Fledgling

twenty-six

When Katharine Dahlman heard what I had to say, she denied everything. Neither she nor her symbiont Jack Roan had anything at all to do with the death of “the person Shori Matthews is attempting to claim as her symbiont.”

“They had chosen one another,” Vladimir Leontyev said. “We all saw that they had.” “Where is Jack Roan?” Joan Braithwaite asked.

“I don’t know,” Katharine said. “My other symbionts have told me he had to go—some family emergency. He has family in Los Angeles, in Phoenix, Arizona, and in Austin, Texas.” She said all this with an odd, sly, smiling expression that I had not seen before. And, of course, she was lying. Everything she’d said was a lie. I got the impression she didn’t care that we knew.

Vladimir looked disgusted. “You’re telling us Roan is yours, but you have no idea which of those three large cities in three different states he’s gone to visit?”

Katharine gave a small shrug. “It was an emergency,” she said. “He couldn’t wait until I awoke. I trust my people.”

“You should,” I said. “Your people are clearly very competent, especially when it comes to murdering an unsuspecting symbiont who’s never done them any harm.” I looked along the arc at the other Council members. “I request that she be removed from this Council.”

“You request!” Katharine seemed to choke on the words. “I request that you be removed from this room! You’re a child, clearly too young to know how to behave. And I challenge your right to represent

the interests of families who are unfortunately dead. You are their descendent, but because of their error, because of their great error, you are not Ina!

No one can be certain of the truth of anything you say because you are neither Ina nor human. Your scent, your reactions, your facial expressions, your body language—none of it is right. You say your symbiont has just died. If that were so, you would be prostrate. You would not be able to sit here telling lies and arguing. True Ina know the pain of losing a symbiont. We are Ina. You are nothing!”

There was a swell of voices from the audience—much denial, but some agreement. All the visiting and local Ina were present in the audience or on the Council. The rest of the seats were filled by symbionts who also had opinions about me. Not surprisingly, the symbionts who spoke were on my side. It was the Ina who were divided.

Preston stood up. “Listen to me!” he roared in a voice Milo Silk would have been proud of, and the

room went utterly silent. After a few seconds, he repeated more quietly, “Listen to me. Shori Matthews is as Ina as the rest of us. In addition, she carries the potentially life-saving human DNA that has darkened her skin and given her something we’ve sought for generations:the ability to walk in sunlight, to stay

awake and alert during the day.” He paused, then raised his voice again. “Her mothers, her sisters, her father, and her brothers were Ina, and they have been murdered along with all but two of their symbionts. All of Shori’s own first symbionts have been murdered. This Council has met to determine who’s responsible for those murders, and now it must also consider the murder of Theodora Harden, one of Shori’s new symbionts. We are here to discover the guilt or innocence of those accused of these murders and, if they are found guilty, to decide what is to be done with the murderers. Based on what we’ve

heard so far, I don’t believe Katharine Dahlman should be a member of this Council.”

Katharine Dahlman sat very straight and stared angrily at Preston. “You want your sons to mate with this person. You want them to get black, human children from her. Here in the United States, even most humans will look down on them. When I came to this country, such people were kept as property, as slaves. You are biased in Shori’s favor and not a voting member of this Council. I won’t give up my

place because you say so.”

Preston stared at her, expressionless, still. “Council members, count yourselves for or against Katharine remaining one of you.” He paused until all of them had turned to look at him. “Zoë Fotopoulos?” he said, turning to look at Zoë. She sat farthest from me, next to Russell Silk’s table.

Zoë looked from Katharine to Preston, then shook her head. “Katharine should go,” she said. “And we need to consider what to do about her directing her symbiont to kill Shori’s symbiont. Like the Silks, she must be judged.”

“She must be judged,” Preston echoed. “Joan Braithwaite?”

“Katharine should go,” Joan said stiffly. “Her fears have made her stupid. We cannot afford to have stupid Council members. The decisions we make here are important. They should be made with a clear head.” She did not look at Katharine as she spoke, but Katharine stared at her with obvious hatred.

“Alexander Svoboda?” Preston continued.

“Katharine should go,” he said, “but we’d better decide now who will go with her to keep our numbers right.”

“Peter Marcu?”

“She should go,” he said. “But she’s the Silk advocate. Maybe Vlad should be the other member to go.”

“Vladimir Leontyev?”

My elderfather looked angrier than the rest of them. It had taken me a moment and a look from him to realize that he was angry on my behalf. Something more had been done to me, and he was furious about it. “Katharine must go!” he said. “If that means I go, too, then so be it. How could she have imagined that this would be overlooked? Our symbionts are not tools to be used to kill other people’s symbionts.

Those days are long past and nothing should be permitted to revive them.” “Ana Morariu?”

Ana hesitated and stared down at the table. “Katharine should stay,” she said. “Let’s take care of one question at a time. After all, Katharine may be telling the truth about her symbiont. We shouldn’t judge her so quickly.” Several people frowned at her or looked away. Others nodded. Vladimir was right. Katharine had made little effort to make her lies believable—as though she expected at least some of the people present to go along with her because using her symbiont to murder the symbiont of someone as

insignificant as I was such a small thing. It was a little sin that could be overlooked among friends. Friends like Ana Morariu.

“Alice Rappaport?”

“She should go.” Alice looked at Katharine, then looked away and shook her head. “Over the centuries, I’ve seen too much racial prejudice among humans. It isn’t a weed we need growing among us.”

“Harold Westfall?”

“She should go. I, too, have seen more than enough racism.” “Kira Nicolau?”

“Katharine should go. She may be right in what she says about Shori, but she did send her symbiont to kill a human whom Shori called her symbiont. No member of a Council of Judgment should have done such a thing, and no Council of Judgment should tolerate such a thing.”

“Ion Andrei?”

“I believe Katharine should stay. If she’s made a mistake—if she’s made a mistake—well, we can look into it another time.”

“Walter Nagy?”

“She should go. None of us want to go back to the days of feuds carried on by murdering one another’s symbionts.”

“Elizabeth Akhmatova?”

“She should go. How can she murder another Ina’s symbiont and not think anything of it? What sort of person could do such a thing?”

That was a very good question.

Katharine seemed surprised that the vote went against her. She had truly expected to benefit from what she had done. She had gotten her symbiont out of my reach so that I couldn’t track him and kill him before she awoke. In fact, I wouldn’t have killed him. His life did not interest me. Hers did. But she didn’t know me, and she wasn’t willing to take chances with Jack Roan’s precious skin. She had

imagined that her fellow Council members—all Ina, all around her age—would accept what she had done, even if they didn’t like it. She believed I would either lose control and disgrace myself before the Council—possibly by attacking her—or if I didn’t, she could use my apparent lack of feeling to point out how un-Ina I was. She won either way. What did the life of myTheodora matter?

Katharine left the table, glaring at me as though I had somehow done her an injury. I hadn’t. But I would. I surely would.

After a little more discussion, Vladimir left, too. I was sorry to see him go. Wright called him my granddad. Ina, for some reason, didn’t use the words humans used to described kinship—“grandfather,” “aunt,” “cousin”—but I liked the idea of Vladimir and Konstantin as my elderfathers. It comforted me that I still had elderfathers, that I was a younger-daughter to someone.

Both Vladimir and Katharine went to sit in the audience. Wayne and Philip Gordon brought them chairs. Once that was done, the Council could return to the question of whether the Silks had killed my families.

The Silks first questioned several of the Gordons, including Preston, who stood up like the others at the free-standing microphone and quietly answered the same offensive questions. He answered them without protest.

No, he was not concerned about allowing his sons to mate with someone who was, among other things, a genetic experiment.

“I’ve had a chance to get to know her,” he said. “She’s an intelligent, healthy, likable young female. When she’s older, she’ll bear strong children, and some of them will walk in sunlight.”

Then Russell called Hayden and asked the same question of him.

“I am concerned because she is alone,” Hayden said. “I hope that she will adopt a sister before she

mates with my youngersons. My brother is right about Shori. She is bright, healthy, and likable. When her sisters were alive, I saw a mating between them and my youngersons as a perfect match—or as near perfect as any joining can be.”

I felt better about Hayden after that. He seemed to be telling the truth. I hoped he was. He was old enough to slip a lie past me and perhaps past everyone else in the room. But why should he?

The Silks had brought along a doctor who was one of their symbionts, poor man. Russell asked the Council to allow the doctor to question me about my injuries. It was intended to be offensive, another effort, like Milo’s, to treat me as human rather than Ina and, of course, to humiliate me.

“He may be able to give us some insight into Shori’s amnesia,” Russell said innocently. “Humans are more familiar with memory problems.”

Ion Andrei, Russell’s new advocate said, “Russell has the right to stand aside and let someone with specialized knowledge speak for him.”

Joan Braithwaite sighed. “We could waste a lot of time arguing whether or not to permit the doctor’s questions. Let’s not do that. Shori, are you willing to be questioned by this man?”

“I’m not,” I said.

She nodded, looked at me for a moment. “The implications of the request are offensive,” she said. “They’re intended to be. Nevertheless, I advise you to let the doctor question you. He means no harm. He’s only one more symbiont being used to cause you pain. Ironic and nasty, isn’t it? No matter. I advise

you to bear the pain so that anyone on the Council who has doubts about you can see a little more of who and what you are.”

I did not like Joan Braithwaite. But I thought I might eventually love her. She was one of the few fairly close relatives I had left. “All right,” I said. “I’ll answer the doctor’s questions.”

The doctor was called to the free-standing microphone. He was a tall red-haired man with freckles, the first redhead I could recall seeing. “Do you have any pain, Shori?” he asked. “Have any of the injuries you suffered caused you any difficulties?”

“I have no pain now,” I said. “I did before my injuries healed, of course, but they’ve healed completely except for my memory.”

“Do you remember your injuries? Can you describe them?”

I thought back unhappily. “I was burned over most of my body, my face, my head. My head was not only burned, but ... the bones of my skull were broken so that in two places my head felt . . . felt almost soft when I touched it. I was blind. It hurt to breathe. Well, it hurt to do anything at all. I could move, but my coordination was bad at first. That’s all.”

The doctor stared at me, and his expression went from disbelieving to a look that I could only describe as hungry. Odd to see a human being look that way. Just for an instant, he looked the way Ina do when we’re very, very hungry. He got himself under control after a moment and managed to look only mildly interested. “How long did it take these injuries to heal?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I slept a lot at first, when the pain let me sleep. I was mostly aware of the pain. I remember all that happened once I was able to leave the cave, but I’m not sure about some of what went on before that.”

“But you remember killing and eating Hugh Tang?”

I drew back and stared at the man, wondering how much of what he asked was what he had been told

to ask. Were Joan and I wrong? Was the doctor having fun? “I’ve said that I remember killing and eating

Hugh Tang,” I said.

He looked uncomfortable. “Could you tell us,” he said, “about anything at all that you’ve been able to remember of your life before you were injured.”

“I recall nothing of my past before the cave,” I said, as though I hadn’t said it a dozen times the night before.

“Does this trouble you?” he asked. “Of course it does.”

“What is your answer to it, then? Do you simply accept your memory loss?”

“I have no choice. I am relearning the things that I should know about myself and my people.” “Do you feel yourself to be a different person because of your loss?”

I had an almost overwhelming impulse to scream at him. Instead, I kept silent until I could manage my voice. Then I spoke carefully into the microphone. “My childhood is gone. My families are gone. My first symbionts are gone. Most of my education is gone. The first fifty-three years of my life are gone. Is that

what you mean by‘a different person’?” He hesitated.

Russell Silk said, “It isn’t yet your time to question. Answer the symbiont’s question.” I ignored him and spoke to the doctor. “Have I answered your question?”

He did not move, but now he looked very uncomfortable. He did not meet my gaze. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you have.”

The doctor went on to ask several more questions that I had already answered in one way or another.

By the time he ran out of questions, I thought he looked more than a little ashamed of himself. His manner seemed mildly apologetic, and I was feeling sorry for him again. How had he happened to wind up in one of the Silk households?

“Is the doctor boring you, Shori?” Russell asked, surprising me. He didn’t like addressing me directly. It was a family trait.

I said, “I’m sure he’s doing exactly what you’ve instructed him to do.”

“I have no more questions,” the doctor said. He was a neurologist, Carmen told me later, a doctor who specializes in diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. No wonder he had been so interested in my injuries. I wondered whether he hated the Silks.

Finally, it was my turn to ask questions. I used my turn to call Russell’s sons and their unmated

young-adult sons to the microphone for questioning. I asked each of them whether they had known that anyone in their family was arranging to kill the Petrescu and Matthews families.

Alan Silk, one of the younger sons of Russell and his brothers, was my best subject—a good-looking,

180-year-old male who hadn’t learned much so far about lying successfully but who insisted on lying.

“I know nothing about the killing of those families,” he said in response to my question. “My family had nothing to do with any of that. We would never take part in such things.”

I ignored this. “Did you help other members of your family collect humans in Los Angeles or in Pasadena, humans who were later used to kill the Matthews and the Petrescus?”

“I did not! None of us did. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that your male and female families destroyed each other.”

Russell winced, but Alan didn’t see it because he was glaring at me.

“Is that what you believe?” I asked. “Do you believe that my mothers and sisters and my father and brothers killed one another?”

He began to look uncomfortable. “Maybe,” he muttered. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know what you believe?”

He glared at me. “I believe my family had nothing to do with what happened, that’s what I believe. My family is honorable and it’s Ina!”

“Do you believe that my families killed each other?”

He looked around angrily, glancing at his new advocate, Ion Andrei, who had apparently decided not to get into this particular foolish argument. “I don’t know what they did,” he muttered angrily. He held his hands in front of him, one clutching the other.

I sighed. “All right,” I said. “Let’s see what you believe about something else. Several humans were used to kill my families. How do you feel about that? Are humans just tools for us to use whenever we find a use for them?”

“No!” he said. “Of course not.” He looked at me with contempt. “No true Ina could even ask such a question.” He suddenly swung his arms at his sides, then held them in front of him again, as though he didn’t know what to do with them.

“What are human, then. What are they to you?”

He stopped glaring at me and looked uncertainly at Russell.

Russell said, “What do his opinions of humans have to do with the deaths of your families?” “Humans were used as the killer’s surrogates,” I said. “What do you think of using them that way?” “Me?” Russell asked.

“You,” I said.

“Have you finished questioning Alan, then?”

“I haven’t. But you did jump in and it’s my time to ask questions. You’ve had yours. If you would like, though, I will question you as soon as I finish with Alan.”

He looked both confused and annoyed. Since he didn’t seem to know what to say, I returned my attention to Alan.

“Are humans tools, then? Should we be free to use them according to our needs?” “Of course not!”

“Is it wrong to send humans out to kill Ina and their symbionts?” “Of course it’s wrong!”

“Do you know anyone who has ever done that?”

“No!” He almost shouted the word. The sound of his own voice magnified by the microphone seemed to startle him, and he was silent for a moment. Then he repeated, “No. Of course not. No.”

Every one of his responses to my questions about humans were lies. I suspected that his brothers lied when I questioned them. I wanted to believe they were lying. But my senses told me that Alan, with his little twitches and his false outrage ... Alan was definitely lying.

If I could see it, anyone on the Council could see it.

twenty-seven

When the second night of the Council ended, I was exhausted and yet restless. I wasn’t hungry, and I

couldn’t have slept. I needed to run. I thought if I circled the community, running as fast as I could, I

might burn off some of my tension.

I got up from my table and joined my symbionts. I walked outside with them, and we headed back toward the guest house.

“What’s to stop Katharine Dahlman from escaping?” Wright asked. “She could decide to join her symbiont in Texas or wherever he is.”

“She won’t run,” Joel said. “She’s got too much pride. She won’t shame herself or her family by running. Besides ...” He paused. I glanced back at him. “Besides,” he said to me, “she might believe that she has a better chance of surviving if she stays here and takes her punishment.”

I said nothing. I only looked at him. He shrugged.

At the guest house, the four of them went straight to the kitchen. While they were preparing themselves a meal, I went out to run. I didn’t begin to feel right until I’d had done not one, but three laps around the community. I was the only one running. Everyone else, Ina and human, had trudged back to their meals and their beds.

When I came in, I avoided the kitchen and dining room where I could hear all four of my symbionts and the six Rappaport symbionts moving around, talking, eating. I went upstairs and took a shower. I was planning to spend the night with Joel. My custom was that I could taste anyone anytime—a small delight for me and for my symbionts, a pleasure greater than a kiss, but not as intense as feeding or making love. I made sure, though, that I took a complete meal from each of them only every fifth night.

Now it would have to be every fourth. I would soon have to get more symbionts, but how could I think about doing that now?

Dry and dressed in one of Wright’s T-shirts, I somehow wound up in Theodora’s room. I wasn’t thinking. Her scent drew me. I sat down on her bed, then stretched out on it, surrounded by her scent. I closed my eyes, and it was as though she would come through the door any minute and see me there and look at me in her sidelong way and come onto the bed with me, laughing.

A couple of nights after she arrived, she had found me reading one of Hayden’s books written in Ina, and

I’d read parts of it to her, first in Ina, then in English. She had been fascinated and wanted me to teach her to read and speak Ina. She said that if she was going to have a longer life span than she had expected, she might as well do something with it. I liked the idea of teaching her because it would force me to go back to the basics of the language, and I hoped that might help me remember a little about the person I had been when I learned it.

I lay there and got lost in Theodora’s scent and in grief.

I must have stayed lost for some time, lying on the bed, twisted in the bedding.

Then Joel was there with me, taking the bedding from around me, raising me to my feet, taking me to his room. I looked around the room, then at Joel. He put me on the bed, then got in beside me.

After a while, it occurred to me to say, “Thank you.” “Sleep,” he said. “Or feed now if you like.”

“Later.”

“I’ll be here.”

I turned and leaned up on my elbow to looked down at his face. “What?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Why did you want me?” I asked. “What?”

“You know what I am, what I can do. Why didn’t you escape us when you could have? You could have stayed in school or gotten a job. The Gordons would have let you go.”

He slipped his arms around me and pulled me down against him. “I like who you are,” he said. “And I can deal with what you can do.” He hesitated. “Or are you thinking about Theodora? Are you feeling responsible for what happened to her? Do you believe that she was killed because she was with you, and so why the hell would I want to be with you?”

I nodded. “She was killed because she was with me. She trusted me. Her death is not my doing directly, but I should have left her in Washington, where she was safe, until all this was over. I knew that. I missed her so much, though, and I had to have more symbionts here with me.”

“If she hadn’t been here, one of the rest of us would have died,” he said. “Theodora was probably the weakest of us, the easiest to kill, but I’ll bet if she hadn’t been here, Katharine would have sent her man after Brook or Celia.”

I nodded. “I know.” “Katharine’s guilty. Not you.”

I nodded against his shoulder and repeated, “I know.” After a while, I said, “You knew much more than most would be symbionts. You really should have stayed away, made a life for yourself in the human world.”

“I might have gone away if you hadn’t turned up. You’re not only a lovely little thing, but you’re willing to ask me questions.”

Instead of just ordering him around, yes. That would be important to a symbiont, to anyone. “I won’t always ask,” I admitted.

“I know,” he said. He kissed me. “I want this life, Shori. I’ve never wanted any other. I want to live to be two hundred years old, and I want all the pleasure I know you can give me. I want to live disease free

and strong, and never get feeble or senile. And I want you. You know I want you.”

In fact, he wanted me right then. At once. His hunger ignited mine, and in spite of everything, I did still need to feed. I wanted him.

I lost myself in his wonderful scent. Blindly, I found his neck and bit him deeply before I fully realized what I was doing. I hadn’t been so confused and disoriented since I awoke in the cave. I needed more blood than I usually did. He held me even though I took no care with him. Afterward, when I was fully aware, I was both ashamed and concerned.

I raised myself above him and looked down at him. He gave me a sideways smile—a real smile, not just

patient suffering. But still . . . I put my face down against his chest. “I’m sorry,” I said.

He laughed. “You know you don’t have anything to apologize for.” He pulled the blanket up around us, rolled us over, and slipped into me.

I kissed his throat and licked his neck where it was still bleeding.

Sometime later, as we lay together, sated, but still taking pleasure in the feel of skin against skin, I said, “You’re mine. Did you know that? You’re scent is so enticing, and I’ve nibbled on you so often. You’re mine.”

He laughed softly—a contented, gentle sound. “I thought I might be,” he said.

That afternoon, we were all awake and restless, so Celia suggested we get away from Punta Nublada for a while and take a drive, have a picnic—a meal to be eaten outside and away from so many strangers. I liked the idea. It was a chance for us to get to know one another a little better and a chance to think beyond the last Council night.

While I added my hooded jacket, gloves, and sunglasses to my usual jeans and T-shirt, the four of them prepared a meal from the refrigerator. Celia told me I looked as though I were about to go out into the dead of winter.

“Aren’t you hot?” she asked.

“I’m not,” I said. “The weather is cool. I’ll be fine.” They felt changes in the weather more than I did. They took me at my word and packed their food and some cold soda and beer in the Styrofoam cooler

that we had bought for our night in the woods in Washington. They had made sandwiches from leftover turkey, roast beef, and cheddar cheese, and took along a few bananas, some red seedless grapes, and the remains of a German chocolate cake. We all fit comfortably in Celia and Brook’s car, and Brook drove us out to the highway and then northward toward a place Joel knew about.

We chose a space on the bluffs overlooking the ocean where there was a flat patch of grass and bare rock to sit on and from where we could watch the waves pounding the beach and the rocks below. Brook had thought ahead enough to bring along a blanket and a pair of large towels from the guest house

linen closet. Now she spread them on the ground for us, sat down on one of the towels, and began eating a thick turkey-and-cheddar sandwich. The others took food from the cooler and sat around eating and drinking and speculating about whether the Silk symbionts hated their Ina.

“I think they do,” Celia said. “They must. I would if I had to put up with those people.”

“They don’t,” Brook said. “I met one of them when they first arrived. She’s a historian. She writes books—novels under one name and popular history under another. She says she couldn’t have found a better place to wind up. She says Russell’s generation and even Milo help her get the little details right, especially in the fiction. She says she likes working with them. Maybe she’s unusual, but I didn’t get the feeling that she resented them.”

Joel said, “I think that doctor who questioned Shori yesterday joined them so he could learn more about what they are and what makes them tick. I wonder what questions he would have asked if he’d had a choice.”

“He’s definitely hungry to know more,” I said. “He wants to understand how we survive terrible injuries, how we heal.”

Joel nodded and took a second roast-beef sandwich. “I wonder what he’d do if he discovered something, some combination of genes, say, that produced substances that caused rapid healing. Who would he tell?”

“No one,” I said. “The Silks would never let him tell anyone.”

“Maybe he just wants it for himself,” Wright said. “Maybe he just wants to be able to heal the way Shori did.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe anyone would want to go through a healing like that. I can’t begin tell you what the pain was like.”

They all looked at me, and I realized that the doctor wasn’t the only one who wanted to heal the way I

did.

I spread my hands. “I’m sharing the ability with you in the only way I can,” I said. “You’re already better at healing than you were.”

They nodded and opened more food, soda, and tall brown bottles of beer.

After a while I said, “I have to ask you something, and I need you to think about the question and be honest.” I paused and looked at each of them. “Have any of you had a problem with either of the Braithwaites or their symbionts?” I asked.

There was silence. Brook had lain down on her back on her towel and closed her eyes, but she was not dozing. Celia was sitting next to Joel, glancing at him now and then. Her scent let me know that she was very much attracted to him. He, on the other hand, was glancing at Wright who had sat down next to me, taken my gloved hand, kissed it, bit it a little as he looked at me, then held it between his own hands. He was showing off. And for the moment, I was letting him get away with it.

“The Braithwaites,” Celia said. “Joan could cut glass with that tongue of hers, but I think she’s really okay. She just says what she means.”

“Are you thinking about moving in with the Braithwaites?” Joel asked.

“I am, yes, for a while . . . if they’ll have me. That’s why I’m asking all of you whether you’ve seen anything or know anything against them. If you have reason to want to avoid them, tell me now.”

“I like them,” Joel said. “They’re strong, decent people, not bigots like the Silks and the Dahlmans and a couple of the other Council members.”

“I barely know the Braithwaites,” Brook said. “I danced with one of their symbionts at a party.” She smiled. “He was okay, and I got the impression he was happy, that he liked being their symbiont. That’s usually a good sign.”

I got the impression she thought the Braithwaite symbiont was more than just “okay.” Brook might wind up enjoying our stay with the Braithwaites more than the rest of us—if the Braithwaites agreed to let me visit them for a while.

“So you’re not thinking of trying to get them to adopt you?” Joel asked.

“I don’t believe I want to be adopted,” I said. “I can’t remember my female family at all, but I’m part of them. I can learn about them and see that their memory is continued by continuing their family. If I’m adopted, my female family vanishes into history just like my male family did. And I’ve promised to mate

with the Gordons.” I thought of Daniel and almost smiled. “I don’t know whether that will happen, but I

hope it will, and I’m not going to do anything to prevent it.”

“So you’ll wind up having six or eight children all by yourself,” Wright said. “Is that the way it will be?” “Eventually,” I said. “But I’m thinking about doing what Hayden said last night—adopting a relative, a

young girl from a family with too many girls. That way there will be two of us. Preston says I can’t do that until I’m an adult myself, although I can look around. I hope to be able to live with several different families and learn what they can teach me. I’ll read their books, listen to their elders.”

“You’re trying to get yourself an education,” Joel said.

I nodded. “I have to re-educate myself. Right now, you probably know more about Ina history and about being Ina than I do. I have to learn. Problem is, I don’t know what my re-education will cost.”

He smiled. “Better ask,” he said. “Although, actually, I think Joan will tell you whether you ask or not. Learning is good, though. My father made sure I picked up as much education as I could even before I went off to college. From what Hayden has told me, I’m one of maybe a few hundred humans in the world who can speak and read Ina.”

And Theodora would have been another, I thought.

“It will be a while before we have a home,” I said. “But as my families’ affairs are sorted out, and we begin to have more money, you’ll be able to have the things you want and do what you want to do. Maybe one of you wants to write books or learn another language or learn woodworking or real estate.” I smiled. “Whatever you like. And there will be more of you. At least three more, eventually.”

“Seven people,” Wright said. “I understand the need, but I don’t like it.”

“I like the idea of moving around for a while,” Brook said. “When I was with Iosif, we didn’t travel much at all. Except for elders going to Councils of one kind or another, most adult Ina do very little traveling, probably because traveling is such a production, with so many people needing to travel together. I’m definitely ready to do some traveling.”

“Once you’ve traveled for a while, you’ll probably be ready to settle down again pretty fast,” Celia said. “My father was in the army while I was growing up. We moved all the time. As soon as I made friends or began to like a school, we were gone again. This sounds as though it will be like that. Meet a friend, spot a nice guy, start a project, then you’re on your way somewhere else.”

“We’ll be staying mostly with female families, won’t we?” Wright asked.

“We will,” I said. “If it doesn’t cause trouble, we’ll pay short visits to the Gordons and the Leontyevs, but as I understand it, my pheromones are going to give males more and more trouble as I approach adulthood.”

“Bound to be true,” Wright growled into my ear. The growl made my whole body tingle. “Stop that,” I said, laughing, and he laughed, too.

“So all we have to do,” Celia said, “is get through tonight. Then we can get on with our lives.”

I talked with Margaret Braithwaite that evening. I went to her office-bed-room before the third night of the Council could begin.

“Shori, you shouldn’t ask me about this now,” she said. “You should have waited until judgment was passed and the Council had concluded its business.”

I had found her looking through a book she’d borrowed from Hayden. I hadn’t seen her borrow it, but the book smelled deeply of him and only a little of her. One of his older Ina histories.

“Why should I have waited?” I asked. “Have I broken some rule?”

“Oh, no. No rule. It’s just that . . . It’s just that you might not want to come to us once you hear the judgment.”

I thought about that. It seemed impossible that anyone had failed to hear the lies that the Silks and

Katharine Dahlman had told. The elders were much more experienced than I was in reading the signs. “Is it possible that the Council members will fail to see what the Silks have done?” I asked.

“It is not possible,” she said. “The problem isn’t their guilt and Katharine’s. The problem is what to do about it. What punishment to impose?”

“They killed twelve Ina—all of my male and female families—and nearly a hundred symbionts. From what I’ve heard, none of the people they killed had ever harmed them. How can they be allowed to get away with what they’ve done?”

“You want them to die.” “I want them to die.”

“Would you help kill them?”

I stared back at her. “I would.”

She sighed. “They’ll die, Shori, but not in the quick satisfying way you probably hope for. That won’t happen—except, perhaps, in Katharine’s case. She and her family haven’t been good about maintaining friendships and alliances. Very stupid of them. But the Silk family will not be killed today.”

“Why?”

“Because as terrible as their crimes are, I don’t believe the Council vote will be unanimous. Understand, I’m telling you what I believe, not what I know. I might be wrong, although I doubt it. The Council won’t want to wipe out an ancient and once-respected family. They’ll want to give them a chance to survive.”

I didn’t say anything for a while. I hated Katharine Dahlman. I would see her dead sooner or later, no matter what anyone said. I hated the Silks, too, but it was a different, less immediate hate. They had killed people I no longer knew, and they had killed without knowing me. I wanted to see the Silks dead, but I didn’t need to see them dead in the way that I needed to see Katharine dead. That wasn’t the way I should have felt, but it was the way I did feel.

I said, “Daniel told me that the Silks’unmated sons might be taken from them and adopted by other families.”

Joan nodded. “I think that will happen. If it does, the word will be spread tonight by mail, by phone, and by e-mail to all the world’s Ina communities. I’m glad Daniel let you know what could happen.”

“What if the Silks decide to come after me again? I was their main target all along because I was the one in whom the human genetic mix worked best. They killed so many just to get to me.”

“They have the possibility of rebuilding their family if Russell’s sons’ generation can convince their mates to try to have more children. They will lose that opportunity if they make another attempt on your life or on the lives of your people—even if they fail. If they try again, they will be killed.”

I looked at her for several seconds. “You truly believe this will stop them from secretly trying kill me or perhaps trying to kill my children in the future?”

“Ina are linked worldwide, Shori. If the Silks give their word—and they must give it if they are to leave here alive—and then break it, they will all be killed and any new sons adopted away. Their family will vanish. They know this.”

“Then . . . will you permit me to come to you with my symbionts, learn from you for a while, work for you to pay our way?”

She sighed. “For how long?”

I hesitated. “One year. Perhaps two.”

“Come back to me when the Council has finished with its business. I believe that we will welcome you, but I can’t answer until I’ve spoken with my sister.”

There was a formal feel to all this—as though we had spoken ritual words. Had we? I would find out eventually.

“What about Katharine?” I asked. She shook her head. “I don’t know.” “I don’t believe I could let her go.” “Wait and see.”

“Theodora wasn’t even a person to Katharine. She was just something Katharine could snatch away from me to make me weaker.”

“I know. Don’t give her what she wants. Wait, Shori. Wait and see.”

twenty-eight

There were no parties on the night of the third Council session. The hall was so full that there was not enough seating for everyone. People stood or brought chairs from the houses. No one seemed to want to sit on the concrete floor. Seats had been roped off for my symbionts in front, as had seats on the

opposite side of the hall for the Silks and their symbionts.

The members of the Council seated themselves as usual, in the same order, and when they were all settled, Preston stood up. This was everyone’s signal to be quiet and pay attention. Preston waited until silence had worked its way from the front to the back of the room. Then he said, “Russell Silk, do you have anything further to say or any more questions to ask of Shori Matthews or of anyone that you or she has asked to speak to this Council?”

This was Russell’s last chance to speak, to defend his family, and to make me look bad. Of course, anyone he called, I could question, too.

Russell stood up. “I have no one else to call,” he said, holding his microphone, looking out toward the audience. Then he turned and faced the Council. “I suppose in a sense, I call on all of you to remember that my family has maintained good and honorable friendships with many of you. Remember that the Silk family helped some of you immigrate to this country in times of war or political chaos in your former homes. Remember that in all the time you’ve known us, we have not lied to you or cheated you.

“What matters most to us, to every member of the Silk family, is the welfare of the Ina people. We Ina are vastly outnumbered by the human beings of this world. And how many of us have been butchered in their wars? They destroy one another by the millions, and it makes no difference to their numbers. They breed and breed and breed, while we live long and breed slowly. Their lives are brief and, without us, riddled with disease and violence. And yet, we need them. We take them into our families, and with our help, they are able to live longer, stay free of disease, and get along with one another. We could not live without them.

“But we are not them! “We are not them!

“Children of the great Goddess, we are not them!”

He shook with the intensity of his feeling. He had to take several breaths before he could continue. “We are not them,” he whispered. “Nor should we try to be them. Ever. Not for any reason. Not even to gain the day; the cost is too great.”

He stood for a second longer in silence, then sat down and put his microphone back on its stand. The room had gone completely silent.

Once he sat down, Preston broke the silence. “Shori, is there anyone you would like to question or anything you would like to say?”

“I have questions,” I said, standing up with my microphone. I had thought of something as Russell spoke—something prompted by what he had said and by my having seen Joan Braithwaite reading a history book just a short while ago. It seemed to me that Russell had just admitted that his family had killed my families. He wanted us to believe that he had done it for a good reason. I said to Preston, “I want to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.”

Preston looked surprised. “All right. Russell questioned me so I do qualify as someone you can question now.”

I nodded. “I ask this because of my limited knowledge of Ina law. Preston, is there a legal, nonlethal way of questioning someone’s behavior? I mean, if I believed that you were doing something that could be harmful to other Ina, would I be able to bring it to the attention of a council of some kind or some other group?”

Preston did not smile, did not change expression at all, but I got the impression he was pleased with me. “There is,” he said. “If you believed I were doing something to the detriment of the Ina, something that was not exactly against law, but that you seriously believed was harmful, you could ask for a Council of the Goddess.”

Russell snatched up his microphone and protested. “Council of the ... That hasn’t been done for at least twenty-five hundred years.”

“You are aware of it, then?” I asked him.

“It wouldn’t have been taken seriously. No one’s done it for two thousand—” “Did you try?”

“Your families made no secret of the fact that they didn’t even believe in the Goddess!”

From the hypothetical to the real. Careless of him. “Would that have mattered?” I asked. “Could my family have ignored a call to take part in a Council of the Goddess?”

Russell said nothing. Perhaps he had remembered where he was and exactly what was being argued. “Preston, would it have mattered?”

“The rule of seven would apply,” Preston answered. “If the rule of seven is satisfied and the accused family refuses to attend, the Council would be carried on regardless of its absence. The family would be bound by any vote of the Council, as though it had been present. If the family were ordered to stop whatever they were doing, and they refused to stop, they would be punished.”

I stared across at Russell. “Preston, has the Silk family ever tried to assemble a Council of the Goddess to discuss or warn against the genetic work of my eldermothers?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Preston said. “Russell?”

Again, Russell said nothing. It didn’t matter. Surely he had already said enough. I sat down and put my microphone back in its place.

“Does any Council member have questions?” Preston asked. No one spoke.

“All right,” he said. “Council members, I ask you now to count yourselves. Is the Silk family guilty of having made human beings their tools and sent those human tools to kill the Petrescu and the Matthews families? Are the Silks also guilty of sending their tools to burn the Petrescu guest house where Shori Matthews and her symbionts were staying? Are the Silks guilty of sending their tools to attack the Gordon family here at Punta Nublada? And also, was Katharine Dahlman, the Silks’first advocate, guilty of sending one of her symbionts, Jack Roan, to kill one of Shori Matthews’s symbionts, Theodora Harden?” He paused, then said, “Zoë Fotopoulos?”

I had decided that Zoë was the most beautiful Ina I had ever seen. Her age—over three hundred—didn’t seem to matter. She was tall, lean, and blond like most Ina but was a striking, memorable woman. When she arrived, I had asked Wright what he thought of her. He said, “Sculpted. Perfect, like one of those Greek statues. If she had boobs, I’d say she was the best-looking woman I’ve ever seen.”

Poor Wright. Maybe one of the Braithwaite symbionts would have large breasts.

“Shori Matthews has told us the truth,” Zoë said. “I have not once caught her in a lie. Either she has been very careful or she is exactly what she seems to be. My impression is that she is exactly what she appears to be—a child, deeply wronged by both the Silk family and Katharine Dahlman. Members of the Silk family, on the other hand, have lied again and again. And Katharine Dahlman has lied. It seems that all

this killing was done because Shori’s families were experimenting with ways of using human DNA to enable us to walk in daylight. And it seems that no legal methods of questioning or stopping the experiments were even attempted.” She took a deep breath. “I stand with Shori against both the Silks and Katharine Dahlman.”

“Joan Braithwaite?” Preston said.

“Shori told the truth, and Katharine and the Silks lied,” Joan said. “That’s all that matters. I must stand with Shori against both.”

“Alexander Svoboda?”

“I stand with Shori against Katharine Dahlman,” he said. “But I must stand with the Silks against Shori. Shori has told the truth, as far as she knows, as far as she is able to understand with her damaged memory, but I can’t condemn the Silks as a family because of what one child, one seriously impaired child, believes.”

And yet, every Silk who had spoken to the Council had lied about what he had done, about what he knew, or both. How could Katharine Dahlman be punished for killing one symbiont and the Silks let off for killing twelve Ina and nearly a hundred symbionts? But that was Alexander’s less than courageous decision.

“Peter Marcu?” Preston said.

“I stand with Shori,” Peter Marcu said. “I don’t want to. My family has been friends with the Silks for four generations. There was even a time when we got along well with the Dahlmans. But Shori has been telling the truth all along, and the others have been lying. Whatever their reasons are for what they’ve done, they did do it, and for the sake of the rest of our people and all our symbionts, we cannot allow this to go unpunished.”

“Ana Morariu?”

“I stand with the Silks and with Katharine Dahlman,” Ana said. “Shori Matthews is much too impaired to be permitted to speak against other Ina. How can we destroy people’s lives, even kill them on the word of a child whose mind has been all but destroyed and who, even if she were healthy, is barely Ina at all?

It is a tragedy that the Petrescu and Matthews families are dead. We shouldn’t deepen the tragedy by killing or disrupting other families.”

She was the one who had said Katharine Dahlman might be telling the truth. Now she seemed to be saying that my families had simply been unlucky and had, for some unknown reason, died, and that it would be wrong to punish anyone for that. Nothing wrong, she seemed to think, with letting your friends get away with mass murder.

“Alice Rappaport?”

“I stand with Shori,” Alice said. “Katharine and the Silks are liars, people who use murder but never think to use the law. They know better than anyone here that we can’t let them go unpunished. And what about the rest of you? Do you want to return to a world of lawless family feuds and mass killing?”

“Harold Westfall?”

“I stand with Shori,” Harold said. “To let this go would be to endanger us all in the long run. Both the

Silks and Katharine must be punished for what we all know they’ve done.”

He glanced at me unhappily. I got the impression he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to stand with me. I suspected he didn’t even like me much. But he was doing his duty and trying to do it as honestly as he could. I respected that and was grateful for it.

“Kira Nicolau.”

“I stand with Shori as far as Katharine is concerned,” Kira said. “What Katharine did was completely wrong, and I have no doubt that she did it. I don’t believe she even meant to convince us otherwise; it just didn’t seem very important to her. But as to the other problem, I must stand with the Silks. I don’t believe Shori’s memories and accusations should be trusted. I’m not convinced that Shori understands the situation as well as she believes she does. She believes what she says, that’s clear. In that sense, she is telling the truth. But like Alexander, I’m not willing to disrupt or destroy the Silk family on the word of someone as disabled as Shori Matthews clearly is.”

Nothing about the lies the Silks had told. Nothing about my dead families. And yet, Kira herself was telling the truth as far as I could see. She really seemed to believe that I was so impaired that I didn’t know what I was talking about. She had somehow convinced herself of that.

“Ion Andrei?”

There was a moment of silence. Finally Ion said, “I stand with the Silks and with Katharine. I don’t want to. I believe the Silks may have murdered Shori’s families. It’s certainly possible. And Katharine may have sent her symbiont after Shori’s symbiont. But, like Kira, I cannot in good conscience base such a judgment on the words of someone as disabled as Shori is.”

It was painful to listen to them. I wanted to scream at them. How could they blind all their senses so selectively? And how could they see me as so impaired? Maybe they needed to see me that way. Maybe it helped them deal with their conscience.

“Walter Nagy?”

“I stand with Shori,” Walter said. “And I would stand with her even if she were out of her mind because it is so painfully obvious that the Silks and Katharine Dahlman were lying almost every time they answered a question. They have committed murder and, in the case of the Silks, mass murder. If we excuse that in those we like, we open a door that we tried to lock tight centuries ago. Make no mistake. If we ignore these murders, we invite people to settle disputes themselves, and we risk exposure in the human world. We are, every one of us, vulnerable to the fires that consumed Shori’s families.”

There was a moment of silence. Finally, Preston said, “Elizabeth Akhmatova?”

“I stand with Shori,” Elizabeth said. “For all the reasons Walter’s just given, I stand with her. And I stand with her because I’ve watched her. She is impaired. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose the memory of nearly all of the years of one’s life. Her memory was stolen from her. But her ability to reason wasn’t stolen. The questions she’s asked—questions that were answered again and again with lies and misdirection—were good, sensible questions. The questions she answered, she answered honestly. The murderers who killed her families and her symbiont, the thieves who stole her past from her—should

these people be rewarded because they did such a savagely thorough job? No, of course not. Shori, on the other hand, should be rewarded for using her intellect to protect herself and to find the murderers.”

twenty-nine