'Does it?' Lilith said. 'What did Peter's ooloi think?'
'It never told anyone what it thought. As a result, no one realized it was in trouble. Incredible behavior. I said it would be better if we weren't so drawn to you.'
She shook her head. 'If Yahjahyi thinks Curt is all right, it's deluding itself.'
'We've observed Curt and Yahjahyi,' Nikanj said. 'Curt will go through a dangerous time now, but Yahjahyi is ready. Even Celene is ready.'
'Celene!' Lilith said with contempt.
'You did a good job matching them. Much better than with Peter and Jean.'
'I didn't match Peter and Jean. Their own temperaments did-like fire and gasoline.'
'...yes. Anyway, Celene is not ready to lose another mate. She'll hold on to him. And Curt, since he sees her as much more vulnerable than she is, will have good reason not to risk himself, not to chance leaving her alone. They'll be all right.'
'They won't,' Gabriel told her later. He too was free of the drug, finally, but he was handling it better. Kahguyaht, who had been so eager to push Lilith, coerce her, ridicule her, seemed to be infinitely patient with Tate and Gabriel.
'Look at things from Curt's point of view,' Gabriel said. 'He's not in control even of what his own body does and feels. He's taken like a woman and.. . . No, don't explain!' He held up his hand to stop her from interrupting. 'He knows the ooloi aren't male. He knows all the sex that goes on is in his head. It doesn't matter. It doesn't fucking matter! Someone else is pushing all his buttons. He can't let them get away with that.'
Honestly frightened, Lilith asked, 'How have you... made your peace with it?'
'Who says I have?'
She stared at him. 'Gabe, we can't lose you, too.'
He smiled. Beautiful, perfect, white teeth. They made her think of some predator. 'I don't take the next step,' he said, 'until I see where I'm standing now. You know I still don't believe this isn't Earth.'
'I know.'
'A tropical forest in a space ship. Who'd believe that?'
'But the Oankali. You can see that they're not of Earth.'
'Sure. But they're here now on what sure looks, sounds, and smells like Earth.'
'It isn't.'
'So you say. Sooner or later I'll find out for myself.'
'Kahguyaht could show you things that would make you sure now. They might even convince Curt.'
'Nothing will convince Curt. Nothing will reach him.'
'You think he'll do what Peter did?'
'Much more efficiently.'
'Oh god. Did you know they put Jean back into suspended animation? She won't even remember Peter when she wakes up.'
'I heard. That will make it easier on her when they put her with another guy, I guess.'
'Is that what you would want for Tate?' He shrugged, turned, and walked away.
3
Lilith taught all the humans to make thatch shingles and place them in overlapping rows on rafters so that they would not leak. She showed them the best trees to cut for flooring and frame. They all worked several days to construct a large thatch-roofed cabin on stilts, well above the river's highwater mark. The cabin was a twin to the one they had all squeezed into so far-the one Lilith and the ooloi had constructed then the ooloi brought them all through the miles of corridors to the training room.
The ooloi left this second construction strictly to the humans. They watched or sat talking among themselves or disappeared on errands of their own. But when the work was finished they brought in a small feast to celebrate.
'We won't provide food for much longer,' one of them told the group. 'You'll learn to live on what grows here and to cultivate gardens.'
No one was surprised. They had already been cutting hands of green bananas from existing trees and hanging them from beams or from the porch railing. As the bananas ripened, the humans discovered they had to compete with the insects for them.
A few people had also been cutting pineapples and picking papayas and breadfruits from existing trees. Most people did not like the breadfruit until Lilith showed them the seeded form of the fruit, the breadnut. When they roasted the seeds as she instructed and ate them, they realized they had been eating them all along back in the great room.
They had pulled sweet cassava from the ground and dug up the yams Lilith had planted during her own training.
Now it was time for them to begin planting their own crops.
And, perhaps, now it was time for the Oankali to begin to see what they would harvest in their human crop.
Two men and a woman took their allotted tools and vanished into the forest. They did not really know enough yet to be on their own, but they were gone. Their ooloi did not go after them.
