No one came for him.
No one would take him home or let him go.
He felt both unwanted and wanted too much. If his parents could not come because of his sibling’s birth, then others should have come. His parents had done this kind of service for other families, other villages who had had their children stolen. People helped each other in searching for and recovering children.
And yet, his presence seemed to delight the people of Phoenix. Even those who were disturbed by the contrast between his tiny body and his apparent maturity grew to like having him around. Some always had a bit of food ready for him. Some asked question after question about his life before he was brought to them. Others liked to hold him or let him sit at their feet and tell him stories of their own prewar lives. He liked this best. He learned not to interrupt them with questions. He could learn afterward what kangaroos, lasers, tigers, acid rain, and Botswana were. And since he remembered every word of their stories, he could easily think back and insert explanations where they should go.
He liked it less when people told him stories that were clearly not true—stories peopled by beings called witches or elves or gods. Mythology, they said; fairy tales.
He told them stories from Oankali history—past partnerships that contributed to what the Oankali were or could become today. He had heard such stories from all three of his Oankali parents. All were absolutely true, yet the Humans believed almost none of them. They liked them anyway. They would gather around close so that they could hear him. Sometimes they let their work go and came to listen. Akin liked the attention, so he accepted their fairy tales and their disbelief in his stories. He also accepted the pairs of short pants that Pilar Leal made for him. He did not like them. They cut off some of his perception, and they were harder than skin to clean once they were soiled. Yet it never occurred to him to ask anyone else to wash them for him. When Tate saw him washing them, she gave him soap and showed him how to use it on them. Then she smiled almost gleefully and went away.
People let him watch them make shoes and clothing and paper. Tate persuaded Gabe to take him up to the mills—one where grain was ground and one where wooden furniture, tools, and other things were being made. The man and woman there were making a large canoe when Akin arrived.
“We could build a textile mill,” Gabe told him. “But foot-powered spinning wheels, sewing machines, and looms are enough. We already make more than we need, and people need to do some things at their own pace with their own designs.”
Akin thought about this and decided he understood it. He had often watched people spinning, weaving, sewing, making things they did not need in the hope of being able to trade with villages that had little or no machinery. But there was no urgency. They could stop in the middle of what they were doing and come to listen to his stories. Much of their work was done simply to keep them busy.
“What about metal?” he asked.
Gabe stared down at him. “You want to see the blacksmith’s shop?”
“Yes.”
Gabe picked him up and strode off with him. “I wonder how much you really understand,” he muttered.
“I usually understand,” Akin admitted. “What I don’t understand, I remember. Eventually I understand.”
“Jesus! I wonder what you’ll be like when you grow up.”
“Not as big as you,” Akin said wistfully.
“Really? You know that?”
Akin nodded. “Strong, but not very big.”
“Smart, though.”
“It would be terrible to be small and foolish.”
Gabe laughed. “It happens,” he said. “But probably not to you.”
Akin looked at him and smiled himself. He was still pleased when he could make Gabe laugh. It seemed that the man was beginning to accept him. It was Tate who had suggested that Gabe take him up the hill and show him the mills. She pushed them together when she could, and Akin understood that she wanted them to like each other.
But if they did what would happen when his people finally came for him? Would Gabe fight? Would he kill? Would he die?
Akin watched the blacksmith make a machete blade, heating, pounding, shaping the metal. There was a wooden crate of machete blades in one corner. There were also scythes, sickles, axes, hammers, saws, nails, hooks, chains, coiled wire, picks … And yet there was no clutter. Everything, work tools and products, had their places.
“I work here sometimes,” Gabe said. “And I’ve helped salvage a lot of our raw materials.” He glanced at Akin. “You might get to see the salvage site.”
“In the mountains?”
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“When things start to get warm around here.”
It took Akin several seconds to realize that he was not talking about the weather. He would be hidden at the salvage site when his people came looking for him.
“We’ve found artifacts of glass, plastic, ceramic, and metal. We’ve found a lot of money. You know what money is?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen any, but people have told me about it.”
Gabe reached into his pocket with his free hand. He brought out a bright, golden disk of metal and let Akin hold it. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. On one side was something that looked like a large letter t and the words, “He is risen. We shall rise.” On the other side there was a picture of a bird flying up from fire. Akin studied the bird, noticing that it was a kind he had never seen pictured before.
“Phoenix money,” Gabe said. “That’s a phoenix rising from its own ashes. A phoenix was a mythical bird. You understand?”
“A lie,” Akin said thoughtlessly.
Gabe took the disk from him, put it back into his pocket and put Akin down.
“Wait!” Akin said. “I’m sorry. I call myths that in my mind. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”
Gabe looked down at him. “If you’re always going to be small, you ought to learn to be careful with that word,” he said.
“But … I didn’t say you were lying.”
“No. You said my dream, the dream of everyone here, was a lie. You don’t even know what you said.”
“I’m sorry.”
Gabe stared at him, sighed, and picked him up again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I ought to be relieved.”
“At what?”
“That in some ways you really are just a kid.”