Butler, Octavia - Dawn

Lilith shook her head. "Ten? But-"

"It will take some of the negative attention off you. Busy people have less time for fantasizing and fighting."

She moved away from his side to sit facing him. "What is it, Joe? What's wrong?"

"People being people, that's all. You're probably not in any danger now, but you will be soon. You must know that."

She nodded.

"When there are forty of us, will the Oankali take us out of here or-"

"When there are forty of us, and the Oankali decide we're ready, they'll come in. Eventually, they'll take us to be taught to live on Earth. They have a. . . an area of the ship that they've made over into a fragment of Earth. They've grown a small tropical forest there-like the forest we'll be sent to on Earth. We'll be trained there."

"You've seen this place?"

"I spent a year there."

"Why?"

"First learning, then proving I'd learned. Knowing and using the knowledge aren't the same thing."

"No." He thought for a moment. "The presence of the Oankali will bring them together, but it might turn them even more strongly against you. Especially if the Oankali really scare them."

"The Oankali will scare them."

"That bad?"

"That alien. That ugly. That powerful."

"Then. . . don't come into the forest with us. Try to get out of it."

She smiled sadly. "I speak their language, Joe, but I've never yet been able to convince them to change one of their decisions."

"Try, Lilith!"

His intensity surprised her. Had he really seen something she had missed-something he wouldn't tell her? Or was he simply understanding her position for the first time? She had known for a long time that she might be doomed. She had had time to get used to the idea and to understand that she must struggle not against nonhuman aliens, but against her own kind.

"Will you talk to them?" Joseph asked.

She had to think for a moment to realize he meant the Oankali. She nodded. "I'll do what I can," she said. "You and Tate may be right about Awakening people faster, too. I think I'm ready to try that."

"Good. You have a fair core group around you. The new ones you Awaken can work things out in the forest. There they should have more to do."

"Oh, they'll have plenty to do. The tedium of some of it, though. . . wait until I teach you to weave a basket or a hammock or to make your own garden tools and use them to grow your food."

"We'll do what's necessary," he said. "If we can't, then we won't survive." He paused, looked away from her. "I've been a city man all my life. I might not survive."

"If I do, you will," she said grimly.

He broke the mood by laughing quietly. "That's foolishness- but it's a lovely foolishness. I feel the same way about you. You see what comes of being shut up together and having so little to do. Good things as well as bad. How many people will you Awaken tomorrow?"

She had bent her body almost in thirds, arms clasped around doubled knees, head resting on knees. Her body shook with humorless laughter. He had awakened her one night, seemingly out of the blue and asked her if he might come to bed with her. She had had all she could do to stop herself from grabbing him and pulling him in.

But they had not talked about their feelings until now. Everyone knew. Everyone knew everything. She knew, for instance, that people said he slept with her to get special privileges or to escape their prison. Certainly, he was not someone she would have noticed on prewar Earth. And he would not have noticed her. But here, there had been a pull between them from the moment he Awoke, intense, inescapable, acted upon, and now, spoken.

"I'll Awaken ten people as you said," she told him finally. "It seems a good number. It will occupy everyone I would dare to trust to look after a newly Awakened person. As for the others. . . I don't want them free to wander around and cause trouble or get together and cause trouble. I'll double them with you, Tate, Leah, and me."

"Leah?" he said.

"Leah's all right. Surly, moody, stubborn. And hardworking, loyal, and hard to scare. I like her."

"I think she likes you," he said. "That surprises me. I would have expected her to resent you."

Behind him, the wall began to open.

Lilith froze, then sighed and deliberately stared at the floor. When she looked up again, seeming to look at Joseph, she could see Nikanj coming through the opening.

6

She moved over beside Joseph who, leaning against the bed platform, had noticed nothing. She took his hand, held it for a moment between her own, wondering if she were about to lose him. Would he stay with her after tonight? Would he speak to her tomorrow beyond absolute necessity? Would he join her enemies, confirming to them things they only suspected now? What the hell did Nikanj want anyway? Why couldn't it stay out as it had said it would. There: She had finally caught it in a lie. She would not forgive it if that lie destroyed Joseph's feelings for her.

"What is it?" Joseph was saying as Nikanj strode across the room in utter silence and sealed the doorway.

"For God knows what reason, the Oankali have decided to give you a preview," she said softly, bitterly. "You aren't in any physical danger. You won't be hurt." Let Nikanj make a lie of that and she would force it to put her back into suspended animation.

Joseph looked around sharply, froze when he saw Nikanj. After a moment of what Lilith suspected was absolute terror, he jerked himself to his feet and stumbled back against the wall, cornering himself between the wall and the bed platform.

"What is it!" Lilith demanded in Oankali. She stood to face Nikanj. "Why are you here?"

Nikanj spoke in English. "So that he could endure his fear now, privately, and be of help to you later."

A moment after hearing the quiet, androgenous, human sounding voice speak in English, Joseph came out of his corner. He moved to Lilith's side, stood staring at Nikanj. He was trembling visibly. He said something in Chinese- the first time Lilith had heard him speak the language--then somehow, stilled his trembling. He looked at her.

"You know this one?"

"Kaalnikanjl oo Jdahyatediinkahguyaht aj Dinso," she said, staring at Nikanj's sensory arms, remembering how much more human it had looked without them. "Nikanj," she said when she saw Joseph frowning.

"I didn't believe," he said softly. "I couldn't, even though you said it."

She did not know what to say. He was handling the situation better than she had. Of course he had been warned and he was not being kept isolated from other humans. Still, he was doing well. He was as adaptable as she had suspected.

Moving slowly, Nikanj reached the bed and boosted itself up with one hand, folding its legs under it as it settled. Its head tentacles focused sharply on Joseph. "There's no hurry," it said. "We'll talk for a while. If you're hungry, I'll get you something."

"I'm not hungry," Joseph said. "Others may be, though."

"They must wait. They should spend a little time waiting for Lilith, understanding that they're helpless without her."

"They're just as helpless with me," Lilith said softly. "You've made them dependent on me. They may not be able to forgive me for that."

"Become their leader, and there'll be nothing to forgive." Joseph looked at her as though Nikanj had finally said something to distract him from the strangeness of its body. "Joe," she said, "it doesn't mean leader. It means Judas goat."

"You can make their lives easier," Nikanj said. "You can help them accept what is to happen to them. But whether you lead them or not, you can't prevent it. It would happen even if you died. If you lead them, more of them will survive. If you don't, you may not survive yourself." She stared at it, remembered lying next to it when it was weak and helpless, remembered breaking bits of food into small pieces and slowly, carefully feeding it those pieces.