Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago (Xenogenesis Trilogy) (71 page)

“She was a captive of their friends. I don’t think she knew what was going to happen to her.” It hesitated. “They’ve learned that false screams won’t lure us away. Her first screams sounded false because she wasn’t frightened yet. Probably they told her to scream. Then they began to beat her.”

The female moaned. Nikanj turned and went to help Lilith and Tino, who had begun to pull undamaged Lo cloth hammocks and pieces of clothing from the ashes. The fire had not gone completely out, but it was burning down rather than spreading. We didn’t seem to be in any danger. I went over and borrowed one of Tino’s salvaged shirts. He rarely wore them himself, but now, for a while, they would conceal some of my new body tentacles. The more familiar I seemed to the female, the less likely she would be to panic. I was gray-brown now. She would know I was a construct. But not such a startling construct.

She awoke, sat up abruptly, looked around in near panic.

“You’re safe,” I said to her. “You’re not hurt and no one here will hurt you.”

She drew back from me, scrambled away, then froze when she saw my parents and siblings.

“You’re safe,” I repeated. “The people who hurt you are not here.”

That seemed to catch her attention. After all, Humans had injured her, not Oankali. She looked around more carefully, jumped when she saw the Human males sitting nearby.

“They can’t hurt you,” I said. “Even if they’ve hurt you before, they can’t now.”

She stared at me, watched my mouth as I spoke.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.

I sighed, watched her for a while without speaking. She understood me. It was as though it had suddenly occurred to her to pretend not to understand. I had spoken to her in English and her responses had shown me she understood. She had very black hair that reminded me of Tino’s. But hers was loose and uncombed, hanging lank around her narrow, angular brown face. She had not gotten enough to eat for many days. Her body had told me that clearly. But for most of her life, she had been comfortably well nourished. Her body was small, quick, harder muscled than most Human female bodies. Not only had it done hard work, it was probably comfortable doing hard work. It liked to move quickly and eat frequently. It was hungry now.

I went to the tree I had leaned against while I was healing. I’d left my pack there. I found it and brought it back to where the female sat on her knees, watching me. From it I gave her two bananas and a handful of shelled nuts. She didn’t even make a pretense of not wanting them.

I watched her eat and wondered what it would be like to be in contact with her while she ate. How did the food taste and feel to her?

“Why are you staring at me?” she demanded. Fast, choppy English like the firing of guns.

“My name is Jodahs,” I offered. “What’s yours?”

“Marina Rivas. I want to go to Mars.”

I looked away from her, suddenly weary. One more small, thin-boned female to be sacrificed to Human stubbornness. I recalled from examining her that she had never had a child. That was good because her narrow hips were not suitable to bearing children. If her fertility were restored and nothing else changed, she would surely die trying to give birth to her first child. She could be changed, redesigned. I wouldn’t trust myself to do such substantial work, but she must have it done.

“Were you on your way to Lo?” I asked.

“Yes. The ships leave from there, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“You’re from there?”

“Yes.”

“Can I go back with you?”

“We’ll see that you get there. Did your people beat you because you wanted to go to Mars?” Such things had happened. Some resisters killed their “deserters,” as they called those who wanted to emigrate.

“Do they look like my people!” the female demanded harshly. “I was on my way to Lo. When I passed their village, they took me from my canoe and raped me and called me stupid names and made me stay in their pigsty village. The men kept me shut up in an animal pen and they raped me. The women spat on me and put dirt or shit in my food because the men raped me.”

There was so much hatred and anger in her face and voice that I drew back. “I know Humans do such things,” I said. “I understand the biological reasons why they do them, but… I’ve never seen them done.”

“Good. Why should you? Do you have anything else to eat?”

I gave her what I had. She needed it.

“Where did you live before the war?” I asked. She was brown and narrow-eyed and her English was accented in a way I had not heard before. I had siblings who looked a little like her—children of Lilith’s first postwar mate who had come from China. He had been killed by people like the resisters who had shot me.

Aaor came up and stood close so that it could link with me. It was intensely curious about the female. The female stared at it with equal curiosity, but spoke to me.

“I’m from Manila.” Her voice had gone harsh again, as though the words hurt her. “What can that mean to you?”

“The Philippines?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “What do you know about my country?”

I thought for a moment, remembering. “That it was made up of islands, warm and green—some of them like this, I think.” I gestured toward the forest. “That it could have fed everyone easily, but didn’t because some Humans took more than they needed. That it took no part in the last war, but it died anyway.”

“Everything died,” the female said bitterly. “But how do you know even that much? Have you known another Filipina?”

“No, but a few people from the Philippines have come through Lo. Some of my adult siblings told me about them.”

“Do you know any names?”

“No.”

She sighed. “Maybe I’ll see them on Mars. Who is this?” She looked at Aaor.

“My closest sibling, Aaor.”

She stared at us both and shook her head. “I could almost stay,” she said. “It doesn’t seem as bad as it once did—the Oankali, the idea of … different children. …”

“You should stay,” I told her. “Mars may not be green during your lifetime. You won’t be able to go outside the shelters unprotected. Mars is cold and dry.”

“Mars is Human. Now.”

I said nothing.

“I’m tired,” she said after a while. “Does anyone care if I sleep?”

I cleared some ground for her and spread a piece of Lo cloth on it.

“You two are children, aren’t you?” she asked Aaor.

“Yes,” Aaor answered.

“So? Will you be a woman someday?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand that. It bothers me more than most things about you people. Come and lie here. I know your kind like to touch everyone. If you want to, you can touch me.”

I took that to include me, too, and pressed two pieces of Lo cloth edge-to-edge so that we could have a wider sleeping mat.

“I didn’t invite you,” she said to me. “You look too much like a man.”

“I’m not male,” I said.

“I don’t care. You look male.”

“Let it sleep here,” Aaor said. “The insects won’t come near you with one of us on either side.”

She stared at me. “Really? You scare the bugs away?”

“Our scent repels them.”

She sniffed, trying to smell us. In fact, she did smell me—unconsciously. I smelled ooloi. Interesting, perhaps attractive to an unmated person.

“All right,” she said. “I’ve never yet caught an Oankali or a construct in a lie. Come and sleep here. You’re honestly not male?”

“I’m honestly not male.”

“Come keep the bugs off, then.”

We kept the bugs off and kept her warm and investigated her thoroughly, though we were careful not to touch her in any way that would alarm her. I thought hands would alarm her, so I only touched her with my longest sensory tentacles. This startled her at first, but once she realized she wasn’t being hurt, she put up with our curiosity. She never knew that I helped her fall asleep.

And I never knew how it happened that during the night she moved completely out of contact with Aaor and against me so that I could reach her with most of my head and body tentacles.

I discovered that I had slightly altered the structure of her pelvis during the night. I hadn’t intended to try such a thing. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to try it. Yet it was done. The female could bear children now.

I detached myself from her and sat up, missing the feel of her at once. It was dawn and my parents were already up. Nikanj and Ahajas were cooking something in a suspended pot made of layers of Lo cloth. Lilith was looking through the ashes of the night’s fire. Tino and Dichaan where out of sight, but I could hear and smell them nearby. Last night, once my attention was on Marina Rivas, I had almost stopped sensing them. I had not known then how completely she had absorbed my attention.

Nikanj left the belly of cloth and its weight of cooking food—nut porridge. The Humans would not want it until they had tasted it. Then they would not be able to get enough of it. It might actually contain some nuts from wild trees. Lilith or Tino might have gathered some. More likely, though, all the nuts had been synthesized by Nikanj and Ahajas from the substance of Ahajas’s body. We could eat a great many things that Humans could not or would not touch. Then we could use what we’d eaten to create something more palatable for Humans. My Human parents shrugged and said this was no more than Lo did every day—which was true. But resisters were always repelled if they knew. So we didn’t tell them unless they asked directly.

Nikanj came over to me and checked me carefully.

“You’re all right,” it said. “You’re doing fine. The female is good for you.”

“She’s going to Mars.”

“I heard.”

“I wish I could keep her here.”

“She’s very strong. I think she’ll survive Mars.”

“I changed her a little. I didn’t mean to, but—”

“I know. I’m going to check her very thoroughly just before we leave her, but from what I’ve seen in you, you did a good job. I wish she were not so old. If she were younger, I would help you persuade her to stay.”

She was as old as my Human mother. She might live a century more here on Earth where there was plenty to eat and drink and breathe, where there were Oankali to repair her injuries. I could live five times that long—unless I mated with someone like Marina. Then I would live only as long as I could keep her alive.

“If she were younger, I would persuade her myself,” I said.

Nikanj coiled a sensory arm around my neck briefly, then went to give the male captives their morning drugging. Best to do that before they woke.

Marina was already awake and looking at me. “There’s food,” I said. “It doesn’t look very interesting, but it tastes good.”

She extended a hand. I took it and pulled her to her feet. Four bowls from Lo had been salvaged from the fire. We took two of them down to the river, washed them, washed ourselves, and swam a little. This was my first experience with breathing underwater. I slipped into it so naturally and comfortably that I hardly noticed that I was doing something new.

I heard Marina’s voice calling me and I realized I’d drifted some distance downstream. I turned and swam back to her. She had not taken off her clothing—short pants that had once been longer and a ragged shirt much too big for her.

I had taken off mine. She had stared at me then. Now she stared again. No visible genitals. In fact, no reproductive organs at all.

“I don’t understand,” she said as I walked out of the water. “You must not care what I see or you wouldn’t have undressed. I don’t understand how you can have … nothing.”

“I’m not an adult.”

“But …”

I put my shorts and Tino’s shirt back on.

“Why do you wear clothes?”

“For Humans. Don’t you feel more comfortable now?”

She laughed. I hadn’t heard her laugh before. It was a harsh, sharp shout of joy. “I feel more comfortable!” she said. “But take your clothes off if you want to. What difference does it make?”

My underarms itched painfully. Because there was nothing else for me to do, I took her hand, picked up the bowls, and headed back toward camp and breakfast.

She walked close to me and didn’t shrink away from my sensory tentacles.

“I don’t think you have to worry about becoming a woman,” she said.

“No.”

“You’re almost a man now.”

I stepped in front of her and stopped. She stopped obligingly and watched me, waiting.

“I’m not male. I never will be. I’m ooloi.”

She almost leaped away from me. I saw the shadow of abrupt movement, not quite completed in her muscles. “How
can
you be?” she demanded. “You have two arms, not four.”

“So far,” I said.

She stared at my arms. “You … You’re truly ooloi?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “No wonder I had dreams about you last night.”

“Oh? Did you like them?”

“Of course I liked them. I liked you. And I shouldn’t have. You look too male. Nothing male should have been appealing to me last night—after what those bastards did to me. Nothing male should be appealing to me for a long, long time.”

“You’re healed.”

“Yes. You did that?”

“Part of it.”

“There’s more to healing than just closing wounds.”

“You’re healed.”

She looked at me for a time, then looked away at the trees. “I must be,” she said.

“More than healed.”

She put her head to one side. “What?”

“When your fertility is restored, you’ll be able to have children without trouble. You couldn’t have done that before.”

Her expression changed to one of remembered pain. “My mother died when I was born. People said she should have had a cesarean, you know?”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t. I don’t know why.”

“You need to be changed a little genetically so that your daughters will be able to give birth safely.”

“Can you do that?”

“I won’t have time. We’ll be escorting you and the male prisoners to Lo today. I’m not experienced enough to do that kind of work anyway.”

“Who’ll do it?”

“An adult ooloi.”

“No!”

“Yes,” I said, taking her by the arms. “Yes. You can’t condemn your daughters to die the way your mother did. Why do adult ooloi frighten you?”