Nickahnge was closer. She listened in her mind to Nikanj saying its name, then wrote Nikanj. That felt right, and she liked the way it looked.
'That's about what your name would look like written down,' she said. 'I can write the words you teach me and study them until I know them. That way I wouldn't have to ask you things over and over. But I need something to write with-and on. Thin sheets of paper would be best.' She was not sure it knew what paper was, but it did not ask. 'If you don't have paper, I could use thin sheets of plastic or even cloth if you can make something that will mark them. Some ink or dye-something that will make a clear mark. Do you understand?'
'You can do what you're doing with your fingers,' it told her.
'That's not enough. I need to be able to keep my writing. . . to study it. I need-'
She stopped in midsentence, blinked at it. 'This isn't anything dangerous,' she said. 'Some of your people must have seen our books, tapes, disks, films-our records of history, medicine, language, science, all kinds of things. I just want to make my own records of your language.'
'I know about the... records your people kept. I didn't know what they were called in English, but I've seen them. We've saved many of them and learned to use them to know humans better. I don't understand them, but others do.'
'May I see them?'
'No. None of your people are permitted to see them.'
'Why?'
It did not answer.
'Nikanj?'
Silence.
'Then . . . at least let me make my own records to help me learn your language. We humans need to do such things to help us remember.'
'No.'
She frowned. 'But . . . what do you mean, 'no'? We do.'
'I cannot give you such things. Not to write or to read.'
'Why!'
'It is not allowed. The people have decided that it should not be allowed.'
'That doesn't answer anything. What was their reason?' Silence again. It let its sensory tentacles droop. This made it look smaller-like a furry animal that had gotten wet.
'It can't be that you don't have-or can't make-writing materials,' she said.
'We can make anything your people could,' it said. 'Though we would not want to make most of their things.'
'This is such a simple thing . . .' She shook her head. 'Have you been told not to tell me why?'
It refused to answer. Did that mean not telling her was its own idea, its own childish exercise of power? Why shouldn't the Oankali do such things as readily as humans did?
After a time, it said, 'Come back in. I'll teach you more of our history.' It knew she liked stories of the long, multispecies Oankali history, and the stories helped her Oankali vocabulary. But she was in no mood to be cooperative now. She sat down on the ground and leaned back against the pseudotree. After a moment, Nikanj sat down opposite her and began to speak.
'Six divisions ago, on a white-sun water world, we lived in great shallow oceans,' it said. 'We were many- bodied and spoke with body lights and color patterns among ourself and among ourselves. . .
She let it go on, not questioning when she did not understand, not wanting to care. The idea of Oankali blending with a species of intelligent, schooling, fishlike creatures was fascinating, but she was too angry to give it her full attention. Writing materials. Such small things, and yet they were denied to her. Such small things!
When Nikanj went into the apartment to get food for them both, she got up and walked away. She wandered, freer than she ever had before through the parklike area outside the living quarters-the pseudotrees. Oankali saw her, but seemed to pay no more than momentary attention to her. She had become absorbed in looking around when abruptly Nikanj was beside her.
'You must stay with me,' it said in a tone that reminded her of a human mother speaking to her five-year-old. That, she thought, was about right for her rank in its family.
After that incident she slipped away whenever she could. Either she would be stopped, punished, and/or confined, or she would not be.
She was not. Nikanj seemed to get used to her wandering. Abruptly, it ceased to show up at her elbow minutes after she had escaped it. It seemed willing to give her an occasional hour or two out of its sight. She began to take food with her, saving easily portable items from her meals-a highly seasoned rice dish wrapped in an edible, high- protein envelope, nuts, fruit or quatasayasha, a sharp, cheeselike Oankali food that Kahguyaht had said was safe. Nikanj had acknowledged its acceptance of her wandering by advising her to bury any uneaten food she did not want. 'Feed it to the ship' was the way it put the suggestion.
She would fashion her extra jacket into a bag and put her lunch into it, then wander alone, eating and thinking. There was no real comfort in being alone with her thoughts, her memories, but somehow the illusion of freedom lessened her despair.
Other Oankali tried to talk with her sometimes, but she could not understand enough of their language to hold a conversation. Sometimes even when they spoke slowly, she would not recognize words she should have known and did know moments after the encounter had ended. Most of the time she wound up resorting to gestures-which did not work very well-and feeling impenetrably stupid. The only certain communication she managed was in enlisting help from strangers when she was lost.
