Rinaldi.
Akin yelled, twisted, and bit the man?s thumb.
Rinaldi dropped him, shouting that he had been poisoned?which he had not?and 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.
?He?s not poisoned!? Akin said with disgust. ?You?re the ones who kill people, not me!?
?He?s 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.
Tino?s murder must be the reason for all this.
On the floor near Damek lay Tino?s 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 Tino?s 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.
Tino?s 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 metal?a gray pellet covered with the blood of Tino?s 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.
?Don?t you bite me,? she said. ?If you want to get down, you tell me. Bite me and I?ll 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 didn?t want to hold me.?
?If I didn?t want to hold you, I wouldn?t 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 Tino?s 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, we?ve got our first four. I?ll 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 didn?t 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.?
