Butler, Octavia - Imago

We could have put together a raft and traveled down the river to Lo in a fraction of the time it had taken us to reach this point. In an emergency, Nikanj could even signal for help. But what help? A shuttle to take us back to Lo, where we could not stay? A shuttle to take us to Chkahichdahk, where we did not want to go?

We sat grouped around the sleeping Aaor and agreed to do the only thing we really could do: move to higher ground to avoid the rainy season floods and build a more permanent house. My Human mother said it was time to plant a garden.

Nikanj and I stayed with Aaor while the others went to find the site of our new home.

“Do you realize you’ve already lost most of your hair?” Nikanj asked me as we sat on opposite sides of Aaor’s sleeping body.

I touched my head. It still had a very thin covering of hair, but as Nikanj had said, I was nearly bald. Again. I had not noticed. Now I could see that my skin was changing, too, losing the softness it had taken on for JoĂo, losing its even brown coloring. I could not tell yet whether I would return to my natural gray-brown or take on the greenish coloring I’d had just before JoĂo.

“You should be at least as good at monitoring your own body as you are at monitoring a Human,” Nikanj said.

“Will Aaor be like me?” I asked.

It let all its sensory tentacles hang limp. “I’m afraid it might be.” It was silent for a while. “Yes, I believe it will be,” it said finally.

“So now you have two same-sex children to need you

and to resent you.”

It focused on me for a long time with an intensity that first puzzled me, then began to scare me. It had rested one sensory arm across Aaor’s chest, examining, checking.

“Is it all right?” I asked.

“As much as you are.” It rustled its tentacles. “Perfect, but imperfect. It has all that it should have. It can do all that it should be able to do. But that won’t be enough. You’ll have to go to the ship, Oeka. You and Aaor.”

“No!” I felt the way I had once when an apparently friendly Human had hit me in the face.

“You need mates,” it said softly. “No one will mate with you here except old Humans who would steal perhaps four fifths of your life. On the ship, you may be able to get young mates—perhaps even young Humans.”

“And bring them back to Earth?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t go then. I won’t take the chance of being held there. I don’t think Aaor will either.”

“It will. You both will when it finishes its metamorphosis.”

“No!”

“Oeka, you’ve seen it yourself. With a potential mate—even a very unsuitable one—your control is flawless. Without a potential mate, you have no control. You were surprised when I told you you were losing your hair. You’ve been surprised by your body again and again. Yet nothing it does should surprise you. Nothing it does should be beyond your control.”

“But I didn’t even grow that hair deliberately. I just

On some level I realized JoĂo would like it. I think I became all the things he liked, even though he never told me what they were.”

“His body told you. His every look, his reactions, his touch, his scent. He never stopped telling you what he wanted. And since he was the sole focus of your attention, you gave him everything he asked for.” It lay down beside Aaor. “We do that, Jodahs. We please them so that they’ll stay and please us. You’re better at it with Humans than I ever was. I was bred for this trade, but you, you’re part of the trade. You can understand both Human and Oankali by looking inside yourself.” It paused, rustled its tentacles. “I don’t believe we would have had many resisters if we had made construct ooloi earlier.”

“You think that, and you still want to send me away?”

“I believe it, yes. But no one else does. We must teach them.”

“I don’t want to teach—. We? We, Ooan?”

“For a while, we’ll all relocate to the ship.”

I almost said no again, but it wouldn’t have paid any attention to me. When it began telling me what I would do, it had decided. Our interests—Aaor’s and mine—and our needs would be best served on Chkahichdahk, even if we were never allowed to come home. The family would stay with us until we were adults, but then it would leave us on the ship. No more forests or rivers. No more wildness filled with things I had not yet tasted. The planet itself was like one of my parents. I would leave it, and I would gain nothing.

No, that wasn’t true. I would gain mates. Eventually. Perhaps. Nikanj would do all it could to get the mates. There were young Humans born and raised on the ship because there had been so few salvageable Humans left after their war and their resulting disease and atmospheric disturbances. There had not been enough for a good trade. Also most of those who wanted to return to Earth had been allowed to return. That left the Toaht Oankali—those who wanted to trade and to leave with the ship—too few Human mates. They had been breeding more Humans as well as accepting violent ones from Earth. But even so, there were not enough for everyone who wanted them. Not yet. How likely would the Toaht be to let me mate with even one?

I shook my head. “Don’t desert me, Ooan.”

It focused on me, its manner questioning. “You know I won’t.”

“I won’t go to Chkahichdahk. I won’t take what they decide to give me and stay if they decide to keep me. I would rather stay here and mate with old Humans.”

It did not shout at me as my Human parents would have. It did not tell me what I already knew. It did not even turn away from me.

“Lie here with me,” it said softly.

I went over and lay down next to it, felt it link into me with more sensory tentacles than I had on my entire body. It looped a sensory arm around my neck.

“Such despair in you,” it said silently. “You could not throw away so much life.”

“Your life will be shorter because of Tino and Lilith,” I told it. “Do you feel that you’re throwing something away?”

“On Chikahichdahk, there are Humans who will live as long as you would normally.”

“So many that a pair would be allowed to come to me? And what about Aaor?”

It began to feel despair of its own. “I don’t know.”

“But you don’t think so. Neither do I.”

“You know I’ll speak for you.”

“Ooan

”

“Yes. I know. I’ve produced two construct ooloi children. No one else has produced any. Who will listen to me?”

“Will anyone?”

“Not many.”

“Why did you threaten to send me to Chkahichdahk, then?”

“You will go, Oeka. There’s no place for you here, and you know it.”

“No! ”

“There’s life there for you. Life!” It paused. “You’re more adaptable than you think. I made you. I know. You could live there. You could find construct or Oankali mates and learn to be content with shipboard life.”

I spoke aloud. “You’re probably right. There used to be Humans who adapted to not being able to see or hear or walk or move. They adapted. But I don’t think any of them chose to be so limited.”

“But think!” It tightened its grip on me. “Where will you live with old Human mates? Will resisters let you join them in one of their villages? How many attacks on you will it take for them to force a lethal response from you? What will happen then? And, Jodahs, what will happen to your children—your Human children? Will you make them sterile or let them mate together without an ooloi and create deformity and disease? Will you try to force them to go to one of our villages? They may not want to join us any more than you want to go to Chkahichdahk. They’ll want the land and the people they know. And if you do a good job when you make them, they could outlive all other resisters. They could outlive this world. If they manage to elude us, they could die when we break the Earth and go our ways.”