Butler, Octavia - Dawn

"I can't unfind you," he said. "You're here. But there is... a thing I can do. It is. . .deeply wrong of me to offer it. I will never offer it again."

"What?" she asked barely caring. She was tired from the walk, overwhelmed by what he had told her. It made no sense. Good god, no wonder he couldn't go home-even if his home still existed. Whatever his people had been like when they left it, they must be very different by now-the children of the last surviving human beings would be different.

"Lilith?" he said.

She raised her head, stared at him.

"Touch me here now," he said, gesturing toward his head tentacles, "and I'll sting you. You'll die-very quickly and without pain."

She swallowed.

"If you want it," he said.

It was a gift he was offering. Not a threat.

"Why?" she whispered. He would not answer.

She stared at his head tentacles. She raised her hand, let it reach toward him almost as though it had its own will, its own intent. No more Awakenings. No more questions. No more impossible answers. Nothing.

Nothing.

He never moved. Even his tentacles were utterly still. Her hand hovered, wanting to fall amid the tough, flexible, lethal organs. It hovered, almost brushing one by accident.

She jerked her hand away, clutched it to her. "Oh god," she whispered. "Why didn't I do it? Why can't I do it?"

He stood up and waited uncomplaining for several minutes until she dragged herself to her feet.

"You'll meet my mates and one of my children now," he said. "Then rest and food, Lilith."

She looked at him, longing for a human expression. "Would you have done it?" she asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

"For you."

II

FAMILY

1

Sleep.

She barely remembered being presented to three of Jdahya's relatives, then guided off and given a bed. Sleep. Then a small, confused awakening.

Now food and forgetting.

Food and pleasure so sharp and sweet it cleared everything else from her mind. There were whole bananas, dishes of sliced pineapple, whole figs, shelled nuts of several kinds, bread and honey, a vegetable stew filled with corn, peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, mushrooms, herbs, and spices.

Where had all this been, Lilith wondered. Surely they could have given her a little of this instead of keeping her for so long on a diet that made eating a chore. Could it all have been for her health? Or had there been some other purpose--something to do with their damned gene trade?

When she had eaten some of everything, savored each new taste lovingly, she began to pay attention to the four Oankali who were with her in the small, bare room. They were Jdahya and his wife lel Kahguyaht aj Dinso. And there was Jdahya's ooloi mate Kahguyaht--Ahtrekahguyahtkaal lel Jdahyatediin aj Dinso. Finally there was the family's ooloi child Nikanj--Kaalnikanj oo Jdahyatediinkahguyaht aj Dinso.

The four sat atop familiar, featureless platforms eating Earth foods from their several small dishes as though they had been born to such a diet.

There was a central platform with more of everything on it, and the Oankali took turns filling one another's dishes. One of them could not, it seemed, get up and fill only one dish. Others were immediately handed forward, even to Lilith. She filled Jdahya's with hot stew and returned it to him, wondering when he had eaten last-apart from the orange they had shared.

"Did you eat while we were in that isolation room?" she asked him.

"I had eaten before I went in," he said. "I used very little energy while I was there so I didn't need any more food."

"How long were you there?"

"Six days, your time."

She sat down on her platform and stared at him. "That long?"

"Six days," he repeated.

"Your body has drifted away from your world's twenty-four-hour day," the ooloi Kahguyaht said. That happens to all your people. Your day lengthens slightly and you lose track of how much time has passed."

''But-''

"How long did it seem to you?"

"A few days. . . I don't know. Fewer than six."

"You see?" the ooloi asked softly.

She frowned at it. It was naked as were the others except for Jdahya. This did not bother her even at close quarters as much as she had feared it might. But she did not like the ooloi. It was smug and it tended to treat her condescendingly. It was also one of the creatures scheduled to bring about the destruction of what was left of humanity. And in spite of Jdahya's claim that the Oankali were not hierarchical, the ooloi seemed to be the head of the house. Everyone deferred to it.

It was almost exactly Lilith's size-slightly larger than Jdahya and considerably smaller than the female Tediin. And it had four arms. Or two arms and two arm-sized tentacles. The big tentacles, gray and rough, reminded her of elephants' trunks-except that she could not recall ever being disgusted by the trunk of an elephant. At least the child did not have them yet-though Jdahya had assured her that it was an ooloi child. Looking at Kahguyaht, she took pleasure in the knowledge that the Oankali themselves used the neuter pronoun in referring to the ooloi. Some things deserved to be called "it."

She turned her attention back to the food. "How can you eat all this?" she asked. "I couldn't eat your foods, could I?"

"What do you think you've eaten each time we've Awakened you?" the ooloi asked.

"I don't know," she said coldly. "No one would tell me what it was."

Kahguyaht missed or ignored the anger in her voice. "It was one of our foods-slightly altered to meet your special needs," it said.

Thought of her "special needs" made her realize that this might be Jdahya's "relative" who had cured her cancer. She had somehow not thought of this until now. She got up and filled one of her small bowls with nuts-roasted, but not salted-and wondered wearily whether she had to be grateful to Kahguyaht. Automatically she filled with the same nuts, the bowl Tediin had thrust forward at her.

"Is any of our food poison to you?" she asked flatly.

"No," Kahguyaht answered. "We have adjusted to the foods of your world."

"Are any of yours poison to me?"

"Yes. A great deal of it. You shouldn't eat anything unfamiliar that you find here."

"That doesn't make sense. Why should you be able to come from so far away-another world, another star system- and eat our food?"

"Haven't we had time to learn to eat your food?" the ooloi asked.

"What?''

It did not repeat the question.

"Look," she said, "how can you learn to eat something that's poison to you?"

"By studying teachers to whom it isn't poison. By studying your people, Lilith. Your bodies."

"I don't understand."

"Then accept the evidence of your eyes. We can eat anything you can. It's enough for you to understand that."

Patronizing bastard, she thought. But she said only, "Does that mean that you can learn to eat anything at all? That you can't be poisoned?"

"No. I didn't mean that."

She waited, chewing nuts, thinking. When the ooloi did not continue, she looked at it.

It was focused on her, head tentacles pointing. "The very old can be poisoned," it said. "Their reactions are slowed. They might not be able to recognize an unexpected deadly substance and remember how to neutralize it in time. The seriously injured can be poisoned. Their bodies are distracted, busy with self-repair. And the children can be poisoned if they have not yet learned to protect themselves."

"You mean. . . just about anything might poison you if you weren't somehow prepared for it, ready to protect yourselves against it?"

"Not just anything. Very few things, really. Things we were especially vulnerable to before we left our original homeworld."

"Like what?"

"Why do you ask, Lilith? What would you do if I told you? Poison a child?"