Amma and Shkaht were not found. They were simply gone—perhaps found by other resisters, perhaps safe in some trade village. Most of the resisters seemed to think they were dead—eaten by caimans or anacondas, bitten by poisonous snakes or insects. The idea that such young children could find their way to safety seemed completely impossible to them.
And most of the resisters blamed Neci. Tate seemed to find that satisfying. Akin did not care. If Neci left him alone, he was content with her. And she did leave him alone—but only after planting the idea that he must be watched more carefully. She was not the only one who believed this, but she was the only one to suggest that he be kept out of the pit, kept away from the river, be harnessed and tied outside the cabins when everyone was too busy to watch him.
He would not have stood for that. He would have stung the rope or chain that they tied him with until it rotted or corroded through, and he would have run away—up the mountain, not down. They might not find him higher up. He would probably not make it back to Lo. He was too far from it now, and there were so many resister villages between it and him that he would probably be picked up once he headed down from the hills. But he would not stay with people who tied him.
He was not tied. He was watched more closely than before, but it seemed the resisters had as great an aversion to tying or confining people as he did.
Neci finally left with a group of salvagers going home—men and women carrying wealth on their backs. They took two of the guns with them. There had been a general agreement among new salvagers and old that Phoenix would begin to manufacture guns. Tate was against it. Yori was so strongly against it that she threatened to move to another resister village. Nevertheless, guns would be made.
“We’ve got to protect ourselves,” Gabe said. “Too many of the raiders have guns now, and Phoenix is too rich. Sooner or later, they’ll realize it’s easier to steal from us than carry on honest trade.”
Tate slept several nights alone or with Akin once the decision was made. Sometimes she hardly slept at all, and Akin wished he could comfort her the way Amma and Shkaht had comforted him. Sleep could be a great gift. But he could have given it only with the help of a close Oankali-born sibling.
“Would raiders begin raiding you the way they raid us?” he asked her one night as they lay together in a hammock.
“Probably.”
“Why haven’t they already?”
“They have occasionally—trying to steal metal or women. But Phoenix is a strong town—plenty of people willing to fight if they have to. There are smaller, weaker settlements that are easier pickings.”
“Are guns really a bad idea, then?”
In the dark she tried to stare at him. She couldn’t have seen him—although he saw her clearly. “What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I like a lot of the people in Phoenix. And I remember what raiders did to Tino. They didn’t have to. They just did it. Later, though, while I was with them, they didn’t really seem … I don’t know. Most of the time, they were like the men in Phoenix.”
“They probably came from someplace like Phoenix—some village or town. They got sick of one pointless, endless existence and chose another.”
“Pointless because resisters can’t have children?”
“That’s it. It means a lot more than I could ever explain to you. We don’t get old. We don’t have kids, and nothing we do means shit.”
“What would it mean … if you had a kid like me?”
“We have got a kid like you. You.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Go to sleep, Akin.”
“Why are you afraid of guns?”
“They make killing too easy. Too impersonal. You know what that means?”
“Yes. I’ll ask if you say something I don’t understand.”
“So we’ll kill more of each other than we already do. We’ll learn to make better and better guns. Someday, we’ll take on the Oankali, and that will be the end of us.”
“It would. What do you want to happen instead?”
Silence.
“Do you know?”
“Not extinction,” she whispered. “Not extinction in any form. As long as we’re alive, we have some chance.”
Akin frowned, trying to understand. “If you had kids in the old way, your prewar way, with Gabe, would that mean you and Gabe were becoming extinct?”
“It would mean we weren’t. Our kids would be Human like us.”
“I’m Human like you—and Oankali like Ahajas and Dichaan.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’m trying to.”
“Are you?” She touched his face. “Why?”
“I need to. It’s part of me, too. It concerns me, too.”
“Not really.”
Abruptly he was angry. He hated her soft condescension. “Then why am I here! Why are you here! You and Gabe would be down in Phoenix if it didn’t concern me. I would be back in Lo. Oankali and Human have done what Human male and female used to do. And they made me and Amma and Shkaht, and they’re no more extinct than you would be if you had kids with Gabe!”
She turned slightly—turned her back to him as much as she could in a hammock. “Go to sleep, Akin.”
But he did not sleep. It was his turn to lie awake thinking. He understood more than she thought. He recalled his argument with Amma and Shkaht that Humans should be permitted their own Akjai division—their own hedge against disaster and true extinction. Why should it be so difficult? There were, according to Lilith, bodies of land surrounded by vast amounts of water. Humans could be isolated and their ability to reproduce in their own way restored to them. But then what would happen when the constructs scattered to the stars, leaving the Earth a stripped ruin. Tate’s hopes were in vain.
Or were they?
Who among the Oankali was speaking for the interests of resister Humans? Who had seriously considered that it might not be enough to let Humans choose either union with the Oankali or sterile lives free of the Oankali? Trade-village Humans said it, but they were so flawed, so genetically contradictory that they were often not listened to.
He did not have their flaw. He had been assembled within the body of an ooloi. He was Oankali enough to be listened to by other Oankali and Human enough to know that resister Humans were being treated with cruelty and condescension.
Yet he had not even been able to make Amma and Shkaht understand. He did not know enough yet. These resisters had to help him learn more.