Fledgling

by Butler, Octavia

  I looked at them, took in their tall leanness, trying to find in them something I recognized. They looked more like relatives of Hayden and Preston Gordon—just two more pale blond men who appeared to be in their mid-to-late forties but who were actually closer to their mid–four hundreds.

  And suddenly, I found myself wondering what that meant. What had their lives been like so long ago? What had the world been like? I should ask Martin who had once been a history teacher.

  The faces and the ages of these two elderfathers—my elderfathers, my mothers’ fathers—triggered no memories. They were strangers.

  “I’m sorry,” I told them. “I’ll have to get to know you all over again. And you’ll have to get to know me. I can’t even pretend to be the person I was before the injury.”

  “I’m grateful the Gordons were able to take you in and care for you,” the one called Vladimir said. “How did they find you?”

  I stared at him, surprised, suddenly angry. “I found them. I’ve survived three attacks, and twice helped fight the attackers off. I helped to question the surviving attackers who came here a few days ago. Only my memory of my life before I was hurt is impaired.”

  They looked at each other, then at me. “My apologies,” Vladimir said. He lifted his head a little and smiled down his long nose at me. He managed to look more amused than condescending. “Whether you remember or not, you still have my Shori’s temper.”

  I took them to the rooms that Henry Gordon had set aside for them in his house. Before I left, I showed them Martin’s list and asked one more question. “Are any of these people close female relatives of mine?”

  They looked at the list, then looked at one another, each of them frowning. In that moment, they looked almost identical. Then Vladimir said, “I believe your closest surviving female blood relatives are too young to be involved it this. They’re children or young women busy with children. For instance, your brothers were mated and had two girls and a boy, all of whom are still very young children. Your mothers’ brothers have adult female children, but those children are too young for Council duty.”

  “Wouldn’t they be around my age or older? Some of them must be adults.”

  “Yes. They’re mated so the youngest of them is years older than you. But, unless they’re directly involved, people aren’t usually called to Councils of Judgment unless their children are adult and mated.”

  That explained why everyone I’d seen so far seemed to be around the ages of Hayden and Preston.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ve been told that all Council members are related to me in one way or another. Who among the women members are my closest relatives? And did any of them know me before?” I asked.

  Again the two paused to think. At last, Konstantin said, “The Braithwaites. The Braithwaite eldermothers are Joan, Irene, Amy, and Margaret. Two of them will be coming. They’re the daughters of your second elderfathers.”

  I frowned trying to understand that.

  “They are the daughters of your father’s father’s father,” Vladimir clarified. “They know you, knew you before. You can talk to them. But, Shori, you can talk to us, too. We are your family. We’ve come here to see that your interests are protected and that the people responsible for what happened to you and to so many of our relatives pay for what they’ve done.”

  I remembered hearing from Hayden that Joan and Margaret Braithwaite would be coming. In fact, they were arriving tonight. “Thank you,” I said. “I ... I just need to see and talk to an Ina female. I have no memory of ever doing that before today. I’ve met several males since my injury, but until I met Zoë and Helena Fotopoulos this morning, no females. It’s very strange to be an Ina female and yet have no clear idea of what Ina females are like.”

  Konstantin smiled. “Talk to the Braithwaites then. Elizabeth I was on the throne of England when Joan and Irene were born, so I’m not sure you’ll learn much from them about being a young Ina woman now. But all four sisters have met you, Shori, and I think they like you. Go ahead and talk with them when they come.”

  I kept watch for the Braithwaite women, pestering Martin to look whenever female Ina drove in. The Braithwaites arrived just after midnight. Before I could ask Martin about them, Daniel came out to welcome them. I heard him call them by name. I watched as he stood talking with them.

  Joan and Margaret Braithwaite were a head shorter than Daniel, but still taller than Celia or Brook. They were very straight, very pale women in white shirts and long black skirts. Their hair was twisted and pinned up neatly on their heads. One was brown-haired—the first brown-haired Ina I’d seen—and one

  was blond. Their chests, beneath their clean, handsome, long-sleeved shirts, were as flat as mine. I suspected that that meant I would not be growing the breasts Wright liked on women. Yet as ignorant as I was, even I wouldn’t have mistaken these two for men. There was something undeniably feminine and interestingly seductive about them, even to me. Was it their scents? Did my scent make me seem interesting to other people?

  I realized that I wanted Joan and Margaret to think well of me, to like me. That was important somehow. Their scent was definitely influencing me. Was it something they were doing deliberately, I wondered. Could they control it? Could I? I would ask them if I could manage to be alone with one of them.

  “Shori?” the brown-haired one said to me as I stood off to one side, almost hiding in the shadows, watching them. Daniel had called the blond woman Joan, so this one must be Margaret.

  I was immediately ashamed of myself for hiding and staring. “I’m sorry,” I said, stepping forward. “I have no memory of seeing Ina females before today. I’ve been waiting for you because I was told you are my closest female relatives on the Council.”

  Daniel looked at me with that strange, strained look of his that ranged between hostility and hunger. I had come to see that look more and more as my stay with the Gordons lengthened. I had seen it on Daniel, William, Philip, and Wayne. Without saying a word, Daniel turned and walked away. I was fairly sure his longing made him seem even more ill-mannered than my ignorance made me. We would have to talk, Daniel and I. If my presence was disturbing him so much, we should at least take a few moments to

  speak privately together, to get to know each other a little.

  “That was interesting,” Joan Braithwaite said. She looked at Daniel’s retreating back.

  “When this is over, I’m hoping I can leave here for a while and stop irritating Daniel and his brothers,” I

  said.

  Margaret said, as though we’d known one another for a long time, “Will you mate with them?”

  “I think so. I was afraid at first that they might not want me, now that I have to get to know everything all over again ... and now that I’m alone.”

  “You truly don’t remember anything about your mothers, your sisters?” Margaret asked. “You don’t remember any other women?”

  “I don’t remember anyone,” I said. “As I said, I haven’t seen an Ina woman since my injury until today. I’ve only seen males.”

  The two Braithwaite sisters looked at one another. After a moment, Margaret said, “Take us to our quarters, then I’ll talk with you.”

  I hesitated, remembering the list. “Your quarters are in the offices. This way.” I took them and their six symbionts, each carrying a suitcase or a garment bag or both to the offices and the studio that were to be their living quarters. The symbionts were four men and two women. All four of the men were large and strong looking. They must have smelled very interesting before the Braithwaites claimed them. Two of the men were brown with very straight, very black hair. They were enough alike to be brothers. The other two were pale, muscular men. One of the women—the smallest of them—was startlingly beautiful. She was smaller than Celia, my smallest symbiont, and I’m not sure I would have chosen her as a symbiont

  out of fear that I would take too much blood from her. The other woman was tall and strong looking and deeply interested i
n one of the brown men.

  “Those two got married last week,” Margaret told me when we had left the symbionts in their rooms and Joan in hers. I was alone with Margaret in the office she had chosen as her bedroom. Her arrangement seemed to be to have a room of her own and have her symbionts come to her when she needed them. “Eden, the young woman, is mine and Arun is Joan’s,” she said. I realized she had noticed me noticing

  the affectionate pair.

  “Do they mind sharing each other with you and Joan?” I asked. “I mean, are they still content to be symbionts?”

  “Oh yes.” She smiled. “Symbionts usually choose to mate with one another because, as symbionts, they share a life that other humans not only couldn’t understand or accept, but . . . well, think about it, Shori. Symbionts age much more slowly than other humans, depending on how young they are when then

  accept us. How could they have a long-term relationship with someone who ages according to the human norm? People have tried it, but it doesn’t work.”

  I nodded. “I have no coherent idea of what does work. I’m still finding out how Ina families live. I know I

  should leave here as soon as I can, but then what? I can provide for myself and my symbionts, but I

  don’t know how to be part of the web of Ina society that obviously exists. How can I offer my symbionts the contacts they’ll need with other symbionts?” I sighed. “I’ve forgotten almost everything I spent

  fifty-three years learning.”

  “But you’re still a child,” Margaret Braithwaite said. “You could be adopted into one of your secondary families. Once this business with the Silks is attended to, you’ll be welcome in a number of communities.”

  “If I did that, what would happen to my connection with the Gordons?”

  She thought about that, then shook her head. “If you’re adopted into another community, you mate where they mate unless you could convince them to accept the Gordons. And you’d have to find a community with unmated daughters so that you can join them before the group of you mated. First adoption, then mating.”

  “My family was negotiating with the Gordon sons to mate with my sisters and me, and the Gordons have helped me, taken risks for me.”

  “You want to mate with them, then? It isn’t just that at the moment, they’re all you’ve got?” “I think I do. I like them. But it’s true that right now, I don’t know any other eligible mates.”

  “Then you’ll have to do what your father did. He lost his family in the European wars. Your mothers lost a few people, too. You had five eldermothers. Three were killed. At that point, your mothers left eastern Europe. Did you know that you were the only one of your sisters to be born here in the United States?”

  “I didn’t know. The others were born in Romania?”

  “Two in Romania and one in England. I met your mothers in England. They had young children, and two of them were pregnant when they reached England. They made themselves over, became English women, and begged your fathers to join them. But your fathers had once owned a great estate in Romania until it was taken from them after World War I and broken up and sold to small farmers. Your

  fathers’family had lived there for at least two thousand years under several different names, and they truly didn’t want to leave. My own family lived there long enough for my mothers to mate with the fathers of your elderfathers. Eventually, though, we went to Greece, then to Italy, then to England. We were always willing to move to avoid trouble or to take advantage of opportunity. From England, we moved to the United States just after World War I. My mothers said there would be another war soon, and they

  wanted to avoid it as much as possible. No place on Earth was safe, of course, and we lost people, but we were never winnowed down to one person as your father’s family was. He had absolutely no primary relatives left who were of his age or older.”

  “He said my mothers were his distant relatives,” I said. “You remember him?” Margaret asked.

  “I met him after my injury.” I told her about finding my father, my brothers, then almost at once losing them again.

  When I’d finished, she shook her head. “You’ll tell of that several more times during the nights of the Council.” She drew a deep breath. “Your father fled Romania just before the Communists took over. Most Ina had already left or died. I don’t believe any stayed after the war, and I don’t think any family has gone back.

  “Anyway, your father went to your mothers. He and his four remaining symbionts had little more than

  their clothing and a few pieces of jewelry that had belonged to his mothers, who were dead. He and your mothers and their symbionts left England for the United States shortly after he joined them. When your mothers settled in the state of Washington, they invited him to live with them for a while, until his oldest son came of age, but your father chose to follow our ways and live apart from his mates. Until his sons grew up, he was alone with his symbionts, acquiring property and money, building his first houses, and acquiring a few more symbionts—people who could help him establish a community and help prepare his sons for adult life.”

  “So that when his sons were men and went to him, he was able to help them begin their adult lives,” I

  said.

  “Yes. He must have been very lonely, but he was a proud man. He did what he believed he should do.” I watched her as she spoke. “It’s not the same for me,” I said at last. “When my father’s kinsmen were

  killed, he was an adult, already mated, and most of his children already born. I’ll be alone with my symbionts, growing up, then bearing and raising my children. I’ll have no one to help me, no one to teach them how to be an adult Ina.”

  She nodded. “That will happen if you permit it. It would be wiser, though, to make friends with several communities of your female secondary families and work for them. Learn from them. I’ve been told that you can stay awake during the day and go out in the sun like humans. Is this true?”

  “I can stay awake,” I said, “but when I go outside, I need to cover as much skin as possible and wear dark glasses. Otherwise, I burn, and I can’t see very well except with very dark glasses. The sun hurts my eyes.”

  “But you’ve walked in it?”

  “I have. I think it makes me hungrier to walk it in, though. I burn a little—my face mostly—then I have to heal. My first wants me to wear sunblock, and one of the Gordon symbionts told me I should get something called a ski mask to cover my face. With that and with dark glasses and gloves, I would be completely covered, but I think I would look very strange.”

  “That’s . . . Child, do you understand your uniqueness, your great value?” “The Silks don’t see me as valuable.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Stupid, stupid people,” she whispered almost to herself. Then to me, “Are you sleepy during the day? Is it hard to stay awake? Hard to think?”

  “No, I’m alert,” I said. “I tire faster during the day than I do at night, but it isn’t important. I mean, it doesn’t stop me from doing anything. And I can sleep as comfortably at night as during the day.”

  “You are a treasure. You would be an asset to any community since most of humanity works during the day. Most human troublemakers cause trouble during the day. We’ve evolved methods for dealing with this, but there isn’t a community that wouldn’t be happy to have an Ina guardian who could be awake and alert during the day. I know of several cases where it would have saved lives.”

  “It didn’t save my families,” I said. “It did save the Gordons, although I’m pretty sure that it was my being here that put them in danger to begin with.”

  “Only because some of us are fools.” She looked at me for several seconds, then said, “When this business is over, spend a year or two with each of your secondary families if they’ll permit it. They can teach you and you can guard them. Later, when you come of age, you might even adopt a sister from among their more adventurous young daughters before you mate.
Find a young girl who feels lost among too many sisters and eager to go out on her own.” She paused. “Do you remember how to read?”

  “I read English and Ina,” I said. “Those are the only two languages I’ve seen in written form since my injury.”

  “You read Ina? Excellent! I hope you’ll teach your children that skill. Some of our people don’t bother to teach their children to read Ina any longer. Some day our native language will be forgotten.”

  I frowned. “Why should it be forgotten? It’s part of our history.” “Shori,” she said sadly, wearily, “what do you know of our history?”

  “Almost nothing,” I said, echoing her tone. “I’ve been reading it, though. Hayden loaned me some of his books. That’s how we found out that I could read Ina.”

  “I see,” she said, and she seemed happier. “What are you reading?”