Fledgling

by Octavia E. Butler

“Suspicions about us grew out of control now and then down through the ages, and we had to run or fight, or we were tortured and murdered as demons or as possessors of valuable secrets. Sometimes they hacked at us until they thought we were dead, then buried us. When we healed, we came out of our graves confused, mad with hunger … perhaps simply mad. Well, that’s how in some cultures we became the ‘walking dead’ or the ‘undead.’ That’s why they learned to burn or behead us.”

And don’t now - why would they invest their lives in hers?

People who never wanted them, never cared about them, kidnapped them and used them to kill my families.” He nodded. “I understand that, but … they did what they did.” “The Silks are responsible, not Victor and the others.”

Haha

Haha - what Wright called Joel’s father, too.

One prisoner was a pimp. The other was a college student keeping a promise to his mother. Both had been collected by members of the Silk family and sent north to kill my family and me. Neither had any information beyond what Victor had already told us.

Wells,

Fotopoulos

Braithwaite

Sv...

Da...

Leontyevs

Akhmatovas,

M...

Nagy

a Council of Judgment

“As soon as we get agreement from seven of the thirteen families, I’ll call the Silks,” Preston said. “I know Milo Silk, or I thought I did. How he and his sons have gotten involved in all this, I can’t imagine.

Haha

“The adults would be killed, and their children dispersed among us to become members of other families.”

Haha OMG

Haha ethics

We’ve had a chance to see what sort of person she is.

If not for the crime that took her memory, she would know.”

That’s the way you’ll bond. The only other reason for you to take blood from an Ina male would be to kill him.”

But if you go against another Ina female, you might die.

“I have no memory of ever having seen or spoken to an Ina female. I’ve only seen my father, one of my brothers, and you. I try to picture a female, and I can’t.”

“What can I do now to help?”

Ethics. A repeated question.

“I don’t think they would believe me. I’m 372 years old. I think they might feel that someone my age might be able to lie to them successfully.

You’re a child. They’ll assume that they’ll be able to read your body language well enough to know whether or not you’re lying.”

Russell Silk,

Milo Silk,

Petrescu

Haha

Theodora.

Haha

Wayne and Manning

Completely unknown concept to her

Daniel, Wayne, William and Philip.

Theodora

She’s exactly the kind of person I would expect to be able to resist one of us—older, educated, well-off—

Haha

Brook and Celia, Wright and Joel, Theodora

gloved symbionts,

three ordinary men catching three different Greyhound buses

they would be able, as Hayden put it, to confabulate to their hearts’ content.

Haha

Haha - great work, kiddo

I made him tell me what he believed he should and could do. Then I told him to go do it.

Nice

Their Ina had disputes to settle. The symbionts planned to have parties.

Haha naturally

Every house had guest quarters—three or four bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms.

Martin Harrison, Joel’s father and William’s symbiont,