'Lilith?' he said very quietly.
''What?'
Silence.
'I'm all right,' she said. 'It's just. . . so many people, and so strange to me.'
'Normally, we don't wear anything.'
'I'd guessed that.'
'You'll be free to wear clothing or not as you like.'
'I'll wear it!' She hesitated. 'Are there any other humans Awake where you're taking me?'
'None.'
She hugged herself tightly, arms across her chest. More isolation.
To her surprise, he extended his hand. To her greater surprise, she took it and was grateful.
'Why can't you go back to your homeworld?' she asked. 'It. . . still exists, doesn't it?'
He seemed to think for a moment. 'We left it so long ago. . . I doubt that it does still exist.'
'Why did you leave?'
'It was a womb. The time had come for us to be born.' She smiled sadly. 'There were humans who thought that way-right up to the moment the missiles were fired. People who believed space was our destiny. I believed it myself.'
'I know-though from what the ooloi have told me, your people could not have fulfilled that destiny. Their own bodies handicapped them.'
'Their... our bodies? What do you mean? We've been into space. There's nothing about our bodies that prevented-'
'Your bodies are fatally flawed. The ooloi perceived this at once. At first it was very hard for them to touch you. Then you became an obsession with them. Now it's hard for them to let you alone.'
'What are you talking about!'
'You have a mismatched pair of genetic characteristics. Either alone would have been useful, would have al the survival of your species. But the two together are lethal. It was only a matter of time before they destroyed you.'
She shook her head. 'If you're saying we were genetically programmed to do what we did, blow ourselves up.-'
'No. Your people's situation was more like your own with the cancer my relative cured. The cancer was small. The human doctor said you would probably have recovered and been well even if humans had discovered it and removed it at that stage. You might have lived the rest of your life free of it, though she said she would have wanted you checked regularly.'
'With my family history, she wouldn't have had to tell me that last.'
'Yes. But what if you hadn't recognized the significance of your family history? What if we or the humans hadn't discovered the cancer.'
'It was malignant, I assume.'
'Of course.'
'Then I suppose it would eventually have killed me.'
'Yes, it would have. And your people were in a similar position. If they had been able to perceive and solve their problem, they might have been able to avoid destruction. Of course, they too would have to remember to reexamine themselves periodically.'
'But what was the problem? You said we had two incompatible characteristics. What were they?'
Jdahya made a rustling noise that could have been a sigh, but that did not seem to come from his mouth or throat. 'You are intelligent,' he said. 'That's the newer of the two characteristics, and the one you might have put to work to save yourselves. You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we've found, though your focus is different from ours. Still, you had a good start in the life sciences, and even in genetics.'
'What's the second characteristic?'
'You are hierarchical. That's the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It's a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all. . .' The rattling sounded again. 'That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.'
'I don't think most of us thought of it as a genetic problem. I didn't. I'm not sure I do now.' Her feet had begun to hurt from walking so long on the uneven ground. She wanted to end both the walk and the conversation. The conversation made her uncomfortable. Jdahya sounded... almost plausible.
'Yes,' he said, 'intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn't matter. A cancer growing in someone's body will go on growing in spite of denial. And a complex combination of genes that work together to make you intelligent as well as hierarchical will still handicap you whether you acknowledge it or not.'
'I just don't believe it's that simple. Just a bad gene or two.'
'It isn't simple, and it isn't a gene or two. It's many-the result of a tangled combination of factors that only begins with genes.' He stopped, let his head tentacles drift toward a rough circle of huge trees. The tentacles
