Fledgling

by Butler, Octavia

  Iosif and Stefan looked at one another. Finally Iosif said, “I don’t believe that could have happened. Your mothers and sisters were even more careful than we are.”

  “I don’t believe humans could have done it,” Stefan said.

  “I was burned and shot,” I said. “Anyone can use fire and guns.”

  Iosif shook his head. “I questioned several of the people who live near your mothers’community. There was nothing wrong, no trouble, no suspicions, no grudges.”

  “When I went to the ruin today,” I said, “someone had been there. He was human, young, unarmed, and he’d walked all around the ruin. Did you notice?”

  “Yes. He prowls. He lives in your general area but down toward the town of Gold Bar. He’s sixteen, and I suspect he prowls without his parents’knowledge.” He shook his head. “We combed the area very thoroughly. He was one of the people we checked. He didn’t know anything. No one knows anything.”

  I sighed. “They don’t and I don’t.” I looked from one lean, sharp face to the other, realizing that they had

  drawn away from me a little, and now they looked oddly uncomfortable. They fidgeted and glanced at one another now and then.

  I said, “Tell me about my family, my mothers. How many mothers did I have anyway? Were they all sisters except for the human one? How many sisters did I have?”

  “Our mothers were three sisters,” Stefan said, “and one human woman who donated DNA. Also, there were two eldermothers—our mothers’ surviving mothers. The two eldermothers were the ones who

  made it possible for us—you in particular—to be born with better-than-usual protection from the sun and more daytime alertness.”

  “They integrated the human DNA with our own somehow?”

  “They did, yes. They were both over 350 years old, and biology fascinated them. Once their children were mated, they studied with humans from several universities and with other Ina who were working on the problem. They understood more about the uses of viruses in genetic engineering than anyone I’ve ever heard of, and they understood it well before humans did. They were fantastic people to work with and talk to.” He paused, shaking his head. “I still can’t believe that they’re dead—that someone would murder them that way.”

  “Could their work be the reason they were murdered?” I asked. “Did anyone object to it or try to stop it?”

  Stefan looked at Iosif and Iosif shook his head. “I don’t believe so. Shori, our people have been trying to do this for generations. If you could remember, you’d know what a celebrity you are. People traveled from South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa to see you and to understand what our mothers had done.”

  “There are Ina in Africa, and they haven’t done this?” “Not yet.”

  “Was anyone visiting just before the fire?”

  “Don’t know,” Iosif said. “I hadn’t spoken to your mothers for a week and a half. When I phoned them in the early morning and told them I wanted to visit the next night, they said they would be expecting me. They said if I came, I had to stay a few days.” He smiled, apparently taking pleasure in his memories, then his expression sagged into sadness. “They told me to bring at least five symbionts. I took them at their word. The next night, I gathered five of my people and drove down there. Vasile had wanted to use the helicopter for something so I took one of the bigger cars. When I got there, I found smoke and ashes

  and death.” He paused, staring out into nothing. “Once I’d seen it and understood it, I called home to get Stefan and Radu to come down with some of their symbionts to help clean things up, to hunt for survivors, and to keep our secrets secret.”

  So that was how Hugh Tang had wound up at the cave looking for me. “What have you learned since then?” I asked.

  He turned away from me, paced a few steps away, then the same few back. “Nothing!” The word was a harsh whisper. “Not one goddamned thing.”

  I sighed. Suddenly, I’d had enough. “I think I need to go home,” I said. “Let’s go get Wright, and you can take us back to the ruin.”

  “You are home.” He stood in front of me and looked down at me with an expression I couldn’t read,

  except that it wasn’t an altogether friendly expression. “You must think of this place as your home.”

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll be glad to come back here and learn more about my life, my family. But I’m tired now. I feel . . . I need to go back to things that feel familiar.”

  “I was hoping to convince you to stay here until tomorrow night,” he said. I shook my head. “Take me back.”

  “Shori, it would be best for you to stay here. Wright has hidden you successfully for this long, but if anything went wrong, if even one person spotted you with him and decided to make trouble—”

  “You promised to give us a week,” I said. “That was the first promise you made me.” He stared down at me. I stared back.

  After a while, he sighed and turned away. “Child, I’ve lost everyone but you.” Stefan said, “All of our female family is dead, Shori. You’re the last.”

  I wanted more than ever to go home, to be away from them and alone with Wright. And yet they pulled at me somehow—my father and my brother. They were strangers, but they were my father and my brother. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I need to go.”

  “We Ina are sexually territorial,” Iosif said. “And you’re a little too old to be sharing territory with the adult males of your family—with any adult Ina male since you’re too young to mate. That’s what’s bothering you.”

  “You mean I feel uncomfortable with you and Stefan just because you’re male?” “Yes.”

  “Then how can I live here?”

  “Let’s go back to Wright. I think you’ll feel better when you’re with him.” He led me away from Stefan toward a side door. I looked back once, but Stefan had already turned away.”

  “Is he feeling territorial, too?” I asked.

  “No. He’s willing for you to be here because he fears for you—and for himself. And you’re not mature yet, so there’s no real danger ...”

  “Danger?”

  He led me through the door, and we headed back across the lawn. “Danger, Iosif?”

  “We are not human, child. Male and female Ina adults don’t live together. We can’t. Mates visit, but that’s all.”

  “What is the danger?”

  “As your body changes, and especially as your scent changes, you will be perceived more and more as an available adult female.”

  “By my brothers?”

  He nodded, looking away from me. “By you?”

  Another nod. “We won’t hurt you, Shori. Truly, we won’t. By the time you come of age, I’ll have found mates for you. I was already talking to the Gordon family about you and your sisters . . . Now . . . now I intend to sell your mothers’ land. That money should be enough to give you a start at a different location when you’re a little older.”

  “I don’t think I want to live here.”

  “I know, but it will be all right. It will only be until you look more adult. Your brothers and I have our genetic predispositions—our instincts—but we are also intelligent. We are aware of our urges. We can stand still even when the instinct to move is powerful.”

  “You said I’m a child.”

  “You are, now more than ever with your memory loss. You can play sexually with your symbionts, but you’re too young to mate. You can’t yet conceive a child, and you’re not yet as large or as strong as you will be. Your scent right now is interesting, but for us, it’s more irritating than enticing.”

  We went back into his house. “You’ll take us back to the ruin tonight,” I told him. “You said you would. Were you speaking the truth?”

  “I was, but I shouldn’t have said it. I’m afraid for you, Shori.” “But you’ll do it.”

  There was a long silence. Finally he agreed. “I will.”

  We went down the long hallway again and into the great room. There, Wright sat
alone in one of the large chairs. The other three humans had left him. I went up to him, wanting to touch him from behind, wanting to lay my hands on his shoulders, but not doing it. I wondered what Iosif’s symbionts had said to him, what they had made him feel about being with me. I walked around and stood in front of him, looking down, trying to sense his mood.

  He looked up at me, his face telling me only that he was not happy. “What happens now?” he asked. “We go home,” I said.

  He looked at Iosif, then back at me. “Yeah? Okay.” He got up, then spoke to Iosif. “You’re letting her go? I didn’t really believe you would do that.”

  “You thought I was lying to you?” Iosif said.

  “I thought your . . . paternal feelings might kick in and make you keep her in spite of your promise.” “She’s tough and resilient, but I fear for her. I’m desperate to keep her.”

  “So ...?”

  “She wants to go . . . and . . . I understand why. Keep her hidden, Wright. Except for my people and hers, I don’t believe anyone knows she’s alive. I even got that boy, Raleigh Curtis, to forget about her.

  Keep her hidden and bring her back to me on Friday.”

  Wright licked his lips. “I don’t understand, but I’ll bring her back.” “Even though you don’t want to?”

  “... yes.”

  They looked at each other, each wearing a similar expression of weariness, misery, and resignation.

  I took Wright’s hand, and the three of us went out to the copter. Wright said nothing more. He let me hold his hand, but he did not hold mine.

  nine

  Wright and I didn’t talk until we reached the car. We had flown all the way back to the ruin in silence, had said good-bye to Iosif and watched him fly away. When we got into the car and began our drive home, Wright finally said, “You have others already, don’t you? Other . . . symbionts.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’ve gone to others for nourishment. I can’t take all that I need from you every night. But I haven’t . . . I mean none of the others . . .”

  “None of the others are bound to you yet.” “Yes.”

  “Why am I?”

  “I wanted you.” I touched his shoulder, rested my hand on his upper arm. “I think you wanted me, too. From the night you found me, we wanted each other.”

  He glanced at me. “I don’t know. I never really had a chance to figure that out.”

  “You did. When I was shot, I gave you a chance. It was ... very hard for me to do that, but I did it. I

  would have let you go—helped you go.”

  “And you think I could have just gone away and not come back? I had to leave you lying on the ground bleeding. You insisted on it. How could I not come back to make sure you were all right?”

  “You knew I would heal. I told you you weren’t bound to me then. I offered you freedom. I told you I

  wouldn’t be able to offer it again.”

  “I remember,” he said. He sounded angry. “But I didn’t know then that I was agreeing to be part of a harem. You left that little bit out.”

  I knew what a harem was. One of the books I’d read had referred to Dracula’s three wives as his harem, and I’d looked the word up. “You’re not part of a harem,” I said. “You and I have a symbiotic relationship, and it’s a relationship that I want and need. But didn’t you see all those children? I’ll have mates someday, and you can have yours. You can have a family if you want one.”

  He turned to glare at me, and the car swerved, forcing him to pay attention to his driving. “What am I

  supposed to do? Help produce the next generation of symbionts?”

  I kept quiet for a moment, wondering at the rage in his voice. “What would be the point of that?” I asked finally.

  “Just as easy to snatch them off the street, eh?”

  I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Iosif said the children of some symbionts stay in the hope of finding an

  Ina child to bond with. Others choose to make lives for themselves outside.” He made a sound—almost a moan. For a while, he said nothing.

  Finally, I asked, “Do you want to leave me?”

  “Why bother to ask me that?” he demanded. “I can’t leave you. I can’t even really want to leave you.” “Then what do you want?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. I know I wish I had driven past you on the road eleven nights ago and not stopped. And yet, I know that if I could have you all to myself, I’d stop for you again, even knowing what I know about you.”

  “That would kill you. Quickly.” “I know.”

  But he didn’t care—or he didn’t think he would have cared. “What did those three people tell you?” I asked. “What did they say that’s made you so angry and so miserable? Was it only that I take blood from several symbionts instead of draining one person until I kill him?”

  “That probably would have been enough.”

  I rested my head against his arm so that I could touch him without looking at him. I needed to touch him. And yet, he had to understand. “I’ve fed from you and from five other people—three women and two men. I’ll keep one of the women if she wants to stay with me. I think she will. The others will forget me or remember me as just a dream.”

  “Did you sleep with any of them?”

  “Did I have sex with them, you mean? No. Except for the one woman, I fed and came back to you. I stayed longer with her because something in her comforts and pleases me. Her name is Theodora Harden. I don’t know why I like her so much, but I do.”

  “Swing both ways, do you?”

  I frowned, startled and confused by the terrible bitterness in his voice. “What?” “Sex with men and with women?”

  “With my symbionts if both they and I want it. For the moment, that’s you.” “For the moment.”

  I reached up to slip my hand under his jacket and shirt to touch the bare flesh of his neck. It was unmarked. I had only nipped him a little for pleasure the night before, then I went to one of the others while he slept. He had healed by morning. Tonight, I had intended to do something that wouldn’t heal nearly as fast.

  And yet when we reached his cabin, we went in and went to bed without saying or doing anything at all. I didn’t bite him because he clearly didn’t want me to. I fell asleep fitted against his furry back, taking comfort in his presence even though he was angry and confused. At least he didn’t push me away.

  Finally, some time later, he shook me awake, shook me hard, saying, “Do it! Do it, damnit! I should get some pleasure out of all this if I don’t get anything else.”

  I put my fingers over his lips gently. When he fell silent, I kissed first his mouth, then his throat. He was so angry—so filled with rage and confusion.

  He rolled onto me, pushing my legs apart, pushing them out of his way, then thrust hard into me. I bit him more deeply than I had intended and wrapped my arms and legs around him as I took his blood. He groaned, writhing against me, holding me, thrusting harder until I had taken all I needed of his blood, until he had all he needed of me.

  After a long while, he rolled off me, sated for the moment in body if not in mind. “Did I hurt you?” he asked very softly.

  I pulled myself onto his chest and lapped at the ragged edges of the bite. “You didn’t hurt me,” I said. “Were you trying to hurt me?”

  “I think I was,” he said.

  I went on lapping. There was more bleeding than usual. “Did I hurt you?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. What you do ought to hurt, but except for that first instant when you break the skin, it never does.” He slipped his arms around me, and it was more the way he usually held me.

  “It’s good to know we don’t hurt each other even when we’re upset.”

  “I don’t know how to deal with all this, Renee ... Shori. It’s like being told that extraterrestrials have arrived, and I’m sleeping with one of them.”

  I laughed. “That may be true, except that if we arrived, it must have
happened thousands of years ago.” “Do you believe that—that your people come from another planet? I remember your father said

  something about a theory like that.”

  “According to Iosif, some younger Ina believe it. Some don’t. He doesn’t. I don’t know what to think about it. If I could get my memory back, then maybe I’d have an opinion that was worth bothering about.”

  “Do you believe Iosif is your father?”

  I nodded against his chest. Then the sweet smell of his blood made me go on licking at the bite. “Why? If he’s a stranger to you, why do you believe him?”