Fledgling_ a novel Part 29

Brook, Celia, and Wright went off to knock on Wayne's door, and Joel and I went down the road to Wells Gordon's house where the Westfalls-Harold and John-were staying with their eight symbionts, including the two who may have been among the last people to see Theodora alive.

I didn't suspect them of killing Theodora. The Westfalls, from what Preston had told me, were not closely related to me or to the Silks, but they were very interested in the success my eldermothers had had mixing human and Ina DNA and giving me the day. They were not offended by it as the Silks were.

I thought about Milo, about his contempt for me and his less lethal, but no less real, contempt for symbionts-probably for all humans. Ina could not survive without humans, and yet Milo seemed to consider them little more than useful domestic animals. What must life be like for his symbionts?

And how did families who thought like the Silks get along with other Ina? Joan Braithwaite had said that there were many who loved Milo. They must have loved him in spite of his arrogance. Or perhaps they loved him for what he had been when he was younger. He was far from lovable now.

I had read in one of the books I'd borrowed from Hayden about the periods of feuding between Ina families during which Ina fought mainly by doing what the Silks had done to my families-using humans as weapons-using them to kill members of one another's families. Hayden said that hadn't happened anywhere in the world for centuries. It was considered as barabaric among Ina as boiling people in oil was among humans.

And yet, somehow it had come back into fas.h.i.+on.

"I need to see the two male Westfall symbionts, "I told Dulce Ramos, the Wells Gordon's symbiont who happened to be awake.

She nodded and said, "Okay." Then, "Hey, Joel," and took Joel and me upstairs and into to the house's guest quarters. "Those two are brothers-twins, I think-Gerald and Eric Cooper. Eric's the one with the mustache." She paused. "I heard what happened. I'm sorry."

I nodded. "Thank you."

"Do you think the Westfall syms did it?"

"No. But they might have seen something."

The Westfall symbionts were asleep, keeping the same hours as their Ina. Awakened, the Cooper brothers came out together, short salt-and-pepper hair standing up in spikes all over their heads. They wore handsome robes made of very smooth, deep red material. They were just as Celia had described them, now sleepy but interested.

"I had heard you could stay awake during the day," Eric said. "But I didn't believe it until now."

I shrugged. "I can," I said, "but while I was asleep this morning someone killed one of my symbionts."

Both men went very still. "Theodora?" Gerald asked.

"Theodora," I said.

"Oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry. Killed? Someone killed her? My G.o.d."

"Early this morning. She's been dead now for about ten hours."

He nodded. "And you're talking to us because we spent some time talking to her last night."

"I'm talking to you because both your scents are on her," I said.

"We both danced with her," Eric said. "She was so happy, having such a good time. She was a delight."

"She talked mainly about you," Gerald said. "She made us remember what it was like to be in a brand-new symbiosis. She was very much in love with you, said she thought her life was pretty much over until you broke into her house one night, swept her off her feet, and confused the h.e.l.l out of her."

I wanted to laugh about that. Then I wanted to run away from these strangers, find a dark corner, and huddle there rocking my body back and forth, moaning and mourning. They were speaking honestly about Theodora as far as I could sense, and yet I hated them. They had been with her talking to her, listening to her, touching her during her last hours. They were strangers, and they had been there with her. I had not.

Beside me, Joel took my hand and held it. That helped a little, steadied me a little.

I struggled to keep my voice and my expression neutral because frightening these men would not get me the information I wanted. And I couldn't just stir their memories by telling them to remember. They weren't mine. The best I could do would be to ask their Ina to nudge their memories when he awoke. For now, I could only try to persuade them. "Do you remember what time it was when you left her?" I asked.

"She left us," Gerald said. "She said she was tired and wanted to go to bed. Said she wasn't used to having a social life again. I think it was around two this morning." He looked at his brother. "Two?"

"Closer to three," Eric said. "We offered to walk her home, but she just smiled and kissed us both and went on her way. I saw her go out the front door. That's the last time I saw her."

"Did you see anyone paying attention to her?" I asked.

Both men frowned, then Eric shook his head. "I was looking at her. I might have missed what someone else was doing." He glanced at me. "No offense, but I would have taken her to bed if I could have."

I nodded. I had understood that. "I don't think she was ready for that yet."

"She wasn't." He paused. "As soon as she was gone, though, two men left. I don't know them or which families they're with. h.e.l.l, I don't even know if they were together. They did leave at the same time, though."

"Tell me what you remember about them," I said. "Did you see their faces?"

"Only for a moment," Eric said. "Young-looking men. Brown hair. Medium brown. Both of them."

"Another pair of brothers?" I asked.

They looked at one another, then back at me. "No, I don't believe so," Gerald said. "They were a Mutt-and-Jeff pair."

I frowned.

"A tall fellow and a short one," Gerald explained. "And they didn't look alike at all except for the hair. Just two guys."

"How short was the short guy?" Joel asked.

Gerald frowned. "Too short to be a symbiont, really. I think most Ina would worry about taking on a such a small man."

Mentally, I went through the list of people who had left their scents on Theodora's body. Of the ones I could identify, three of them were brown-haired men. Only one might be called short by everyone except me. Gerald was right. The man I was thinking of was slender and short, actually too small to be a symbiont. Most Ina worried about hurting smaller humans. In great need, even I might take more blood than a small human could survive losing. "Estimate the height of the shorter man," I said, just to be sure.

"He was maybe five-three or four," Eric said.

Joel whistled. "That might mean his Ina was female," he said.

"Jack Roan," I said. "His scent was on Theodora. Jack Roan sym Katharine Dahlman. And Katharine Dahlman and her sister are the shortest adult Ina I've ever seen. Did Jack dance with Theodora at all?"

"If he did, it was before we arrived," Eric said. "We were at another party at Manning's house. She would have had plenty of time to dance with other people before we arrived."

But she probably hadn't. Theodora had not left Celia until Eric and Gerald took an interest. I needed to talk with Jack Roan as soon as possible.

But Jack Roan had gone-had left Punta Nublada. I went to the office complex where the Dahlmans were staying and he wasn't there.

The complex was also where the Braithwaites were staying, and one of Margaret Braithwaite's symbionts, a man named Zane Carter, told me he had seen Roan go-had seen him take one of the Dahlman cars and leave that morning. Carter a.s.sumed Roan had been sent out on some errand for Katherine or her sister Sophia.

Also, the other brown-haired man from the party turned up-the one who had left the party at the same time as Roan. He turned out to be someone that I knew or, at least, that I was aware of. He was Hiram Majors sym Preston, and his scent had not been on Theodora. I was relieved to know that once I knew he was with the Gordons. He came to me on his own when he heard that I was looking for Roan ... and heard why I was looking for him.

"I was talking to Jack last night," he told me when he caught up with me as Joel and I were leaving the office complex. "Turns out he and my sister both went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh at the same time. He knew her. Saw her in some play-she was a drama major-and then ran into her the next day and invited her to have coffee with him." Hiram shrugged. "I'm cut off from my family out here. It was good to talk to someone from home."

"Did he leave abruptly last night?" I asked.

"Yes," Hiram admitted. "I think he had been watching your ... Theodora?"

"That was her name."

"I hadn't really noticed her until she walked past us and out the door, and Jack looked at her and said he had to go do something for Katharine. Said he'd forgotten until that minute." Hiram shook his head. "That's why I remember him so clearly."

"G.o.d," Joel said. "What a stupid thing for one symbiont to say to another."

"Why?" I asked, not thinking.

They both stared at me. Joel answered, "You don't forget something your Ina tells you to do. You can't. That's one of the first things you learn as a symbiont. Jack Roan was-I guess-so eager to go after Theodora that he told a really stupid lie."

Twenty-five.

I asked Layla Cory, Preston's first, to let me know when he was awake.

Then I went back to the guest house to talk with Wright, Brook, and Celia.

"Jill Renner saw Jack talking to Theodora," Brook said when I told them about Jack Roan.

"She recognized him because he's so short," Wright said. "She'd noticed him before."

"Where were they talking?" I asked.

"Outside," he said. "Near Hayden's house. It was around two thirty or three this morning. She was on her way home."

"Jill said she couldn't hear what they were saying," Celia said. "But it didn't look like anything bad was happening. I mean, Jill said he wasn't touching her or anything."

As soon as Layla Cory phoned me, I left my symbionts at the guest house, went to Preston, and told him what had happened and what I had learned. We talked in his den, next to his bedroom. The den was a windowless, wood-paneled room with leather-covered chairs, oriental rugs on the floor, and many shelves of old, leather-covered books. It felt, somehow, like a cave-the cave Preston was born from each day.

"Katharine Dahlman," he said, and he shook his head. "I've known Katharine for three centuries. Her family and mine ... well, I can't say we've been friends, but we've usually gotten along. Are you sure?" We sat facing one another in the vast leather chairs. I had slipped off my shoes and curled up in the chair because it was easier than sitting with my legs sticking straight out or sitting forward on the edge with my feet dangling well above the floor. It was a comfortable chair to curl up in. Under different circ.u.mstances, I would have been completely content there.

"I'm sure my Theodora is dead," I said, "murdered by being hit so hard that part of her skull was broken. I'm sure Jack Roan sym Katharine Dahlman followed her from the party at Philip's house after lying about why he was leaving the party. Jill Renner went to the same parties as Theodora, and she said early this morning she saw Roan talking to Theodora near Hayden's house. Sometime after that, Zane Carter saw Roan leaving Punta Nublada. I can't claim to know more than that, but that should be enough."

Preston looked at me for a moment, then shook his head.

"I loved Theodora, and she was mine," I said. "She came to me willingly, eagerly. And now, because she loved me, she's dead."

"You don't know that," he said.

"I can't prove it," I said. "But I know it. So do you." I took a deep breath. "I promised Martin Harrison I wouldn't kill anyone before I talked to you or Hayden. And because the Council goes on tonight, I can't try to track Roan." I took another breath. "Preston, what can I do? She trusted herself to me. I want a life for her life. I will have a life for her life."

Preston turned his face away. "Roan's life?"

"Katharine's life!"

"No."

I said nothing more. I would have Katharine Dahlman's life. We would not play the game of killing off one another's symbionts as though they weren't even people, as though they were nothing.

I jumped down from the chair, grabbed my shoes, and started to walk away from him.

"Who will protect the rest of your symbionts if you kill Katharine?" Preston demanded. "Her family will come after you. You'll have stepped outside the law, and they will be free to protect themselves. They'll kill you, and they'll kill your symbionts, too, if they try to help you. And of course they will try. Do you want the rest of your people dead?"

"The Dahlmans are the ones who stepped outside the law!"

"I agree with you; they almost certainly have. But that isn't yet proved."

"My family is gone!" I said, turning to face him again. "My memory of them is gone. I can't even mourn them properly because for me, they never really lived. Now I have begun to relearn who I am, to rebuild my life, and my enemies are still killing my people. Where is there safety for my symbionts or for me?"

"Go on with the Council of Judgment."

If he had been anyone other than Preston, I would have walked away without bothering to comment. But Preston had become important to me. It wasn't only that I liked him. He was Daniel's elderfather. And he favored a mating between his sons and me. "Why?" I demanded. "Why should I wait?"

"Think about why this was done, Shori. Think. You were very much in control of yourself last night. If your memory were intact, you wouldn't have been, you couldn't have been so calm as you sat in the same room with the people who probably had your families killed. I don't think you were expected to be calm. I think the Silks and perhaps the Dahlmans expected you not only to look unusual with your dark skin, but to be out of your mind with pain, grief, and anger, to be a pitiable, dangerous, crazed thing. We Ina don't handle loss as well as most humans do. It's a much rarer thing with us, and when it happens, the grief is ... almost unbearable."

I looked away from him. "I know what the grief is like!"

"Of course you do. You stand there hugging yourself as though you were trying to hold yourself together. They did this to you, Shori. They want you this way!"

I found myself leaning against the wall, wanting to slide down it, wanting to dissolve to the floor. "What can I do?" I said. "How can Katharine be punished when the Silks are the only ones everyone is paying attention to?"

"The facts are what the Council is supposed to pay attention to."

"But Katharine Dahlman is a member of the Council."

"Challenge her tonight. Tell the Council what has happened just as you told me. Facts only. Let them draw their own conclusions. Let them question you. Then ask that Katharine be removed from the Council."

"And they'll do it? All I have to do is ask, and they'll do it?"

"Yes. They'll question her. Then they'll do it because they'll know you're telling the truth, and they'll decide her guilt or innocence as well as her punishment-if there is to be punishment-tomorrow night, when they decide what to do about the Silks. But once she leaves the Council, someone else will have to go, too. Chances are it will be Vlad."

If there was to be punishment? If? If they didn't punish her, I would. I would kill her. I would find a way to do it, a way that would not leave my symbionts unprotected. Perhaps I could find a human criminal-a murderer-and have him kill her and then die himself before he could be made to say who had sent him. Katharine's people would know as I knew, but if she could get away with it, so could I. I had to do something. What I wanted to do was tear her apart with my teeth and hands. Maybe it would come to that.

Then my mind registered the other thing that Preston had said. Vladimir Leontyev, my advocate, one of my mothers' fathers, off the Council. "Why?" I demanded.

"Numerical balance. All Councils of Judgment must have an odd number of members. If Katharine were to leave the Council because of an injury or an emergency at home, her sister Sophia would take her place. Under the circ.u.mstances, I don't think you or your advocate would find Sophia any more acceptable than Katharine."

"I agree," I said. Who knew whether this was something both sisters had agreed to do or something Katharine had thought of on her own.

"Also," Preston said, "it will strike people as reasonable that both you and the Silks lose your advocates."

"It's as though they're playing a game. After all, I'm not trying to get at her because she's the Silks' advocate."