Butler, Octavia - Dawn

She chewed and swallowed several peanuts, all the while staring at the ooloi, making no effort to conceal her dislike. "You invited me to ask," she said.

"No. That isn't what I was doing."

"Do you really imagine I'd hurt a child?"

"No. You just haven't learned yet not to ask dangerous questions."

"Why did you tell me as much as you did?"

The ooloi relaxed its tentacles "Because we know you, Lilith. And, within reason, we want you to know us."

2

The ooloi took her to see Sharad. She would have preferred to have Jdahya take her, but when Kahguyaht volunteered, Jdahya leaned toward her and asked very softly, "Shall I go?"

She did not imagine that she was intended to miss the unspoken message of the gesture-that Jdahya was indulging a child. Lilith was tempted to accept the child's role and ask him to come along. But he deserved a vacation from her-and she from him. Maybe he wanted to spend some time with the big, silent Tediin. How, she wondered, did these people manage their sex lives, anyway? How did the ooloi fit in? Were its two arm-sized tentacles sexual organs? Kahguyaht had not used them in eating-had kept them either coiled against its body, under its true arms or draped over its shoulders.

She was not afraid of it, ugly as it was. So far it had inspired only disgust, anger, and dislike in her. How had Jdahya connected himself with such a creature?

Kahguyaht led her through three walls, opening all of them by touching them with one of its large tentacles. Finally they emerged into a wide, downward-sloping, well-lighted corridor. Large numbers of Oankali walked or rode flat, slow, wheel-less conveyances that apparently floated a fraction of an inch above the floor. There were no collisions, no near-misses, yet Lilith saw no order to the traffic. People walked or drove wherever they could find an opening and apparently depended on others not to hit them. Some of the vehicles were loaded with unrecognizable freight-transparent

beachball-sized blue spheres filled with some liquid, two-foot-long centipede-like animals stacked in rectangular cages, great trays of oblong, green shapes about six feet long and three feet thick. These last writhed slowly, blindly.

"What are those?" she asked the ooloi.

It ignored her except to take her arm and guide her where traffic was heavy. She realized abruptly that it was guiding her with the tip of one of its large tentacles.

"What do you call these?" she asked, touching the one wrapped around her arm. Like the smaller ones it was cool and as hard as her fingernails, but clearly very flexible.

"You can call them sensory arms," it told her.

"What are they for?"

Silence.

"Look, I thought I was supposed to be learning. I can't learn without asking questions and getting answers."

"You'll get them eventually-as you need them."

In anger she pulled loose from the ooloi's grip. It was surprisingly easy to do. The ooloi did not touch her again, did not seem to notice that twice it almost lost her, made no effort to help her when they passed through a crowd and she realized she could not tell one adult ooloi from another.

"Kahguyaht!" she said sharply.

"Here." It was beside her, no doubt watching, probably laughing at her confusion. Feeling manipulated, she grasped one of its true arms and stayed close to it until they had come into a corridor that was almost empty. From there they entered a corridor that was empty. Kahguyaht ran one sensory arm along the wall for several feet, then stopped, and flattened the tip of the arm against the wall.

An opening appeared where the arm had touched and Lilith expected to be led into one more corridor or room. Instead the wall seemed to form a sphincter and pass something. There was even a sour smell to enhance the image. One of the big semitransparent green oblongs slid into view, wet and sleek.

"It's a plant," the ooloi volunteered. "We store it where it can be given the kind of light it thrives best under."

Why couldn't it have said that before, she wondered.

The green oblong writhed very- slowly as the others had while the ooloi probed it with both sensory arms. After a time, the ooloi paid attention only to one end. That end, it massaged with its sensory arms.

Lilith saw that the plant was beginning to open, and suddenly she knew what was happening.

"Sharad is in that thing, isn't he?"

"Come here."

She went over to where it had sat on the floor at the now-open end of the oblong. Sharad's head was just becoming visible. The hair that she recalled as dull black now glistened, wet and plastered to his head. The eyes were closed and the look on the face peaceful-as though the boy were in a normal sleep. Kahguyaht had stopped the opening of the plant at the base of the boy's throat, but she could see enough to know Sharad was only a little older than he had been when they had shared an isolation room. He looked healthy and well.

"Will you wake him?" she asked.

"No." Kahguyaht touched the brown face with a sensory arm. "We won't be Awakening these people for a while. The human who will be guiding and training them has not yet begun his own training."

She would have pleaded with it if she had not had two years of dealing with the Oankali to tell her just how little good pleading did. Here was the one human being she had seen in those two years, in two hundred and fifty years. And she could not talk to him, could not make him know she was with him.

She touched his cheek, found it wet, slimy, cool. "Are you sure he's all right?"

"He's fine." The ooloi touched the plant where it had drawn aside and it began slowly to close around Sharad again. She watched the face until it was completely covered. The plant closed seamlessly around the small head.

"Before we found these plants," Kahguyaht said, "they used to capture living animals and keep them alive for a long while, using their carbon dioxide and supplying them with oxygen while slowly digesting nonessential parts of

their bodies: limbs, skin, sensory organs. The plants even passed some of their own substance through their prey to nourish the prey and keep it alive as long as possible. And the plants were enriched by the prey's waste products. They gave a very, very long death.

Lilith swallowed. "Did the prey feel what was being done to it?"

"No. That would have hastened death. The prey . . . slept." Lilith stared at the green oblong, writhing slowly like an obscenely fat caterpillar. "How does Sharad breathe?"

"The plant supplies him with an ideal mix of gasses."

"Not just oxygen?"

"No. It suits its care to his needs. It still benefits from the carbon dioxide he exhales and from his rare waste products. It floats in a bath of nutrients and water. These and the light supply the rest of its needs."

Lilith touched the plant, found it firm and cool. It yielded slightly under her fingers. Its surface was lightly coated with slime. She watched with amazement as her fingers sank more deeply into it and it began to engulf them. She was not frightened until she tried to pull away and discovered it would not let go-and pulling back hurt sharply.

"Wait," Kahguyaht said. With a sensory arm, it touched the plant near her hand. At once, she felt the plant begin to let go. When she was able to raise her hand, she found it numb, but otherwise unharmed. Feeling returned to the hand slowly. The print of it was still clear on the surface of the plant when Kahguyaht first rubbed its own hands with its sensory arms, then opened the wall and pushed the plant back through it.

"Sharad is very small," it said when the plant was gone "The plant could have taken you in as well."

She shuddered. "I was in one...wasn't I?"

Kahguyaht ignored the question. But of course she had been in one of the plants-had spent most of the last two and a half centuries within what was basically a carnivorous plant. And the thing had taken good care of her, kept her young and well.