Butler, Octavia - Dawn

Elsewhere in the room, small groups of people, supporting one another, confronted the ooloi without panic. The drug had quieted them just enough. The room was a scene of quiet, strangely gentle chaos.

Lilith watched Kahguyaht with Tate and Gabriel. The ooloi was sitting down now, facing them, talking to them, even giving them time to stare at the way its joints bent and the way its sensory tentacles followed movement. When it moved, it moved very slowly. When it spoke, Lilith could hear none of the hectoring contempt or amused tolerance that she was used to.

"You know that one?" Joseph asked.

"Yes. It's one of Nikanj's parents. 1 never got along with it.,'

Across the room, Kahguyaht's head tentacles swept in her direction for a moment and she knew it had heard. She considered saying more, giving it an earful-figuratively.

But before she could begin, Nikanj arrived. It stood before Joseph and looked at him critically. "You're doing very well," it said. "How do you feel?"

"I'm all right."

"You will be." It glanced at Tate and Gabriel. "Your friends won't be, I think. Not both of them, anyway."

"What? Why not?"

Nikanj rustled its tentacles. "Kahguyaht will try. I warned it, and it admits I have a talent for humans, but it wants them badly. The woman will survive, but the man may not."

"Why!" Lilith demanded.

"He may choose not to. But Kahguyaht is skillful. Those two humans are the calmest in the room apart from you two." It focused for a moment on Joseph's hands, on the fact that he had gouged one with the nails of the other and that the gouged hand was dripping blood onto the floor.

Nikanj shifted its attention, even turning its body away from Joseph. Its instinct was to help, to heal a wound, stop pain. Yet it knew enough to let Joseph go on hurting himself for now.

"What are you doing, foretelling the future?" Joseph asked. His voice was a harsh whisper. "Gabe will kill himself?"

"Indirectly, he might. I hope not. I can't foretell anything. Maybe Kahguyaht will save him. He's worth saving. But his past behavior says he will be hard to work with." It reached out and took Joseph's hands, apparently unable to stand the gouging any longer.

"You were only given a weak, ooloi-neutral drug in your food," it told him. "I can help you with something better."

Joseph tried to pull away, but it ignored his effort. It examined the hand he had injured, then further tranquilized him, all the while talking to him quietly.

"You know I won't hurt you. You're not afraid of being hurt or of pain. And your fear of my strangeness will pass eventually. No, be still. Let your body go limp. Let it relax. If your body is relaxed, it will be easier for you to handle your fear. That's it. Lean back against this wall. I can help you maintain this state without blurring your intellect. You see?"

Joseph turned his head to look at Nikanj, then turned away, his movements slow, almost languid, belying the emotion behind them. Nikanj moved to sit next to him and maintain its hold on him. "Your fear is less than it was," it said. "And even what you feel now will pass quickly."

Lilith watched Nikanj work, knowing that it would drug Joseph only lightly-perhaps stimulate the release of his own endorphins and leave him feeling relaxed and slightly high. Nikanj's words, spoken with quiet assurance, only reinforced new feelings of security and well-being.

Joseph sighed. "I don't understand why the sight of you should scare me so," Joseph said. He did not sound frightened. "You don't look that threatening. Just. . . very different."

"Different is threatening to most species," Nikanj answered. "Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it's true for you." Nikanj smoothed its head tentacles. "It's safer for your people to overcome the feeling on an individual basis than as members of a large group. That's why we've handled this the way we have." It looked around at individuals and pairs of humans, each with an ooloi.

Nikanj focused on Lilith. "It would have been easier for you to be handled this way-with drugs, with an adult ooloi."

"Why wasn't I?"

"You were being prepared for me, Lilith. Adults believed you would be best paired with me during my subadult stage. Jdahya believed he could bring you to me without drugs, and he was right."

Lilith shuddered. "I wouldn't want to go through anything like that again."

"You won't. Look at your friend Tate."

Lilith turned and saw that Tate had extended a hand to Kahguyaht. Gabriel grabbed it and hauled it back, arguing.

Tate said only a few words while Gabriel said many, but after a while, he let her go. Kahguyaht had not moved or spoken. It waited. It let Tate look at it again, perhaps build up her courage again. When she extended her hand again, it seized the hand in a coil of sensory arm in a move that seemed impossibly swift, yet gentle, nonthreatening. The arm moved like a striking cobra, yet there was that strange gentleness. Tate did not even seem startled.

"How can it move that way?" Lilith murmured.

"Kahguyaht was afraid she would not have the courage to finish the gesture," Nikanj said. "It was right, I think."

"I drew back any number of times."

"Jdahya had to make you do all the work yourself. He couldn't help."

"What will happen now?" Joseph asked.

"We'll stay with you for several days. When you're used to us, we'll take you to the training floor we've created-the forest." It focused on Lilith. "For a little while, you won't have any duties. I could take you and your mate outside for a while, show him more of the ship."

Lilith looked around the room. There were no more struggles, no manifest terror. People who could not control themselves were unconscious. Others were totally focused on their ooloi and suffering through confused combinations of fear and drug-induced well-being.

"I'm the only human who has any idea what's going on," she said. "Some of them might want to talk to me."

Silence.

"Yeah. What about it, Joe? Want to look around outside?"

He frowned. "What just didn't get said?"

She sighed. "The humans here aren't going to want us near them for a while. In fact, you may not want them near you. It's a reaction to the ooloi drugs. So we can stay here and be ignored or we can go outside."

Nikanj coiled the end of one sensory arm around her wrist, prompting her to consider a third possibility. She said nothing, but the eagerness that suddenly blossomed in her was so intense, it was suspicious.

"Let go!" she said.

It released her, but was now completely focused on her. It had felt her body's leap of response to its wordless suggestion- or to its chemical suggestion.

"Did you do that?" she demanded. "Did you. . . inject something."

"Nothing." It wrapped its free sensory arm around her neck. "Oh, but I will 'inject something.' We can go out later." it stood up, bringing them both up with it.

"What?" Joseph said as he was hauled to his feet. "What's happening?"

No one answered him, but he did not resist being guided into Lilith's bedroom. As Lilith sealed the doorway, he asked again, "What's going on?"

Nikanj slid its sensory arm from Lilith's neck. "Wait," it told her. Then it focused on Joseph, releasing him, but not moving away. "The second time will be the hardest for you. I left you no choice the first time. You could not have understood what there was to choose. Now you have some small idea. And you have a choice."

He understood now. "No!" he said sharply. "Not again."

Silence.

"I'd rather have the real thing!"

"With Lilith?"

"Of course." He looked as though he would say something more, but he glanced at Lilith and fell silent.

"Rather with any human than with me," Nikanj supplied softly.