Imago x-3

by Butler, Octavia

  There was a pause, then the Hugo voice said, “Let’s take them up. Someone will probably have some dinner left over.”

  They were taken away.

  Aaor and I followed to see the path they would use and to see as much as we could of the guards.

  Of the seven, four were obviously distorted by their genetic disorder. They had large tumors on their heads or arms. They looked different enough to be shot on sight by lowland resisters.

  We followed as long as there was forest cover, then watched as they went up a pathway that was mostly rough stone stairs leading up the steep slope to the village.

  When we could no longer hear them, Aaor pulled me close to it and signaled silently, “We can’t just go wait in the cave. We have to get them out!”

  “Give them time,” I said. “They’ll try to find a pair of Humans for you.”

  “How can they? They’ll be shut up, guarded.”

  “Most of these guards were young and fertile. And perhaps Jesusa will be given female guards. What are guards but villagers doing a tiresome, temporary duty?”

  Aaor tried to relax, but its body was still tense against mine. “Seeing them walk away was like beginning to dissolve. I feel as though part of me has walked away with them.”

  I said nothing. Part of me had walked away with them. Both they and I knew what it would be like to be separated for a while—worse, to be kept apart by other people who would do all they could to stand between us. I would not begin to miss them physically for a few days, but with my uncertainty, my realization that I might not get them back, I had all I could do to control myself. I sat down on the ground, my body trembling.

  Aaor sat next to me and tried to calm me, but it could not give what it did not feel in itself. The Humans could have caught us easily then—two ooloi sitting on the ground shuddering helplessly.

  We recovered slowly. We were in control of our bodies again when Aaor said silently, “We can’t give them more than two days to work—and that might not be long enough for them to do anything.”

  I could last longer than two days, but Aaor couldn’t. “We’ll give them the time,” I said. “We’ll get as close as we can and rest alert for two days.”

  “Then we’ll have to get them out if they can’t escape on their own.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” I said. “TomÁs was talking as much to us as to his people when he said no one would die because of him and Jesusa. But if we try to get them out, we could be forced to kill.”

  “That’s why it’s best to go in while we’re still in control of ourselves. You know that, Jodahs.”

  “I know,” I whispered aloud.

  7

  We went up a steep, heavily forested slope, crawling up, clinging like caterpillars. Being six-limbed had never been quite so practical.

  We climbed to the level of the terraces, and lay near them, hidden, during the next day. “When night came, we explored the terraces and compulsively tried bits of the new foods we found growing there. By then, our skins had grown darker and we were harder for the Humans to see—while we could see everything.

  We climbed higher up one of the mountains that formed a corner of the settlement. Just over halfway up, we reached the Human settlement with its houses of stone and wood and thatch. This was a prewar place. It had to be. Parts of it looked ancient. But it did not look like a ruin. All the buildings were well kept and there were terraces everywhere, most of them full of growing things. Away from the village, there was an enclosure containing several large animals of a kind I had not seen before—shaggy, long-necked, small-headed creatures who stood or lay at ease around their pen. Alpacas?

  We could smell other, smaller animals caged around the village, and we could smell fertile, young Humans everywhere. Even above us on the mountain, we could smell them. What would they be doing up there?

  How many were up there? Three, my nose told me. A female and two males, all young, all fertile, two afflicted with the genetic disorder. Why couldn’t it just be those two for Aaor? What would we do with the third one if we went up? Why hadn’t Jesusa and TomÁs told us about people living in such isolation? Except for their being one too many of them, they were perfect.

  “Up?” I said to Aaor.

  It nodded. “But there’s an extra male. What do we do with him?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let’s see if we can get a look at them before they see us. Separating them might be easier than we think.”

  We climbed the slope, noticing, but for the most part not using, the long serpentine path the Humans had made. There had been Humans on it that day. Perhaps there would be Humans on it the next day. Perhaps it led to a guard post, and the guard changed daily. Anyone on top would have a fine view of all approaches from the mountains or the canyon below. Perhaps the people at the top stayed longer than a day and were resupplied from below at regular intervals—though there were a few terraces near the top.

  We went up quietly, quickly, eating the most nutritious things we could find along the way. When we reached the terraces, we stopped and ate our fill. We would have to be at our best.

  On a broad ledge near the top, we found a stone cabin. Higher up was a cistern and a few more terraces. Inside the cabin, two people slept. Where was the third? We didn’t dare go in until we knew where everyone was.

  I linked with Aaor and signaled silently. “Have you spotted the third?”

  “Above,” it said. “There is another cabin—or at least another living place. You go up to that one. I want these two.” It was utterly focused on the Human pair.

  “Aaor?”

  It focused on me with a startlingly quick movement. It was as tight as a fist inside.

  “Aaor, there are hundreds of other Humans down there. You’ll have a life. Be careful who you give it to. I was very lucky with Jesusa and TomÁs.”

  “Go up and keep the third Human from bothering me.”

  I detached from it and went to find the second cabin. Aaor would not hear anything I had to say now, just as I would not have heard anyone who told me to beware of Jesusa and TomÁs. And if the Humans were young enough, they could probably mate successfully with any healthy ooloi. If only Aaor were healthy. It wasn’t. It and the Humans it chose would have to heal each other. If they didn’t, perhaps none of them would survive.

  I found not a cabin higher up on the mountain, but a very small cave near the top. Humans had built a rock wall, enclosing part of it. There were signs that they had enlarged the cave on one side. Finally heavy wooden posts had been set against the stone and from these a wooden door had been hung. The door seemed more a barrier against the weather than against people. Tonight the weather was dry and warm and the door was not secured at all. It swung open when I touched it.

  The man inside awakened as I stumbled down into his tiny cave. His body heat made him a blaze of infrared in the darkness. It was easy for me to reach him and stop his hands from finding whatever they were grasping for.

  Holding his hands, I lay down alongside him on his short, narrow bed and wedged him against the stone wall. I examined him with several sensory tentacles, studying him, but not controlling him. I stopped his hoarse shouting by looping one sensory arm around his neck, then moving the coil up to cover his mouth. He bit me, but his blunt Human teeth couldn’t do any serious harm. My sensory arms existed to protect the sensitive reproductive organs inside. The flesh that covered them was the toughest flesh to be found on my body.

  The male I held must have been more at home in his tiny cave than most people would have been. He was tiny himself— half the size of most Human males. Also, he had some skin disease that had made a ruin of his face, his hands, and much of the rest of his body. He was hairless. His skin was as scaly as those of some fish I’d seen. His nose was distorted—flattened from having been broken several times—and that enhanced his fishlike appearance. Strangely he was free of the genetic disorder that Jesusa, TomÁs, and so many of the other people of the village had. He was grotesque without it.

  I examined him thoroughly, enjoying the newnes
s of him. By the time I had finished, he had stopped struggling and lay quietly in my arms. I took my sensory arm from his mouth, and he did not shout.

  “Do you live here because of the way you look?” I asked him.

  He cursed me at great length. In spite of his size, he had a deep, hoarse, grating voice.

  I said nothing. We had all night.

  After a very long time, he said, “All right. Yes, I’m here because of the way I look. Got any more stupid questions?”

  “I don’t have time to help you grow. But if you like, I can heal your skin condition.”

  Silence.

  “My god,” he whispered finally.

  “It won’t hurt,” I said. “And it can be done by morning. If you’re afraid to stay here after you’re healed, you can come with us when we leave. Then I’ll have time to help you grow. If you want to grow.”

  “People my age don’t grow,” he said.

  I brushed bits of scaly, dead skin from his face. “Oh, yes,” I said. “We can help people your age to grow.”

  After another long pause, he said, “Is the town all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will happen to it?”

  “Eventually my people will come to it and tell your people they don’t have to live in distorted bodies or in isolation or in fear. Your people have been cut off for a long time. They don’t realize there’s another, larger colony of healthy, fertile Humans living and growing without Oankali.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “I know. It’s true, though. Shall I heal you?”

  “Can I

  see you?”

  “At sunrise.”

  “I could make a fire.”

  “No.”

  He shook his head against me. “I should be more afraid than this. My god, I should be pissing on myself. Exactly what the hell are you anyway?”

  “Construct. Oankali-Human mixture. Ooloi.”

  “Ooloi

  The mixed ones—male and female in one body.”

  “We aren’t male or female.”

  “So you say.” He sighed. “Do you mean to hold me here all night?”

  “If I’m to heal you, I’ll have to.”

  “Why are you here? You said your people would come eventually. What are you doing here now?”

  “Nothing harmful. Do you want hair?”

  “What?”

  I waited. He had heard the question. Now let him absorb it. Hair was easy. I could start it as an afterthought.

  He put his head against my chest. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t even understand

  my own feelings.” Much later he said, “Of course I want hair. And I want skin, not scales. I want hair, and I want height. I want to be a man!”

  My first impulse was to point out that he was a man. His male organs were well developed. But I understood him. “We’ll take you with us when we go,” I said.

  And he was content. After a while, he slept. I never drugged him in the way ooloi usually drugged resisters. Once he had passed his first surprise and fear, he had accepted me much more quickly than Jesusa and TomÁs had—but I had been only a subadult when I met them. And adult ooloi—a construct ooloi—ought to be able to handle Humans better. Or perhaps this man—I had not even asked his name, nor he mine—was particularly susceptible to the ooloi substance that I could not help injecting. In his Human way, he had been very hungry, starving, for any touch. How long had it been since anyone was willing to touch him—except perhaps to break his nose again. He would need an ooloi to steer him away from breaking a few noses himself once he was large enough to reach them. He had probably been treated badly. He did not veer from the Human norm in the same way as other people in the village, and Humans were genetically inclined to be intolerant of difference. They could overcome the inclination, but it was a reality of the Human conflict that they often did not. It was significant that this man was so ready to leave his home with someone he had been taught to think of as a devil—someone he hadn’t even seen yet.

  8

  By morning, I had given the cave Human a smooth, new skin and the beginnings of a full head of hair.

  “It will take me longer to repair your nose,” I told him. “When I have, though, you’ll be able to breathe better with your mouth closed.”

  He took a deep breath through his mouth and stared at me, then looked at himself, then stared at me again. He rubbed a hand over the fuzz on his head, then held the hand in front of him and examined it. I had not allowed him to awaken until I’d gotten up myself, opened the door to the dawn, and found the short, thick gun he had been reaching for the night before. I had emptied it and thrown it off the mountain. Then I awoke the man.

  Seeing me alarmed him, but he never once reached toward the hiding place of the gun.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him.

  “Santos.” His voice now was a harsh whisper rather than a harsh growl. “Santos Ibarra Ruiz. How did you do this? How is it possible?” He rubbed the fingers of his right hand over his left arm and seemed to delight in the feel of it.

  “Did you think you were dreaming last night?” I asked.

  “I haven’t had time to think.”

  “Who will come up here today?”

  He blinked. “Here? No one.”

  “Who will visit the cabin below?”

  “I don’t know. I lose track with them. Are you going down there?”

  “Eventually. Have your breakfast if you like.”

  “What are you called?”

  “Jodahs.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard that some of your kind had four arms. I didn’t believe it.”

  “Ooloi have four arms.”

  He stared for some time at my sensory arms, then asked, “Are you really going to take me away with you and make me grow?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled, showing several bad teeth. I would fix those, too—have him shed them and grow more.

  Later that morning we went down to the stone cabin. The male and female there were sharing their breakfast with Aaor. Santos and I startled them, but they seemed comfortably at home with Aaor. And Aaor looked better than it had since its first metamorphosis. It looked stable and secure in itself. It looked satisfied.

  “Will they come with us?” I asked in Oankali.

  “They’ll come,” it answered in Spanish. “I’ve begun to heal them. I’ve told them about you.”

  The two Human stared at me curiously.

  “This is Jodahs, my closest sibling,” Aaor said. “Without it I would already be dead.” It actually said, “my closest brother-sister,” because that was the best either of us could do in Spanish. No wonder people like Santos thought we were hermaphroditic.

  “These are Javier and Paz,” Aaor said. “They are already mates.”

  They were also close relatives, of course. They looked as much alike as Jesusa and TomÁs did, and they looked like Jesusa and TomÁs—strong, brown, black-haired, deep-chested people.

  Santos and I were given dried fruit, tea, and bread. Javier and Paz seemed most interested in Santos. He was their relative, too, of course.

  “Do you feel well, Santos?” Paz asked.

  “What do you care?” Santos demanded.

  Paz looked at me. “Why do you want him? Wish him a good day, and he’ll spit on you.”

  “He needs more healing than I can give him here,” I said. I turned my head so that he would know I was looking at him. “He’ll have less reason to spit when I’m finished with him, so maybe he’ll do less spitting. Perhaps then I’ll find mates for him.”

  He watched me while I spoke, then let his eyes slide away from me. He stared, unseeing, I think, at the rough wooden table.

  “Will others come up here today?” I asked Paz.

  “No,” she said. “Today is still our watch. Juana and Santiago will come tomorrow to relieve us.”

  Santos spoke abruptly, urgently. “Are you really going with them?”

  “Of course,” Paz said.

  “Why? You should be afraid of them. You should be terrified. When we were children they told us the devil had four arm
s.”

  “We’re not children anymore,” Javier said. “Look at my right hand.” He held it up, pale brown and smooth. “I have a right hand again. It’s been a frozen claw for years, and now—”

  “Not enough!”

  Javier opened his mouth, his expression suddenly angry. Then, without speaking, he closed his mouth.

  “I want to go,” Paz said quietly. “I’m tired of telling myself lies about this place and watching my children die.” She pushed very long black hair from her face. As she sat at the table, most of her hair hung to the floor behind her. “Santos, if you had seen our last child before it died, you would thank God for the beauty you had even before your healing.”

  Santos looked away from her, shamefaced but stubborn. “I know all that,” he said. “I don’t mean to be cruel. I do know. But

  we have been taught all our lives that the aliens would destroy us if they found us. Why did our belief and our fear slip away so quickly?”

  Javier sighed. “I don’t know.” He looked at Aaor. “They’re not very fearsome, are they? And they are

  very interesting. I don’t know why.” He looked up. “Santos, do you believe we are building a new people here?”

  Santos shook his head. “I’ve never believed it. I have eyes. But that’s no reason for us to consent to go away with people we’ve been taught were evil.”

  “Did you consent?” Paz asked

  “

  yes.”

  “What else is there, then?”

  “Why are they here!” He turned to me. “Why are you here?”

  “To get Human mates for Aaor,” I said. “And now I have to get my own Human mates back. They are—”

  “Jesusa and TomÁs, we know,” Paz said. “Aaor said they were imprisoned below. We can show you where they’re probably being held but I don’t know how you can get them out.”

  “Show us,” I said.

  We went outside where the stone village lay below us, spread like a Human-made map. The buildings seemed tiny in the distance, but they could all be seen. The whole flattened ridge was visible.

  “See the round building there,” Javier said, pointing.

  I didn’t see it at first. So many gray buildings with gray-brown thatched roofs, all tiny in the distance. Then it was clear to me—a stone half-cylinder built against a stone wall.