We stayed.
We healed the people in spite of our guards. We healed our guards.
Young people came to us first, and went away without their tumors, sensory losses, limps, paralysis…. People brought their children to us. Jesusa, TomÁs, and I shared a stone house with Aaor, Javier, and Paz. Once we were settled, Jesusa went out and found all the people she remembered as having deformed or disabled children. She badgered them until they began to bring their children to us. The small house was often full of healing children.
And Santos began to grow. I gave him a handsome new nose and he went right on talking too much and risking getting it broken again. But people seemed less inclined to hit him.
The first elder to come to us was female with only one leg. The stump of her amputated leg pained her and she hoped I could stop the pain. I sent her to Aaor because I had more people to heal than I could manage. Over a period of weeks, Aaor grew her a new leg and foot.
After that, everyone came to us. Even the most stubborn elders forgot how much they hated us once we’d touched them. They didn’t suddenly begin to love us, but they stopped spitting as we walked by, stopped muttering curses or threats at us, stopped pointing their guns at us to remind us of their power and their fear. They let us alone. That was enough.
Their people, however, did begin to love us and to believe what we told them and to talk to us about Oankali and construct mates.