5

Kahguyaht took her beneath a hill onto a lower level. There it ordered her onto a small, slow-moving flat vehicle. The transport never moved faster than she could have run, but it got them home surprisingly quickly, no doubt taking a more direct route than she had.

Kahguyaht would not speak to her during the trip. She got the impression it was angry, but she didn’t really care. She only hoped it wasn’t too angry with Nikanj. She had accepted the possibility that she might be punished somehow for her Tiej trip, but she had not intended to make trouble for Nikanj.

Once they were home, Kahguyaht took Nikanj into the room she and Nikanj shared, leaving her in what she had come to think of as the dining room. Jdahya and Tediin were there, eating Oankali food this time, the products of plants that would have been deadly to her.

She sat down silently and after a while, Jdahya brought her nuts, fruit, and some Oankali food that had a vaguely meaty taste and texture, though it was actually a plant product.

“Just how much trouble am I in?” she asked as he handed her her dishes.

He smoothed his tentacles. “Not so much, Lilith.”

She frowned. “I got the impression Kahguyaht was angry.”

Now the smooth tentacles became irregular, raised knots.

“That was not exactly anger. It is concerned about Nikanj.”

“Because I went to Tiej ?”

“No.” His lumps became larger, uglier. “Because this is a hard time for it—and for you. Nikanj has left you for it to stumble over.”

“What?”

Tediin said something in rapid, incomprehensible Oankali, and Jdahya answered her. The two of them spoke together for a few minutes. Then Tediin spoke in English to Lilith.

“Kahguyaht must teach … same-sex child. You see?”

“And I’m part of the lesson,” Lilith answered bitterly.

“Nikanj or Kahguyaht,” Tediin said softly.

Lilith frowned, looked to Jdahya for an explanation.

“She means if you and Nikanj weren’t supposed to be teaching each other, you would be learning from Kahguyaht.”

Lilith shuddered. “Good god,” she whispered. And seconds later, “Why couldn’t it be you?”

“Ooloi generally handle the teaching of new species.”

“Why? If I have to be taught, I’d rather you did it.”

His head tentacles smoothed.

“You like him or Kahguyaht?” Tediin asked. Her unpracticed English, acquired just from hearing others speak was much better than Lilith’s Oankali.

“No offense,” Lilith said, “but I prefer Jdahya.”

“Good,” Tediin said, her own head smooth, though Lilith did not understand why. “You like him or Nikanj?”

Lilith opened her mouth, then hesitated. Jdahya had left her completely to Nikanj for so long—deliberately, no doubt. And Nikanj … Nikanj was appealing—probably because it was a child. It was no more responsible for the thing that was to happen to the remnants of humanity than she was. It was simply doing—or trying to do—what the adults around it said should be done. Fellow victim?

No, not a victim. Just a child, appealing in spite of itself. And she liked it in spite of herself.

“You see?” Tediin asked, smooth all over now.

“I see.” She took a deep breath. “I see that everyone including Nikanj wants me to prefer Nikanj. Well you win. I do.” She turned to Jdahya. “You people are manipulative as hell, aren’t you?”

Jdahya concentrated on eating.

“Was I that much of a burden?” she asked him.

He did not answer.

“Will you help me to be less of a burden in one way, at least?”

He aimed some of his tentacles at her. “What do you want?”

“Writing materials. Paper. Pencils or pens—whatever you’ve got.”

“No.”

There was no give behind the refusal. He was part of the family conspiracy to keep her ignorant—while trying as hard as they could to educate her. Insane.

She spread both hands before her, shaking her head. “Why?

“Ask Nikanj.”

“I have! It won’t tell me.”

“Perhaps it will now. Have you finished eating?”

“I’ve had enough—in more ways than one.”

“Come on. I’ll open the wall for you.”

She unfolded herself from her platform and followed him to the wall.

“Nikanj can help you remember without writing,” he told her as he touched the wall with several head tentacles.

“How?”

“Ask it.”

She stepped through the hole as soon as it was large enough, and found herself intruding on the two ooloi who refused to notice her beyond the automatic sweep of some of their head tentacles. They were talking—arguing—in very fast Oankali. She was, no doubt, the reason for their dispute.

She looked back, hoping to step back through the wall and leave them. Let one of them tell her later what had been decided. She didn’t imagine it would be anything she would be eager to hear. But the wall had sealed itself—abnormally quickly.

Nikanj seemed to be holding its own, at least. At one point, it beckoned to her with a sharp movement of head tentacles. She moved to stand beside it, willing to offer whatever moral support she could against Kahguyaht.

Kahguyaht stopped whatever it had been saying and faced her. “You haven’t understood us at all, have you?” it asked in English.

“No,” she admitted.

“Do you understand me now?” it asked in slow Oankali.

“Yes.”

Kahguyaht turned its attention back to Nikanj and spoke rapidly. Straining to understand, Lilith thought it said something close to, “Well, at least we know she’s capable of learning.”

“I’m capable of learning even faster with paper and pencil,” she said. “But with or without them, I’m capable of telling you what I think of you in any one of three human languages!”

Kahguyaht said nothing for several seconds. Finally it turned, opened a wall, and left the room.

When the wall had closed, Nikanj lay down on the bed and crossed its arms over its chest, hugging itself.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“What are the other two languages?” it asked softly.

She managed a smile. “Spanish and German. I used to speak a little German. I still know a few obscenities.”

“You are … not fluent?”

“I am in Spanish.”

“But why not in German?”

“Because it’s been years since I’ve studied it or spoken it—years before the war, I mean. We humans … if we don’t use a language, we forget it.”

“No. You don’t.”

She looked at its tightly contracted body tentacles and decided it did not look happy. It really was concerned over her failure to learn quickly and retain everything. “Are you going to let me have writing materials?” she asked.

“No. It will be done our way. Not yours.”

“It ought to be done the way that works. But what the hell. You want to spend two or three times as long teaching me, you go right ahead.”

“I don’t.”

She shrugged, not caring whether it missed the gesture or failed to understand it.

“Ooan was upset with me, Lilith, not with you.”

“But because of me. Because I’m not learning fast enough.”

“No. Because … because I’m not teaching you as it thinks I should. It fears for me.”

“Fears … ? Why?”

“Come here. Sit here. I will tell you.”

After a time, she shrugged again and went to sit beside it.

“I’m growing up,” it told her. “Ooan wants me to hurry with you so that you can be given your work and I can mate.”

“You mean … the faster I learn, the sooner you mate?”

“Yes. Until I have taught you, shown that I can teach you, I won’t be considered ready to mate.”

There it was. She was not just its experimental animal. She was, in some way she did not fully understand, its final exam. She sighed and shook her head. “Did you ask for me Nikanj, or did we just get dumped on one another?”

It said nothing. It doubled one of its arms backward in a way natural to it, but still startling to Lilith, and rubbed its armpit. She tilted her head to one side to examine the place it was rubbing.

“Do you grow the sensory arms after you’ve mated or before?” she asked.

“They will come soon whether I mate or not.”

Should they grow in after you’re mated?”

“Mates like them to come in afterward. Males and females mature more quickly than ooloi. They like to feel that they have … how do you say? Helped their ooloi out of childhood.”

“Helped raise them,” Lilith said, “or helped rear them.”

“… rear?”

“The word has multiple meanings.”

“Oh. There’s no logic to such things.”

“There probably is, but you’d need an etymologist to explain it. Is there going to be trouble between you and your mates?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. I’ll go to them when I can. I’ve told them that.” It paused. “Now I must tell you something.”

“What?”

“Ooan wanted me to act and say nothing … to … surprise you. I won’t do that.”

What!

“I must make small changes—a few small changes. I must help you reach your memories as you need them.”

“What do you mean? What is it you want to change?”

“Very small things. In the end, there will be a tiny alteration in your brain chemistry.”

She touched her forehead in an unconsciously protective gesture. “Brain chemistry?” she whispered.

“I would like to wait, do it when I’m mature. I could make it pleasurable for you then. It should be pleasurable. But Ooan … I understand what it feels. It says I have to change you now.”

“I don’t want to be changed!”

“You would sleep through it the way you did when Ooan Jdahya corrected your tumor.”

“Ooan Jdahya? Jdahya’s ooloi parent did that? Not Kahguyaht?”

“Yes. It was done before my parents were mated.”

“Good.” No reason at all to be grateful to Kahguyaht.

“Lilith?” Nikanj laid a many-fingered hand—a sixteen-fingered hand—on her arm. “It will be like this. A touch. Then a … a small puncture. That’s all you’ll feel. When you wake up the change will be made.”

I don’t want to be changed!

There was a long silence. Finally it said, “Are you afraid?”

“I don’t have a disease! Forgetting things is normal for most humans! I don’t need anything done to my brain!”

“Would it be so bad to remember better? To remember the way Sharad did—the way I do?”

“What’s frightening is the idea of being tampered with.” She drew a deep breath. “Listen, no part of me is more definitive of who I am than my brain. I don’t want—”

“Who you are won’t be changed. I’m not old enough to make the experience pleasant for you, but I’m old enough to function as an ooloi in this way. If I were unfit, others would have noticed by now.”

“If everyone’s so sure you’re fit, why do you have to test yourself with me?”

It refused to answer, remained silent for several minutes. When it tried to pull her down beside it, she broke away and got up, paced around the room. Its head tentacles followed her with more than their usual lazy sweep. They kept sharply pointed at her and eventually she fled to the bathroom to end the staring.

There, she sat on the floor, arms folded, hands clutching her forearms.

What would happen now? Would Nikanj follow orders and surprise her sometime when she was asleep? Would it turn her over to Kahguyaht? Or would they both—please heaven—let her alone!