Never tell them, Yori whispered. His silence had apparently told her enough. There has been enough killing. We die and die and no one is born. She put her hands on either side of his face and looked at him, her expression shifting from pain to hatred to pain to something utterly unreadable. She hugged him suddenly, and he was afraid she would crush him or scratch him with her nails or thrust him away from her and hurt him. There was so much suppressed emotion in her, so much deadly tension in her body.
She left him. She spoke for a few moments with Rinaldi, then left the house.
10
Bargaining went on into the night. People ate and drank and told stories and tried to outtrade one another. Tate gave Akin what she called a decent vegetarian meal, and he did not tell her that it was not decent at all. It did not contain nearly enough protein to satisfy him. He ate it, then slipped out a door at the back of the house and supplemented his meal with peas and seed from her garden. He was eating these things when the shooting began inside.
The first shot startled him so much that he fell over. As he stood up, there were more shots. He took several steps toward the house, then stopped. If he went in, someone might shoot him or step on him or kick him. When the shooting stopped, he would go in. If Iriarte or Tate called him, he would go in.
There was the noise of furniture smashingheavy bodies thrown about, people shouting, cursing. It was as though the people inside intended to destroy both the house and themselves.
Other people rushed into the house, and the sounds of fighting increased, then died.
When there had been several moments of silence, Akin went up the steps and into the house, moving slowly but not quietly. He made small noises deliberately, hoping he would be heard and seen and known not to be dangerous.
He saw first broken dishes. The clean, neat room where Tate had given him pineapple and talked to him was now littered with broken dishes and broken furniture. He had to move very carefully to avoid cutting his feet. His body healed faster than the bodies of Humans, but he found injuring himself just as painful as they seemed to.
Blood.
He could smell it strongly enough to be frightened. Someone must be dead with so much blood spilled.
In the living room, there were people lying on the floor and others tending them. In one corner, Iriarte lay untended.
Akin ran toward the man. Someone caught him before he could reach Iriarte and picked him up in spite of his struggles and cries.
Rinaldi.
Akin yelled, twisted, and bit the mans thumb.
Rinaldi dropped him, shouting that he had been poisonedwhich he had notand Akin scrambled to Iriarte.
But Iriarte was dead.
Someone had struck him several times across the body with what must have been a machete. He had gaping, horrible wounds, some spilling entrails onto the floor.
Akin screamed in shock and frustration and grief. When he came to know a man, the man died. His Human father was dead without Akin ever knowing him except through Nikanj. Tino was dead. Now Iriarte was dead. His years had been cut off unfinished. His Human children had died in the war, and his construct children, created from material the ooloi had collected long ago, would never know him, never taste him and find themselves in him.
Why?
Akin looked around the room. Yori and a few others were doing what they could for the injured, but most of the people in the room were just staring at Akin or at Gabriel Rinaldi.
Hes not poisoned! Akin said with disgust. Youre the ones who kill people, not me!
Hes all right? Tate said. She was standing with her husband, looking frightened.
Yes. He looked at her for a moment, then looked again at Iriarte. He looked around, saw that Galt also appeared to be dead, hacked about the head and shoulders. Yori was working over Damek. What irony if Damek lived while Iriarte died for the murder Damek had committed.
Tinos murder must be the reason for all this.
On the floor near Damek lay Tinos father, wounded in his left thigh, his left arm, and his right shoulder. His wife was weeping over him, but he was not dead. A man was using something other than water to clean away blood from the shoulder wound. Another man was holding Tinos father down.
There were other wounded and dead around the room. Akin found Kaliq dead behind a long cushion-covered wooden bench. He had only one wound, bloody but small. It was a chest wound, probably involving his heart.
Akin sat beside him while others in the house helped the injured and carried out the dead. No one came for Kaliq while he sat there. Behind him, someone began to scream. Akin looked back and saw that it was Damek. Akin tried not to feel the anguish that came to him reflexively when he saw a Human suffering. One part of his mind screamed for an ooloi to save this irreplaceable Human, this man whom some ooloi somewhere had made prints of, but whom no Oankali or construct truly knew.
Another part of his mind hoped Damek would die. Let him suffer. Let him scream. Tino had not even had time to scream.
Tinos father did not scream. He grunted. Bits of metal were cut from his flesh while he held a piece of folded cloth between his teeth and grunted.
Akin came out of his corner to look at one of the bits of metala gray pellet covered with the blood of Tinos father.
Tate came over to him and picked him up. To his own surprise, he held on to her. He put his head on her shoulder and did not want to be put down.
Dont you bite me, she said. If you want to get down, you tell me. Bite me and Ill bounce you off a wall.
He sighed, feeling alone even in her arms. She was not the haven he had needed. Put me down, he said.
She held him away from her and looked at him. Really?
Surprised, he looked back. I thought you didnt want to hold me.
If I didnt want to hold you, I wouldnt have picked you up. I just want us to understand each other. Okay?
Yes.
And she held him to her again and answered his questions, told him about bullets and how they were fired from guns, how Tinos father Mateo had come with his friends to take revenge on the raiders in spite of their guns. There were no guns in Phoenix before the raiders arrived.
We voted not to have them, she said. We have enough things to hurt each other with. Now
well, weve got our first four. Ill bury the damned things if I get the chance.
She had taken him in among the broken dishes and sat him on the counter. He watched while she lit a lamp. The lamp reminded him suddenly, painfully, of the guest house back in Lo.
You want anything else to eat? she asked.
No.
No, what?
No
what?
Shame on Lilith. No, thank you, little one. Or Yes, please. Understand?
I didnt know resisters said those things.
In my house they do.
Did you tell Mateo who killed Tino?
God, no. I was afraid you told him. I forgot to tell you to keep that to yourself.
I told him the man who killed Tino was dead. One of the raiders really did die. He was sick. I thought if Mateo believed it was that one, he wouldnt hurt anyone else.
She nodded. That should have worked. Youre brighter than I thought. And Mateo is crazier than I thought. She sighed. Hell, I dont know. I never had any kids. I dont know how I would have reacted if I had one and someone killed him.
You shouldnt have told Tinos parents anything at all until the raiders were gone, Akin said quietly.
She looked at him, then looked away. I know. All I said was that you had known Tino and that he had been killed. Of course they wanted to know more, but I told them to wait until we had settled you inthat you were just a baby, after all. She looked at him again, frowning, shaking her head. I wonder what the hell you really are.