“You must accept the sentence,” Preston said. “Then each member of your family must stand and accept it. By your acceptance, you give your word, each of you, that there will be peace between the Silks and the Matthews, peace between the Silks and the Gordons, peace for a period of at least three hundred years from today.”
Preston paused, his eyes on Russell as intently as mine were. “The penalty for refusing to accept your sentence or for breaking your word once you’ve given it is immediate death—death for you, Russell, and for each mated member of your family.” He paused and looked at the Silk family waiting in the audience. “Do you accept your sentence?” he demanded.
Russell launched himself toward me.
I stood up and away from the table, ready for him, eager for him. It was like being eager for sex or for feeding.
But before he could reach me, before I could taste his blood, two of his sons and one of his brothers leaped up from the front row, grabbed him, and dragged him down. They held him while he struggled beneath them, screaming. At first, it seemed that he wasn’t making words. He was only looking at me and screaming. Then I began to recognize words: “Murdering black mongrel bitch …” and “What will she give us all? Fur? Tails?”
He didn’t shed tears. I wondered suddenly whether we could cry the way humans did. Russell just lay curled on his side, moaning and choking.
I watched the whole group of Silks, clustered in the first few rows on Russell’s side of the room. Milo glared at me, but the others were focused on Russell, who seemed to be slowly regaining his sanity.
Wright and Joel got up and came toward me, but I waved them back to their seats. They couldn’t regrow lost parts. Better for them to stay clear.
Milo looked from me to them—a long, slow look. Then he looked at me again. It was an obvious threat.
Daniel Gordon, his fathers, and his brothers came up to stand behind me. In silence, they looked back at Milo.
The pile of Silks on the floor untangled itself, and all four of them stood up. After a moment, Russell went back to his table and stood by it. The rest of his family watched him, as the three who had restrained him went back to their seats.
At the same time, the Gordons behind me melted away and went back to their seats as silently as they had come. I sat down at my table.
Preston repeated in an oddly gentle voice, “Russell Silk, do you accept your sentence?”
It was as though there had been no interruption. Russell looked down at his table, then stared at me. “What is to be done with the Matthews child?” he demanded.
“Nothing at all,” Preston said.
“She should be adopted. She’s a child. She’s ill. She should be looked after, brought into a family that can teach her how to at least pretend to be Ina.”
“You created Shori’s problems,” Preston said. “But solving them is not your concern. Your only concern now is whether you accept your sentence or reject it. Now, for the last time, do you accept your sentence?”
Russell looked at his family—his father, his brothers, his sons, and his five youngersons who would soon be leaving the Silk family to be adopted by others. Adoption was apparently so permanent a thing that there was no possibility of their sneaking back home or uniting as Silks in another country or another part of the United States. For one thing, they would eventually be mated to different families of females. And their sons would never be Silks.
It took Russell almost a full minute to make himself say the words: “I … accept … the sentence.”
“Milo Silk?” Preston said.
Milo stood up. In an ancient, paper-dry voice that I had not heard from him before, he said, “I accept the sentence.” Then he sat down again and sagged forward in his chair, staring at the floor, elbows resting on his knees.
Once he had said it, each of the rest of his sons could say it. Then their sons could say it. Finally the youngest, unmated sons—those who were giving their word that they accepted absolute, permanent banishment—could say it. It still seemed wrong to me that they should be the ones to bear the worst of the punishment. Each might never see his fathers or his brothers again, and three of them were children. They were the only ones truly not responsible for what their elders had done to my families.
It occurred to me suddenly that Russell had asked about my being adopted because if I, like his sons, became a member of a different family, he might not be legally forbidden from attacking me. If I were not Shori Matthews, but Shori Braithwaite, for instance, I might be fair game. The Braithwaites might be fair game. I had no intention of being adopted, but I did intend to ask Preston if my suspicions were true.