Imago x-3 Read online

  The female stepped to me, touched my face, examined a little of my hair. Humans who hadn’t mated among us never really learned to touch us. At best, they annoyed us by rubbing their hands over sensory spots, and once their hands found the spots they never liked them.

  The female jerked her hand back when her fingers discovered the one below my left ear.

  “They’re a little like eyes that can’t close to protect themselves,” I said. “It doesn’t exactly hurt us when you touch them, but we don’t like you to.”

  “So what? You have to teach people how to touch you?”

  I smiled and took her hand between my own. “Hands are always safe,” I said. I left her standing there, watching me. I could see her through sensory tentacles in my hair. She stood there until the male came out and drew her inside.

  2

  I went back to Nikanj and sat near it while it took care of family matters, while it met with people from the Oankali homeship, Chkahichdahk, which circled the Earth out beyond the orbit of the moon, while it exchanged information with other ooloi or took biological information from my siblings. We all brought Nikanj bits of fur, flesh, pollen, leaves, seeds, spores, or other living or dead cells from plants or animals that we had questions about or that were new to us.

  No one paid any attention to me. There was an odd comfort in that. I could examine them all with my newly sharpened senses, see what I had never seen before, smell what I had never noticed. I suppose I seemed to doze a little. For a time, Aaor, my closest sibling—my Oankali-born sister—came to sit beside me. She was the child of my Oankali mother, and not yet truly female, but I had always thought of her as a sister. She looked so female—or she had looked female before I began to change. Now she

  Now it looked the way it always should have. It looked eka in the true meaning of the word—a child too young to have developed sex. That was what we both were—for now. Aaor smelled eka. It could literally go either way, become male or female. I had always known this, of course, about both of us. But now, suddenly, I could no longer even think of Aaor as she. It probably would be female someday, just as I would probably soon become the male I appeared to be. The Human-born rarely change their apparent sex. In my family, only one Human-born had changed from apparent female to actual male. Several Oankali-born had changed, but most knew long before their metamorphosis that they felt more drawn to become the opposite of what they seemed.

  Aaor moved close and examined me with a few of its head and body tentacles. “I think you’re close to metamorphosis,” it said. It has not spoken aloud. Children learned early that it was ill mannered to speak aloud among themselves if others nearby were having ongoing vocal conversations. We spoke through touch signals, signs, and multisensory illusions transmitted through head or body tentacles—direct neural stimulation.

  “I am,” I answered silently. “But I feel

  different.”

  “Show me.”

  I tried to re-create my increased sensory awareness for it, but it drew away.

  After a time, it touched me again lightly. In tactile signals only, it said, “I don’t like it. Something’s wrong. You should show Dichaan.”

  I did not want to show Dichaan. That was odd. I hadn’t minded showing Aaor. I felt no aversion to showing Nikanj—except that it would probably send me to my fathers.

  “What about me disturbs you?” I asked Aaor.

  “I don’t know,” it answered. “But I don’t like it. I’ve never felt it before. Something is wrong.” It was afraid, and that was odd. New things normally drew its attention. This new thing repelled it.

  “It isn’t anything that will hurt you,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  It got up and went away. It didn’t say anything. It just left. That was out of character. Aaor and I had always been close. It was only three months younger than I was, and we’d been together since it was born. It had never walked away from me before. You only walk away from people you could no longer communicate with.

  I went over to Nikanj. It was alone now. One of our neighbors had just left it. It focused a cone of its long head tentacles on me, finally noticing that there was something different about me.

  “Metamorphosis, Eka?”

  “I think so.”

  “Let me check. Your scent is

  strange.”

  The tone of its voice was strange. I had been around when siblings of mine went into metamorphosis. Nikanj had never sounded quite that way.

  It wrapped the tip of one sensory arm around my arm and extended its sensory hand. Sensory hands were ooloi appendages. Nikanj did not normally use them to check for metamorphosis. It could have used its head or body tentacles just like anyone else, but it was disturbed enough to want to be more precise, more certain.

  I tried to feel the filaments of the sensory hand as they slipped through my flesh. I had never been able to before, but I felt them clearly now. There was no pain, of course. No communication. But I felt as though I had found what I had been looking for. The deep touch of the sensory hand was air after a long, blundering swim underwater. Without thinking I caught its second sensory arm between my hands.

  Something went wrong then. Nikanj didn’t sting me. It wouldn’t do that. But something happened. I startled it. No, I shocked it profoundly—and it transmitted to me the full impact of that shock. Its multisensory illusions felt more real than things that actually happened, and this was worse than an illusion. This was a sudden, swift cycling of its own intense surprise and fear. From me to it to me. Closed loop.

  I lost focus on everything else. I wasn’t aware of collapsing or of being caught in Nikanj’s two almost Human-looking strength arms. Later, I examined my latent memories of this and knew that for several seconds I had been simply held in all four of Nikanj’s arms. It had stood utterly still, frozen in shock and fear.

  Finally, its shock ebbing, its fear growing, it put me on a broad platform. It focused a sharp cone of head tentacles on me and stood rock still again, observing. After a time it lay down beside me and helped me understand why it was so upset.

  But by then, I knew.

  “You’re becoming ooloi,” it said quietly.

  I began to be afraid for myself. Nikanj lay alongside me. Its head and body tentacles did not touch me. It offered no comfort or reassurance, no movement, no sign that it was even conscious.

  “Ooan?” I said. I hadn’t called it that for years. My older siblings called our parents by their names, and I had begun early to imitate them. Now, though, I was afraid. I did not want “Nikanj.” I wanted “Ooan,” the parent I had most often gone to or been carried to for healing or teaching. “Ooan, can’t you change me back? I still look male.”

  “You know better,” it said aloud.

  “But

  ”

  “You were never male, no matter how you looked. You were eka. You know that.”

  I said nothing. All my life, I had been referred to as “he” and treated as male by my Human parents, by all the Humans in Lo. Even Oankali sometimes said “he.” And everyone had assumed that Dichaan and Tino were to be my same-sex parents. People were supposed to feel that way so that I would be prepared for the change that should have happened.

  But the change had gone wrong. Until now, no construct had become ooloi. When people reached adulthood and were ready to mate, they went to the ship and found an Oankali ooloi or they signaled the ship and an Oankali ooloi was sent down.

  Human-born males were still considered experimental and potentially dangerous. A few males from other towns had been sterilized and exiled to the ship. Nobody was ready for a construct ooloi. Certainly nobody was ready for a Human-born construct ooloi. Could there be a more potentially deadly being?

  “Ooan!” I said desperately.

  It drew me against it, its head and body tentacles touching, then penetrating my flesh. Its sensory arm coiled around me so that the sensory hand could seat itself at the back of my neck. This was the preferred ooloi grip with Humans and with many constructs. Both brain and spinal cord were easily accessible t
o the slender, slender filaments of the sensory hand.

  For the first time since I stopped nursing, Nikanj drugged me—immobilized me—as though it could not trust me to be still. I was too frightened even to be offended. Maybe it was right not to trust me.

  Still, it did not hurt me. And it did not calm me. Why should it calm me? I had good reason to be afraid.

  “I should have noticed this,” it said aloud. “I should have

  I constructed you to look very male—so male that the females would be attracted to you and help convince you that you were male. Until today, I thought they had. Now I know I was the one who was convinced. I deceived myself into carelessness and blindness.”

  “I’ve always felt male,” I said. “I’ve never thought about being anything else.”

  “I should have sent you to spend more time with Tino and Dichaan.” It paused for a moment, rustled its unengaged body tentacles. It did that when it was thinking. A dozen or so body tentacles rubbed together sounded like wind blowing through the trees. “I liked having you around too much,” it said. “All my children grow up and turn away from me, turn to their same-sex parents. I thought you would, too, when the time came.”

  “That’s what I thought. I never wanted to do it, though.”

  “You didn’t want to go to your fathers?”

  “No. I only left you when I knew I would be in the way.”

  “I never felt that you were in the way.”

  “I tried to be careful.”

  It rustled its tentacles again, repeated, “I should have noticed

  .”

  “You were always lonely,” I said. “You had mates and children, but to me, you always tasted

  empty in some way—as though you were hungry, almost starving.”

  It said nothing for some time. It did not move, but I felt safely enveloped by it. Some Humans tried to give you that feeling when they hugged you and irritated your sensory spots and pinched your sensory tentacles. Only the Oankali could give it, really. And right now, only Nikanj could give it to me. In all its long life, it had had no same-sex child. It had used all its tricks to protect us from becoming ooloi. It had used all its tricks to keep itself agonizingly alone.

  I think I had always known how lonely it was. Surely, of my five parents, I had always loved it best. Apparently my body had responded to it in the way an Oankali child’s would. I was taking on the sex of the parent I had felt most drawn to.

  “What will happen to me?” I asked after a long silence.

  “You’re healthy,” it said. “Your development is exactly right. I can’t find any flaw in you.”

  And that meant there was no flaw. It was a good ooloi. Other ooloi came to it when they had problems beyond their perception or comprehension.

  “What will happen?” I repeated.

  “You’ll stay with us.”

  No qualification. It would not allow me to be sent away. Yet it had agreed with other Oankali a century before that any accidental construct ooloi must be sent to the ship. There it could be watched, and any damage it did could be spotted and corrected quickly. On the ship, its every move could be monitored. On Earth, it might do great harm before anyone noticed.

  But Nikanj would not allow me to be sent away. It had said so.

  3

  Quickly Nikanj called all my parents together. I would sleep soon. Metamorphosis is mostly deep sleep while the body changes and matures. Nikanj wanted to tell the others while I was still awake.

  My Human mother came in, looked at Nikanj and me, then walked over to me and took my hands. No one had said anything aloud, but she knew something was wrong. She certainly knew that I was in metamorphosis. She had seen that often enough.

  She looked closely at me, holding her face near mine, since her eyes were her only organs of sight. Then she looked at Nikanj. “What’s wrong with him? This isn’t just metamorphosis.”

  Through her hands, I had begun to study her flesh in a way I never had before. I knew her flesh better than I knew anyone’s, but there was something about it now—a flavor, a texture I had never noticed.

  She took her hands from me abruptly and stepped away. “Oh, good go

  .”

  Still, no one had spoken to her. Yet she knew.

  “What is it?” my Human father asked.

  My mother looked at Nikanj. When it did not speak, she said, “Jodahs

  Jodahs is becoming ooloi.”

  My Human father frowned. “But that’s impos—” He stopped, followed my mother’s gaze to Nikanj. “It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Nikanj said softly.

  He went to Nikanj, stood stiffly over it. He looked more frightened than angry. “How could you let this happen?” he demanded. “Exile, for godsake! Exile for your own child!”

  “No, Chka,” Nikanj whispered.

  “Exile! It’s your law, you ooloi!”

  “No.” It focused a cone of head tentacles on its Oankali mates. “The child is perfect. My carelessness has allowed it to become ooloi, but I haven’t been careless in any other way.” It hesitated. “Come. Know for certain. Know for the people.”

  My Oankali mother and father joined with it in a tangle of head and body tentacles. It did not touch them with its sensory arms, did not even uncoil the arms until Dichaan took one arm and Ahajas took the other. In unison, then, all three focused cones of head tentacles on my two Human parents. The Humans glared at them. After a time, Lilith went to the Oankali, but did not touch them. She turned and held one arm out to Tino. He did not move.

  “Your law!” he repeated to Nikanj.

  But it was Lilith who answered. “Not law. Consensus. They agreed to send accidental ooloi to the ship. Nika believes it can change the agreement.”

  “Now? In the middle of everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if it can’t?”

  Lilith swallowed. I could see her throat move. “Then maybe we’ll have to leave Lo for a while—live apart in the forest.”

  He went to her, looked at her the way he does sometimes when he wants to touch her, maybe to hold her the way Humans hold each other in the guest area. But Humans who accept Oankali mates give up that kind of touching. They don’t give up wanting to do it, but once they mate Oankali, they find each other’s touch repellent.

  Tino shifted his attention to Nikanj. “Why don’t you talk to me? Why do you leave her to tell me what’s going on?”

  Nikanj extended a sensory arm toward him.

  “No! Goddamnit, talk to me! Speak aloud!”

  “

  all right,” Nikanj whispered, its body bent in an attitude of deep shame.

  Tino glared at it.

  “I cannot restore

  your same-sex child to you,” it said.

  “Why did you do this? How could you do it?”

  “I made a mistake. I only realized earlier today what I had allowed to happen. I

  I would not have done it deliberately, Chka. Nothing could have made me do it. It happened because after so many years I had begun to relax about our children. Things have always gone well. I was careless.”

  My Human father looked at me. It was as though he looked from a long way away. His hands moved, and I knew he wanted to touch me, too. But if he did, it would go wrong the way it had earlier with my mother. They couldn’t touch me anymore. Within families, people could touch their same-sex children, their unsexed children, their same-sex mates, and their ooloi mates.

  Now, abruptly, my Human father turned and grasped the sensory arm Nikanj offered. The arm was a tough, muscular organ that existed to contain and protect the essential ooloi sensory and reproductive organs. It probably could not be injured by bare Human hands, but I think Tino tried. He was angry and hurt, and that made him want to hurt others. Of my two Human parents, only he tended to react this way. And now the only being he could turn to for comfort was the one who had caused all his trouble. An Oankali would have opened a wall and gone away for a while. Even Lilith would have done that. Tino tried to give pain. Pain for pain.

  Nikanj drew him again
st its body and held him motionless as it comforted him and spoke silently with him. It held him for so long that my Oankali parents raised platforms and sat on them to wait. Lilith came to share my platform, though she could have raised her own. My scent must have disturbed her, but she sat near me and looked at me.

  “Do you feel all right?” she said.

  “Yes. I’ll fall asleep soon, I think.”

  “You look ready for it. Does my being here bother you?”

  “Not yet. But it must bother you.”

  “I can stand it.”

  She stayed where she was. I could remember being inside her. I could remember when there was nothing in my universe except her. I found myself longing to touch her. I hadn’t felt that before. I had never before been unable to touch her. Now I discovered a little of the Human hunger to touch where I could not.

  “Are you afraid?” Lilith asked.

  “I was. But now that I know I’m all right, and that you’ll all keep me here, I’m fine.”

  She smiled a little. “Nika’s first same-sex child. It’s been so lonely.”

  “I know.”

  “We all knew,” Dichaan said from his platform. “All the ooloi on Earth must be feeling the desperation Nikanj felt. The people are going to have to change the old agreement before more accidents happen. The next one might be a flawed ooloi.”

  A flawed natural genetic engineer—one who could distort or destroy with a touch. Nothing could save it from confinement on the ship. Perhaps it would even have to be physically altered to prevent it from functioning in any way as an ooloi. Perhaps it would be so dangerous that it would have to spend its existence in suspended animation, its body used by others for painless experimentation, its consciousness permanently shut off.

  I shuddered and lay down again. At once, both Nikanj and Tino were beside me, reconciled, apparently, by their concern for me. Nikanj touched me with a sensory arm, but did not expose the sensory hand. “Listen, Jodahs.”

  I focused on it without opening my eyes.

  “You’ll be all right here. I’ll stay with you. I’ll talk to the people from here, and when you’ve reached the end of this first metamorphosis, you’ll remember all that I’ve said to them— and all they’ve said.” It slipped a sensory arm around my neck and the feel of it there comforted me. “We’ll take care of you,” it said.