Butler, Octavia - Dawn

Lilith opened her mouth, then hesitated. Jdahya had left her completely to Nikanj for so long-deliberately, no doubt. And Nikanj. . . Nikanj was appealing-probably be-cause it was a child. It was no more responsible for the thing that was to happen to the remnants of humanity than she was. It was simply doing-or trying to do-what the adults around it said should be done. Fellow victim?

No, not a victim. Just a child, appealing in spite of itself. And she liked it in spite of herself.

"You see?" Tediin asked, smooth all over now.

"I see." She took a deep breath. "I see that everyone including Nikanj wants me to prefer Nikanj. Well you win. I do." She turned to Jdahya. "You people are manipulative as hell, aren't you?"

Jdahya concentrated on eating.

"Was I that much of a burden?" she asked him.

He did not answer.

"Will you help me to be less of a burden in one way, at least?"

He aimed some of his tentacles at her. "What do you want?"

"Writing materials. Paper. Pencils or pens-whatever you've got."

"No."

There was no give behind the refusal. He was part of the family conspiracy to keep her ignorant-while trying as hard as they could to educate her. Insane.

She spread both hands before her, shaking her head. "Why?"

"Ask Nikanj."

"I have! It won't tell me."

"Perhaps it will now. Have you finished eating?"

"I've had enough-in more ways than one."

"Come on. I'll open the wall for you."

She unfolded herself from her platform and followed him to the wall.

"Nikanj can help you remember without writing," he told her as he touched the wall with several head tentacles.

"How?"

"Ask it."

She stepped through the hole as soon as it was large enough, and found herself intruding on the two ooloi who refused to notice her beyond the automatic sweep of some of their head tentacles. They were talking-arguing---in very fast Oankali. She was, no doubt, the reason for their dispute.

She looked back, hoping to step back through the wall and leave them. Let one of them tell her later what had been decided. She didn't imagine it would be anything she would be eager to hear. But the wall had sealed itself-abnormally quickly.

Nikanj seemed to be holding its own, at least. At one point, it beckoned to her with a sharp movement of head tentacles. She moved to stand beside it, willing to offer whatever moral support she could against Kahguyaht.

Kahguyaht stopped whatever it had been saying and faced her. "You haven't understood us at all, have you?" it asked in English.

"No," she admitted.

"Do you understand me now?" it asked in slow Oankali.

"Yes."

Kahguyaht turned its attention back to Nikanj and spoke rapidly. Straining to understand, Lilith thought it said something close to, "Well, at least we know she's capable of learning."

"I'm capable of learning even faster with paper and pencil," she said. "But with or without them, I'm capable of telling you what I think of you in any one of three human languages!"

Kahguyaht said nothing for several seconds. Finally it turned, opened a wall, and left the room.

When the wall had closed, Nikanj lay down on the bed and crossed its arms over its chest, hugging itself.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"What are the other two languages?" it asked softly.

She managed a smile. "Spanish and German. I used to speak a little German. I still know a few obscenities."

"You are . . . not fluent?"

"I am in Spanish."

"But why not in German?"

"Because it's been years since I've studied it or spoken it-years before the war, I mean. We humans . . . if we don't use a language, we forget it."

"No. You don't."

She looked at its tightly contracted body tentacles and decided it did not look happy. It really was concerned over her failure to learn quickly and retain everything. "Are you going to let me have writing materials?" she asked.

"No. It will be done our way. Not yours."

"It ought to be done the way that works. But what the hell. You want to spend two or three times as long teaching me, you go right ahead."

''I don't.''

She shrugged, not caring whether it missed the gesture or failed to understand it.

"Ooan was upset with me, Lilith, not with you."

"But because of me. Because I'm not learning fast enough."

"No. Because . . . because I'm not teaching you as it thinks I should. It fears for me."

"Fears...? Why?"

"Come here. Sit here. I will tell you."

After a time, she shrugged again and went to sit beside it.

"I'm growing up," it told her. "Ooan wants me to hurry with you so that you can be given your work and I can mate."

"You mean . . . the faster I learn, the sooner you mate?"

"Yes. Until I have taught you, shown that I can teach you, I won't be considered ready to mate."

There it was. She was not just its experimental animal. She was, in some way she did not fully understand, its final exam. She sighed and shook her head. "Did you ask for me Nikanj, or did we just get dumped on one another?"

It said nothing. It doubled one of its arms backward in a way natural to it, but still startling to Lilith, and rubbed its armpit. She tilted her head to one side to examine the place it was rubbing.

"Do you grow the sensory arms after you've mated or before?" she asked.

"They will come soon whether I mate or not."

"Should they grow in after you're mated?"

"Mates like them to come in afterward. Males and females mature more quickly than ooloi. They like to feel that they have... how do you say? Helped their ooloi out of childhood."

"Helped raise them," Lilith said, "or helped rear them."

"... rear?''

"The word has multiple meanings."

"Oh. There's no logic to such things."

"There probably is, but you'd need an etymologist to explain it. Is there going to be trouble between you and your mates?"

"I don't know. I hope not. I'll go to them when I can. I've told them that." It paused. "Now I must tell you something."

"What?"

"Ooan wanted me to act and say nothing... to... surprise you. I won't do that."

"What!"

"I must make small changes-a few small changes. I must help you reach your memories as you need them."

"What do you mean? What is it you want to change?"

"Very small things. In the end, there will be a tiny alteration in your brain chemistry."

She touched her forehead in an unconsciously protective gesture. "Brain chemistry?" she whispered.

"I would like to wait, do it when I'm mature. I could make it pleasurable for you then. It should be pleasurable. But ooan . . . I understand what it feels. It says I have to change you now."

"I don't want to be changed!"

"You would sleep through it the way you did when Ooan Jdahya corrected your tumor."

"Ooan Jdahya? Jdahya's ooloi parent did that? Not Kahguyaht?"

"Yes. It was done before my parents were mated."

"Good." No reason at all to be grateful to Kahguyaht.

"Lilith?" Nikanj laid a many-fingered hand-a sixteen-fingered hand-on her arm. "It will be like this. A touch. Then a . . . a small puncture. That's all you'll feel. When you wake up the change will be made."

"I don't want to be changed!"

There was a long silence. Finally it asked, "Are you afraid?"

"I don't have a disease! Forgetting things is normal for most humans! I don't need anything done to my brain!"

"Would it be so bad to remember better? To remember the way Sharad did-the way I do?"

"What's frightening is the idea of being tampered with." She drew a deep breath. "Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain. I don't want-"

"Who you are won't be changed. I'm not old enough to make the experience pleasant for you, but I'm old enough to function as an ooloi in this way. If I were unfit, others would have noticed by now."