Free Adulthood Rites by Octavia E. Butler Page A

had let his attention be absorbed by Tino and the caterpillar, and now he was caught. The man who held him was large and strong. He held Akin without seeming to notice Akin’s struggles.
    Meanwhile, four men had surrounded Tino. There was blood on Tino’s face where someone had hit him, cut him. One of the four had a piece of gleaming silver metal around one of his fingers. That must have been what had cut Tino.
    “Hold it!” one of Tino’s captors said. “This guy used to be Phoenix.” He frowned at Tino. “Aren’t you the Leal kid?”
    “I’m Augustino Leal,” Tino said, holding his body very straight. “I was Phoenix. I was Phoenix before you ever heard of it!” His voice did not tremble, but Akin could see that his body was trembling slightly. He looked toward his ax, which now lay on the ground several feet from him. He had leaned it against a tree when he came to get Akin. His machete, though, had still been at his belt. Now it was gone. Akin could not see where it had gone.
    The raiders all had long wood-and-metal sticks, which they now pointed at Tino. The man holding Tino also had such a stick, strapped across his back. These were weapons, Akin realized. Clubs—or perhaps guns? And these men knew Tino. One of them knew Tino. And Tino did not like that one. Tino was afraid. Akin had never seen him more afraid.
    The man who held Akin had put his neck within easy reach of Akin’s tongue. Akin could sting him, kill him. But then what would happen? There were four other men.
    Akin did nothing. He watched Tino, hoping the man would know what was best.
    “There were no guns in Phoenix when I left,” Tino was saying. So the sticks were guns.
    “No, and you didn’t want there to be any, did you?” the same man asked. He made a point of jabbing Tino with his gun.
    Tino began to be a little less afraid and more angry. “If you think you can use those to kill the Oankali, you’re as stupid as I thought you were.”
    The man swung his gun up so that its end almost touched Tino’s nose.
    “Is it Humans you mean to kill?” Tino asked very softly. “Are there so many Humans left? Are our numbers increasing so fast?”
    “You’ve joined the traitors!” the man said.
    “To have a family,” Tino said softly. “To have children.” He looked at Akin. “To have at least part of myself continue.”
    The man holding Akin spoke up. “This kid is as human as any I’ve seen since the war. I can’t find anything wrong with him.”
    “No tentacles?” one of the four asked.
    “Not a one.”
    “What’s he got between his legs?”
    “Same thing you’ve got. Little smaller, maybe.”
    There was a moment of silence, and Akin saw that three of the men were amused and one was not.
    Akin was afraid to speak, afraid to show the raiders his un-Human characteristics: his tongue, his ability to speak, his intelligence. Would these things make them let him alone or make them kill him? In spite of his months with Tino, he did not know. He kept quiet and began trying to hear or smell any Lo villager who might be passing nearby.
    “So we take the kid,” one of the men said. “What do we do with him?” He gestured sharply toward Tino.
    Before anyone could answer, Tino said, “No! You can’t take him. He still nurses. If you take him, he’ll starve!”
    The men looked at one another uncertainly. The man holding Akin suddenly turned Akin toward him and squeezed the sides of Akin’s face with his fingers. He was trying to get Akin’s mouth open. Why?
    It did not matter why. He would get Akin’s mouth open, then be startled. He was Human and a stranger and dangerous. Who knew what irrational reaction he might have. He must be given something familiar to go with the unfamiliar. Akin began to twist in the man’s arm and to whimper. He had not cried so far. That had been a mistake. Humans always marveled at how little construct babies cried. Clearly a Human baby would have cried more.
    Akin opened his mouth and