Butler, Octavia - Dawn

She left him, took her food and joined Tate, Gabriel, and Leah.

"Not bad," Tate said when people had resumed their own conversations. "Clear warning to everyone. It's overdue."

"It won't work," Leah said. "These people don't know each other. What do they care if they have to start again?"

"They care," Gabriel told her. Even with his blue-black beard, he was one of the best looking men Lilith had ever seen. And he was still sleeping exclusively with Tate. Lilith liked him, but she was aware that he did not quite trust her. She could see that in his expression when she caught him watching her sometimes. Yet he was careful to keep her goodwill-keep his options open.

"They've made personal ties here," he said to Leah. "Think what they had before: War, chaos, family and friends dead. Then solitary. A jail cell and shit to eat. They care very much. So do you."

She turned to face him angrily, mouth already open, but the handsome face seemed to disarm her. She sighed and nodded sadly. For a moment she seemed close to tears.

"How many times can you have everyone taken from you and still have the will to start again?" Tate muttered.

As many times as it took, Lilith thought wearily. As many times as human fear, suspicion, and stubbornness made necessary. The Oankali were as patient as the waiting Earth.

She realized that Gabriel was staring at her.

"You're still worried about them, aren't you?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I think they believed you. All of them, not just Van Weerden and Jean."

"1 know. They'll believe me for a little while. Then some of them will decide I'm lying to them or that I've been lied to."

"Are you sure you haven't?" Tate asked.

"I'm sure I have," Lilith said bitterly. "By omission, at least."

"But then-"

"This is what I know," Lilith said: "Our rescuers, our captors are extraterrestrials. We are aboard their ship. I've seen and felt enough-including weightlessness-to be convinced that it is a ship. We're in space. And we're in the hands of people who manipulate DNA as naturally as we manipulate pencils and paintbrushes. That's what I know. That's what I've told you all. And if any of you decide to behave as though it isn't true, we'll all be lucky if we're just put to sleep and split up."

She looked at the three faces and forced a weary smile.

"End of speech," she said. "I'd better get something for Joseph."

"You should have gotten him out here," Tate said.

"Don't worry about it," Lilith told her.

"You could bring me a meal now and then," Gabriel said to her as Lilith left them.

"See what you've done!" Tate called after her.

Lilith found herself smiling an unforced smile as she took more food from the cabinets.. It was inevitable that some of the people she Awakened would disbelieve her, dislike her, distrust her. At least there were others she could talk to, relax with. There was hope if she could only keep the skeptics from self-destructing.

9

For a time, Joseph would not speak or take food from her hands. Once she understood this, she sat with him to wait. She had not Awakened him when she came back to the room, had sealed the room and slept beside him until his movements woke her. Now she sat with him, worried but feeling no real hostility from him. He did not seem to resent her presence.

He was sorting out his feelings, she thought. He was trying to understand what had happened.

She had put a few pieces of fruit on the bed between them. She had said, knowing he would not answer, "It was a neurosensory illusion. Nikanj stimulates nerves directly, and we remember or create experiences to suit the sensations. On a physical level, Nikanj feels what we feel. It can't read our thoughts. It can't get away with hurting us-unless it's willing to suffer the same pain." She hesitated. "It said it strengthened you a little. You'll have to be careful at first, and exercise. You won't get hurt easily. if something does happen to you you'll heal the way I do."

He had not spoken, had not looked at her, but she knew he had heard. There was nothing vacant about him.

She sat with him, waited, oddly comfortable, nibbling at the fruit now and then. After a time, she lay back, feet on the floor, body stretched across the bed. The movement attracted him.

He turned, stared at her as though he had forgotten she was there. "You should get up," he said. "The light's coming back. Morning."

"Talk to me," she said.

He rubbed his head. "It wasn't real? Not any of it?"

"We didn't touch each other."

He grabbed her hand and held it. "That thing. . . did it all."

"Neural stimulation."

"How?"

"They hook into our nervous systems somehow. They're more sensitive than we are. Anything we feel a little, they feel a lot-and they feel it almost before we're conscious of it. That helps them stop doing anything painful before we notice that they've begun."

"They've done it to you before?"

She nodded.

"With. . . other men?"

"Alone or with Nikanj's mates."

Abruptly, he got up and began to pace.

"They aren't human," she said.

"Then how can they. . .? Their nervous systems can't be like ours. How can they make us feel. . . what I felt?"

"By pushing the right electrochemical buttons. I don't claim to understand it. It's like a language that they have a special gift for. They know our bodies better than we do."

"Why do you let them. . . touch you?"

"To have changes made. The strength, the fast healing-"

He stopped in front of her, faced her. "Is that all?" he demanded.

She stared at him, seeing the accusation in his eyes, refusing to defend herself. "I liked it," she said softly. "Didn't you?"

"That thing will never touch me again if I have anything to say about it."

She did not challenge this.

"I've never felt anything like that in my life," he shouted.

She jumped, but said nothing.

"If a thing like that could be bottled, it would have out sold any illegal drug on the market."

"I'm going to Awaken ten people this morning," she said. "Will you help?"

"You're still going to do that?"

"Yes."

He breathed deeply. "Let's go then." But he did not move. He still stood watching her. "Is it. . . like a drug?" he asked.

"You mean am I addicted?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. I was happy with you. I didn't want Nikanj here."

"I don't want him here again."

"Nikanj isn't male-and I doubt whether it really cares what either of us wants."

"Don't let him touch you! If you have a choice, keep away from him!"

The refusal to accept Nikanj's sex frightened her because it reminded her of Paul Titus. She did not want to see Paul Titus in Joseph.

"It isn't male, Joseph."

"What difference does that make!"

"What difference does any self-deception make? We need to know them for what they are, even if there are no human parallels-and believe me, there are none for the ooloi." She got up, knowing that she had not given him the promise he wanted, knowing that he would remember her silence. She unsealed the doorway and left the room.

10

Ten new people.

Everyone was kept busy trying to keep them out of trouble and give them some idea of their situation. The woman Peter was helping laughed in his face and told him he was crazy when he mentioned, as he said, "the possibility that our captors might somehow be extraterrestrials. . ."

Leah's charge, a small blond man, grabbed her, hung on, and might have raped her if he had been bigger or she smaller. She stopped him from doing any harm, but Gabriel had to help her get him off. She was surprisingly tolerant of the man's efforts. She seemed more amused than angry.

Nothing the new people did for the first few minutes was taken seriously or held against them. Leah's attacker was simply held until he stopped trying to get at her, until he grew quiet and began to look around at the many human faces, until he began to cry.