Fledgling_ a novel Part 27

"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 ma.s.saged 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 from Vladimir. "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 partic.i.p.ation, 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 microphone 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."