Two days later when Lilith saw that Curt was not likely to cause trouble—at least, not soon—she Awakened Gabriel Rinaldi and Beatrice Dwyer. She asked Joseph to help her with Gabriel and turned Beatrice over to Leah and Curt. Celene was still useless when it came to getting people dressed and oriented. Tate was apparently becoming bored with the process of Awakening people.
“I think we ought to double our numbers every time,” she told Lilith. “That way we go through less repetition, get things done faster, get down to Earth faster.”
At least now she was beginning to accept the idea that she was not already on Earth, Lilith thought. That was something.
“I’m probably already Awakening people too fast,” Lilith told her. “We’ve got to be able to work together before we reach Earth. It isn’t enough for us just to refrain from killing one another. Down in the forest, we’ll probably be more interdependent than most of us have ever been. We might be a little better at that if we give each new set of people time to fit in and a growing structure to fit into.”
“What structure?” Tate began to smile. “You mean like a family … with you as Mama?”
Lilith only looked at her.
After a time, Tate shrugged. “Just wake up a group of them, sit them down, tell them what’s going on—they won’t believe you, of course—take questions, feed them, and the next day, start on the next batch. Quick and easy. They can’t learn to work together if they aren’t Awake.”
“I’ve always heard that small classes worked better than large ones,” Lilith said. “This is too important to rush.”
The argument ended as Lilith’s arguments with Tate usually ended. No resolution. Lilith continued to Awaken people slowly and Tate continued to disapprove.
After three days, Beatrice Dwyer and Gabriel Rinaldi seemed to be settling in. Gabriel paired with Tate. Beatrice avoided the men sexually, but joined in the endless discussions of their situation, first refusing to believe it, then finally accepting it along with the group’s learn-and-run philosophy.
Now, Lilith decided, was the time to Awaken two more people. She Awoke two every two or three days, no longer worrying about Awakening men since there had been no real trouble. She did deliberately Awaken a few more women than men in the hope of minimizing violence.
But as the number of people grew, so did the potential for disagreement. There were several short, vicious fist-fights. Lilith tried to keep out of them, allowing people to sort things out for themselves. Her only concern was that the fights do no serous harm. Curt helped with this in spite of his cynicism. Once as they pulled two struggling, bleeding men apart, he told her she might have made a pretty good cop.
There was one fight that Lilith could not keep out of—one begun for a foolish reason as usual. A large, angry, not particularly bright woman named Jean Pelerin demanded an end to the meatless diet. She wanted meat, she wanted it now, and Lilith had better produce it if she knew what was good for her.
Everyone else had accepted, however grudgingly, the absence of meat. “The Oankali don’t eat it,” Lilith had told them. “And because we can get along without it, they won’t give it to us. They say once we’re back on Earth, we’ll be free to keep and kill animals again—though the ones we’re used to are mostly extinct.”
Nobody liked the idea. So far she had not Awakened a single voluntary vegetarian. But until Jean Pelerin, no one had tried to do anything about it.
Jean lunged at Lilith, punching, kicking, obviously intending to overwhelm at once.
Surprised, but far from overwhelmed, Lilith struck back. Two short, quick jabs.
Jean collapsed, unconscious, bleeding from her mouth.
Frightened, still angry, Lilith checked to see that the woman was breathing and not badly hurt. She stayed with her until Jean had regained consciousness enough to glare at Lilith. Then, without a word, Lilith left her.
Lilith went to her room, sat thinking for a few moments about the strength Nikanj had given her. She had pulled her punches, not intending to knock Jean unconscious. She was no longer concerned about Jean now, but it bothered her that she no longer knew her own strength. She could kill someone by accident. She could maim someone. Jean did not know how lucky she was with her headache and her split lip.
Lilith slipped to the floor, took off her jacket, and began doing exercises to burn off excess energy and emotion. Everyone knew she exercised. Several other people had begun doing it as well. For Lilith, it was a comfortable, mindless activity that gave her something to do when there was nothing she could do about her situation.
Some people would attack her. She had probably not yet experienced the worst of them. She might have to kill. They might kill her. People who accepted her now might turn away from her if she seriously injured or killed someone.
On the other hand, what could she do? She had to defend herself. What would people say if she had beaten a man as easily as she beat Jean? Nikanj had said she could do it. How long would it be before someone forced her to find out for sure?
“May I come in?”
Lilith stopped her exercising, put her jacket on, and said, “Come.”
She was still seated on the floor, breathing deeply, perversely enjoying the slight ache in her muscles when Joseph Shing came around her new curving entrance-hall partition and into the room. She leaned against the bed platform and looked up at him. Because it was him, she smiled.
“You aren’t hurt at all?” he asked.
She shook her head. “A couple of bruises.”
He sat down next to her. “She’s telling people you’re a man. She says only a man can fight that way.”
To her own surprise, Lilith laughed aloud.
“Some people aren’t laughing,” he said. “That new man, Van Weerden said he didn’t think you were human at all.”
She stared at him, then got up to go out, but he caught her hand and held it.
“It’s all right. They’re not standing out there muttering to themselves and believing fantasy. In fact, I don’t think Van Weerden really believes it. They only want someone to focus their frustration on.”
“I don’t want to be that someone,” she muttered.
“What choice have you?”
“I know.” She sighed. She let him pull her down beside him again. She found it impossible to delude herself when he was around. This caused her enough pain sometimes to make her wonder why she encouraged him to stay around. Tate, with typical malice, had said, “He’s old, he’s short, and he’s ugly. Haven’t you got any discrimination at all?”
“He’s forty,” Lilith had said. “He doesn’t seem ugly to me, and if he can deal with my size, I can deal with his.”
“You could do better.”
“I’m content.” She never told Tate that she had almost made Joseph the first person she Awakened. She shook her head over Tate’s halfhearted attempts to lure Joseph away. It wasn’t as though Tate wanted him. She just wanted to prove she could have him—and in the process, try him out. Joseph seemed to find the whole sequence funny. Other people were less relaxed about similar situations. That caused some of the most savage fights. An increasing number of bored, caged humans could not help finding destructive things to do.
“You know,” she told him, “you could become a target yourself. Some people could decide to take their anger at me out on you.”
“I know kung fu,” he said examining her bruised knuckles.
“Do you really?”
He smiled. “No, just a little tai chi for exercise. Not so much sweating.”
She decided he was telling her she smelled—which she did. She started to get up to go wash, but he would not let her go.
“Can you talk to them?” he asked.
She looked at him. He was growing a thin black beard. All the men were growing beards since no razors had been provided. Nothing hard or sharp had been provided.
“You mean talk to the Oankali?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“They hear us all the time.”
“But if you ask for something, will they provide it?”
“Probably not. I think it was a major concession for them just to give us all clothing.”
“Yes. I thought you might say that. Then you should do what Tate wants you to do. Awaken a large number of people at once. There’s too little to do here. Get people busy helping one another, teaching one another. There are fourteen of us now. Awaken ten more tomorrow.”
Lilith shook her head. “Ten? But—”
“It will take some of the negative attention off you. Busy people have less time for fantasizing and fighting.”
She moved away from his side to sit facing him. “What is it, Joe? What’s wrong?”
“People being people, that’s all. You’re probably not in any danger now, but you will be soon. You must know that.”
She nodded.
“When there are forty of us, will the Oankali take us out of here or—”
“When there are forty of us, and the Oankali decide we’re ready, they’ll come in. Eventually, they’ll take us to be taught to live on Earth. They have a … an area of the ship that they’ve made over into a fragment of Earth. They’ve grown a small tropical forest there—like the forest we’ll be sent to on Earth. We’ll be trained there.”
“You’ve seen this place?”
“I spent a year there.”
“Why?”
“First learning, then proving I’d learned. Knowing and using the knowledge aren’t the same thing.”
“No.” He thought for a moment. “The presence of the Oankali will bring them together, but it might turn them even more strongly against you. Especially if the Oankali really scare them.”
“The Oankali will scare them.”
“That bad?”
“That alien. That ugly. That powerful.”
“Then … don’t come into the forest with us. Try to get out of it.”
She smiled sadly. “I speak their language, Joe, but I’ve never yet been able to convince them to change one of their decisions.”
“Try, Lilith!”
His intensity surprised her. Had he really seen something she had missed—something he wouldn’t tell her? Or was he simply understanding her position for the first time? She had known for a long time that she might be doomed. She had had time to get used to the idea and to understand that she must struggle not against nonhuman aliens, but against her own kind.
“Will you talk to them?” Joseph asked.
She had to think for a moment to realize he meant the Oankali. She nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” she said. “You and Tate may be right about Awakening people faster, too. I think I’m ready to try that.”
“Good. You have a fair core group around you. The new ones you Awaken can work things out in the forest. There they should have more to do.”
“Oh, they’ll have plenty to do. The tedium of some of it, though … wait until I teach you to weave a basket or a hammock or to make your own garden tools and use them to grow your food.”
“We’ll do what’s necessary,” he said. “If we can’t, then we won’t survive.” He paused, looked away from her. “I’ve been a city man all my life. I might not survive.”
“If I do, you will,” she said grimly.
He broke the mood by laughing quietly. “That’s foolishness—but it’s a lovely foolishness. I feel the same way about you. You see what comes of being shut up together and having so little to do. Good things as well as bad. How many people will you Awaken tomorrow?”
She had bent her body almost in thirds, arms clasped around doubled knees, head resting on knees. Her body shook with humorless laughter. He had awakened her one night, seemingly out of the blue and asked her if he might come to bed with her. She had had all she could do to stop herself from grabbing him and pulling him in.
But they had not talked about their feelings until now. Everyone knew. Everyone knew everything. She knew, for instance, that people said he slept with her to get special privileges or to escape their prison. Certainly, he was not someone she would have noticed on prewar Earth. And he would not have noticed her. But here, there had been a pull between them from the moment he Awoke, intense, inescapable, acted upon, and now, spoken.
“I’ll Awaken ten people as you said,” she told him finally. “It seems a good number. It will occupy everyone I would dare to trust to look after a newly Awakened person. As for the others … I don’t want them free to wander around and cause trouble or get together and cause trouble. I’ll double them with you, Tate, Leah, and me.”
“Leah?” he said.
“Leah’s all right. Surly, moody, stubborn. And hardworking, loyal, and hard to scare. I like her.”
“I think she likes you,” he said. “That surprises me. I would have expected her to resent you.”
Behind him, the wall began to open.
Lilith froze, then sighed and deliberately stared at the floor. When she looked up again, seemingly to look at Joseph, she could see Nikanj coming through the opening.