Lilith's Brood: Dawn / Adulthood Rites / Imago

by Octavia E. Butler

  She opened a wall to go out, then stopped. The wall began to close after a moment. She sighed and turned away from it.

  Angrily, she reopened the food compartments, took out extra food and went back in to Nikanj. It was still lying down, still trembling. She put a few pieces of fruit down next to it.

  “Your sensory arms have already begun, haven’t they?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want anything to eat?”

  “Yes.” It took an orange and bit into it, eating skin and all. It hadn’t done that before.

  “We generally peel them,” she said.

  “I know. Wasteful.”

  “Look, do you need anything? Want me to find one of your parents?”

  “No. This is normal. I’m glad I changed you when I did. I wouldn’t trust myself to do it now. I knew this was coming.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was so close?”

  “You were too angry.”

  She sighed, tried to understand her own feelings. She was still angry—angry, bitter, frightened …

  And yet she had come back. She had not been able to leave Nikanj trembling in its bed while she enjoyed her greater freedom.

  Nikanj finished the orange and began on a banana. It did not peel this either.

  “Can I see?” she asked.

  It raised one arm, displaying ugly, lumpy, mottled flesh perhaps six inches beneath the arm.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. There isn’t a word in English for the way it makes me feel. The closest would be … sexually aroused.”

  She stepped away from it, alarmed.

  “Thank you for coming back.”

  She nodded. “You’re not supposed to feel aroused with just me here.”

  “I’m becoming sexually mature. I’ll feel this way from time to time as my body changes even though I don’t yet have the organs I would use in sex. It’s a little like feeling an amputated limb as though it were still there. I’ve heard humans do that.”

  “I’ve heard that we do, too, but—”

  “I would feel aroused if I were alone. You don’t make me feel it any more than I would if I were alone. Yet your presence helps me.” It drew its head and body tentacles into knots. “Give me something else to eat.”

  She gave it a papaya and all the nuts she had brought in. It ate them quickly.

  “Better,” it said. “Eating dulls the feeling sometimes.”

  She sat down on the bed and asked, “What happens now?”

  “When my parents realize what’s happening to me, they’ll send for Ahajas and Dichaan.”

  “Do you want me to look for them—your parents, I mean?”

  “No.” It rubbed the bed platform beneath its body. “The walls will alert them. Probably they already have. Wall tissues respond to beginning metamorphosis very quickly.”

  “You mean the walls will feel different or smell different or something?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what? Which one?”

  “All that you said, and more.” It changed the subject abruptly. “Lilith, sleep during metamorphosis can be very deep. Don’t be afraid if sometimes I don’t seem to see or hear.”

  “All right.”

  “You’ll stay with me?”

  “I said I would.”

  “I was afraid … good. Lie here with me until Ahajas and Dichaan come.”

  She was tired of lying down, but she stretched out beside it.

  “When they come to carry me to Lo, you help them. That will tell them the first thing they need to know about you.”

  11

  LEAVETAKING.

  There was no real ceremony. Ahajas and Dichaan arrived and Nikanj immediately retreated into a deep sleep. Even its head tentacles hung limp and still.

  Ahajas alone could have carried it. She was big like most Oankali females—slightly larger than Tediin. She and Dichaan were brother and sister as usual in Oankali matings. Males and females were closely related and ooloi were outsiders. One translation of the world ooloi was “treasured strangers.” According to Nikanj, this combination of relatives and strangers served best when people were bred for specific work—like opening a trade with an alien species. The male and female concentrated desirable characteristics and the ooloi prevented the wrong kind of concentrations. Tediin and Jdahya were cousins. They had both not particularly liked their siblings. Unusual.

  Now Ahajas lifted Nikanj as though it were a young child and held it easily until Dichaan and Lilith took its shoulders. Neither Ahajas nor Dichaan showed surprise at Lilith’s participation.

  “It has told us about you,” Ahajas said as they carried Nikanj down to the lower corridors. Kahguyaht preceded them, opening walls. Jdahya and Tediin followed.

  “It’s told me a little about you, too,” Lilith replied uncertainly. Things were moving too fast for her. She had not gotten up that day with the idea that she would be leaving Kaal—leaving Jdahya and Tediin who had become comfortable and familiar to her. She did not mind leaving Kahguyaht, but it had told her when it brought Ahajas and Dichaan to Nikanj that it would be seeing her again soon. Custom and biology dictated that as same-sex parent, Kahguyaht was permitted to visit Nikanj during its metamorphosis. Kahguyaht, like Lilith, smelled neutral and could not increase Nikanj’s discomfort or stir inappropriate desires in it.

  Lilith helped to arrange Nikanj on the flat tilio that sat waiting for them in a public corridor. Then she stood alone, watching as the five conscious Oankali came together, touching and entangling head and body tentacles. Kahguyaht stood between Tediin and Jdahya. Ahajas and Dichaan stood together and made their contacts with Tediin and Jdahya. It was almost as though they were avoiding Kahguyaht too. The Oankali could communicate this way, could pass messages from one to another almost at the speed of thought—or so Nikanj had said. Controlled multisensory stimulation. Lilith suspected it was the closest thing to telepathy she would ever see practiced. Nikanj had said it might be able to help her perceive this way when it was mature. But its maturity was months away. Now she was alone again—the alien, the uncomprehending outsider. That was what she would be again in the home of Ahajas and Dichaan.

  When the group broke up, Tediin came over to Lilith, took both Lilith’s arms. “It has been good having you with us,” she said in Oankali. “I’ve learned from you. It’s been a good trade.”

  “I’ve learned too,” Lilith said honestly. “I wish I could stay here.” Rather than go with strangers. Rather than be sent to teach a lot of frightened, suspicious humans.

  “No,” Tediin said. “Nikanj must go. You would not like to be separated from it.”

  She had nothing to say to that. It was true. Everyone, even Paul Titus inadvertently, had pushed her toward Nikanj. They had succeeded.

  Tediin let her go and Jdahya came to speak to her in English. “Are you afraid?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Ahajas and Dichaan will welcome you. You’re rare—a human who can live among us, learn about us, and teach us. Everyone is curious about you.”

  “I thought I would be spending most of my time with Nikanj.”

  “You will be, for a while. And when Nikanj is mature, you’ll be taken for training. But there’ll be time for you to get to know Ahajas and Dichaan and others.”

  She shrugged. Nothing he said settled her nervousness now.

  “Dichaan has said he would adjust the walls of their home to you so that you can open them. He and Ahajas can’t change you in any way, but they can adjust your new surroundings.”

  So at least she wouldn’t have to go back to the house pet stage, asking every time she wanted to enter or leave a room or eat a snack. “I’m grateful for that, at least,” she said.

  “It’s trade,” Jdahya said. “Stay close to Nikanj. Do what it has trusted you to do.”

  12

  KAHGUYAHT CAME TO SEE her a few days later. She had been installed in the usual bare room, this one with one bed and two tab
le platforms, a bathroom, and Nikanj who slept so much and so deeply that it too seemed part of the room rather than a living being.

  Kahguyaht was almost welcome. It relieved her boredom, and, to her surprise, it brought gifts: a block of tough, thin, white paper—more than a ream—and a handful of pens that said Paper Mate, Parker, and Bic. The pens, Kahguyaht said, had been duplicated from prints taken of centuries-gone originals. This was the first time she had seen anything she knew to be a print re-creation. And it was the first time she had realized that the Oankali re-created nonliving things from prints. She could find no difference between the print copies and the remembered originals.

  And Kahguyaht gave her a few brittle, yellowed books—treasures she had not imagined: A spy novel, a Civil War novel, an ethnology textbook, a study of religion, a book about cancer and one about human genetics, a book about an ape being taught sign language and one about the space race of the 1960s.

  Lilith accepted them all without comment.

  Now that it knew she was serious about looking after Nikanj, it was easier to get along with, more likely to answer if she asked it a question, less ready with its own sarcastic rhetorical questions. It returned several times to sit with her as she attended Nikanj and, in fact, became her teacher, using its body and Nikanj’s to help her understand more of Oankali biology. Nikanj slept through most of this. Most often it slept so deeply that its head tentacles did not follow movement.

  “It will remember all that happens around it,” Kahguyaht said. “It still perceives in all the ways that it would if it were awake. But it cannot respond now. It is not aware now. It is … recording.” Kahguyaht lifted one of Nikanj’s limp arms to observe the development of the sensory arms. There was nothing to be seen yet but a large, dark, lumpy swelling—a frightening-looking growth.

  “Is that the arm itself,” she asked, “or will the arm come out of that?”

  “That is the arm,” Kahguyaht said. “While it’s growing, don’t touch it unless Nikanj asks you to.”

  It did not look like anything Lilith would want to touch. She looked at Kahguyaht and decided to take a chance on its new civility. “What about the sensory hand?” she asked. “Nikanj mentioned that there was such a thing. “

  Kahguyaht said nothing for several seconds. Finally, in a tone she could not interpret, it said, “Yes. There is such a thing.”

  “If I’ve asked something that I shouldn’t, just tell me,” she said. Something about that odd tone of voice made her want to move away from it, but she kept still.

  “You haven’t,” Kahguyaht said, its voice neutral now. “In fact, it’s important that you know about the … sensory hand.” It extended one of its sensory arms, long and gray and rough-skinned, still reminding her of a blunt, closed elephant’s trunk. “All the strength and resistance to harm of this outer covering is to protect the hand and its related organs,” it said. “The arm is closed, you see?” It showed her the rounded tip of the arm, capped by a semitransparent material that she knew was smooth and hard.

  “When it’s like this, it’s merely another limb.” Kahguyaht coiled the end of the arm, wormlike, reached out, touched Lilith’s head, then held before her eyes a single strand of hair, pulled straight in a twist of the arm. “It is very flexible, very versatile, but only another limb.” The arm drew back from Lilith, releasing the hair. The semitransparent material at the end began to change, to move in circular waves away to the sides of the tip and something slender and pale emerged from the center of the tip. As she watched, the slender thing seemed to thicken and divide. There were eight fingers—or rather, eight slender tentacles arranged around a circular palm that looked wet and deeply lined. It was like a starfish—one of the brittle stars with long, slender, snakelike arms.

  “How does it seem to you?” Kahguyaht asked.

  “On Earth, we had animals that looked like that,” she replied. “They lived in the seas. We called them starfish.”

  Kahguyaht smoothed its tentacles. “I’ve seen them. There is a similarity.” It turned the hand so that she could see it from different angles. The palm, she realized, was covered with tiny projections very like the tube feet of a starfish. They were almost transparent. And the lines she had seen on the palm were actually orifices—openings to a dark interior.

  There was a faint odor to the hand—oddly flowery. Lilith did not like it and drew back from it after a moment of looking.

  Kahguyaht retracted the hand so quickly that it seemed to vanish. It lowered the sensory arm. “Humans and Oankali tend to bond to one ooloi,” it told her. “The bond is chemical and not strong in you now because of Nikanj’s immaturity. That’s why my scent makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Nikanj didn’t mention anything like that,” she said suspiciously.

  “It healed your injuries. It improved your memory. It couldn’t do those things without leaving its mark. It should have told you.”

  “Yes. It should have. What is this mark? What will it do to me?”

  “No harm. You’ll want to avoid deep contact—contact that involves penetration of the flesh—with other ooloi, you understand? Perhaps for a while after Nikanj matures, you’ll want to avoid all contact with most people. Follow your feelings. People will understand.”

  “But … how long will it last?”

  “It’s different with humans. Some linger in the avoidance stage much longer than we would. The longest I’ve known it to last is forty days.”

  “And during that time, Ahajas and Dichaan—”

  “You won’t avoid them, Lilith. They’re part of the household. You’ll be comfortable with them.”

  “What happens if I don’t avoid people, if I ignore my feelings?”

  “If you managed to do that, you’d make yourself sick, at least. You might manage to kill yourself.”

  “… that bad.”

  “Your body will tell you what to do. Don’t worry.” It shifted its attention to Nikanj. “Nikanj will be most vulnerable when the sensory hands begin to grow. It will need a special food then. I’ll show you.”

  “All right.”

  “You’ll actually have to put the food into its mouth.”

  “I’ve already done that with the few things it’s wanted to eat.”

  “Good.” Kahguyaht rustled its tentacles. “I didn’t want to accept you, Lilith. Not for Nikanj or for the work you’ll do. I believed that because of the way human genetics were expressed in culture, a human male should be chosen to parent the first group. I think now that I was wrong.”

  “Parent?”

  “That’s the way we think of it. To teach, to give comfort, to feed and clothe, to guide them through and interpret what will be, for them, a new and frightening world. To parent.”

  “You’re going to set me up as their mother?”

  “Define the relationship in any way that’s comfortable to you. We have always called it parenting.” It turned toward a wall as though to open it, then stopped, faced Lilith again. “It’s a good thing that you’ll be doing. You’ll be in a position to help your own people in much the same way you’re helping Nikanj now.”

  “They won’t trust me or my help. They’ll probably kill me.”

  “They won’t.”

  “You don’t understand us as well as you think you do.”

  “And you don’t understand us at all. You never will, really, though you’ll be given much more information about us.”

  “Then put me back to sleep, dammit, and choose someone you think is brighter! I never wanted this job!”

  It was silent for several seconds. Finally, it said, “Do you really believe I was disparaging your intelligence?”

  She glared at it, refusing to answer.

  “I thought not. Your children will know us, Lilith. You never will.”

  III

  NURSERY

  1

  THE ROOM WAS SLIGHTLY larger than a football field. Its ceiling was a vault of soft, yellow light. Lilith had caused two walls to
grow at a corner of it so that she had a room, enclosed except for a doorway where the walls would have met. There were times when she brought the walls together, sealing herself away from the empty vastness outside—away from the decisions she must make. The walls and floor of the great room were hers to reshape as she pleased. They would do anything she was able to ask of them except let her out.

  She had erected her cubicle enclosing the doorway of a bathroom. There were eleven more bathrooms unused along one long wall. Except for the narrow, open doorways of these facilities, the great room was featureless. Its walls were pale green and its floors pale brown. Lilith had asked for color and Nikanj had found someone who could teach it how to induce the ship to produce color. Stores of food and clothing were encapsulated within the walls in various unmarked cabinets within Lilith’s room and at both ends of the great room.

  The food, she had been told, would be replaced as it was used—replaced by the ship itself which drew on its own substance to make print reconstructions of whatever each cabinet had been taught to produce.

  The long wall opposite the bathrooms concealed eighty sleeping human beings—healthy, under fifty, English-speaking, and frighteningly ignorant of what was in store for them.

  Lilith was to choose and Awaken no fewer than forty. No wall would open to let her or those she Awakened out until at least forty human beings were ready to meet the Oankali.

  The great room was darkening slightly. Evening. Lilith found surprising comfort and relief in having time divided visibly into days and nights again. She had not realized how she had missed the slow change of light, how welcome the darkness would be.

  “It’s time for you to get used to having planetary night again,” Nikanj had told her.

  On impulse, she had asked if there were anywhere in the ship where she could look at the stars.

  Nikanj had taken her, on the day before it put her into this huge, empty room, down several corridors and ramps, then by way of something very like an elevator. Nikanj said it corresponded closer to a gas bubble moving harmlessly through a living body. Her destination turned out to be a kind of observation bubble through which she could see not only stars, but the disk of the Earth, gleaming like a full moon in the black sky.