Butler, Octavia - Adulthood Rites

“It’s too late for me to bond with my sibling,” he said truthfully. “I was thinking about that last night. I was feeling

Lonely wouldn’t really be the right word. This was more like

something died.” Every word was true. His answer was simply incomplete. Amma and Shkaht had started his feelings—their union, their leaving

“Where are the girls?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Have they gone, Akin?”

He looked away. Why was she always so hard to hide things from? Why did he hesitate so to lie to her?

“Good god,” she said, and started to get up.

“Wait!” Akin said. “They were going to cut them this morning. Neci and her friends were going to grab them while they were eating and hide them and cut off their sensory tentacles.”

“The hell they were!”

“They were! We heard them last night! Yori wouldn’t help them, but they were going to do it anyway. They were going to give them corn whiskey and—”

“Moonshine?”

“What?”

“They were going to make the girls drunk?”

“They couldn’t.”

Tate frowned. “Were they going to give them the moonshine—the whiskey?”

“Yes. But it wouldn’t make them drunk. I’ve seen drunk Humans. I don’t think anything we could drink would make us like that. Our bodies would reject the drink.”

“What would it have done to them?”

“Make them vomit or urinate a lot. It isn’t strong or deadly. Probably they would just pass it through almost unchanged. They would urinate a lot.”

“That stuff’s damn strong.”

“I mean

I mean it’s not a deadly poison. Humans can drink it without dying. We can drink it without vomiting it up wrapped in part of our flesh to keep it from injuring us.”

“So it wouldn’t hurt them—just in case Neci caught them.”

“It wouldn’t hurt them. They wouldn’t like it, though. And Neci hasn’t caught them.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve heard her. She’s been asking people where the girls are. No one’s seen them. She’s getting worried.”

Tate stared at nothing, believing, absorbing. “We wouldn’t have let her do it. All you had to do was tell me.”

“You would have stopped her this time,” he agreed. “She would have kept trying. People believe her after a while. They do what she wants them to.”

She shook her head. “Not this time. Too many of us were against her on this. Little girls, for godsake! Akin, we could waste days searching for them, but you could track them faster with your Oankali hearing and sight.”

“No.”

“Yes. Oh, yes! How far do you think those girls will get before something happens to them? They’re not much bigger than you are. They’ll die out there!”

“I wouldn’t. Why should they?”

Silence. She frowned down at him. “You mean you could get home from here?”

“I could if no Humans stopped me.”

“And you think no Humans will stop the girls?”

“I think

I think they’re afraid. I think they’re frightened enough to sting.”

“Oh, god.”

“What if someone were going to cut your eyes out, and you had a gun?”

“I thought the new species was supposed to be above that kind of thing.”

“They’re afraid. They only want to go home. They don’t want to be cut.”

“No.” She sighed. “Get dressed. Let’s go to breakfast. The riot should be starting any time now.”

“I don’t think they’ll find the girls.”

“If what you say is true, I hope they don’t. Akin?”

He waited, knowing what she would ask.

“Why didn’t they take you with them?”

“I’m too small.” He walked away from her, found his pants in the next room, and put them on. “I couldn’t work with them the way they could work with each other. I would have gotten them caught.”

“You wanted to go?”

Silence. If she did not know he had wanted to go, wanted desperately to go, she was stupid. And she was not stupid.

“I wonder why the hell your people don’t come for you,” she said. “They must know better than I do what they’re putting you through.”

“What they’re putting me through?” he asked, amazed.

She sighed. “We, then. Whatever good that admission does you. Oankali drove us to become what we are. If they hadn’t tampered with us, we’d have children of our own. We could live in our own ways, and they could live in theirs.”

“Some of you would attack them,” Akin said softly. “I think some Humans would have to attack them.”

“Why?”

“Why did Humans attack one another?”

Suddenly there was shouting outside.

“Okay,” Tate said. “They’ve realized the girls are gone. They’ll be here in a moment.”

Almost before she had finished speaking, Macy Wilton and Neci Roybal were at the door, looking around the room.

“Have you seen the girls?” Macy demanded.

Tate shook her head. “No, we haven’t been out.”

“Did you see them at all this morning?”

“No.”

“Akin?”

“No.” If Tate thought it was best to lie, then he would lie—although neither of them had begun lying yet.

“I heard you were sick, Akin,” Neci said.

“I’m all right now.”

“What made you sick?”

He stared at her with quiet dislike, wondering what it might be safe to say.

Tate spoke up with uncharacteristic softness. “He had a dream that upset him. A dream about his mother.”

Neci raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I didn’t know they dreamed.”

Tate shook her head, smiled slightly. “Neci, why not? He’s at least as Human as you are.”

The woman drew back. “You should be out helping to search for the girls!” she said. “Who knows what’s happened to them!”

“Maybe someone decided to follow your advice, grab them, and cut off their sensory tentacles.”

“What!” demanded Macy. He had gone into the room where he and the girls and his wife had slept. Now he came out, staring at Tate.

“She has an obscene sense of humor,” Neci said.

Tate made a wordless sound. “These days, I have no sense of humor at all where you’re concerned.” She looked at Macy. “She was still pushing to have the girls’ tentacles amputated. She’s been talking to the salvagers about it,” Now she looked directly at Neci. “Deny it.”

“Why should I? They would be better off without them—more Human!”

“Just as much better off as you would be without your eyes! Let’s go look for them, Macy. I hope to god they never heard the things Neci’s been saying.”

Amazed, Akin followed her out. She had put the blame for the girls’ flight exactly where it belonged without involving him at all. She left him with a salvager who had injured his knee and joined the search as though she had every expectation of finding the girls quickly.

19

Amma and Shkaht were not found. They were simply gone—perhaps found by other resisters, perhaps safe in some trade village. Most of the resisters seemed to think they were dead—eaten by caimans or anacondas, bitten by poisonous snakes or insects. The idea that such young children could find their way to safety seemed completely impossible to them.

And most of the resisters blamed Neci. Tate seemed to find that satisfying. Akin did not care. If Neci left him alone, he was content with her. And she did leave him alone—but only after planting the idea that he must be watched more carefully. She was not the only one who believed this, but she was the only one to suggest that he be kept out of the pit, kept away from the river, be harnessed and tied outside the cabins when everyone was too busy to watch him.

He would not have stood for that. He would have stung the rope or chain that they tied him with until it rotted or corroded through, and he would have run away—up the mountain, not down. They might not find him higher up. He would probably not make it back to Lo. He was too far from it now, and there were so many resister villages between it and him that he would probably be picked up once he headed down from the hills. But he would not stay with people who tied him.