Butler, Octavia - Adulthood Rites

He was not tied. He was watched more closely than before, but it seemed the resisters had as great an aversion to tying or confining people as he did.

Neci finally left with a group of salvagers going home—men and women carrying wealth on their backs. They took two of the guns with them. There had been a general agreement among new salvagers and old that Phoenix would begin to manufacture guns. Tate was against it. Yori was so strongly against it that she threatened to move to another resister village. Nevertheless, guns would be made.

“We’ve got to protect ourselves,” Gabe said. “Too many of the raiders have guns now, and Phoenix is too rich. Sooner or later, they’ll realize it’s easier to steal from us than carry on honest trade.”

Tate slept several nights alone or with Akin once the decision was made. Sometimes she hardly slept at all, and Akin wished he could comfort her the way Amma and Shkaht had comforted him. Sleep could be a great gift. But he could have given it only with the help of a close Oankali-born sibling.

“Would raiders begin raiding you the way they raid us?” he asked her one night as they lay together in a hammock.

“Probably.”

“Why haven’t they already?”

“They have occasionally—trying to steal metal or women. But Phoenix is a strong town—plenty of people willing to fight if they have to. There are smaller, weaker settlements that are easier pickings.”

“Are guns really a bad idea, then?”

In the dark she tried to stare at him. She couldn’t have seen him—although he saw her clearly. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I like a lot of the people in Phoenix. And I remember what raiders did to Tino. They didn’t have to. They just did it. Later, though, while I was with them, they didn’t really seem

I don’t know. Most of the time, they were like the men in Phoenix.”

“They probably came from someplace like Phoenix—some village or town. They got sick of one pointless, endless existence and chose another.”

“Pointless because resisters can’t have children?”

“That’s it. It means a lot more than I could ever explain to you. We don’t get old. We don’t have kids, and nothing we do means shit.”

“What would it mean

if you had a kid like me?”

“We have got a kid like you. You.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Go to sleep, Akin.”

“Why are you afraid of guns?”

“They make killing too easy. Too impersonal. You know what that means?”

“Yes. I’ll ask if you say something I don’t understand.”

“So we’ll kill more of each other than we already do. We’ll learn to make better and better guns. Someday, we’ll take on the Oankali, and that will be the end of us.”

“It would. What do you want to happen instead?”

Silence.

“Do you know?”

“Not extinction,” she whispered. “Not extinction in any form. As long as we’re alive, we have some chance.”

Akin frowned, trying to understand. “If you had kids in the old way, your prewar way, with Gabe, would that mean you and Gabe were becoming extinct?”

“It would mean we weren’t. Our kids would be Human like us.”

“I’m Human like you—and Oankali like Ahajas and Dichaan.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Are you?” She touched his face. “Why?”

“I need to. It’s part of me, too. It concerns me, too.”

“Not really.”

Abruptly he was angry. He hated her soft condescension. “Then why am I here! Why are you here! You and Gabe would be down in Phoenix if it didn’t concern me. I would be back in Lo. Oankali and Human have done what Human male and female used to do. And they made me and Amma and Shkaht, and they’re no more extinct than you would be if you had kids with Gabe!”

She turned slightly—turned her back to him as much as she could in a hammock. “Go to sleep, Akin.”

But he did not sleep. It was his turn to lie awake thinking. He understood more than she thought. He recalled his argument with Amma and Shkaht that Humans should be permitted their own Akjai division—their own hedge against disaster and true extinction. Why should it be so difficult? There were, according to Lilith, bodies of land surrounded by vast amounts of water. Humans could be isolated and their ability to reproduce in their own way restored to them. But then what would happen when the constructs scattered to the stars, leaving the Earth a stripped ruin. Tate’s hopes were in vain.

Or were they?

Who among the Oankali was speaking for the interests of resister Humans? Who had seriously considered that it might not be enough to let Humans choose either union with the Oankali or sterile lives free of the Oankali? Trade-village Humans said it, but they were so flawed, so genetically contradictory that they were often not listened to.

He did not have their flaw. He had been assembled within the body of an ooloi. He was Oankali enough to be listened to by other Oankali and Human enough to know that resister Humans were being treated with cruelty and condescension.

Yet he had not even been able to make Amma and Shkaht understand. He did not know enough yet. These resisters had to help him learn more.

20

Akin was with the people of Phoenix for over a year. He spent most of this time in the hills, watching the salvaging and taking part when the salvagers would let him. One of the men set him to cleaning small, decorative items—jewelry, figurines, small bottles, jars, eating utensils. He knew he was given the job mainly to keep him from underfoot, but the work pleased him. He tasted everything before he cleaned it and afterward. Often he found Human leavings protected within containers. There were bits of hair, skin, nail. From some of these he salvaged lost Human genetic patterns that ooloi could recreate if they needed the Human genetic diversity. Only an ooloi could tell him what was useful. He memorized everything to give to Nikanj someday.

Once Sabina caught him tasting the inside of a small bottle. She tried to snatch the bottle away. Fortunately, he managed to dodge her hands and withdraw the thin, searching filaments of his tongue before she broke them. She should have gone back to Phoenix when her group left. She had done her share of what she called grubbing in the dirt, but she had stayed. Akin believed she had stayed because of him. He had not forgotten that she had been willing to take part in cutting off Amma’s and Shkaht’s tentacles. But she seemed brighter than Neci, more able, more willing to learn.

“What was this called?” he asked her once there was no chance of her injuring him.

“It was a perfume bottle. You keep it out of your mouth.”

“Where were you going?” he asked.

“What?”

“If you have time, I’ll tell you why I put things in my mouth.”

“All kids put things in their mouths—and sometimes they poison themselves.”

“I must put things in my mouth to understand them. And I must try to understand them. Not to try would be like having hands and eyes and yet always being tied and blindfolded. It would make me

not sane.”

“Oh, but—”

“And I’m too old now to poison myself. I could drink the fluid that used to be in this bottle and nothing would happen. It would pass through me quickly, almost unchanged, because it isn’t very dangerous. If it were very dangerous, my body would either change its structure and neutralize it or

contain it in a kind of sealed flesh bottle and expel it. Do you see?”

“I

understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure I believe you.”

“It’s important that you understand. Especially you.”

“Why?”

“Because just now, you almost hurt me a lot. You could have injured me more than any poison could. And you could have made me sting you. If I did that, you would die. That’s why.”