Fledgling(100)

“He may be able to give us some insight into Shori’s amnesia,” Russell said innocently. “Humans are more familiar with memory problems.”

Ion Andrei, Russell’s new advocate said, “Russell has the right to stand aside and let someone with specialized knowledge speak for him.”

Joan Braithwaite sighed. “We could waste a lot of time arguing whether or not to permit the doctor’s questions. Let’s not do that. Shori, are you willing to be questioned by this man?”

“I’m not,” I said.

She nodded, looked at me for a moment. “The implications of the request are offensive,” she said. “They’re intended to be. Nevertheless, I advise you to let the doctor question you. He means no harm. He’s only one more symbiont being used to cause you pain. Ironic and nasty, isn’t it? No matter. I advise you to bear the pain so that anyone on the Council who has doubts about you can see a little more of who and what you are.”

I did not like Joan Braithwaite. But I thought I might eventually love her. She was one of the few fairly close relatives I had left. “All right,” I said. “I’ll answer the doctor’s questions.”

The doctor was called to the free-standing microphone. He was a tall red-haired man with freckles, the first redhead I could recall seeing. “Do you have any pain, Shori?” he asked. “Have any of the injuries you suffered caused you any difficulties?”

“I have no pain now,” I said. “I did before my injuries healed, of course, but they’ve healed completely except for my memory.”

“Do you remember your injuries? Can you describe them?”

I thought back unhappily. “I was burned over most of my body, my face, my head. My head was not only burned, but … the bones of my skull were broken so that in two places my head felt … felt almost soft when I touched it. I was blind. It hurt to breathe. Well, it hurt to do anything at all. I could move, but my coordination was bad at first. That’s all.”

The doctor stared at me, and his expression went from disbelieving to a look that I could only describe as hungry. Odd to see a human being look that way. Just for an instant, he looked the way Ina do when we’re very, very hungry. He got himself under control after a moment and managed to look only mildly interested. “How long did it take these injuries to heal?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I slept a lot at first, when the pain let me sleep. I was mostly aware of the pain. I remember all that happened once I was able to leave the cave, but I’m not sure about some of what went on before that.”

“But you remember killing and eating Hugh Tang?”

I drew back and stared at the man, wondering how much of what he asked was what he had been told to ask. Were Joan and I wrong? Was the doctor having fun? “I’ve said that I remember killing and eating Hugh Tang,” I said.

He looked uncomfortable. “Could you tell us,” he said, “about anything at all that you’ve been able to remember of your life before you were injured.”

“I recall nothing of my past before the cave,” I said, as though I hadn’t said it a dozen times the night before.

“Does this trouble you?” he asked.

“Of course it does.”

“What is your answer to it, then? Do you simply accept your memory loss?”

“I have no choice. I am relearning the things that I should know about myself and my people.”

“Do you feel yourself to be a different person because of your loss?”

I had an almost overwhelming impulse to scream at him. Instead, I kept silent until I could manage my voice. Then I spoke carefully into the microphone. “My childhood is gone. My families are gone. My first symbionts are gone. Most of my education is gone. The first fifty-three years of my life are gone. Is that what you mean by ‘a different person’?”

He hesitated.

Russell Silk said, “It isn’t yet your time to question. Answer the symbiont’s question.”

I ignored him and spoke to the doctor. “Have I answered your question?”

He did not move, but now he looked very uncomfortable. He did not meet my gaze. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you have.”

The doctor went on to ask several more questions that I had already answered in one way or another. By the time he ran out of questions, I thought he looked more than a little ashamed of himself. His manner seemed mildly apologetic, and I was feeling sorry for him again. How had he happened to wind up in one of the Silk households?

“Is the doctor boring you, Shori?” Russell asked, surprising me. He didn’t like addressing me directly. It was a family trait.

I said, “I’m sure he’s doing exactly what you’ve instructed him to do.”

“I have no more questions,” the doctor said. He was a neurologist, Carmen told me later, a doctor who specializes in diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. No wonder he had been so interested in my injuries. I wondered whether he hated the Silks.

Finally, it was my turn to ask questions. I used my turn to call Russell’s sons and their unmated young-adult sons to the microphone for questioning. I asked each of them whether they had known that anyone in their family was arranging to kill the Petrescu and Matthews families.

Alan Silk, one of the younger sons of Russell and his brothers, was my best subject—a good-looking, 180-year-old male who hadn’t learned much so far about lying successfully but who insisted on lying.