Your One & Only(46)
“But he’s innocent,” Althea said. “You can’t punish him for something he didn’t do.” She looked to Althea-298, the Althea serving on the Council. The woman shook her head. She wouldn’t help, not when it had to do with Jack.
“We’re all concerned about you,” Althea-298 said. “Your sisters have noticed your preoccupation with the human.”
Althea-298’s gaze traveled the length of her, pausing at her blouse, torn and smeared with Carson’s blood, then came to rest on her face. This told Althea that she was being assessed, and she tried to steady her expression, settling her mind into calm neutrality. Althea-298 would see that too, of course, and Althea’s effort to hide something from the Council, including one of her own sisters, would be noted.
“Three of your sisters have come to me about you,” Althea-298 said.
“Which ones?” Althea asked.
“Does it matter?” Inga said sharply.
“They’re worried about you,” Althea-298 continued. “You’ve been quiet. They think you’re avoiding communing. I know you had a bad experience with the human boy, and now this episode with Carson-312. This is a dangerous time for you, which makes it doubly important that you connect with your sisters. You need to share your experiences with them.”
Althea knew she was supposed to commune with her sisters, so they could understand one another and feel what the others were feeling. An image of the little Ingas and their scraped knees flashed through her mind.
“I’m not fracturing, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said.
Althea-298’s condescending smile told her that it didn’t matter how calm she appeared or what she said. To deny fracturing was to suggest she didn’t care, and to admit it was dangerous. She couldn’t win.
They would hold a Binding Ceremony for Samuel sometime soon. She used to think Binding Ceremonies were beautiful. The fractured brother or sister would finally be able to rest, at peace with the knowledge that the ritual would protect the community. For the first time, however, Althea imagined what a Binding would mean for her, and she didn’t feel peaceful at all. She pictured her sisters gathered around her, smiling as they took one another’s hands and watched the needle slip under her skin.
When she looked up, the Council were studying her, their eyes watchful and dark. How much had they understood of her thoughts? From the looks on their faces, too much. Althea shivered, and the Inga’s eyes narrowed even more.
“You’re to have nothing to do with the human from now on,” Althea-298 said, the warning clear in her voice. “And you’re not to be without the company of at least one of your sisters until we say otherwise. Is that clear?”
She should simply have said yes and left. Instead, she leaned forward, her palms on the table. “But now you know Jack is innocent, you’ll let him go.”
“He’s innocent in what sense, Althea?” the Inga Council member asked. “He and Jonah are the same person. What Jonah does, Jack could also do. This is what we know. It’s who we are, and it’s how we live our lives together.”
“But Jack isn’t one of us.”
“Exactly,” Inga said. “There’s never been a murder in Vispera, because no one here is capable of murder. Jonah killed people in Copan. What if Jack is a killer? Jonah is aggressive and violent, which means Jack carries a genetic strain for aggression and violence. We do not.” Inga stopped, her mouth set in a thin line. “Althea,” she said, “you care about the human, but make no mistake. He’s dangerous, just as dangerous as Jonah.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You may think so, but he can’t care about you the way your sisters do. The way we all do.”
As if to prove the point, Althea-298 hovered at her elbow. The meeting was over. Althea allowed the woman to take her arm to escort her back to the dorms and into the hands of her sisters. They walked silently through town, but Althea sensed the dim connection of her thoughts being prodded. Althea let it happen as she tried to work through everything the Council had said.
At fifteen, Althea had gone with her sisters and the Gen-300 Altheas to visit Copan. They’d taken a riverboat, and Althea had shared with her sisters the sun-dried apples that Nyla-313 had made for her. Even dried, the apples were bright red and had petals, like roses. They’d tasted sweet, infused with honey and almonds, and Althea ate them with her sisters under the canopy of the boat listening to the white-headed capuchin monkeys hooting at them.
The Gen-310 Altheas had never left Vispera before, and the trip to Copan was the first time she’d encountered the differences that existed among the three communities of Homo factus. Every community maintained the same population of nine hundred, the nine models replicated and forming the ten generations. They all held the same ceremonies and celebrations. The Altheas in Copan cut their hair to their shoulders, and their color of yellow was bright and sunny, not the soft butter yellow she and her sisters wore, but otherwise, at first, they seemed very much alike.
After a few days among the Copan Altheas, however, Althea noticed more differences. A Copan Althea poked an annoying dog with a sewing needle under the table. A Hassan and a Viktor argued in the town square, eventually coming to blows. A physical argument wouldn’t be tolerated in Vispera, and Viktors in Vispera were focused on defusing quarrels, not engaging in them. The Kates in Copan had walked around with dim, unfocused eyes. The Altheas there told them it was because one of the Kates had worn the wrong shoes to a dance, and they were worried about fracturing. This reasoning had seemed extreme. Looking back, perhaps these were the kinds of incidents Samuel meant when he talked about being “broken.”