Part 25 (2/2)
”Of course. I would have done that anyway. But what about the Silks' lies? If they say they didn't do it, even though they did, how could my being delusional matter?”
”It might not. But you're one small person, one child, and the Silks are a large and respected family. There may be people on the Council who are sorry that your two families are dead and who see the guilt of the Silks, but who don't want to see a third Ina family destroyed. You can count on us-my whole family-to back you up on what almost happened here at Punta Nublada and on what we learned from the prisoners, but you must represent your mothers and your father. You must bring them into the room with you and stand them beside you whenever you can. Do you understand?”
I frowned. ”I think so. I wonder, though, if the Ina way is so much better than the one the you say the humans have.”
”It's our way,” he said. ”It's the system you must work within if you're to be safe, if you're to keep your symbionts safe, and if, someday, you're to keep our children safe.”
I took one of his long hands and held it in my lap. ”All right,” I said.
”And don't lose your temper. There will be a lot of questions. Tomorrow, after you've told your story, you'll be questioned by whomever the Silks choose as their family representative, you'll be questioned by the advocate of the Silks, and you'll be questioned by any other member of the Council who chooses to question you. It won't be easy. You shouldn't make it easy on them either. You get to ask questions, too. And you can-should, in fact-call on us to support your memory of what happened here. On the first night, you and the Silk representative will be the ones asking and answering questions. On the second, both of you can call others to support what you've said, and they will be questioned. On the third, the Council will ask any final questions it has, and a decision will be made. This can be flexible. If you or the Silks need to ask more questions on the third day, you can. But that's the way it will go in general.” He hesitated, thinking. ”It will probably provoke the h.e.l.l out of you. The Council members can question you or the Silks' representative or anyone either of you call for questioning. So if you get asked the same question ten times or twenty or fifty, give the same answer, briefly and accurately, and don't let it bother you.”
”I won't.”
”And never answer an accusation that hasn't been made. Even if you believe someone is hinting that you're delusional or otherwise mentally damaged, don't deny what they say unless they make the accusation outright.”
”All right.”
”Someone might offer you pity and sympathy for your disability. Make them state the disability. Make them say what they mean. Make them support it with evidence. If they say that you're delusional or mentally deficient or too grief stricken to know what you're saying-which, I believe, you definitely would be if your memory were intact-make them explain how they've come to that conclusion. Then, by your questions and your behavior, prove them wrong. If, on the other hand, they can't say what it is they're pitying you for, they must be the ones who are confused. You see?”
”I see.”
”Someone might pretend to misunderstand you, might misstate what you've said, then ask you to agree with them. Don't let them get away with it. Pay attention.”
”I will.”
”Everything will be recorded. Every Ina family gets to see and hear Council proceedings these days. It didn't used to be that way, of course, but now that we can keep an accurate audio-visual record, we do. That means you can ask for a replay if anyone tries to insist on a misstatement of anything you've said.”
”How likely is that?”
”I don't know. Most of us have excellent memories. That's why your amnesia will cause some Council members to distrust you at first. Just be yourself. They'll know your intellect is all right as soon as they've heard your story. Anyway, it's dangerous for anyone to lie about someone else's questions or answers. I've seen it happen, though. People feel that things are going against them. They're afraid. We have no prisons, after all.”
I thought about that and found that I knew what prisons were. Humans often locked up their lawbreakers in cages-prisons. ”No Ina prisons? Why?”
”None of us are willing to spend our lives in prison with the lawbreakers. Maintaining a prison isn't quite as unpleasant as being a prisoner in one, but it's bad enough. And levying fines would be meaningless. It's too easy for us to get money from the human population. For lesser crimes, most likely we amputate something. An arm, a leg, both arms, both legs ... If the sentence is death, we decapitate the lawbreakers and burn their bodies.”
”Decapitate?” I stared up at him. ”Amputate ... ? Cut off people's heads, arms, or legs?”
”That's right. Amputations and executions are also recorded. Amputations are punishments of pain, humiliation, and inconvenience. Limbs grow back completely in a few months, maybe a year or two for legs taken off at the hip. Of course, when it's done, people are given nothing for the pain, and the pain is terrible. It hurts for a long time, although once people are returned to their families, the families can help them with the pain. They're permitted to, not required to.”
”You're sure that arms and legs cut off ... grow back?”
He held his left hand in front of me. ”I was in a traffic accident ten years ago. I lost three fingers and part of my hand. In about a month and a half, I had a whole hand again.”
”That long?” I hesitated, then asked, ”Did you eat raw meat?”
”At first. I don't digest it well, though. If I had been able to eat more of it, I probably would have healed faster.”
”You probably would have,” I said. And I wondered if he would heal more quickly once he was mated with me. I thought I would like to give him that.
He continued: ”The Silks won't be having anything amputated, though. What they've done is too serious for that. If the Council condemns them, they'll either be killed-the adults will be killed, I mean-or they will be broken up as a family. Their youngest members will be scattered to any families that will have them, and the older ones will be left to wither alone. They might try anything they can think of to avoid those possibilities.”
”They ... they would lose their children?”
”Yes. They would not be seen as fit to raise them.”
”That seems cruel to the children. And ... what if they have more children?”
”It might happen. Or their mates might shun them, blame them for the loss of young sons who have been separated and sent to live thousands of miles apart, probably on different continents. Adoption is not cruel, by the way. There are blood exchanges to ease it and seal it. People miss one another, of course, but by letter, phone, and computer, they can keep contact. I hear they tend not to, but they can. Adoptees are truly accepted and accepting once they're in their new circ.u.mstances. But for the adults, it's the end. What adult wouldn't fear such a thing and do almost anything to avoid it?”
”If they had let my families alone, they wouldn't be facing it.”
”They must have felt very strongly compelled to do what they did. And ... Shori, if you had been anyone else, they would have succeeded. You not only survived twice, but you came to us with what you knew, and you led the fight to destroy most of the a.s.sa.s.sins and to question the survivors. They thought mixing human genes with ours would weaken us. You proved them very wrong.”
We sat together for a while longer in warm, easy silence. I felt that I had known him much longer than the few days that I'd been living at Punta Nublada.
I turned toward him and opened his s.h.i.+rt.
”What are you doing?” He was shocked, but he did nothing to stop me.
”Looking at you. I wanted to see whether you had hair on your chest.” He didn't.
”We tend not to have much body hair.”
He had very smooth skin. I kissed it and ran my hands over it, loving the feel of him. Then I stopped and slipped down off his lap because I wanted so badly to taste him, drink him, to lie beneath that tall, lean body and feel him inside me.
He watched me, left the decision to me. If I tried to bite him, even now, he would let me do it. And then what? If I died, he, at least, might age and die childless. His brothers might mate elsewhere, but he could not. ”How can you risk yourself this way?” I whispered.
”I know what I want,” he said.
I decided that I had better protect him from his wants. He wouldn't send me away, and he should have. I took his hands, his broad hands with long, long fingers that were almost unlined, that were like, but unlike, the hands of my symbionts, larger versions of my own. I took his hands and I kissed them. Then I left him.
On the first night of the Council of Judgment, proceedings were to begin at nine.
They would be held in a large storage building a few dozen yards beyond the last house-Henry's-along the private road. The building had been emptied, and the equipment usually stored in it was sitting outside in the cold, rainy weather-two pickup trucks, two small tractors, a small crane that I'd heard called a cherry picker. Lesser tools had been stored in other buildings. Stacks of metal folding chairs and tables had been rented and trucked in. All this had been done quickly and efficiently by the Gordons and their symbionts with my symbionts and me helping where we could.
Attending were all thirteen of the Silks, all ten of the Gordons, of course, and two representatives each from the thirteen other families, all strangers to me, or near strangers like the Leontyevs and the Braithwaites. They would judge the Silks ... and me and perhaps make it possible for me to get to know myself again and get on with my life without having to be on guard every day against another attack.
Could a Council of Judgment really do that? What if it couldn't?
The thirteen families were Fotopoulos, Marcu, Morariu, Dahlman, Rappaport, Westfall, Nicolau, Andrei, Svoboda, Akhmatova, Nagy, and of course, Leontyev and Braithwaite. One representative would act as a Council member and the other as a subst.i.tute. There were six male families and seven female. I asked Preston whether the balance of s.e.xes meant anything.
”Nothing at all,” he told me. I was working with my symbionts to set up rows of metal chairs, and he was doing something to one of the video cameras that would be recording the Council sessions. ”You heard how the decisions were made. The Silks traded names with us until we had a group that both would accept. We have acted as your representative in this because you no longer know these people.”
”Did I know them all before?” I asked.
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