Butler, Octavia - Adulthood Rites

She moved closer to him, rested warm, calloused hands on his forearms. He could smell her. Crushed plants—the way a fresh-cut lawn used to smell. Food, pepper and sweet. Woman. He reached out to her, touched the large breasts. He could not help himself. He had wanted to touch them since he had first seen them. She lay down on her side, drawing him down facing her. It occurred to him a moment later that Nikanj was behind him. That she had deliberately positioned him so that Nikanj would be behind him.

He sat up abruptly, turned to look at the ooloi. It had not moved. It gave no sign that it was even alive.

“Lie here with me for a while,” she said.

“But—”

“We’ll go to Nikanj in a little while. Won’t we.”

“I don’t know.” He lay down again, now glad to keep his back to it. “I still don’t understand what it does. I mean, so it gives me good dreams. How? And what else will it do? Will it use me to make you pregnant?”

“Not now. Akin is too young. It

might collect some sperm from you. You won’t be aware of it. When they have the chance, they stimulate a woman to ovulate several eggs. They collect the eggs, store them, collect sperm, store it. They can keep sperm and eggs viable and separate in their bodies for decades. Akin is the child of a man who died nearly thirty years ago.”

“I heard there was a time limit—that they could only keep sperm and eggs alive for a few months.”

“Progress. Before I left the ship, someone came up with a new method of preservation. Nikanj was one of the first to learn it.”

Tino looked at her closely, searched her smooth, broad face. “So you’re what? In your fifties?”

“Fifty-five.”

He sighed, shook his head against the arm he had rested it on. “You look younger than I do. I’ve at least got a few gray hairs. I remember I used to worry that I really was the Human the Oankali had failed with, fertile and aging normally, and that all I’d really get out of it was old.”

“Nikanj wouldn’t have failed with you.”

She was so close to him that he couldn’t help touching her, moving his fingers over the fine skin. He drew back, though, when she mentioned the ooloi’s name.

“Can’t it go?” he whispered. “Just for a while.”

“It chooses not to,” she said in a normal voice. “And don’t bother whispering. It can hear your heartbeat from where it’s sitting. It can hear your subvocalizations—the things you

say to yourself in words but not quite out loud. That may be why you thought it could read minds. And it obviously will not go away.”

“Can we?”

“No.” She hesitated. “It isn’t Human, Tino. This isn’t like having another man or woman in the room.”

“It’s worse.”

She smiled wearily, leaned over him, and kissed him. Then she sat up. “I understand,” she said. “I felt the way you do once. Maybe it’s just as well.” She hugged herself and looked at him almost angrily. Frustration? How long had it been for her? Well, the damned ooloi could not always be there. Why wouldn’t it go away, wait its turn? Failing that, why was he so shy of it? Its presence did bother him more than another Human’s would have. Much more.

“We’ll join Nikanj, Tino, once I’ve told you one more thing,” she said. “That is, we’ll join it if you decide you still want anything to do with me.”

“With you? But it wasn’t you I was having trouble with. I mean—”

“I know. This is something else—something I’d rather never mention to you. But if I don’t, someone else will.” She drew a deep breath. “Didn’t you wonder about me? About my name?”

“I thought you should have changed it. It isn’t a very popular name.”

“I know. And changing it wouldn’t do much good. Too many people know me. I’m not just someone stuck with an unpopular name, Tino. I’m the one who made it unpopular. I’m Lilith Iyapo.”

He frowned, began to shake his head, then stopped. “You’re not the one who

who

”

“I awakened the first three groups of Humans to be sent back to Earth. I told them what their situation was, what their options were, and they decided I was responsible for it all. I helped teach them to live in the forest, and they decided it was my fault they had to give up civilized life. Sort of like blaming me for the goddamn war! Anyway, they decided I had betrayed them to the Oankali, and the nicest thing some of them called me was Judas. Is that the way you were taught to think of me?”

“I

Yes.”

She shook her head. “The Oankali either seduced them or terrified them, or both. I, on the other hand, was nobody. It was easy for them to blame me. And it was safe.

“So now and then when we get ex-resisters traveling through Lo and they hear my name, they assume I have horns. Some of the younger ones have been taught to blame me for everything—as though I were a second Satan or Satan’s wife or some such idiocy. Now and then one of them will try to kill me. That’s one of the reasons I’m so touchy about weapons here.”

He stared at her for a while. He had watched her closely as she spoke, trying to see guilt in her, trying to see the devil in her. In Phoenix, people had said things like that—that she was possessed of the devil, that she had sold first herself, then Humanity, that she was the first to go willingly to an Oankali bed to become their whore and to seduce other Humans

“What do your people say about me?” she asked.

He hesitated, glanced at Nikanj. “That you sold us.”

“For what currency?”

There had always been some debate about that. “For the right to stay on the ship and for

powers. They saw you were born Human, but the Oankali made you like a construct.”

She made a sound that she may have intended as a laugh. “I begged to go to Earth with the first group I awakened. I was supposed to have gone. But when the time came, Nika wouldn’t let me. It said the people would kill me once they got me away from the Oankali. They probably would have. And they would have felt virtuous and avenged.”

“But

you are different. You’re very strong, fast

”

“Yes. That wasn’t the Oankali way of paying me off. It was their way of giving me some protection. If they hadn’t changed me a little, someone in the first group would have killed me while I was still awakening people. I’m somewhere between Human and construct in ability. I’m stronger and faster than most Humans, but not as strong or as fast as most constructs. I heal faster than you could, and I’d recover from wounds that would kill you. And of course I can control walls and raise platforms here in Lo. All Humans who settle here are given that ability. That’s all. Nikanj changed me to save my life, and it succeeded. Instead of killing me, the first group I awakened killed Akin’s father, the man I had paired with

might still be with. One of them killed him. The others watched, then went on following that one.”

There was a long silence. Finally Tino said, “Maybe they were afraid.”

“Is that what you were told?”

“No. I didn’t know about that part at all. I even heard

that

perhaps you didn’t like men at all.”

She threw back her head in startling, terrible laughter. “Oh, god. Which of my first group is in Phoenix?”

“A guy named Rinaldi.”

“Gabe? Gabe and Tate. Are they still together?”

“Yes. I didn’t realize

Tate never said anything about being with him then. I thought they had gotten together here on Earth.”

“I awoke them both. They were my best friends for a while. Their ooloi was Kahguyaht—ooan Nikanj.”

“What Nikanj?”

“Nikanj’s ooloi parent. It stayed aboard the ship with its mates and raised another trio of children. Nikanj told it Gabe and Tate wouldn’t be leaving the resisters any time soon. It was finally willing to acknowledge Nikanj’s talent, and it couldn’t bring itself to accept other Humans.”