Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

“Joel,” Brook said. “You haven’t met him yet?”

“She didn’t hang around to introduce us. I met him in the upstairs hall. He had the nerve to ask me which bedrooms were empty. You know she never even told me he was black.”

“They’re not human, Wright. They don’t care about white or black.”

“I know. I even know she needs the guy—or at least, she needs a few more people. But I hate the bastard. I’m not going to do anything to him. I’ll deal with this somehow, but Jesus God, I hate him!”

“You’re jealous.” “Of course I am!”

“You aren’t sure you want her, but you don’t want anyone else to have her.”

“Well, it’s not like I can leave. Hell, I can feel the hold she’s got on me. I can’t even think of leaving her without getting scared.”

“Would you change that?” Brook asked. “If you could escape her, would you?” “. . . I don’t know.”

“I think you do. I’ve seen you with her.”

“I can’t imagine being without her, but I’m not sure I would have begun if I’d known what I was getting into.” There was a silence, then he asked, “What about you? How do you feel about the way she claimed you?”

“Better,” Brook admitted. “Better?”

“She got us out of the Arlington house alive, and she shouldn’t have been able to do that. And she stood her ground last night. The Gordons were pushing her, trying to intimidate her a little just to see what she would do, what she was like. Well, she’s strong, and it matters to her how other Ina treat us. We can trust her. Celia said we could, but I wasn’t sure.”

“You’re saying you want to be her symbiont, not some man’s? I mean, I thought that after choosing to be with Iosif . . .”

There was another short silence, then Brook said, “I would probably have chosen a man if I’d had a choice initially. But I’m okay with Shori. I can find myself a human man if I need one. I can’t believe what she’s done for Celia and me. I’ve seen symbionts who’ve lost their Ina. An old Ina who was visiting died while he was with us. I saw his symbionts in withdrawal, and I heard them screaming when other Ina tried

to save their lives by taking them over. It was bad. Convulsions, pain, helpless fear and revulsion for the Ina who is only trying to help. It went on for days, weeks. It was really horrible. One of the symbionts died. But with Shori . . . she’s fed from me twice, and already it doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s not fun, but it’s not bad. I can’t wait to know what it will be like when I’m fully her symbiont.”

“So . . . they don’t all feel the same when they bite?”

“No more than we all look the same. Their venom is different—very individual. I suspect her bite is spectacular. That’s why she was able to get you the way she did.”

“And she’s only a kid,” he said.

They said nothing more. I listened for a few moments for more conversation, then for outsiders, intruders. When I knew that the community was safe, for the moment, I thought about what Brook and Wright had said. What they had said, overall, was that, except for Wright’s problem with Joel, they were content

with me. It felt remarkably good to know this. I was relieved, even though I had not realized I needed relief. Wright would have to find his own way to accept Joel, and Joel would have to do the same with Wright. There would be a period of unease that I would have to pay attention to, but we would get through it. Other families of Ina and symbionts proved that it could be done.

That day, there were no intruders. The symbionts kept watch, with fresh guards arriving every three

hours so that no one got too tired or drowsy. I met a few more of them and liked their variety—a dentist, an oceanographer, a potter, a writer who also worked as a translator (Mandarin Chinese), a plumber, an internist, two nurses, a beautician who was also a barber, and, of course, farmers and winegrowers. And those were just the ones I met. Some no longer did the work they had trained to do except on behalf of the people of Punta Nublada. Some worked in nearby towns or in the Bay Area two or three days out of the week. Some worked in the vineyards and the winery that the Gordons owned. Some, who were self employed, worked in Punta Nublada. Three of the buildings I had mistaken for barns or storage buildings proved to be full of offices, studios, and workshops.

“We fill our time as we please,” Jill Renner told me during her watch at Wayne Gordon’s house, next to the guest house. “We help support the community whether we have jobs away from it or stay here, whether we bring in money or not.” She was the daughter and granddaughter of symbionts and had been much relieved when Wayne Gordon took an interest in her and asked her to accept him. She had a

half-healed bite just visible on the side of her neck. I realized that she wanted it to be seen. She was proud of Wayne’s obvious attentions to her. Interesting.

That night Wayne and Manning, one of Wayne’s fathers, drove to a local airfield where they kept a private plane. Each took two symbionts with him, so I assumed they expected to be gone for two full nights—not that they couldn’t graze on strangers if they had to. The Gordons called it grazing. It was

what I’d done when I lived with Wright at his cabin, except for Theodora. Ina often found new symbionts when they grazed.

Wayne and Manning came to the guest house before they left to tell me that they were going up to Washington to begin to work out the legal affairs of my male and female families and to look at the ruins of their former communities in the hope that they would see something that we had missed. I had Brook tell them the exact address of Iosif’s guest house near Arlington. Let them look at that, too.

“Shall I go?” I asked them. “Won’t you need me as daughter and only survivor? Anyway, I think I’d like to collect Theodora.”

“We won’t need you yet,” Wayne said. He was tall even for an Ina, the tallest in his family. He towered over even his tallest symbionts. “We’ll have to produce you eventually, but for now, we just want to find

out who handled Iosif’s and your mothers’legal affairs. Then we’ll bite them and see how quickly all this can be sorted out. The land should be yours whether or not you want to live on any of it. If you like, you can sell one parcel and use the money to get a couple of houses started on the other. And your parents owned apartment houses in Seattle and quite a bit more than just the land their communities stood on.

We need to learn all we can about their business affairs before you can even begin to decide what to do.” I nodded. “Can you collect Theodora?”

“Give us her address.”

I called Wright, described Theodora’s location three doors east of his uncle’s house, and he told Wayne how to find her.

“Theodora Harden,” I said. “I’ll phone her and tell her you’ll be there ... when?”

They worked that out. They would pick up Theodora on their way home on the third night. “Thank you,” I said. “Be careful. Someone should always be awake and on guard.”

They nodded and went out to their huge, boxy car. Joel told me it was called a Hummer and that it cost more money than some houses.

Then they were gone.

The next day, Punta Nublada was attacked.

sixteen

The attackers arrived just after ten the next morning. Except for me, all Ina were asleep. I had spent nearly an hour on the phone with Theodora and was thinking about her, wanting her, looking forward to seeing her. Then I heard the cars.

They drove into the community in three large, quiet cars, each almost as big as the Gordons’ Hummer, and I heard them before I was able to see them from my perch at one of the dormer windows in the guest-house bedroom that Wright and I shared. I didn’t know who the newcomers were. They weren’t talking among themselves. They weren’t making much noise of any kind, but the moment I heard their approach, I was suspicious. I phoned two other houses and told the symbionts there to alert everyone else.