Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler Page B

had not cost him his life. He did not know of Doro's habit of leaving properly disciplined men of authority scattered around the world ready to serve whenever Doro needed them. All Daly understood was that he had been spared—that Doro had cauterized his wound and cared for him until he recovered.
    And by the time he recovered, he had realized that he was no longer a free man—that Doro was capable of taking the life he had spared at any time. Daly was able to accept this as others had accepted it before him. "Let me work for you," he had said. "Take me aboard one of your ships or even back to your homeland. I'm still strong. Even with one hand, I can work. I can handle blacks."
    "I want you here," Doro had told him. "I've made arrangements with some of the local kings while you were recovering. They'll trade with you exclusively from now on.
    Daly had stared at him in amazement. "Why would you do such a thing for me?"
    "So that you can do a few things for me," Doro had answered.
    And Daly had been back in business. Doro sent him black traders who sold him slaves and his company sent him white traders who bought them. "Someone else would set up a factory here if you left," Doro told him. "I can't stop the trade even where it might touch my people, but I can control it." So much for his control. Neither his support of Daly nor his spies left along the coast—people who should have reported to Daly—had been enough. Now they were useless. If they had been special stock, people with unusual abilities, Doro would have resettled them in America, where they could be useful. But they were only ordinary people bought by wealth or fear or belief that Doro was a god. He would forget them. He might forget Daly also once he had returned to Anyanwu's homeland and sought out as many of her descendants as he could find. At the moment, though, Daly could still be useful—and he could still be trusted; Doro knew that now. Perhaps the seed people had been taken to Bonny or New Calabar or some other slave port, but they had not passed near Daly. The most talented and deceptive of Doro's own children could not have lied to him successfully while he was on guard. Also, Daly had discovered he enjoyed being an arm of Doro's power.
    "Now that your people are gone," Daly said, "why not take me to Virginia or New York where you have blacks working. I'm sick to death of this country."
    "Stay here," Doro ordered. "You can still be useful. I'll be coming back."
    Daly sighed. "I almost wish I was one of those strange beings you call your people," he admitted.
    Doro smiled and had the ship's captain, John Woodley, pay for the boy, Okoye, and send Daly ashore.
    "Slimy little bastard," Woodley muttered when Daly was gone.
    Doro said nothing. Woodley, one of Doro's ordinary, ungifted sons, had always disliked Daly. This amused Doro since he considered the two men much alike. Woodley was the child of a casual liaison Doro had had forty-five years before with a London merchant's daughter. Doro had married the woman and provided for her when he learned she would bear his child, but he quickly left her a widow, well off, but alone except for her infant son. Doro had seen John Woodley twice as the boy grew toward adulthood. When, on the second visit, Woodley expressed a desire to go to sea, Doro had him apprenticed to one of Doro's shipmasters. Woodley had worked his own way up. He could have become wealthy, could now be commanding a great ship instead of one of Doro's smallest. But he had chosen to stay near Doro. Like Daly, he enjoyed being an arm of Doro's power. And like Daly, he was envious of others who might outrank him in Doro's esteem.
    "That little heathen would sail with you today if you'd let him," Woodley told Doro. "He's no better than one of his blacks. I don't see what good he is to you."
    "He works for me," Doro said. "Just as you do."
    "It's not the same!"
    Doro shrugged and let the contradiction stand. Woodley knew better than Daly ever