Fledgling

by Octavia E. Butler

Your brothers and I have our genetic predispositions—our instincts—but we are also intelligent. We are aware of our urges. We can stand still even when the instinct to move is powerful.”

She said through her tears, “I always knew that I would die before him and that was good. I was so willing to accept him when he asked me. God, I loved him. And I thought it meant I would never be alone. My father died when I was eight. I had a brother who drowned when he was seven. And my sister’s husband died of cancer when they’d been married for only two years. I thought I had finally found a way to avoid all that pain—a way never to be alone again.”

He looked at me sadly. “My little vampire.” “Still,” I said.

❤️

“Human trials are often games to see which lawyer is best able to use the law, the jury’s beliefs and prejudices, and his own theatrical ability to win.

Brook and Celia went off to renew old friendships, and Theodora went with them. Theodora seemed cheerful and excited. “I’ve moved to Mars,” she told me. “Now I’ve got to go learn how to be a good Martian. Who better to teach me than the other immigrants?”

“I hadn’t really noticed her until she walked past us and out the door, and Jack looked at her and said he had to go do something for Katharine. Said he’d forgotten until that minute.” Hiram shook his head. “That’s why I remember him so clearly.” “God,” Joel said. “What a stupid thing for one symbiont to say to another.” “Why?” I asked, not thinking. They both stared at me. Joel answered, “You don’t forget something your Ina tells you to do. You can’t. That’s one of the first things you learn as a symbiont. Jack Roan was—I guess—so eager to go after Theodora that he told a really stupid lie.”

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.

From the hypothetical to the real. Careless of him.