“I have proof!” Reen said heatedly. “I have pictures: Tali bringing Loving Helpers into the West Wing. I have names and dates. Everything, Oomal! Jeff had everything!”
“So you have pictures. So you have documentation. Photos don’t tell the whole story. And the Community thinks all humans lie. We had to have Hopkins, Cousin Brother. They’d believe what Hopkins said if he was in the hands of the Loving Helpers. I thought you were just going to put a little scare into the man. Drag him back with us to the Cousin place, make him spill his guts. God, Reen, what a mistake.”
“Do I disgust you?” Reen whispered.
Oomal stared at the wall. “You offend the hell out of me, First Brother. You and I and maybe Thural–we don’t see the humans as strangers anymore. Christ. However much Hopkins conspired against you, how could you do it? How could you stand there and tell him to pull that trigger? Wasn’t seeing Womack’s body enough, and Kapavik’s, and Jonis’s? And you made me stand there and watch. It’s something I’ll never be able to forget. I don’t know if I can forgive you for that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, First Brother. Nothing can make up for what you’ve done to me. And to yourself. Tali’s been using Hopkins against you, and he probably thinks you’ve been using Marian Cole against him, like one of those old Third World wars by proxy the United States and the Soviet Union used to have. Now you murdered Hopkins. You upped the ante. Tali’s not going to let you get away with it. So what did they do during the Cold War to keep it from heating up? They negotiated. You’re going to have to negotiate with Tali, First Brother. As much as you hate it, you’ll have to.”
“Tali tried to kill me,” Reen said.
“No, Reen. Tali didn’t try to kill you. Cousins don’t kill Cousins. He hired a human instead. Tali knows more about Communal law than you ever will. That’s his job, and he’s damned good at it. He knows that Cousins never dirty their hands, and they don’t use Loving Helpers as weapons.”
Reen looked away.
“Listen to me, Firstborn. Thural won’t talk, but you can bet that the Taskmaster will. As far as he’s concerned, you’re Tulmade, you’re egg-eater. He thinks you’re crazy. That’s all he talked about on the flight home. Now you’re going to have to walk in there and give Tali something to make him happy. What does he want?”
“To breed the female.”
Oomal was quiet. The lighting in the room was cool, blue, and lulling: nest color. Reen wanted to put his head down and go to sleep.
“That’s stupid,” Oomal said after a while. “You sure?”
“He can’t accept what is happening to us.”
“Yeah, well, Tali will quiet down once the first eggs are hatched and he has another thousand or so Loving Helpers to feed and house.”
Reen turned to his Brother. “I can’t allow the breeding of the female. Who would I choose? You? Thural? Any of the others? And as First, I would have to stand witness. I couldn’t, Oomal. I couldn’t watch that. I won’t order a Cousin to die simply because our Brother can’t accept reality.”
Oomal spread his hands in defeat. “So what do you plan to do?”
“I will go in there,” Reen said firmly, “and apologize for my actions.”
“Oh, that should work. That should make everything all right.”
“I’m not finished! Then I will tell the Community that Tali knew about Jonis. That he tried to have me murdered. I will ask Tali to step down as Conscience and put another in his place. You, perhaps, since you seem to like the job.”
Oomal ignored the barb. “You’re skirting the edge of disaster, Reen-ja. Brother bonding goes only so far. Tali may have your chains around him, but he chafes under their weight. If you don’t play it very, very cautiously, you’ll end up in rebuke, and Tali will be designated to make all your decisions for you.”
Reen got to his feet. “The Community won’t do that. At least not after a hearing. And I have you and Thural as witnesses to Hopkins’s confession.”
“Reen-ja, sit down. You can’t–”
“Are you coming with me, Third Brother? Or are you afraid of Tali, too? When I call on you to speak up for me, will you lie?”
Oomal jumped to his feet, and Reen found himself slammed against the wall. He nearly fell. Oomal jerked him upright. “Listen, Cousin First Brother,” he said in a low, deadly tone. “Get hold of yourself. You always had a bad temper, even when we were children, and time hasn’t taught you shit. I’d jump off a cliff if you told me to, if you had a good reason, so don’t take your rage at Tali out on me.”
Reen felt as though he were under rebuke already, that every shred of authority had been taken from him. He was suddenly afraid of Oomal, afraid that his Brother would strike him as the Sleep Master had.
But Oomal let him go and stood back. Reen slid to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Oomal asked.
“No, I’m not. I’m sorry for everything. For trusting Marian Cole, for not suspecting Hopkins. I’m sorry for Jonis, for the Loving Helpers, for my anger.”
“Quit saying you’re sorry.”
Reen looked up at his Brother. “What else can I do, Oomal?”
“Breed the female. Close your eyes and point. Choose somebody. Please point away from me.”
Reen looked at the lozenges of blue light set along the tops of the walls. “Then I will have murdered five times tonight: Hopkins, the Helpers, and my own blood.”
“Too bad that by law you can’t choose Tali,” Oomal mused. “That would be a sound executive decision. Come on. We’d better get inside and get it over with.” He bent and helped his Brother to his feet.
It was late. The moon had set, leaving the sky adorned with a meager sprinkling of city stars. Oomal at his side, Reen walked into the chamber, stopping dead when he saw that a crowd of Cousins had gathered there.
Reen’s arrival was met with silence. The Sleep Master, his face grim, was standing next to the Taskmaster. Thural was frozen, one hand still out to Tali in entreaty.
The Taskmaster broke the spell. “Egg-eater,” he spat.
Reen searched the crowd, found nothing but hatred or caution. Prudently Oomal stepped away from Reen’s side.
“I ...” Reen began.
The Sleep Master brought him up short. “We cannot identify your voice. We do not recognize your face.”
Reen saw Thural’s hand fall uselessly, wearily, to his side, all appeals abandoned.
“You are in that place where the eye does not see.”
REEN STAGGERED from the Cousin Place, looked around a moment, realized there was nowhere to go, and, dazed, sat on the steps.
A death sentence. The Community had given him a death sentence.
Along the dark horizon, the lights of Washington, D.C., painted a glowing dome on the bottom of the night. The air was brittle with frost. The moon, high and silent, was a lamp in the hands of Orion. Reen looked up, searching for home; but the star was too far and too faint to be seen.
Reen had misjudged how far and how fast Tali would go. Now what? he asked himself. There was no use going back inside and pleading. No one would listen.
Behind him, a quiet pop. The door opened, spilling light down the stairs. “Reen?” a low voice called.
Oomal. Oomal had called his name. Reen got to his feet. His Brother was looking at him, looking into his face as if nothing had happened.
Reen wasn’t sure about the etiquette involved, if he should respond to his Brother’s call.
Like a luminous eye closing, the door pressed shut. “You okay?” Oomal asked.
“Should we be talking?” Reen whispered. “If they hear us talking ...”
“Tali already tried to rebuke me because I said he was the egg-eater and not you. He’s in there shouting orders, and about half the Community is acting as if he were the one th
rown away. It’s a mess, Reen.”
With a moist, kissing sound, the door parted again. Thural stumbled out. His dark gaze slipped past Reen and fixed on Oomal. “Tali cannot lead and be Conscience as well,” he said. “Oomal, you must be Conscience. Go back in there and tell him.”
Oomal shrugged. “I am already Conscience, Cousin Thural. Tali has nothing to do with the destiny of birth order. He’ll understand that when he gets over his snit.”
“But you are under rebuke, Cousin. How can Tali put his Conscience under rebuke?”
“He can’t. Tali knows Communal law. He’s bluffing. Go on back, Thural, before Tali tries to put you under rebuke, too. I’ll let him cool off and then remind him how the Community works.”
“He cannot be the First!” Thural shouted. “He cannot simply throwaway his Brother and then take over his place! This has never been done! Another First should rule.”
“We don’t have another First,” Oomal reminded him gently.
Thural’s cry shattered the night as Hopkins’s gun had shattered the mirror. “What he does is human, Cousin Conscience! This is a human thing Tali does, to murder a Brother in order to rule!”
“Yes,” Oomal said with a malicious chuckle. “I agree. Very human. You might go back in and point that out to the Community, too.”
Reen thought for sure that Thural, so full of indignation, would turn on his heel and march back to confront Tali. Instead his Cousin looked out at the dark landing strip and was silent for a long breathless moment. “What the Nameless did was evil, Cousin Conscience,” he finally said, “but not evil enough for this. If the Cousin Who Has No Voice should ask for help, I might hear his request and sleep at his side.”
Reen clapped his hand to his own cowardly mouth to keep from uttering an appeal. Enough murder had been done that night. A pair of Cousins didn’t make a Community. If he accepted Thural’s offer, they would spend the next three days in a sleepless wait for death.
“Never mind,” Oomal told him. “The Nameless will be taken care of. I have some Gerber execs who like the Nameless a lot more than they like Tali. If he wants to come to Michigan, he has a sleeping place. Now go back in there before Tali starts plotting against you.”
Reluctantly Thural went to the door and let it swallow him.
“I meant what I said.” Oomal turned to Reen. “You come on up to Michigan. Tali can’t do anything to me or my employees. Don’t worry about us. We won’t get thrown away just for hanging around with a Nameless Cousin.”
A Nameless Cousin.
Reen took in a ragged breath that tasted of ice. There were difficult things he would have to remember: that he would never again be able to give an order; that he would make no more decisions other than his own.
Commuter ships and the smaller runners squatted on the tarmac like a gathering of toadstools. Soon he would leave in one and never be able to return.
There had been a time when the Cousins’ obedience to him had been instinctive; when his Brothers, all but one, had loved him.
“I can’t go just yet,” Reen said.
“Don’t be a jerk, Reen.”
“If Tali does not have a consensus, he won’t dare go against the humans. But he will go after Marian Cole. I must warn her,” Reen said,
“Let her go. She hates us. Don’t you see that yet? Someday, Reen, she’s going to drink you dry.”
As a child, when Reen had first felt the sightless nuzzle of his Brothers exploring him for allegiance, love had poured from him like milk. It wasn’t just Marian who would drink him dry, it was the Community, it was the humans, it was Angela.
“I know,” he said.
HE HAD ALWAYS come to her like a thief, sneaking into her house, rummaging through the closets of her mind. Down the hall, Howard wrestled with his nightmares, but Reen stood in the doorway watching Marian.
Her eyes opened. When she raised her head to look at him, he turned and went down the stairs to the kitchen. At his back a breathy whisper: “Reen?” He could hear her groping her drowsy way from the bottom of the steps to the hall.
“Here,” he replied, pulling out a chair and seating himself in the breakfast nook.
She shuffled into the dark kitchen and fumbled for the light switch. The fluorescents came on with a chill dazzle, igniting color in the room: the turquoise countertops, the terra-cotta-tiled floor.
Marian had hastily tied a pink terry-cloth robe over her nightgown, and she was squinting in the glare. “You always come to me like a dream,” she told him, rubbing her eyes with the tips of her fingers.
He sat, his hands linked on the tabletop. It was late, and the hours sagged around his shoulders. The colors in the room were painfully iridescent. Surreal.
“You want some coffee?”
Without waiting for an answer she went to the cabinets and pulled out an acid-green can of Folger’s. A hiss of water from the tap. The clunk as the glass carafe was set on the Mr. Coffee hotplate.
“I murdered William Hopkins tonight,” Reen said.
A crash. He turned and saw Marian staring down at a broken cup.
He reached for her, but she was too far away. In some ways she had always been. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”
“No, of course not.” With a fussy gesture she pushed her hair back from her face. “How silly,” she said, bending to pick up the pieces of shattered cup. “How clumsy.”
On the counter the coffee maker spat. The aggressive scent of coffee pushed through the heavy air in the kitchen.
“Come here,” he said. “Please.”
She placed the shards of porcelain on the drainboard, then walked over, tucked her robe about her knees, and sat. “You look tired,” she said.
She was the one who looked tired. Without makeup, her eyes seemed smaller, a more watery blue. Her cheeks were a wan, weary color. Tiny lines checkmarked the skin around her lips.
“Sit with me a while,” he said, his voice trembling a little. “I want to apologize.”
She looked down at his hands and stroked the smooth gray surface of his fingers. “Don’t feel guilty about Hopkins. He deserved it. The man was a shit.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I want to apologize for what I’ve done to you.”
Her fingers halted in mid-caress. Her touch was warm but light as feathers.
“I’ve thought about what you told me, Marian. I’ve tried to understand what I did. I think that sometimes we fall in love with our opposites. Then we try to erase the differences. That’s what I did to you.”
“It was over a long time ago, Reen. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters,” he snapped.
They looked at each other, and he saw that, despite everything, they were the same irascible Reen and the same vexing Marian that had existed from the beginning of the genetic experiments.
“When you married Howard, I should have left you alone, or at least not allowed you to remember. You and Howard could have bought that country house you always wanted. You could have had your dogs. Your horses. I kept you from that.”
“Howard?” She was surprised. “You think I wanted Howard? You never told me I was putting on weight. You never noticed I was growing old. You never criticized the way I dressed or laughed at my opinions.”
“There are things I am unable ...”
“Don’t!” she said sharply. “For God’s sake, don’t blame yourself. How do you think that makes me feel? I wanted things from you that I knew you couldn’t give. You love as if everybody were important. As if everybody were the same. You know? Once I even slit my wrists so you would love me best.”
He drew his hand away in shock. He always thought she slashed her wrists for Howard.
“If you didn’t love Howard, you should have left him. You might have met someone else, someone who understood you ...”
Her sour laugh stopped him.
“A man who understands me? Shit. Little boys grow up in some damned club called No Girls Allowed. And by the time they get to adolescence and start thinking about girls, they only want to know how to get into our pants. Later, when they’re grown, they start trying to understand us, but by then it’s too late.”
Blinking hard, she said, “Women spend their whole lives wondering what we did wrong. Wondering why the ultimate insult for one eight-year-old boy to another is to call him a girl. Don’t you dare apologize to me, Reen. You’re no good at it. I’ve been apologizing my whole fucking life.”
Bracing her hands on the table, Marian pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s have some coffee.”
Then she walked away. Reen heard the clinking sound of glass against china, the gurgle of coffee pouring. A moment later she was back, pushing a cup and saucer across the butcher-block table toward him.
He stared into the liquid, dark and brown as blood. “Oomal wanted to use Loving Helpers to find out why you were lying to me. I didn’t let him.”
There was a long silence. When he glanced up, he saw that she was watching him over the rim of her cup.
“I want to trust you,” he said.
She put the cup down, turned it this way and that on the table, as if trying to find some perfect but elusive alignment.
“In a few days, I will die.”
Her eyes rose.
“Tali is now First. Oomal is now Conscience. Oomal is strong enough to keep Tali from using the virus, or at least he will be if I stay away. But he either can’t or won’t stop Tali from coming after you. I want you to leave tonight. Pack a few things. Drive to some safe place. Surely you have one.”
She gave a flat laugh. “Stop joking.”
“I will die, Marian. There is no way to prevent it. The Sleep Master and Tali have ordered me from the Community because of what I did to Hopkins.”
She grabbed at his arm, nearly spilling his coffee. “Don’t leave me, damn it!”
Reen put his head in his hands. Lack of sleep was already getting to him. His arms shook; his head felt heavy.
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