Imago x-3 Read online

  “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?”

  “They don’t frighten me. My response to them frightens me. I feel

  as though I’m not in control of myself anymore. I feel drugged—as though they could make me do anything.”

  “You won’t be their prisoner. And you won’t be dealing with unmated ooloi. The ooloi who changes you won’t want anything from you.”

  “I would rather have you do it—or someone like you.”

  “I’m a construct ooloi. The first one. There is no one else like me.”

  She looked at me for a little longer, then pulled me closer to her and drew a long, weary breath. “You’re beautiful, you know? You shouldn’t be, but you are. You remind me of a man I knew once.” She sighed again. “Damn.”

  9

  Back to Lo.

  We gave the drugged prisoners to the people of Lo. A house would be grown for them from the substance of Lo and they would not be let out of it until a shuttle came for them. Then they would be transferred to the ship. They understood what was to happen to them, and even drugged, they asked to be spared, to be released. The one who had called Lilith and Tino animals began to cry. Nikanj drugged him a little more and he seemed to forget why he had been upset. That would be his life now. Once he was aboard the ship, one ooloi would drug him regularly. He would come to look forward to it—and he would not care what else was done with him.

  I took Marina to the guest area before Nikanj was free to check her. I didn’t want to watch it examine her. I got the impression that it was perfectly willing not to touch her. There must have been too much of my scent on her to make her seem still alone and unrelated.

  She kissed me before I left her. I think it was an experiment for her. For me it was an enjoyment. It let me touch her a little more, sink filaments of sensory tentacles into her along the lengths of our bodies. She liked that. She shouldn’t have. I was supposed to be too young to give pleasure. She liked it anyway.

  “I’ll send someone to change you genetically,” I said after a time. “Don’t be afraid. Let your children have the same chance you have.”

  “All right.”

  I held her a little longer, then left her. I asked Tehkorahs to check her and make the necessary adjustment.

  It stood with Wray Ordway, its male Human mate, and Wray smiled and gave me a look of understanding and amusement. He was one of the few people in Lo to speak for me when the exile decision was being made. “A child is a child,” he said through Tehkorahs. “The more you treat it like a freak, the more it will behave like one.” I think people like him eased things for me. They made Earth exile feel less objectionable to the truly frightened people who wanted me safely shut away on the ship.

  “You know I’ll take care of the female,” Tehkorahs said. “She seemed to like you very much.”

  I felt my head and body tentacles flatten to my skin in remembered pleasure. “Very much.”

  Wray laughed. “I told you it would be sexually precocious— just like the construct males and females.”

  Tehkorahs looped a sensory tentacle around his neck. “I’m not surprised. Every gene trade brings change. Jodahs, let me check you. The female won’t want to see me for a while. You’ve left too much of yourself with her.”

  I stepped close to it and it released Wray and examined me quickly, thoroughly. I felt its surprise before it let me go. “You’re much more in control now,” it said. “I can’t find anything wrong with you. And if your memories of the female are accurate—”

  “Of course they are!”

  “Then I probably won’t find anything wrong with her either. Except for the genetic problem.”

  “She’ll cooperate when you’re ready to correct that.”

  “Good. You look like her, you know.”

  “What?”

  “Your body has been striving to please her. You’re more brown now—less gray. Your face is changed subtly.”

  “You look like a male version of her,” Wray said. “She probably thought you were very handsome.”

  “She said so,” I admitted amid Wray’s laughter. “I didn’t know I was changing.”

  “All ooloi change a little when they mate,” Tehkorahs said. “Our scents change. We fit ourselves into our mates’ kin group. You may fit in better than most of us—just as your descendants will fit more easily when they find a new species for the gene trade.”

  If I ever had descendants.

  The next day, the family gathered new supplies and left Lo for the second time. I had had one more night to sleep in the family house. I slept with Aaor the way I always used to before my metamorphosis. I think I made it as lonely as I felt myself now that Marina was gone. And that night I gave Aaor, Lo, and myself large, foul-smelling sores.

  1

  We didn’t stop at the island we had intended to live on. It was too close to Pascual. Living there would have made us targets for more Human fear and frustration. We followed the river west, then south, traveling when we wanted to, resting when we were tired—drifting, really. I was restless, and drifting suited me. The others simply seemed not content with any likely campsite we found. I suspected that they wouldn’t be content again until they returned to Lo to stay.

  We edged around Human habitations very carefully. Humans who saw us either stared from a distance or followed us until we left their territory. None approached us.

  Twelve days from Lo, we were still drifting. The river was long with many tributaries, many curves and twists. It was good to walk along the shaded forest floor, following the sound and smell of it, and thinking about nothing at all. My fingers and toes became webbed on the third day, and I didn’t bother to correct them. I was wet at least as often as I was dry. My hair fell out and I developed a few more sensory tentacles. I stopped wearing clothing, and my coloring changed to gray-green.

  “What are you doing?” my Human mother asked. “Letting your body do whatever it wants to?” Her voice and posture expressed stiff disapproval.

  “As long as I don’t develop an illness,” I said.

  She frowned. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes. Deformity is as bad as illness.”

  I walked away from her. I had never done that before.

  Fifteen days out of Lo, someone shot at us with arrows. Only Lilith was hit. Nikanj caught the archer, drugged him unconscious, destroyed all his weapons, and changed the color of his hair. It had been deep brown. It would be colorless from now on. It would look all white. Finally Nikanj encouraged his face to fall into the permanent creases that this male’s behavior and genetic heritage had dictated for his old age. He would look much older. He would not be weaker or in any way infirm, but appearances were important to Humans. When this male awoke—sometime the next day—his eyes and his fingers would tell him he had paid a terrible price for attacking us. More important, his people would see. They would misunderstand what they saw, and it would frighten them into letting us alone.

  Lilith had no special trouble with the arrow. It damaged one of her kidneys and gave her a great deal of pain, but her life was in no danger. Her improved body would have healed quickly even without Nikanj’s help, since the arrow was not poisoned. But Nikanj did not leave her to heal herself. It lay beside her and healed her completely before it returned to whiten the drugged archer’s hair and wrinkle his face. Mates took care of one another.

  I watched them, wondering who I would take care of. Who would take care of me?

  Twenty-one days out, the bed of our river turned south and we turned with it. Dichaan veered off the trail, and left us for some time, and came back with a male Human who had broken his leg. The leg was grotesque—swollen, discolored, and blistered. The smell of it made Nikanj and me look at one another.

  We camped and made a pallet for the injured Human. Nikanj spoke to me before it went to him.

  “Get rid of your webbing,” it said. “Try to look less like a frog or you’ll scare him.”

  “Are you goi
ng to let me heal him?”

  “Yes. And it will take a while for you to do it right. Your first regeneration

  . Go eat something while I ease his pain.”

  “Let me do that,” I said. But it had already turned away and gone back to the male. The male’s leg was worse than worthless. It was poisoning his body. Portions of it were already dead. Yet the thought of taking it disturbed me.

  Ahajas and Aaor brought me food before I could look around for it, and Aaor sat with me while I ate.

  “Why are you afraid?” it said.

  “Not exactly afraid, but

  To take the leg

  ”

  “Yes. It will give you a chance to grow something other than webbing and sensory tentacles.”

  “I don’t want to do it. He’s old like Marina. You don’t know how I hated letting her go.”

  “Don’t I?”

  I focused on it. “I didn’t think you did. You didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t want me to. You should eat.”

  When I didn’t eat, it moved closer to me and leaned against me, linking comfortably into my nervous system. It had not done that for a while. It wasn’t afraid of me anymore. It had not exactly abandoned me. It had allowed me to isolate myself—since I seemed to want to. It let me know this in simple neurosensory impressions.

  “I was lonely,” I protested aloud.

  “I know. But not for me.” It spoke with confidence and contentment that confused me.

  “You’re changing,” I said.

  “Not yet. But soon, I think.”

  “Metamorphosis? We’ll lose each other when you change.”

  “I know. Share the Human with me. It will give the two of us more time together.”

  “All right.”

  Then I had to go to the Human. I had to heal him alone. After that, Aaor and I could share him.

  People remembered their ooloi siblings. I had heard Ahajas and Dichaan talk about theirs. But they had not seen it for decades. An ooloi belonged to the kin group of its mates. Its siblings were lost to it.

  The Human male had lost consciousness by the time I lay down beside him. The moment I touched him, I knew he must have broken his leg in a fall—probably from a tree. He had puncture wounds and deep bruises on the left side of his body. The left leg was, as I had expected, a total loss, foul and poisonous. I separated it from the rest of his body above the damaged tissue. First I stopped the circulation of bodily fluids and poisons to and from the leg. Then I encouraged the growth of a skin barrier at the hip. Finally I helped his body let go of the rotting limb.