Fledgling_ a novel Part 31

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 h.e.l.l would I want to be with you?"

I nodded. "She was 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." 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.