（外文电子版资料）Octavia Butler - Bloodchild.pdf

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Octavia%20E.%20Butler%20-%20Bloodchild.txt Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler My last night of childhood began with a visit home. TGatois sister had given us two sterile eggs. TGatoi gave one to my mother, brother, and sisters. She insisted that I eat the other one alone. It didnt matter. There was still enough to leave everyone feeling good. Almost everyone. My mother wouldnt take any. She sat, watching everyone drifting and dreaming without her. Most of the time she watched me. I lay against TGatois long, velvet underside, sipping from my egg now and then, wondering why my mother denied herself such a harmless pleasure. Less of her hair would be gray if she indulged now and then. The eggs prolonged life, prolonged vigor. My father, who had never refused one in his life, had lived more than twice as long as he should have. And toward the end of his life, when he should have been slowing down, he had married my mother and fathered four children. But my mother seemed content to age before she had to. I saw her turn away as several of TGatois limbs secured me closer. TGatoi liked our body heat and took advantage of it whenever she could. When I was little and at home more, my mother used to try to tell me how to behave with TGato - how to be respectful and always obedient because TGatoi was the Tlic government official in charge of the Preserve, and thus the most important of her kind to deal directly with Terrans. It was an honor, my mother said, that such a person had chosen to come into the family. My mother was at her most formal and severe when she was lying. I had no idea why she was lying, or even what she was lying about. It was an honor to have TGatoi in the family, but it was hardly a novelty. TGatoi and my mother had been friends all my mothers life, and TGatoi was not interested in being honored in the house she considered her second home. She simply came in, climbed onto one of her special c