Adulthood Rites x-2 Read online

  He slowly became aware that two people did talk to him. Two females, both Human, one small and yellow-haired and pale. One slightly larger, dark-haired, and sun-browned.

  He was glad when they were with him.

  He dreaded their coming.

  They aroused him. Their scents reached deep into him and drew him to them. Yet he could not move. He lay, being drawn and drawn and utterly still. It was torment, but he preferred it to solitude.

  The females talked to him. After a while, he came to know that they were Tate and Yori. And he remembered all that he knew of Tate and Yori.

  Tate sat close to him and said his name. She told him how well she felt and how her crops were growing and what different people in the settlement were doing. She did her sewing and her writing while sitting with Akin. She kept a journal.

  Yori kept one, too. Yori’s became a study of him. She told him so. He was in metamorphosis, she said. She had never seen metamorphosis before, but she had heard it described. Already there were small, new sensory tentacles on his back, on his head, on his legs. His skin was gray now, and he was losing his hair. She said he must find a way to tell them if he wished to be touched. She said Tate was all right, and Akin must find a way to communicate. She said anything he asked would be done for him. She would see to it. She said he must not worry about being alone because she would see that someone was always with him.

  This comforted him more than she could know. People in metamorphosis had little tolerance for solitude.

  Gabe sat with him. Gabe and the two women had lifted the bench he lay on and carried it and him into a small sunlit room.

  Sometimes Gabe tempted him with food or water. He could not know that the scent of the women tempted Akin more strongly than anything Gabe could place near him. He would have wanted food before he fell asleep if he had gone into metamorphosis normally. He would have eaten, then slept. He had heard that ooloi did not sleep straight through much of their second metamorphosis. Lilith had told him that Nikanj slept most of the time, but woke up now and then to eat and talk. Eventually it would fall into another deep sleep. Males and females slept through most of their one metamorphosis. They did not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate. The women stirred Akin, focused his attention, but the smells of food and water did not interest him. He noticed them because they were intermittent. They were environmental changes that he could not fail to notice.

  Gabe brought him plants, and he realized after a while that the plants were some of those that he had enjoyed eating when he was younger, upon which Gabe had seen him grazing. The man remembered. That pleased him and eased the sudden shock when, one day, Gabe touched him.

  There was no warning. As Gabe had decided to come into the room and separate Akin and Tate, he now decided to do one of the things Yori had told him and Tate not to do.

  He simply placed his hand on Akin’s back and shook Akin.

  After a moment, Akin shuddered. His small, new sensory tentacles moved for the first time, elongating reflexively toward the touching hand.

  Gabe jerked his hand away. He would not have been hurt, but he did not know that, and Akin could not tell him. Gabe did not touch him again.

  Pilar and Mateo Leal took their turns sitting with Akin. Tino’s parents. Mateo had killed people Akin had cared for very much. For a time, his presence made Akin intensely uncomfortable. Then, because he had no choice, Akin adjusted.

  Kolina Wilton sat with him sometimes but never spoke to him. One day, to his surprise, Macy Wilton sat with him. So the man was not always lying drunk in the street.

  Macy came back several times. He carved things of wood while he sat with Akin, and the smells of his woods were an announcement of his coming. He began to talk to Akin—to speculate about what had happened to Amma and Shkaht, to speculate about children he might someday father, to speculate about Mars.

  This told Akin for the first time that Gabe and Tate had spread the story, the hope that he had brought.

  Mars.

  “Not everyone wants to go,” Macy said. “I think they’re crazy if they stay here. I’d give anything to see homo sap have another chance. Lina and I will go. And don’t you worry about those others!”

  At once, Akin began to worry. There was no way to hurry metamorphosis. Bringing it on so traumatically had nearly killed him. Now there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and know that when Humans disagreed, they sometimes fought, and when they fought, all too often they killed one another.

  5

  Akin’s metamorphosis dragged on. He was silent and motionless for months as his body reshaped itself inside and out. He heard and automatically remembered argument after argument over his mission, his right to be in Phoenix, the Human right to Earth. There was no resolution. There was cursing, shouting, threats, fighting, but no resolution. Then, on the day his silence ended, there was a raid. There was shooting. One man was killed. One woman was carried off.

  Akin heard the noise but did not know what was happening. Pilar Leal was with him. She stayed with him until the shooting was over. Then she left him for a few moments to see that her husband was all right. When she returned, he was trying desperately to speak.

  Pilar gave a short, startled scream, and he knew he must be doing something that she could see. He could see her, hear her, smell her, but he was somehow distant from himself. He had no image of himself and was not sure whether he was causing any part of his body to move. Pilar’s reaction said he was.

  He managed to make a sound and knew that he had made it. It was nothing more than a hoarse croak, but he had done it deliberately.

  Pilar crept toward him, stared at him, “ Est´ despierto? ” she demanded. Was he awake?

  “SÍ,” he said, and gasped and coughed. He had no strength. He could hear himself, but he still felt distanced from his body. He tried to straighten it and could not.

  “Do you have pain?” she asked.

  “No. Weak. Weak.”

  “What can I do? What can I get for you?”

  He could not answer for several seconds. “Shooting,” he said finally. “Why?”

  “Raiders. Dirty bastards! They took Rudra. They killed her husband. We killed two of them.”

  Akin wanted to slip back into the refuge of unconsciousness. They were not killing each other over the Mars decision, but they were killing each other. There always seemed to be reason for Humans to kill each other. He would give them a new world—a hard world that would demand cooperation and intelligence. Without either, it would surely kill them. Could even Mars distract them long enough for them to breed their way out of their Contradiction?

  He felt stronger and tried to speak to Pilar again. He discovered she was gone. Yori was with him now. He had slept. Yes, he had a stored memory of Yori coming in, Pilar reporting that he had spoken, Pilar going out. Yori speaking to him, then understanding that he was asleep.

  “Yori?”

  She jumped, and he realized she had fallen asleep herself. “So you are awake,” she said.

  He took a deep breath. “It isn’t over. I can’t move much yet.”

  “Should you try?”

  He attempted a smile. “I am trying.” And a moment later, “Did they get Rudra back?” He had not known the woman, though he remembered seeing her during his stay in Phoenix. She was a tiny brown woman with straight black hair that would have swept the ground if she had not bound it up. She and her husband were Asians from a place called South Africa.

  “Men went after her. I don’t think they’re back yet.”

  “Are there many raids?”

  “Too many. More all the time.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Well, because we’re flawed. Your people said so.” He had not heard her speak so bitterly before.

  “There were not so many raids before.”

  “People had hope here when you were a baby. We were more formidable. And

  our men had not begun raiding then.”

  “Phoenix men raiding?”

  “Humanity extinguishing itself in boredom, hopeless
ness, bitterness

  I’m surprised we’ve lasted this long.”

  “Will you go to Mars, Yori?”

  She looked at him for several seconds. “It’s true?”

  “Yes. I have to prepare the way. After that, Humanity will have a place of its own.”

  “What will we do with it, I wonder?”

  “Work hard to keep it from killing you. You’ll be able to live there when I’ve prepared it, but your lives will be hard. If you’re careless or can’t work together, you’ll die.”

  “We can have children?”

  “I can’t arrange that. You’ll have to let an ooloi do it.”

  “But it will be done!”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “Then I’m going.” She watched him for a moment. “When?”

  “Years from now. Some of you will go early, though. Some of you must see and understand what I do so that you’ll understand from the beginning how your new world works.”

  She sat watching him silently.

  “And I need help with other resisters,” he said. He strained for a moment, trying to lift a hand, trying to unknot his body. It was as though he had forgotten how to move. Yet this did not concern him. He knew he was simply trying to rush things that could not be rushed. He could talk. That had to be enough.

  “I probably look a lot less Human than I did,” he continued. “I won’t be able to approach people who used to know me. I don’t like being shot or having to threaten people. I need Humans to talk to other Humans and gather them in.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “What?”

  “You need mostly Oankali for that. Or adult constructs.”

  “But—”

  “You need people who won’t be shot on sight. Sane people only shoot Oankali by accident. You need people who won’t be taken prisoner and everything they say ignored. That’s the way Human beings are now. Shoot the men. Steal the women. If you have nothing better to do, go raid your neighbors.”

  “That bad?”

  “Worse.”

  He sighed. “Will you help me, Yori?”

  “What shall I do?”

  “Advise me. I’ll need Human advisors.”

  “From what I’ve heard, your mother should be one of them.”

  He tried to read her still face. “I didn’t realize you knew who she was.”

  “People tell me things.”

  “I’ve chosen a good advisor, then.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think I can leave Phoenix except with the group that goes to Mars. I’ve trained others, but I’m the only formally trained doctor. That’s a joke, really. I was a psychiatrist. But at least I have formal training.”

  “What’s a psychiatrist?”

  “A doctor who specializes in the treatment of mental illness.” She gave a bitter laugh. “The Oankali say people like me dealt with far more physical disorders than we were capable of recognizing.”

  Akin said nothing. He needed someone like Yori who knew the resisters and who seemed not to be afraid of the Oankali. But she must convince herself. She must see that helping Humanity move to its new world was more important than setting broken bones and treating bullet wounds. She probably already knew this, but it would take time for her to accept it. He changed the subject.

  “How do I look, Yori? How much have I changed?”

  “Completely.”

  “What?”

  “You look like an Oankali. You don’t sound like one, but if I didn’t know who you were, I would assume you were a small Oankali. Perhaps a child.”

  “Shit!”

  “Will you change any more?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes. “My senses aren’t as sharp as they will be. But the shape I have is the shape I will have.”

  “Do you mind, really?”

  “Of course I mind. Oh, god. How many resisters will trust me now? How many will even believe I’m a construct?”

  “It doesn’t matter. How many of them trust each other? And they know they’re Human.”

  “It’s not like that everywhere. There are resister settlements close to Lo that don’t fight so much.”

  “You might have to take them, then, and give up on some of the people here.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “I can.”

  He looked at her. She had placed herself so that he could see her with his eyes even though he could not move. She would go back to Lo with him. She would advise him and observe the metamorphosis of Mars.

  “Do you need food yet?” she asked.

  The idea disgusted him. “No. Soon, perhaps, but not now.”

  “Do you need anything?”

  “No. But thank you for seeing that I was never left alone.”

  “I had heard it was important.”

  “Very. I should begin to move in a few more days. I’ll still need people around.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “Did you choose the people who’ve been sitting with me—other than the Rinaldis, I mean?”

  “Tate and I did.”

  “You did a good job. Will they all immigrate to Mars, do you think?”

  “That’s not why we chose them.”

  “Will they immigrate?”

  After a while she nodded. “They will. So will a few others.”

  “Send me the others—if you don’t think my looks now will scare them.”

  “They’ve all seen Oankali before.”

  Did she mean to insult him? he wondered. She spoke in such a strange tone. Bitterness and something else. She stood up.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She paused, not changing expression.

  “My perception isn’t what it will be eventually. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  She stared at him with unmistakable hostility. “I was thinking that so many people have suffered and died,” she said. “So many have become

  unsalvageable. So many more will be lost.” She stopped, breathed deeply. “Why did the Oankali cause this? Why didn’t they offer us Mars years ago?”

  “They would never offer you Mars. I offer you Mars.”

  “Why? ”

  “Because I’m part of you. Because I say you should have one more chance to breed yourselves out of your genetic Contradiction. “

  “And what do the Oankali say?”

  “That you can’t grow out of it, can’t resolve it in favor of intelligence. That hierarchical behavior selects for hierarchical behavior, whether it should or not. That not even Mars will be enough of a challenge to change you.” He paused. “That to give you a new world and let you procreate again would

  would be like breeding intelligent beings for the sole purpose of having them kill one another.”

  “That wouldn’t be our purpose,” she protested.

  He thought about that for a moment, wondered what he should say. The truth or nothing. The truth. “Yori, Human purpose isn’t what you say it is or what I say it is. It’s what your biology says it is—what your genes say it is.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “

  yes.”

  “Then why—”

  “Chance exists. Mutation. Unexpected effects of the new environment. Things no one has thought of. The Oankali can make mistakes.”

  “Can we?”

  He only looked at her.

  “Why are the Oankali letting you do this?”

  “I want to do it. Other constructs-think I should. Some will help me. Even those who don’t think I should understand why I want to. The Oankali accept this. There was a consensus. The Oankali won’t help, except to teach. They won’t set foot on Mars once we’ve begun. They won’t transport you.” He tried to think of a way to make her understand. “To them, what I’m doing is terrible. The only thing that would be more terrible would be to murder you all with my own hands.”

  “Not reasonable,” she whispered.

  “You can’t see and read genetic structure the way they do. It isn’t like reading words on a page. They feel it and know it. They

  There’s no English word for what they do. To say they know is completely inadequate. I was made to perceive this before I was ready. I u
nderstand it now as I couldn’t then.”

  “And you’ll still help us.”

  “I’ll still help. I have to.”

  She left him. The expression of hostility was gone from her face when she looked back at him before closing the wooden door. She looked confused, yet hopeful.

  “I’ll send someone to you,” she said, and closed the door.

  6

  Akin slept and knew only peripherally that Gabe came in to sit with him. The man spoke to him for the first time, but he did not awaken to answer. “I’m sorry,” Gabe said once he was certain Akin was asleep. He did not repeat the words or explain them.

  Gabe was still there some time later when the noise began outside. It wasn’t loud or threatening, but Gabe went out to see what had happened. Akin awoke and listened.

  Rudra had been rescued, but she was dead. Her captors had beaten and raped her until she was so badly hurt that her rescuers could not get her home alive. They had not even been able to catch or kill any of her captors. They were tired and angry. They had brought back Rudra’s body to be buried with her husband. Two more people lost. The men cursed all raiders and tried to figure out where this group had come from. Where should the reprisal raid take place?

  Someone—not Gabe—brought up Mars.

  Someone else told him to shut up.

  A third person asked how Akin was.

  “Fine,” Gabe said. There was something wrong with the way he said it, but Akin could not tell what it was.

  The men were silent for a while.

  “Let’s have a look at him,” one of them said suddenly.

  “He didn’t steal Rudra or kill Mehtar,” Gabe said.

  “Did I say he did? I just want to look at him.”

  “He looks like an Oankali now. Just like an Oankali. Yori says he’s not too thrilled about that, but there’s nothing he can do about it.”

  “I heard they could change their shapes after metamorphosis,” someone said. “I mean, like those chameleon lizards that used to be able to change color.”

  “They hoped to use something they got from us to be able to do that,” Gabe said. “Cancer, I think. But I haven’t seen any sign that they’ve been able to do it.”