Tate, who had reached the house before him, took one of the moving pictures?a small one of Christ standing on a hill and talking to people?and handed it to Akin. He moved it slightly in his hand, watching the apparent movement of Christ, whose mouth opened and closed and whose arm moved up and down. The picture, though scratched, was hard and flat?made of a material Akin did not understand. He tasted it?then threw it hard away from him, disgusted, nauseated.
?Hey!? one of the salvagers yelled. ?Those things are valuable!? The man retrieved the picture, glared at Akin, then glared at Tate. ?What the hell would you give a thing like that to a baby for anyway??
But both Tate and Sabina had stepped quickly to see what was wrong with Akin.
Akin went to the door and spat outside several times, spat away pure pain as his body fought to deal with what he had carelessly taken in. By the time he was able to talk and tell what was wrong, he had everyone?s attention. He did not want it, but he had it.
?I?m sorry,? he said. ?Did the picture break??
?What?s the matter with you?? Tate said with unmistakable concern.
?Nothing now. I got rid of it. If I were older, I could have handled it better?made it harmless.?
?The picture?the plastic?was harmful to you??
?The stuff it was made of. Plastic??
?Yes.?
?It?s so sealed and covered with dirt that I didn?t feel the poison before I tasted it. Tell the girls not to taste it.?
?We won?t,? Amma and Shkaht said in unison, and Akin jumped. He did not know when they had come in.
?I?ll show you later,? he said in Oankali.
They nodded.
?It was
more poison packed tight together in one place than I?ve ever known. Did Humans make it that way on purpose??
?It just worked out that way,? Gabe said. ?Hell, maybe that?s why the stuff is still here. Maybe it?s so poisonous?or so useless?that not even the microbes would eat it. Nonbiodegradable, I think the prewar word was.?
Akin looked at him sharply. The shuttle had not eaten the plastic. And the shuttle could eat anything. Perhaps the plastic, like the truck, had simply been overlooked. Or perhaps the shuttle had found it useless as Gabe had said.
?Plastics used to kill people back before the war,? a woman said. ?They were used in furniture, clothing, containers, appliances, just about everything. Sometimes the poisons leached into food or water and caused cancer, and sometimes there was a fire and plastics burned and gassed people to death. My prewar husband was a fireman. He used to tell me.?
?I don?t remember that,? someone said.
?I remember it,? someone else contradicted. ?I remember a house fire in my neighborhood where everybody died trying to get out because of poison gas from burning plastics.?
?My god,? Sabina said, ?should we be trading this stuff??
?We can trade it,? Tate said. ?The only place that has enough of it to be a real danger is right here. Other people need things like this?pictures and statues from another time, something to remind them what we were. What we are.?
?Why did people use it so much if it killed them?? Akin asked.
?Most of them didn?t know how dangerous it was,? Gabe said. ?And some of the ones who did know were making too damn much money selling the stuff to worry about fire and contamination that might or might not happen.? He made a wordless sound?almost a laugh, although Akin could detect no humor in it. ?That?s what Humans are, too, don?t forget. People who poison each other, then disclaim all responsibility. In a way, that?s how the war happened.?
?Then
? Akin hesitated. ?Then why don?t you paint new pictures and make statues from wood or metal??
?It wouldn?t be the same for them,? Shkaht said in Oankali. ?They really do need the old things. Our Human father got one of the little crosses from a traveling resister. He always wore it on a cord around his neck.?
?Was it plastic?? Akin asked.
?Metal. But prewar. Very old. Maybe it even came from here.?
?Independent resisters take our stuff to your villages?? Tate asked when Akin translated.
?Some of them trade with us,? Akin said. ?Some stay for a while and have children. And some only come to steal children.?
Silence. The Humans went back to their trade goods, broke into groups, and began exchanging news.
Tate showed Akin the house where he was to sleep?a house filled with mats and hammocks, cluttered with small objects the salvagers had dug up, and distinguished by a large, cast-iron woodstove. It made the one in Tate?s kitchen seem child-sized.
?Stay away from that,? Tate said. ?Even when it?s cold. Make a habit of staying away from it, you hear??
?All right. I wouldn?t touch anything hot by accident, though. And I?m finally too old to poison, so??
?You just poisoned yourself!?
