Kindred by Octavia Butler Page B

in another kind of danger. A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.
    “Dana.”
    I looked at him.
    “Don’t worry. We arrived together and we’ll leave together.”
    I didn’t stop worrying, but I smiled and changed the subject. “How’s Rufus? I heard him screaming.”
    “Poor kid. I was glad when he passed out. The doctor gave him some opium, but the pain seemed to reach him right through it. I had to help hold him.”
    “Opium … will he be all right?”
    “The doctor thought so. Although I don’t know how much a doctor’s opinion is worth in this time.”
    “I hope he’s right. I hope Rufus has used up all his bad luck just in getting the set of parents he’s stuck with.”
    Kevin lifted one arm and turned it to show me a set of long bloody scratches.
    “Margaret Weylin,” I said softly.
    “She shouldn’t have been there,” he said. “When she finished with me, she started on the doctor. ‘Stop hurting my baby!’”
    I shook my head. “What are we going to do, Kevin? Even if these people were sane, we couldn’t stay here among them.”
    “Yes we can.”
    I turned to stare at him.
    “I made up a story for Weylin to explain why we were here—and why we were broke. He offered me a job.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Tutoring your little friend. Seems he doesn’t read or write any better than he climbs trees.”
    “But … doesn’t he go to school?”
    “Not while that leg is healing. And his father doesn’t want him to fall any farther behind than he already is.”
    “Is he behind others his age?”
    “Weylin seemed to think so. He didn’t come right out and say it, but I think he’s afraid the kid isn’t very bright.”
    “I’m surprised he cares one way or the other, and I think he’s wrong. But for once Rufus’s bad luck is our good luck. I doubt that we’ll be here long enough for you to collect any of your salary, but at least while we’re here, we’ll have food and shelter.”
    “That’s what I thought when I accepted.”
    “And what about me?”
    “You?”
    “Weylin didn’t say anything about me?”
    “No. Why should he? If I stay here, he knows you stay too.”
    “Yes.” I smiled. “You’re right. If you didn’t remember me in your bargaining, why should he? I’ll bet he won’t forget me though when he has work that needs to be done.”
    “Wait a minute, you don’t have to work for him. You’re not supposed to belong to him.”
    “No, but I’m here. And I’m supposed to be a slave. What’s a slave for, but to work? Believe me, he’ll find something for me to do—or he would if I didn’t plan to find my own work before he gets around to me.”
    He frowned. “You want to work?”
    “I want to … I have to make a place for myself here. That means work. I think everyone here, black and white, will resent me if I don’t work. And I need friends. I need all the friends I can make here, Kevin. You might not be with me when I come here again. If I come here again.”
    “And unless that kid gets a lot more careful, you will come here again.”
    I sighed. “It looks that way.”
    “I hate to think of your working for these people.” He shook his head. “I hate to think of you playing the part of a slave at all.”
    “We knew I’d have to do it.”
    He said nothing.
    “Call me away from them now and then, Kevin. Just to remind them that whatever I am, they don’t own me … yet.”
    He shook his head again angrily in what looked like a