There had been a carnival-a cheap little vacant-lot carnival with rides and games and noise and scabby ponies. Sam had decided to take Ayre to see it while Lilith spent time with her pregnant sister. It had been an ordinary Saturday on a broad, dry street in bright sunshine. A young girl, just learning to drive, had rammed head-on into Sam's car. She had swerved to the wrong side of the road, had perhaps somehow lost control of the car she was driving. She'd had only a learner's permit and was not supposed to drive alone. She died for her mistake. Ayre died-was dead when the ambulance arrived, though paramedics tried to revive him.
Sam only half died.
He had head injuries-brain damage. It took him three months to finish what the accident had begun. Three months to die.
He was conscious some of the time-more or less-but he did not know anyone. His parents came from New York to be with him. They were Nigerians who had lived in the United States long enough for their son to be born and grow up there. Still, they had not been pleased at his marriage to Lilith. They had let Sam grow up as an American, but had sent him to visit their families in Lagos when they could. They had hoped he would marry a Yoruban girl. They had never seen their grandchild. Now they never would.
And Sam did not know them.
He was their only son, but he stared through them as he stared through Lilith, his eyes empty of recognition, empty of him. Sometimes Lilith sat alone with him, touched him, gained the empty attention of those eyes briefly. But the man himself had already gone. Perhaps he was with Ayre, or caught between her and Ayre-between this world and the next.
Or was he aware, but isolated in some part of his mind that could not make contact with anyone outside-trapped in the narrowest, most absolute solitary confinement-until, mercifully, his heart stopped.
That was brain damage-one form of brain damage. There were other forms, many worse. She saw them in the hospital over the months of Sam's dying.
He was lucky to have died so quickly.
She had never dared speak that thought aloud. It had come to her even as she wept for him. It came to her again now. He was lucky to have died so quickly.
Would she be equally lucky?
If the Oankali damaged her brain, would they have the decency to let her die-or would they keep her alive, a prisoner, permanently locked away in that ultimate solitary confinement?
She became aware abruptly that Nikanj had come into the bathroom silently and sat down opposite her. It had never intruded on her this way before. She stared at it, outraged.
"It isn't my ability to cope with your physiology that anyone questions," it said softly. "If I couldn't do that, my defects would have been noticed long ago."
"Get out of here!" she shouted. "Get away from me!" It did not move. It continued to speak in the same soft voice. "Ooan says humans won't be worth talking to for at least a generation." Its tentacles writhed. "I don't know how to be with someone I can't talk to."
"Brain damage isn't going to improve my conversation," she said bitterly.
"I would rather damage my own brain than yours. I won't damage either." It hesitated. "You know you must accept me or ooan."
She said nothing.
"Ooan is an adult. It can give you pleasure. And it is not as . . . as angry as it seems."
"I'm not looking for pleasure. I don't even know what you're talking about. I just want to be let alone."
"Yes. But you must trust me or let ooan surprise you when it's tired of waiting."
"You won't do that yourself-won't just spring it on me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"There's something wrong with doing it that way- surprising people. It's . . . treating them as though they aren't people, as though they aren't intelligent."
Lilith laughed bitterly. "Why should you suddenly start to worry about that?"
"Do you want me to surprise you?"
"Of course not!"
Silence.
After a while, she got up and went to the bed platform. She lay down and eventually managed to fall asleep.
She dreamed of Sam and awoke in a cold sweat. Empty, empty eyes. Her head ached. Nikanj had stretched out beside her as usual. It looked limp and dead. How would it be to awaken with Kahguyaht there instead, lying beside her like a grotesque lover instead of an unhappy child? She shuddered, fear and disgust almost overwhelming her. She lay still for several minutes, calming herself, forcing herself to make a decision, then to act on it before fear could silence her.
"Wake up!" she said harshly to Nikanj. The raw sound of her own voice startled her. "Wake up and do whatever it is you claim you have to do. Get it over with."
Nikanj sat up instantly, rolled her over onto her side and pulled away the jacket she had been sleeping in to expose her back and neck. Before she could complain or change her mind, it began.
On the back of her neck, she felt the promised touch, a harder pressure, then the puncture. It hurt more than she had expected, but the pain ended quickly. For a few seconds she drifted in painless semiconsciousness.
Then there were confused memories, dreams, finally nothing.
7
When she awoke, at ease and only mildly confused, she found herself fully clothed and alone. She lay still, wondering what Nikanj had done to her. Was she changed? How? Had it finished with her? She could not move at first, but by the time this penetrated her confusion, she found the paralysis wearing off. She was able to use her muscles again. She sat up carefully just in time to see Nikanj coming through a wall.
Its gray skin was as smooth as polished marble as it climbed onto the bed beside her. "You're so complex," it said, taking both her hands. It did not point its head tentacles at her in the usual way, but placed its head close to hers and touched her with them. Then it sat back, pointing at her. It occurred to her distantly that this behavior was unusual and should have alarmed her. She frowned and tried to feel alarmed.
"You're filled with so much life and death and potential for change," Nikanj continued. "I understand now why some people took so long to get over their fear of your kind."
She focused on it. "Maybe it's because I'm still drugged out of my mind, but I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes. You'll never really know. But when I'm mature, I'll try to show you a little." It brought its head close to hers again and touched her face and burrowed into her hair with its tentacles.
"What are you doing?" she asked, still not really disturbed.
"Making sure you're all right. I don't like what I had to do to you."
"What did you do? I don't feel any different-except a little high."
"You understand me."
It dawned on her slowly that Nikanj had come to her speaking Oankali and she had responded in kind-had responded without really thinking. The language seemed natural to her, as easy to understand as English. She remembered all that she had been taught, all that she had picked up on her own. It was even easy for her to spot the gaps in her knowledge-words and expressions she knew in English, but could not translate into Oankali; bits of Oankali grammar that she had not really understood; certain Oankali words that had no English translation, but whose meaning she had grasped.
Now she was alarmed, pleased, and frightened. . . . She stood slowly, testing her legs, finding them unsteady, but functional. She tried to clear the fog from her mind so that she could examine herself and trust her findings.
"I'm glad the family decided to put the two of us together," Nikanj was saying. "I didn't want to work with you. I tried to get out of it. I was afraid. All I could think of was how easy it would be for me to fail and perhaps damage you."
"You mean . . . you mean you weren't sure of what you were doing just now?"
"That? Of course I was sure. And your 'just now' took a long time. Much longer than you usually sleep."
"But what did you mean about failing-"
"I was afraid I could never convince you to trust me enough to let me show you what I could do-show you th
at I wouldn't hurt you. I was afraid I would make you hate me. For an ooloi to do that . . . it would be very bad. Worse than I can tell you."
"But Kahguyaht doesn't think so."
"Ooan says humans-any new trade partner species- can't be treated the way we must treat each other. It's right up to a point. I just think it goes too far. We were bred to work with you. We're Dinso. We should be able to find ways through most of our differences."
"Coercion," she said bitterly. "That's the way you've found."
"No. Ooan would have done that. I couldn't have. I would have gone to Ahajas and Dichaan and refused to mate with them. I would have looked for mates among the Akjai since they'll have no direct contact with humans."
It smoothed its tentacles again. "But now when I go to Ahajas and Dichaan, it will be to mate-and you'll go with me. We'll send you to your work when you're ready. And you'll be able to help me through my final metamorphosis." It rubbed its armpit. "Will you help?"
She looked away from it. "What do you want me to do?"
"Just stay with me. There will be times when having Ahajas and Dichaan near me would be tormenting. I would be . . . sexually stimulated, and unable to do anything about it. Very stimulated. You can't do that to me. Your scent, your touch is different, neutral."
Thank god, she thought.
"It would be bad for me to be alone while I change. We need others close to us, more at that time than at any other."
She wondered what it would look like with its second pair of arms, what it would be like as a mature being. More like Kahguyaht? Or maybe more like Jdahya and Tediin. How much did sex determine personality among the Oankali? She shook her head. Stupid question. She did not know how much sex determined personality even among human beings.
"The arms," she said, "they're sexual organs, aren't they?"
"No," Nikanj told her. "They protect sexual organs: the sensory hands."
"But. . ." She frowned. "Kahguyaht doesn't have anything like a hand at the end of its sensory arms." In fact, it had nothing at all at the end of its sensory arms. There was only a blunt cap of hard, cool skin-like a large callus.
"The hand is inside. Ooan will show you if you ask."
"Never mind."
It smoothed. "I'll show you myself-when I have something to show. Will you stay with me while they grow?"
Where else was she going? "Yes. Just make sure I know anything I might need to know about you and them before they start."
"Yes. I'll sleep most of the time, but still, I'll need someone there. If you're there, I'll know and I'll be all right. You. . . you might have to feed me."
"That's all right." There was nothing unusual about the way Oankali ate. Not on the surface, anyway. Several of their front teeth were pointed, but their size was well within the human range. She had, twice, on her walks, seen Oankali females extend their tongues all the way down to their throat orifices, but normally, the long gray tongues were kept inside the mouths and used as humans used tongues.
Nikanj made a sound of relief-a rubbing together of body tentacles in a way that sounded like stiff paper being crumpled. "Good," it said. "Mates know what we feel when they stay near us, they know the frustration. Sometimes they think it's funny."
Lilith was surprised to find herself smiling. "It is, sort of."
"Only for the tormentors. With you there, they'll torment me less. But before all that. . ." It stopped, aimed a loose point at her. "Before that, I'll try to find an English speaking human for you. One as much like you as possible. Ooan will not stand in the way of your meeting one now."
8
A day, Lilith had decided long ago, was what her body said it was. Now it became what her newly improved memory said it was as well. A day was long activity, then long sleep. And now, she remembered every day that she had been awake. And she counted the days as Nikanj searched for an English-speaking human for her. It went alone to interview several. Nothing she said could induce it to take her along or at least tell her about the people it had talked to.
Finally Kahguyaht found someone. Nikanj had a look, then accepted its parent's judgment. "It will be one of the humans who has chosen to stay here," Nikanj told her.
She had expected that from what Kahguyaht had said earlier. It was still hard to believe, though. "Is it a man or a woman?" she asked.
"Male. A man."
"How. . . how could he not want to go home?"
"He's been here among us for a long time. He's only a little older than you are, but he was Awakened young and kept Awake. A Toaht family wanted him and he was willing to stay with them."
Willing? What kind of choice had they given him? Probably the same kind they had given her, and he had been years younger. Only a boy, perhaps. What was he now? What had they created from their human raw material? "Take me to him," she said.
For the second time, Lilith rode one of the flat transports through the crowded corridors. This transport moved no faster than the first one she had ridden. Nikanj did not steer it except occasionally to touch one side or the other with head tentacles to make it turn. They rode for perhaps a half hour before she and Nikanj dismounted. Nikanj touched the transport with several head tentacles to send it away.
"Won't we need it to go back?" she asked.
"We'll get another," Nikanj said. "Maybe you'll want to stay here for a while."
She looked at it sharply. What was this? Step two of the captive breeding program? She glanced around at the retreating transport. Maybe she had been too quick to agree to see this man. If he were thoroughly enough divorced from his humanity to want to stay here, who knew what else he might be willing to do.
"It's an animal," Nikanj said.
"What?"
"The thing we rode. It's an animal. A tilio. Did you know?"
"No, but I'm not surprised. How does it move?"
"On a thin film of a very slippery substance."
"Slime?"
Nikanj hesitated. "I know that word. It's. . . inadequate, but it will serve. I've seen Earth animals who use slime to move. They are inefficient compared to the tilio, but I can see similarities. We shaped the tilio from larger, more efficient creatures."
"It doesn't leave a slime trail."
"No. The tilio has an organ at its rear that collects most of what it spreads. The ship takes in the rest."
"Nikanj, do you ever build machinery? Tamper with metal and plastic instead of living things?"
"We do that when we have to. We. . . don't like it. There's no trade."
She sighed. "Where is the man? What's his name, by the way?"
"Paul Titus."
Well, that didn't tell her anything. Nikanj took her to a nearby wall and stroked it with three long head tentacles. The wall changed from off-white to dull red, but it did not open.
"What's wrong?" Lilith asked.
"Nothing. Someone will open it soon. It's better not to go in if you don't know the quarters well. Better to let the people who live there know you are waiting to go in."
"So what you did is like knocking," she said, and was about to demonstrate knocking for it when the wall began to open. There was a man on the other side, dressed only in a pair of ragged shorts.
She stared at him. A human being-tall, stocky, as dark as she was, clean shaved. He looked wrong to her at first-alien and strange, yet familiar, compelling. He was beautiful. Even if he had been bent and old, he would have been beautiful.
She glanced at Nikanj, saw that it had become statue-still. It apparently had no intention of moving or speaking soon.
"Paul Titus?" she asked.
The man opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, nodded. "Yes," he said finally.
The sound of his voice-deep, definitely human, definitely male-fed a hunger in her. "I'm Lilith Iyapo," she said. "Did you know we were coming or is this a surprise to you?"
"Come in," he said, touching the wall opening. "I knew. And you don't know how welcome you are." He glanced at Nikanj. "Kaalnikanj oo Jdahyatediinkahg
uyaht aj Dinso, come in. Thank you for bringing her."
Nikanj made a complex gesture of greeting with its head tentacles and stepped into the room-the usual bare room. Nikanj went to a platform in a corner and folded itself into a sitting position on it. Lilith chose a platform that allowed her to sit almost with her back to Nikanj. She wanted to forget it was there, observing, since it clearly did not intend to do anything but observe. She wanted to give all her attention to the man. He was a miracle-a human being, an adult who spoke English and looked more than a little like one of her dead brothers.
His accent was as American as her own and her mind overflowed with questions. Where had he lived before the war? How had he survived? Who was he beyond a name? Had he seen any other humans? Had he- "Have you really decided to stay here?" she demanded abruptly. It was not the first question she had intended to ask.
The man sat cross-legged in the middle of a platform large enough to be a serving table or a bed.
"I was fourteen when they woke me up," he said. "Everyone I knew was dead. The Oankali said they'd send me back to Earth eventually if I wanted to go. But once I had been here for a while, I knew this was where I wanted to be. There's nothing that I care about left on Earth."
"Everyone lost relatives and Mends," she said. "As far as I know, I'm the only member of my family still alive."
"I saw my father, my brother-their bodies. I don't know what happened to my mother. I was dying myself when the Oankali found me. They tell me I was. I don't remember, but I believe them."
"I don't remember their finding me either." She twisted around. "Nikanj, did your people do something to us to keep us from remembering?"
Nikanj seemed to rouse itself slowly. "They had to," it said. "Humans who were allowed to remember their rescue became uncontrollable. Some died in spite of our care."
Not surprising. She tried to imagine what she had done when in the middle of the shock of realizing that her home, her family, her Mends, her world were all destroyed. She was confronted with a collecting party of Oankali. She must have believed she had lost her mind. Or perhaps she did lose it for a while. It was a miracle that she had not killed herself trying to escape them.
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