We went up a steep, heavily forested slope, crawling up, clinging like caterpillars. Being six-limbed had never been quite so practical.
We climbed to the level of the terraces, and lay near them, hidden, during the next day. “When night came, we explored the terraces and compulsively tried bits of the new foods we found growing there. By then, our skins had grown darker and we were harder for the Humans to see—while we could see everything.
We climbed higher up one of the mountains that formed a corner of the settlement. Just over halfway up, we reached the Human settlement with its houses of stone and wood and thatch. This was a prewar place. It had to be. Parts of it looked ancient. But it did not look like a ruin. All the buildings were well kept and there were terraces everywhere, most of them full of growing things. Away from the village, there was an enclosure containing several large animals of a kind I had not seen before—shaggy, long-necked, small-headed creatures who stood or lay at ease around their pen. Alpacas?
We could smell other, smaller animals caged around the village, and we could smell fertile, young Humans everywhere. Even above us on the mountain, we could smell them. What would they be doing up there?
How many were up there? Three, my nose told me. A female and two males, all young, all fertile, two afflicted with the genetic disorder. Why couldn’t it just be those two for Aaor? What would we do with the third one if we went up? Why hadn’t Jesusa and TomÁs told us about people living in such isolation? Except for their being one too many of them, they were perfect.
“Up?” I said to Aaor.
It nodded. “But there’s an extra male. What do we do with him?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s see if we can get a look at them before they see us. Separating them might be easier than we think.”
We climbed the slope, noticing, but for the most part not using, the long serpentine path the Humans had made. There had been Humans on it that day. Perhaps there would be Humans on it the next day. Perhaps it led to a guard post, and the guard changed daily. Anyone on top would have a fine view of all approaches from the mountains or the canyon below. Perhaps the people at the top stayed longer than a day and were resupplied from below at regular intervals—though there were a few terraces near the top.
We went up quietly, quickly, eating the most nutritious things we could find along the way. When we reached the terraces, we stopped and ate our fill. We would have to be at our best.
On a broad ledge near the top, we found a stone cabin. Higher up was a cistern and a few more terraces. Inside the cabin, two people slept. Where was the third? We didn’t dare go in until we knew where everyone was.
I linked with Aaor and signaled silently. “Have you spotted the third?”
“Above,” it said. “There is another cabin—or at least another living place. You go up to that one. I want these two.” It was utterly focused on the Human pair.
“Aaor?”
It focused on me with a startlingly quick movement. It was as tight as a fist inside.
“Aaor, there are hundreds of other Humans down there. You’ll have a life. Be careful who you give it to. I was very lucky with Jesusa and TomÁs.”
“Go up and keep the third Human from bothering me.”
I detached from it and went to find the second cabin. Aaor would not hear anything I had to say now, just as I would not have heard anyone who told me to beware of Jesusa and TomÁs. And if the Humans were young enough, they could probably mate successfully with any healthy ooloi. If only Aaor were healthy. It wasn’t. It and the Humans it chose would have to heal each other. If they didn’t, perhaps none of them would survive.
I found not a cabin higher up on the mountain, but a very small cave near the top. Humans had built a rock wall, enclosing part of it. There were signs that they had enlarged the cave on one side. Finally heavy wooden posts had been set against the stone and from these a wooden door had been hung. The door seemed more a barrier against the weather than against people. Tonight the weather was dry and warm and the door was not secured at all. It swung open when I touched it.
The man inside awakened as I stumbled down into his tiny cave. His body heat made him a blaze of infrared in the darkness. It was easy for me to reach him and stop his hands from finding whatever they were grasping for.
Holding his hands, I lay down alongside him on his short, narrow bed and wedged him against the stone wall. I examined him with several sensory tentacles, studying him, but not controlling him. I stopped his hoarse shouting by looping one sensory arm around his neck, then moving the coil up to cover his mouth. He bit me, but his blunt Human teeth couldn’t do any serious harm. My sensory arms existed to protect the sensitive reproductive organs inside. The flesh that covered them was the toughest flesh to be found on my body.
The male I held must have been more at home in his tiny cave than most people would have been. He was tiny himself— half the size of most Human males. Also, he had some skin disease that had made a ruin of his face, his hands, and much of the rest of his body. He was hairless. His skin was as scaly as those of some fish I’d seen. His nose was distorted—flattened from having been broken several times—and that enhanced his fishlike appearance. Strangely he was free of the genetic disorder that Jesusa, TomÁs, and so many of the other people of the village had. He was grotesque without it.
I examined him thoroughly, enjoying the newness of him. By the time I had finished, he had stopped struggling and lay quietly in my arms. I took my sensory arm from his mouth, and he did not shout.
“Do you live here because of the way you look?” I asked him.
He cursed me at great length. In spite of his size, he had a deep, hoarse, grating voice.
I said nothing. We had all night.
After a very long time, he said, “All right. Yes, I’m here because of the way I look. Got any more stupid questions?”
“I don’t have time to help you grow. But if you like, I can heal your skin condition.”
Silence.
“My god,” he whispered finally.
“It won’t hurt,” I said. “And it can be done by morning. If you’re afraid to stay here after you’re healed, you can come with us when we leave. Then I’ll have time to help you grow. If you want to grow.”
“People my age don’t grow,” he said.
I brushed bits of scaly, dead skin from his face. “Oh, yes,” I said. “We can help people your age to grow.”
After another long pause, he said, “Is the town all right?”
“Yes.”
“What will happen to it?”
“Eventually my people will come to it and tell your people they don’t have to live in distorted bodies or in isolation or in fear. Your people have been cut off for a long time. They don’t realize there’s another, larger colony of healthy, fertile Humans living and growing without Oankali.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“I know. It’s true, though. Shall I heal you?”
“Can I … see you?”
“At sunrise.”
“I could make a fire.”
“No.”
He shook his head against me. “I should be more afraid than this. My god, I should be pissing on myself. Exactly what the hell are you anyway?”
“Construct. Oankali-Human mixture. Ooloi.”
“Ooloi … The mixed ones—male and female in one body.”
“We aren’t male or female.”
“So you say.” He sighed. “Do you mean to hold me here all night?”
“If I’m to heal you, I’ll have to.”
“Why are you here? You said your people would come eventually. What are you doing here now?”
“Nothing harmful. Do you want hair?”
“What?”
I waited. He had heard the question. Now let him absorb it. Hair was easy. I could start it as an afterthought.
He put his head against my chest. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t even understand … my own feelings.” Much later he said, “Of course I want hair. And I want skin, not scales. I want hair, and I want height. I want to be a man!”
My first impulse was to point out that he was a man. His male organs were well developed. But I understood him. “We’ll take you with us when we go,” I said.
And he was content. After a while, he slept. I never drugged him in the way ooloi usually drugged resisters. Once he had passed his first surprise and fear, he had accepted me much more quickly than Jesusa and TomÁs had—but I had been only a subadult when I met them. And adult ooloi—a construct ooloi—ought to be able to handle Humans better. Or perhaps this man—I had not even asked his name, nor he mine—was particularly susceptible to the ooloi substance that I could not help injecting. In his Human way, he had been very hungry, starving, for any touch. How long had it been since anyone was willing to touch him—except perhaps to break his nose again. He would need an ooloi to steer him away from breaking a few noses himself once he was large enough to reach them. He had probably been treated badly. He did not veer from the Human norm in the same way as other people in the village, and Humans were genetically inclined to be intolerant of difference. They could overcome the inclination, but it was a reality of the Human conflict that they often did not. It was significant that this man was so ready to leave his home with someone he had been taught to think of as a devil—someone he hadn’t even seen yet.