Part 27 (1/2)

”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?”