Butler, Octavia - Adulthood Rites

“I remember Ahajas,” she said softly. “She was so big

I thought she was male. Then Kahguyaht, our ooloi, told me Oankali females are like that. ‘Plenty of room inside for children,’ it said. ‘And plenty of strength to protect the children, born and unborn.’ Gabe asked what males did if females did all that. ‘They seek out new life,’ it said. ‘Males are seekers and collectors of life. What ooloi and females can do, males must do.’ Gabe thought that meant ooloi and females could do without males. Kahguyaht said no, it meant the Oankali as a people would eventually die without males. I don’t think Gabe ever believed that.” She sighed. She had been thinking aloud, not really talking to Akin. She jumped when Akin spoke to her.

“Kahguyaht ooan Nikanj?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

He stared at her for several seconds. “Let me taste you,” he said finally. She could consent or refuse. She would not be frightened or disgusted or dangerous.

“How would you do that?” she asked.

“Pick me up.”

She stooped and lifted him into her arms.

“Would you sit down and let me do it without making you tired?” he asked. “I know I’m heavy to you.”

“Not that heavy.”

“It won’t hurt or anything,” he said. “People only feel it when the ooloi do it. Then they like it.”

“Yeah. Go ahead and do it.”

He was surprised that she was not afraid of being poisoned. She leaned against a tree and held him while he tasted her neck, studied her.

“Regular little vampire,” he heard her say before he was lost in the taste of her. There were echoes of Kahguyaht in her. Nikanj had shared its memory of its own ooloi parent, had let Akin study that memory so thoroughly that Akin felt he knew Kahguyaht.

Tate herself was fascinating—very unlike Lilith, unlike Joseph. She was somewhat like Leah and Wray, but not truly like anyone he had tasted. There was something truly strange about her, something wrong.

“You’re pretty good,” she said when he drew back and looked into her face. “You found it, didn’t you?”

“I found

something. I don’t know what it is.”

“A nasty little disease that should have killed me years ago. Something I apparently inherited from my mother. Though at the time of the war, we were only beginning to suspect that she had inherited it. Huntington’s disease, it was called. I don’t know what the Oankali did for me, but I never had any symptoms of it.”

“How do you know that’s what it is?”

“Kahguyaht told me.”

That was good enough.

“It was a

wrong gene,” he said. “It drew me and I had to look at it. Kahguyaht didn’t want it ever to start to work. I don’t think it will—but you should be near Kahguyaht so that it could keep watch. It should have replaced that gene.”

“It said it would if we stayed with it. It said it would have to watch me for a while if it did any real tampering. I

couldn’t stay with it.”

“You wanted to.”

“Did I?” She shifted him in her arms, then put him down.

“You still do.”

“Have you had all you wanted to eat out here?”

“Yes.”

“You follow me, then. I’ve got this fruit to carry.” She stooped and lifted the large basket of fruit to her head. When she was satisfied with its placement, she stood up and turned back toward the village.

“Tate?” he called.

“What?” She did not look at him.

“It went back to the ship, you know. It’s still Dinso. It will have to come to Earth sometime. But it did not want to live here with any of the Humans it could have. I never knew why before.”

“Nobody ever mentioned us?”

Us, Akin thought. Tate and Gabe. They had both known Kahguyaht. And Gabe was probably the reason Tate had not gone to Kahguyaht. “Kahguyaht would come back if Nikanj called it,” he said.

“You really didn’t know about us?” she insisted.

“No. But the walls in Lo aren’t like the walls here. You can’t hear through Lo walls. People seal themselves in and no one knows what they’re saying.”

She stopped, put one hand up to balance the basket, then stared down at him. “Good god!” she said.

It occurred to him then that he should not have let her know he could hear through Phoenix walls.

“What is Lo!” she demanded. “Is it just a village, or

”

Akin did not know what to say, did not know what she wanted.

“Do the walls really seal?” she asked.

“Yes, except at the guest house. You’ve never been there?”

“Never. Traders and raiders have told us about it, but never that it was

What is it, for godsake! A baby ship?”

Akin frowned. “It could be someday. There are so many on Earth, though. Maybe Lo will be one of the males inside one of those that become ships.”

“But

but someday it will leave Earth?”

Akin knew the answer to this question, but he realized he must not give it. Yet he liked her and found it difficult to lie to her. He said nothing.

“I thought so,” she said. “So someday the people of Lo—or their descendants—will be in space again, looking for some other people to infect or afflict or whatever you call it.”

“Trade.”

“Oh, yeah. The goddamn gene trade! And you want to know why I can’t go back to Kahguyaht.”

She walked away, leaving him to make his own way back to the village. He made no effort to keep up with her, knowing he could not. The little she had guessed had upset her enough to make her not care that he, valuable being that he was, was left alone in the groves and gardens where he might be stolen. How would she have reacted if he had told her all he knew—that it was not only the descendants of Humans and Oankali who would eventually travel through space in newly mature ships. It was also much of the substance of Earth. And what was left behind would be less than the corpse of a world. It would be small, cold, and as lifeless as the moon. Maturing Chkahichdahk left nothing useful behind. They had to be worlds in themselves for as long as it took the constructs in each one to mature as a species and find another partner species to trade with.

The salvaged Earth would finally die. Yet in another way, it would live on as single-celled animals lived on after dividing. Would that comfort Tate? Akin was afraid to find out.

He was tired, but he had nearly reached the houses when Tate returned for him. She had already put away her basket of fruit. Now she picked him up without a word and carried him back to her home. He fell asleep in her arms before they reached it.

12

No one came for him.

No one would take him home or let him go.

He felt both unwanted and wanted too much. If his parents could not come because of his sibling’s birth, then others should have come. His parents had done this kind of service for other families, other villages who had had their children stolen. People helped each other in searching for and recovering children.

And yet, his presence seemed to delight the people of Phoenix. Even those who were disturbed by the contrast between his tiny body and his apparent maturity grew to like having him around. Some always had a bit of food ready for him. Some asked question after question about his life before he was brought to them. Others liked to hold him or let him sit at their feet and tell him stories of their own prewar lives. He liked this best. He learned not to interrupt them with questions. He could learn afterward what kangaroos, lasers, tigers, acid rain, and Botswana were. And since he remembered every word of their stories, he could easily think back and insert explanations where they should go.

He liked it less when people told him stories that were clearly not true—stories peopled by beings called witches or elves or gods. Mythology, they said; fairy tales.