Butler, Octavia - Dawn

Nikanj lay down again and seemed to tremble. It was trembling. Its body tentacles exaggerated the movement and made its whole body seem to vibrate. She neither knew nor cared what was wrong with it. She left it where it was and went out to get food.

In one compartment in the seemingly empty little living-room-dining-room-kitchen, she found fresh fruit: oranges, bananas, mangoes, papayas, and melons of different kinds. In other compartments she found nuts, bread, and honey.

Picking and choosing, she made herself a meal. She had intended to take it outside, to eat-the first meal she had not had to ask for or wait for. The first meal she would eat under the pseudotrees without first having to be let out like a pet animal.

She opened a wall to go out, then stopped. The wall began to close after a moment. She sighed and turned away from it.

Angrily, she reopened the food compartments, took out extra food and went back in to Nikanj. It was still lying down, still trembling. She put a few pieces of fruit down next to it.

"Your sensory arms have already begun, haven't they?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Do you want anything to eat?"

"Yes." It took an orange and bit into it, eating skin and all. It hadn't done that before.

"We generally peel them," she said.

"I know. Wasteful."

"Look, do you need anything? Want me to find one of your parents?"

"No. This is normal. I'm glad I changed you when I did. I wouldn't trust myself to do it now. I knew this was coming."

"Why didn't you tell me it was so close?"

"You were too angry."

She sighed, tried to understand her own feelings. She was still angry-angry, bitter, frightened...

And yet she had come back. She had not been able to leave Nikanj trembling in its bed while she enjoyed her greater freedom.

Nikanj finished the orange and began on a banana. It did not peel this either.

"Can I see?" she asked.

It raised one arm, displaying ugly, lumpy, mottled flesh perhaps six inches beneath the arm.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. There isn't a word in English for the way it makes me feel. The closest would be. . . sexually aroused."

She stepped away from it, alarmed.

"Thank you for coming back."

She nodded. "You're not supposed to feel aroused with just me here."

"I'm becoming sexually mature. I'll feel this way from time to time as my body changes even though I don't yet have the organs I would use in sex. It's a little like feeling an amputated limb as though it were still there. I've heard humans do that."

"I've heard that we do, too, but-"

"I would feel aroused if I were alone. You don't make me feel it any more than I would if I were alone. Yet your presence helps me." It drew its head and body tentacles into knots. "Give me something else to eat."

She gave it a papaya and all the nuts she had brought in. It ate them quickly.

"Better," it said. "Eating dulls the feeling sometimes." She sat down on the bed and asked, "What happens now?"

"When my parents realize what's happening to me, they'll send for Ahajas and Dichaan."

"Do you want me to look for them-your parents, I mean?"

"No." It rubbed the bed platform beneath its body. "The walls will alert them. Probably they already have. Wall tissues respond to beginning metamorphosis very quickly."

"You mean the walls will feel different or smell different or something?"

"Yes."

"Yes, what? Which one?"

"All that you said, and more." It changed the subject abruptly. "Lilith, sleep during metamorphosis can be very deep. Don't be afraid if sometimes I don't seem to see or hear."

"All right."

"You'll stay with me?"

"I said I would."

"I was afraid. . . good. Lie here with me until Ahajas and Dichaan come."

She was tired of lying down, but she stretched out beside it.

"When they come to carry me to Lo, you help them. That will tell them the first thing they need to know about you."

11

Leavetaking.

There was no real ceremony. Ahajas and Dichaan arrived and Nikanj immediately retreated into a deep sleep. Even its head tentacles hung limp and still.

Ahajas alone could have carried it. She was big like most Oankali females-slightly larger than Tediin. She and Dichaan were brother and sister as usual in Oankali matings. Males and females were closely related and ooloi were outsiders. One translation of the word ooloi was "treasured strangers." According to Nikanj, this combination of relatives and strangers served best when people were bred for specific work-like opening a trade with an alien species. The male and female concentrated desirable characteristics and the ooloi prevented the wrong kind of concentrations. Tediin and Jdahya were cousins. They had both not particularly liked their siblings. Unusual.

Now Ahajas lifted Nikanj as though it were a young child and held it easily until Dichaan and Lilith took its shoulders. Neither Ahajas nor Dichaan showed surprise at Lilith's participation.

"It has told us about you," Ahajas said as they carried Nikanj down to the lower corridors. Kahguyaht preceded them, opening walls. Jdahya and Tediin followed.

"It's told me a little about you, too," Lilith replied uncertainly. Things were moving too fast for her. She had not gotten up that day with the idea that she would be leaving Kaal-leaving Jdahya and Tediin who had become comfortable and familiar to her. She did not mind leaving Kahguyaht, but it had told her when it brought Ahajas and Dichaan to Nikanj that it would be seeing her again soon. Custom and biology dictated that as same-sex parent, Kahguyaht was permitted to visit Nikanj during its metamorphosis. Kahguyaht, like Lilith, smelled neutral and could not increase Nikanj's discomfort or stir inappropriate desires in it.

Lilith helped to arrange Nikanj on the flat tillo that sat waiting for them in a public corridor. Then she stood alone, watching as the five conscious Oankali came together, touching and entangling head and body tentacles. Kahguyaht stood between Tediin and Jdahya. Ahajas and Dichaan stood together and made their contacts with Tediin and Jdahya. It was almost as though they were avoiding Kahguyaht too. The Oankali could communicate this way, could pass messages from one to another almost at the speed of thought- or so Nikanj had said. Controlled multisensory stimulation. Lilith suspected it was the closest thing to telepathy she would ever see practiced. Nikanj had said it might be able to help her perceive this way when it was mature. But its maturity was months away. Now she was alone again-the alien, the uncomprehending outsider. That was what she would be again in the home of Ahajas and Dichaan.

When the group broke up, Tediin came over to Lilith, took both Lilith's arms. "It has been good having you with us," she said in Oankali. "I've learned from you. It's been a good trade."

"I've learned too," Lilith said honestly. "I wish I could stay here." Rather than go with strangers. Rather than be sent to teach a lot of frightened, suspicious humans.

"No," Tediin said. "Nikanj must go. You would not like to be separated from it."

She had nothing to say to that. It was true. Everyone, even Paul Titus inadvertently, had pushed her toward Nikanj. They had succeeded.

Tediin let her go and Jdahya came to speak to her in English. "Are you afraid?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Ahajas and Dichaan will welcome you. You're rare-a human who can live among us, learn about us, and teach us. Everyone is curious about you."

"I thought I would be spending most of my time with Nikanj."

"You will be, for a while. And when Nikanj is mature, you'll be taken for training. But there'll be time for you to get to know Ahajas and Dichaan and others."

She shrugged. Nothing he said settled her nervousness now.