“So you’ll wind up having six or eight children all by yourself,” Wright said. “Is that the way it will be?”
“Eventually,” I said. “But I’m thinking about doing what Hayden said last night—adopting a relative, a young girl from a family with too many girls. That way there will be two of us. Preston says I can’t do that until I’m an adult myself, although I can look around. I hope to be able to live with several different families and learn what they can teach me. I’ll read their books, listen to their elders.”
“You’re trying to get yourself an education,” Joel said.
I nodded. “I have to re-educate myself. Right now, you probably know more about Ina history and about being Ina than I do. I have to learn. Problem is, I don’t know what my re-education will cost.”
He smiled. “Better ask,” he said. “Although, actually, I think Joan will tell you whether you ask or not. Learning is good, though. My father made sure I picked up as much education as I could even before I went off to college. From what Hayden has told me, I’m one of maybe a few hundred humans in the world who can speak and read Ina.”
And Theodora would have been another, I thought.
“It will be a while before we have a home,” I said. “But as my families’ affairs are sorted out, and we begin to have more money, you’ll be able to have the things you want and do what you want to do. Maybe one of you wants to write books or learn another language or learn woodworking or real estate.” I smiled. “Whatever you like. And there will be more of you. At least three more, eventually.”
“Seven people,” Wright said. “I understand the need, but I don’t like it.”
“I like the idea of moving around for a while,” Brook said. “When I was with losif, we didn’t travel much at all. Except for elders going to Councils of one kind or another, most adult Ina do very little traveling, probably because traveling is such a production, with so many people needing to travel together. I’m definitely ready to do some traveling.”
“Once you’ve traveled for a while, you’ll probably be ready to settle down again pretty fast,” Celia said. “My father was in the army while I was growing up. We moved all the time. As soon as I made friends or began to like a school, we were gone again. This sounds as though it will be like that. Meet a friend, spot a nice guy, start a project, then you’re on your way somewhere else.”
“We’ll be staying mostly with female families, won’t we?” Wright asked.
“We will,” I said. “If it doesn’t cause trouble, we’ll pay short visits to the Gordons and the Leontyevs, but as I understand it, my pheromones are going to give males more and more trouble as I approach adulthood.”
“Bound to be true,” Wright growled into my ear. The growl made my whole body tingle.
“Stop that,” I said, laughing, and he laughed, too.
“So all we have to do,” Celia said, “is get through tonight. Then we can get on with our lives.”
I talked with Margaret Braithwaite that evening. I went to her office-bedroom before the third night of the Council could begin.
“Shori, you shouldn’t ask me about this now,” she said. “You should have waited until judgment was passed and the Council had concluded its business.”
I had found her looking through a book she’d borrowed from Hayden. I hadn’t seen her borrow it, but the book smelled deeply of him and only a little of her. One of his older Ina histories.
“Why should I have waited?” I asked. “Have I broken some rule?”
“Oh, no. No rule. It’s just that … It’s just that you might not want to come to us once you hear the judgment.”
I thought about that. It seemed impossible that anyone had failed to hear the lies that the Silks and Katharine Dahlman had told. The elders were much more experienced than I was in reading the signs.
“Is it possible that the Council members will fail to see what the Silks have done?” I asked.
“It is not possible,” she said. “The problem isn’t their guilt and Katharine’s. The problem is what to do about it. What punishment to impose?”
“They killed twelve Ina—all of my male and female families—and nearly a hundred symbionts. From what I’ve heard, none of the people they killed had ever harmed them. How can they be allowed to get away with what they’ve done?”