her because she’s the Silks’

advocate.”

“It’s not a game, Shori. The Council will know why Katharine must go. But it will be best for you if you do this according to custom.” He frowned, looked at me, then looked away. “You, more than anyone, must show that you can follow our ways. You must not give the people who have decided to be your enemies any advantage. You must seem more Ina that they.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“You know enough. When you don’t know, ask.” “Who shall I ask? Who will be my advocate now?” He thought for a moment. “Joan Braithwaite?”

I had to think about that, too. “If Margaret were the Council member, I’d say yes, but Joan . . . Just how friendly is she with the Silks?”

“Because of the way she spoke to you last night?”

“That and . . . when she finished with me, she went over to talk with the Silks.” “You should have listened to what she said to them, to Milo in particular.”

I waited.

“She told him to give his place to one of his sons or she would, before the Council, question his mental stability.”

“As he questioned mine.”

“Yes. Stupid of him. But as I’ve told you, you were not what the Silks expected you to be. You should have been, by all reckoning, only a husk of a person, mad with grief and rage or simply mad.” He paused. “I wonder if that’s part of why your memory is gone, not just because you suffered blows to the head, but because of the emotional blow of the death of all your symbionts, your sisters, and your

mothers—everyone. You must have seen it happen. Maybe that’s what destroyed the person you were.”

I thought about that. I tried to let his words touch off some feeling, some grief or pain, some memory. But those people were strangers. Right now, there was only Theodora and the pain of just thinking her name. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll never know.”

“Go talk to Joan, Shori. See her before tonight’s session begins.”

I looked into his kindly face, and it scared me how much I liked him and depended on him, even though I didn’t really know him very well. But then, I didn’t know anyone very well. “What would Joan have done differently if she had been my advocate from the beginning?” I asked.

He gave me a faint, unhappy smile. “From what I know of her, I think she would have spoken to you just as harshly as she did speak, perhaps even more so. But she wouldn’t have spoken to the Silks at all, and perhaps Milo would have gone on representing his family and eventually offending almost everyone. Go talk to her, Shori. Do it now.”

I went, stopping at the guest house to check on Wright, Joel, Brook, and Celia. I needed to see them to be certain they were all right, I needed to touch each of them. They were sharing a meal of roast beef, a mixture of brown-and-wild rice, gravy, and green beans with the six Rappaport symbionts.

“I need all of you to come to the Council tonight,” I said. I didn’t think I could stand it if they stayed away, if I couldn’t see them and know that they were all right for so many hours.

“We figured,” Celia said.

“Don’t worry,” Wright said. “We were going to go to the Council hall as soon as we finished dinner.” The storage building had become “the Council hall” overnight.

“Stay together,” I said. “Take care of one another.”

They nodded, and I left them. I went to the offices that the Braithwaites were using as living space. I would have given a lot just to sit with my symbionts, watch them eat, hear their voices, walk them over to the Council hall where I would make sure they got seats in the front so that I could always see them. Instead, I went to find Joan Braithwaite.

I tripped and almost fell on the steps that lead up into the offices. I hurt my foot enough to stand still for a moment and wait for it to stop throbbing. It occurred to me as I stood there that I could not recall stumbling like that since the day I left the cave and had healed enough to hunt. This was what Preston had

meant. Theodora had been murdered so that I would begin to stumble in all sorts of ways.

I stood still for a minute more, breathing, regaining my balance as best I could. Then I went in and found

Joan.

She was in the office that was her bedroom, sitting at the desk, writing in a wire-bound notebook. She closed the notebook as I came in. The folding bed that had been moved in for her was heaped with blankets that she had thrown aside. Her clothing, books, and other things were scattered around the room. She kept a messy room the way Theodora had. Somehow, that made me like her a little.

“I suppose you’ve come to ask me to be your advocate,” she said in her quick, nononsense way.

“I have,” I said, relieved that she already knew. Zane Carter, who had told me about seeing Jack Roan drive away, had probably told both Joan and Margaret everything.

“You haven’t hurt anyone?” Joan demanded.

I shook my head. “I promised Martin Harrison that I wouldn’t. I said I’d wait until I talked with Preston or Hayden. When I talked with Preston, he sent me to you.”

She turned her chair so that she faced me, hands resting on the arms of the chair. “So you’re pretty much in control of yourself, then? You’re over the shock?”

I just stared at her.

After a while, she nodded. “When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing. How are your remaining symbionts?”

“Fine.” Yes. Fine. Putting up with me and my need to hover over them.

“There are people on the Council who are going to ask you much more painful questions than I have so far, Shori. Someone will surely ask you whether you killed your Theodora yourself.”

My mouth fell open. “What? I . . . what?”

“And someone will want to know whether she had accepted you fully, whether she was bound to you.” I couldn’t say anything for several seconds. On some level, I understood what Joan was doing. I didn’t

love her for it, but I understood. Still, it took me a while to be able to respond coherently.

“She had accepted me,” I said at last. I cleared my throat. “Theodora loved me. I bound her to me here at Punta Nublada. She was mine when she died. Before she arrived several days ago, we hadn’t been together often enough to be fully bound, but she wanted to be. She wanted to be with me, and I wanted her. I loved her.”

“Do you understand why I ask that?” “I don’t.”

She looked downward, licked her lips. “Symbionts—fully bound symbionts—give up a great deal of freedom to be with us. Sometimes, after a while, they resent us even though they don’t truly want to leave, even though they love us. As a result, they behave badly. I don’t blame them, but—”

“She didn’t resent me. She didn’t really know what she was giving up yet. And . . . she trusted me.”

“Let me finish. Our senses are so much more acute than theirs, we’re so much faster and stronger than they are that it’s a good thing they have some protection against us. In fact, it’s extremely difficult for us kill or injure our bound symbionts. It’s hard, very hard, even to want to do such a thing.

“Even Milo hasn’t been able to do it. He resents his need of them, sees it as a weakness, and yet he loves them. He would stand between his symbionts and any danger. He might shout at them, but even then, he would be careful. He would not order them to harm themselves or one another. And he would never harm one of them. I think it’s an instinct for self-preservation on our part. We need our symbionts more than most of them know. We need not only their blood, but physical contact with them and emotional reassurance from them. Companionship. I’ve never known even one of us to survive without symbionts. We should be able to do it—survive through casual hunting. But the truth is that that only works for short periods. Then we sicken. We either weave ourselves a family of symbionts, or we die. Our bodies need theirs. But human beings who are not bound to us, who are bound to other Ina, or not bound at all . . . they have no protection against us except whatever decency, whatever morality we choose to live up to. You see?”

I did. And she had just told me more about the basics of being Ina than anyone else ever had. I wondered what other necessary things I didn’t know. I took a deep breath. “I see,” I said. “Theodora was bound to me. And I never hurt her. I never would have hurt her.”

She watched me as I spoke, no doubt judging me, deciding whether I was telling the truth, whether I was worth her time. “All right,” she said. “All right, I’ll be your advocate when the time comes.” She glanced

at her watch. “Let’s go to the hall.”