Lilith shook her head. 'I know it has to be done. So stupid, isn't it. It's like 'Let's play Americans against the Russians. Again.''
'Talk to your friends,' Gabriel said. 'Maybe that's not the show they had in mind. Maybe they'll help you rewrite the script.'
She stared at him, frowning. 'Do you really talk like that?'
'Whatever works,' he said.
11
The Oankali did not choose to play the part of Lilith's friends. When she sealed herself into her room and spoke to them, they neither appeared nor answered her calls. And they continued to hold Derrick. Lilith thought he had probably been made to sleep again.
None of this surprised her. She would organize the humans into a coherent unit or she would serve as a scapegoat for whoever else organized them. Nikanj and its mates would save her life if they could-if it seemed her life was in immediate danger. But beyond that, she was on her own.
But she did have powers. Or that was the way people thought of the things she could do with the walls and the suspended animation plants. Peter Van Weerden had nothing. Some people believed he had caused Derrick's disappearance, perhaps his death. Fortunately Peter was not eloquent enough, not charismatic enough to shift blame for this to Lilith-though he tried.
What he did manage to do was portray Derrick as a hero, a martyr who had acted for the group, who had at least tried to do something. What the hell was Lilith doing, he would demand. What was her group doing? Sitting on their hands, talking and talking, waiting for their captors to tell them what to do next.
People who favored action sided with Peter. People like Leah and Wray, Tate and Gabriel who were biding their time, waiting for more information or a real chance to escape sided with Lilith.
There were also people like Beatrice Dwyer who were afraid of any kind of action, but who had lost hope of ever controlling their own destinies These sided with Lilith in the hope of peace and continued life. They wanted, Lilith thought, only to be let alone. That was all many people had wanted before the war. It was the one thing they could not have, then or now.
Nevertheless, Lilith recruited these, too, and when she Awakened ten more people, she used only her recruits to help them. Peter's people were reduced to heckling and jeering. The new people saw them first as troublemakers.
Perhaps that was why Peter decided to impress his followers by helping one of them get a woman.
The woman, Allison Zeigler, had not yet found a man she liked, but she had chosen Lilith's side over Peter's. She screamed Lilith's name when Peter and the new man, Gregory Sebastes, stopped arguing with her and decided to drag her off to Gregory's room.
Lilith, alone in her own room, frowned, not certain what she had heard. Another fight?
Wearily, she put down the stack of dossiers that she had been going through in search of a few more allies. She went out and saw the trouble at once.
Two men holding a struggling woman between them. The trio was prevented from reaching any of the bedrooms by Lilith's people who stood blocking the way. And Lilith's people were prevented from reaching the trio by several of Peter's people.
A stand-off-potentially deadly.
'What the hell is she saving herself for?' Jean was domanding. 'It's her duty to get together with someone. There aren't that many of us left.'
'It's my duty to find out where I am and how to get free,' Allison shouted. 'Maybe you want to give whoever's holding us prisoner a human baby to fool around with, but I don't!'
'We pair off!' Curt bellowed, drowning her out. 'One man, one woman. Nobody has the right to hold out. It just causes trouble.'
'Trouble for who!' someone demanded.
'Who the shit are you to tell us our rights!' called someone else.
'What is she to you!' Gregory used his free hand to knock someone away from Allison. 'Get your own damn woman!'
At that moment, Allison bit him. He cursed and hit her. She screamed, twisted her body violently. Blood streamed from her nose.
Lilith reached the crowd. 'Stop,' she called. 'Let her go!' But her voice was lost in the many.
'Goddammit, stop!' She shouted in a voice that surprised even her.
People near her froze, staring at her, but the group around Allison was too involved to notice her until she reached it.
This was too familiar, too much like what Paul Titus had said and done.
She stepped up to the knot of people surrounding Allison, too furious to worry about their blocking her. Two of them caught her arms. She threw them aside without ever seeing their faces. For once she did not care what happened to them. Cavemen. Fools!
She grabbed Peter's free arm as he tried to hit her. She held the arm, squeezed it, twisted it.
Peter screamed and fell to his knees, his grip on Allison released, forgotten. For a moment, Lilith stared at him. He was garbage. Human garbage. How had she made the mistake of Awakening him? And what could she do with him now?
She threw him aside, not caring that he hit a nearby wall. The other man, Gregory Sebastes, held his ground. Curt stood beside him, challenging Lilith. They had seen what she had done to Peter, but they did not seem to believe it. They let her walk up to them.
She hit Curt hard in the stomach, doubling him, toppling him.
