Butler, Octavia - Dawn

"Dichaan has said he would adjust the walls of their home to you so that you can open them. He and Ahajas can't change you in any way, but they can adjust your new surroundings."

So at least she wouldn't have to go back to the house pet stage, asking every time she wanted to enter or leave a room or eat a snack. "I'm grateful for that, at least," she said.

"It's trade," Jdahya said. "Stay close to Nikanj. Do what it has trusted you to do."

12

Kahguyaht came to see her a few days later. She had been installed in the usual bare room, this one with one bed and two table platforms, a bathroom, and Nikanj who slept so much and so deeply that it too seemed part of the room rather than a living being.

Kahguyaht was almost welcome. It relieved her boredom, and, to her surprise, it brought gifts: a block of tough, thin, white paper-more than a ream-and a handful of pens that said Paper Mate, Parker, and Bic. The pens, Kahguyaht said, had been duplicated from prints taken of centuries-gone originals. This was the first time she had seen anything she knew to be a print re-creation. And it was the first time she had realized that the Oankali re-created nonliving things from prints. She could find no difference between the print copies and the remembered originals.

And Kahguyaht gave her a few brittle, yellowed books- treasures she had not imagined: A spy novel, a Civil War novel, an ethnology textbook, a study of religion, a book about cancer and one about human genetics, a book about an ape being taught sign language and one about the space race of the 1960s.

Lilith accepted them all without comment.

Now that it knew she was serious about looking after Nikanj, it was easier to get along with, more likely to answer if she asked it a question, less ready with its own sarcastic rhetorical questions. It returned several times to sit with her as she attended Nikanj and, in fact, became her teacher, using its body and Nikanj's to help her understand more of Oankali biology. Nikanj slept through most of this. Most often it slept so deeply that its head tentacles did not follow movement.

"It will remember all that happens around it," Kahguyaht said. "It still perceives in all the ways that it would if it were awake. But it cannot respond now. It is not aware now. It is... recording." Kahguyaht lifted one of Nikanj's limp arms to observe the development of the sensory arms. There was nothing to be seen yet but a large, dark, lumpy swelling-a frightening-looking growth.

"Is that the arm itself," she asked, "or will the arm come out of that?"

"That is the arm," Kahguyaht said. "While it's growing, don't touch it unless Nikanj asks you to."

It did not look like anything Lilith would want to touch. She looked at Kahguyaht and decided to take a chance on its new civility. "What about the sensory hand?" she asked. "Nikanj mentioned that there was such a thing."

Kahguyaht said nothing for several seconds. Finally, in a tone she could not interpret, it said, "Yes. There is such a thing."

"If I've asked something that I shouldn't, just tell me," she said. Something about that odd tone of voice made her want to move away from it, but she kept still.

"You haven't," Kahguyaht said, its voice neutral now. "In fact, it's important that you know about the... sensory hand." It extended one of its sensory arms, long and gray and rough-skinned, still reminding her of a blunt, closed elephant's trunk. "All the strength and resistance to harm of this outer covering is to protect the hand and its related organs," it said. "The arm is closed, you see?" It showed her the rounded tip of the arm, capped by a semitransparent material that she knew was smooth and hard.

"When it's like this, it's merely another limb." Kahguyaht coiled the end of the arm, wormlike, reached out, touched Lilith's head, then held before her eyes a single strand of hair, pulled straight in a twist of the arm. "It is very flexible, very versatile, but only another limb." The arm drew back from Lilith, releasing the hair. The semitransparent material at the end began to change, to move in circular waves away to the sides of the tip and something slender and pale emerged from the center of the tip. As she watched, the slender thing seemed to thicken and divide. There were eight fingers-or rather, eight slender tentacles arranged around a circular palm that looked wet and deeply lined. It was like a starfish-one of the brittle stars with long, slender, snakelike arms.

"How does it seem to you?" Kahguyaht asked.

"On Earth, we had animals that looked like that," she replied. "They lived in the seas. We called them starfish."

Kahguyaht smoothed its tentacles. "I've seen them. There is a similarity." It turned the hand so that she could see it from different angles. The palm, she realized, was covered with tiny projections very like the tube feet of a starfish. They were almost transparent. And the lines she had seen on the palm were actually orifices-openings to a dark interior.

There was a faint odor to the hand-oddly flowery. Lilith did not like it and drew back from it after a moment of looking.

Kahguyaht retracted the hand so quickly that it seemed to vanish. It lowered the sensory arm. "Humans and Oankali tend to bond to one ooloi," it told her. "The bond is chemical and not strong in you now because of Nikanj's immaturity. That's why my scent makes you uncomfortable."

"Nikanj didn't mention anything like that," she said suspiciously.

"It healed your injuries. It improved your memory. It couldn't do those things without leaving its mark. It should have told you."

"Yes. It should have. What is this mark? What will it do to me?"

"No harm. You'll want to avoid deep contact-contact that involves penetration of the flesh-with other ooloi, you understand? Perhaps for a while after Nikanj matures, you'll want to avoid all contact with most people. Follow your feelings. People will understand."

"But... how long will it last?"

"It's different with humans. Some linger in the avoidance stage much longer than we would. The longest I've known it to last is forty days."

"And during that time, Ahajas and Dichaan-"

"You won't avoid them, Lilith. They're part of the household. You'll be comfortable with them."

"What happens if I don't avoid people, if I ignore my feelings?"

"If you managed to do that, you'd make yourself sick, at least. You might manage to kill yourself."

"...that bad."

"Your body will tell you what to do. Don't worry." It shifted its attention to Nikanj. "Nikanj will be most vulnerable when the sensory hands begin to grow. It will need a special food then. I'll show you."

"All right."

"You'll actually have to put the food into its mouth."

"I've already done that with the few things it's wanted to eat."

"Good." Kahguyaht rustled its tentacles. "I didn't want to accept you, Lilith. Not for Nikanj or for the work you'll do. I believed that because of the way human genetics were expressed in culture, a human male should be chosen to parent the first group. I think now that I was wrong."

"Parent?"

"That's the way we think of it. To teach, to give comfort, to feed and clothe, to guide them through and interpret what will be, for them, a new and frightening world. To parent."

"You're going to set me up as their mother?"

"Define the relationship in any way that's comfortable to you. We have always called it parenting." It turned toward a wall as though to open it, then stopped, faced Lilith again. "It's a good thing that you'll be doing. You'll be in a position to help your own people in much the same way you're helping Nikanj now."

"They won't trust me or my help. They'll probably kill me."

"They won't."

"You don't understand us as well as you think you do."

"And you don't understand us at all. You never will, really, though you'll be given much more information about us."