I did. And she had just told me more about the basics of being Ina than anyone else ever had. I wondered what other necessary things I didn’t know. I took a deep breath. “I see,” I said. “Theodora was bound to me. And I never hurt her. I never would have hurt her.”
She watched me as I spoke, no doubt judging me, deciding whether I was telling the truth, whether I was worth her time. “All right,” she said. “All right, I’ll be your advocate when the time comes.” She glanced at her watch. “Let’s go to the hall.”
Twenty-six
When Katharine Dahlman heard what I had to say, she denied everything. Neither she nor her symbiont Jack Roan had anything at all to do with the death of “the person Shori Matthews is attempting to claim as her symbiont.”
“They had chosen one another,” Vladimir Leontyev said. “We all saw that they had.”
“Where is Jack Roan?” Joan Braithwaite asked.
“I don’t know,” Katharine said. “My other symbionts have told me he had to go—some family emergency. He has family in Los Angeles, in Phoenix, Arizona, and in Austin, Texas.” She said all this with an odd, sly, smiling expression that I had not seen before. And, of course, she was lying. Everything she’d said was a lie. I got the impression she didn’t care that we knew.
Vladimir looked disgusted. “You’re telling us Roan is yours, but you have no idea which of those three large cities in three different states he’s gone to visit?”
Katharine gave a small shrug. “It was an emergency,” she said. “He couldn’t wait until I awoke. I trust my people.”
“You should,” I said. “Your people are clearly very competent, especially when it comes to murdering an unsuspecting symbiont who’s never done them any harm.” I looked along the arc at the other Council members. “I request that she be removed from this Council.”
“You request!” Katharine seemed to choke on the words. “I request that you be removed from this room! You’re a child, clearly too young to know how to behave. And I challenge your right to represent the interests of families who are unfortunately dead. You are their descendent, but because of their error, because of their great error, you are not Ina! No one can be certain of the truth of anything you say because you are neither Ina nor human. Your scent, your reactions, your facial expressions, your body language—none of it is right. You say your symbiont has just died. If that were so, you would be prostrate. You would not be able to sit here telling lies and arguing. True Ina know the pain of losing a symbiont. We are Ina. You are nothing!”
There was a swell of voices from the audience—much denial, but some agreement. All the visiting and local Ina were present in the audience or on the Council. The rest of the seats were filled by symbionts who also had opinions about me. Not surprisingly, the symbionts who spoke were on my side. It was the Ina who were divided.
Preston stood up. “Listen to me!” he roared in a voice Milo Silk would have been proud of, and the room went utterly silent. After a few seconds, he repeated more quietly, “Listen to me. Shori Matthews is as Ina as the rest of us. In addition, she carries the potentially life-saving human DNA that has darkened her skin and given her something we’ve sought for generations: the ability to walk in sunlight, to stay awake and alert during the day.” He paused, then raised his voice again. “Her mothers, her sisters, her father, and her brothers were Ina, and they have been murdered along with all but two of their symbionts. All of Shori’s own first symbionts have been murdered. This Council has met to determine who’s responsible for those murders, and now it must also consider the murder of Theodora Harden, one of Shori’s new symbionts. We are here to discover the guilt or innocence of those accused of these murders and, if they are found guilty, to decide what is to be done with the murderers. Based on what we’ve heard so far, I don’t believe Katharine Dahlman should be a member of this Council.”
Katharine Dahlman sat very straight and stared angrily at Preston. “You want your sons to mate with this person. You want them to get black, human children from her. Here in the United States, even most humans will look down on them. When I came to this country, such people were kept as property, as slaves. You are biased in Shori’s favor and not a voting member of this Council. I won’t give up my place because you say so.”
Preston stared at her, expressionless, still. “Council members, count yourselves for or against Katharine remaining one of you.” He paused until all of them had turned to look at him. “Zo? Fotopoulos?” he said, turning to look at Zo?. She sat farthest from me, next to Russell Silk’s table.