?Lilith isn?t that way, and she remembers everything.?
?Natural ability, plus some changes I made. She was chosen very carefully.?
?How did Tino find you again? Did you bring him here before you let him go? Did he remember??
?This place didn?t exist when we let his family and a few others go. He was probably following the river. Did he have a canoe??
?I don?t think so. I don?t know.?
?If you follow the river and keep your eyes open, you?ll find villages.?
?He found Mother and me.?
?He?s Human?and he?s a resister. He wouldn?t want to just walk into a village. He would want to have a look at it first. And he was lucky enough to meet some harmless villagers?people who might introduce him into the village safely or who could let him know why he should avoid the village.?
?Mother isn?t harmless.?
?No, but she finds it convenient to seem harmless.?
?What kind of village would he avoid??
?Other resister villages, probably. Resister villages?especially widely separated ones?are dangerous in different ways. Some of them are dangerous to one another. A few become dangerous to us, and we have to break them up. Human diversity is fascinating and seductive, but we can?t let it destroy them?or us.?
?Will you keep Tino here??
?Do you like him??
?Yes.?
?Good. Your mother doesn?t yet, but she might change her mind. Perhaps he?ll want to stay.?
Akin, curious about adult relationships, used all his senses to perceive what went on between his parents and Tino.
First there was Tino?s story to be finished.
?I don?t know what to tell you about our village,? he was saying. ?It?s full of old people who look young?just like here, I guess. Except here you have kids. We worked hard, getting things as much like they used to be as possible. That?s what kept everyone going. The idea that we could use our long lives to bring back civilization?get things ready for when they found a girl for me or discovered some way to get kids of their own. They believed it would happen. I believed. Hell, I believed more than anyone.
?We did salvaging and quarrying in the mountains. I was never allowed to go. They were afraid something would happen to me. But I helped build the houses. Real houses, not huts. We even had glass for the windows. We made glass and traded it with other resister villages. One of them came in with us when they saw how well we were doing. That almost doubled our numbers. They had a guy about three years younger than me, but no young women.
?We made a town. We even had a couple of mills for power. That made building easier. We built like crazy. If you were really busy, you didn?t have to think that maybe you were doing it all for nothing. Maybe all we were going to do was sit in our handsome houses and pray in our nice church and watch everybody not getting old.
?Then in one week, two guys and a woman hung themselves. Four others just disappeared. It would hit us like that?like a disease that one person caught and spread. We never had one suicide or one murder or one disappearance. Somebody else always caught the disease. I guess I finally caught it. Where do people go when they disappear? Someplace like this?? He looked around, sighed, then frowned. His tone changed abruptly. ?You people have all the advantages. The Oankali can get you anything. Why do you live this way??
?We?re comfortable,? Akin?s oldest sister Ayre said. ?This isn?t a terrible way to live.?
?It?s primitive! You live like savages! I mean
? He lowered his voice. ?I?m sorry. I didn?t mean to say that. It?s just that
I don?t know any polite way to ask this: Why don?t you at least build real houses and get rid of these shacks! You should see what we have! And
Hell, you have spaceships. How can you live this way?.?
Lilith spoke softly to him. ?How many of those real houses of yours were empty when you left, Tino??
He faced her angrily. ?My people never had a chance! They didn?t make the war. They didn?t make the Oankali. And they didn?t make themselves sterile! But you can be damn sure that everything they did make was good and it worked and they put their hearts into it. Hey, I thought, ?If we made a town, the
traders
must have made a city!? And what do I find? A village of huts with primitive gardens. This place is hardly even a clearing!? His voice had risen again. He looked around with disapproval. ?You?ve got kids to plan for and provide for, and you?re going to let them slide right back to being cavemen!?
A Human woman named Leah spoke up. ?Our kids will be okay,? she said. ?But I wish we could get more of your people to come here. They?re as close to immortal as a Human being has ever been, and all they can think of to do is build useless houses and kill one another.?
?It?s time we offered the resisters a way back to us,? Ahajas said. ?I think we?ve been too comfortable here.?
Several Oankali made silent gestures of agreement.
?Leave them alone,? Tino said. ?You?ve done enough to them! I?m not going to tell you where they are!?
Nikanj, still holding Akin, got up and moved through the seated people until it could sit with no one between
