Tino said nothing for a moment. He looked away. The war was an insanity he had never understood, and no one in Phoenix had been able to explain it to him. At least, no one had been able to give him a reason why people who had excellent reasons to suppose they would destroy themselves if they did a certain thing chose to do that thing anyway. He thought he understood anger, hatred, humiliation, even the desire to kill a man. He had felt all those things. But to kill everyone
almost to kill the Earth
There were times when he wondered if somehow the Oankali had not caused the war for their own purposes. How could sane people like the ones he had left behind in Phoenix do such a thing?or, how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn?t give him power.
?I don?t know about the war,? Tino admitted. ?It?s never made sense to me. But
maybe you should have left us alone. Maybe some of us would have survived.?
?Nothing would have survived except bacteria, a few small land plants and animals, and some sea creatures. Most of the life that you see around you we reseeded from prints, from collected specimens from our own creations, and from altered remnants of things that had undergone benign changes before we found them. The war damaged your ozone layer. Do you know what that is??
?No.?
?It shielded life on Earth from the sun?s ultraviolet rays. Without its protection, above-ground life on Earth would not have been possible. If we had left you on Earth, you would have been blinded. You would have been burned?if you hadn?t already been killed by other expanding effects of the war?and you would have died a terrible death. Most animals did die, and most plants, and some of us. We?re hard to kill, but your people had made their world utterly hostile to life. If we had not helped it, it couldn?t have restored itself so quickly. Once it was restored, we knew we couldn?t carry on a normal trade. We couldn?t let you breed alongside us, coming to us only when you saw the value of what we offered. Stabilizing a trade that way takes too many generations. We needed to free you?the least dangerous of you anyway. But we couldn?t let your numbers grow. We couldn?t let you begin to become what you were.?
?You believe we would have had another war??
?You would have had many others?against each other, against us. Some of the southern resister groups are already making guns.?
Tino digested that silently. He had known about the guns of the southerners, had assumed they were to be used against the Oankali. He had not believed people from the stars would be stopped by a few crude firearms, and he had said so, making himself unpopular with those of his people who wanted to believe?needed to believe. Several of these had left Phoenix to join the southerners.
?What will you do about the guns?? he asked.
?Nothing, except to those who actually do try to shoot us. Those go back to the ship permanently. They lose Earth. We?ve told them that. So far, none of them have shot us. A few have shot one another, though.?
Lilith looked startled. ?You?re letting them do that??
Nikanj focused a cone of tentacles on her. ?Could we stop them, Lilith, really??
?You used to try!?
?Aboard the ship, here in Lo, and in the other trade villages. Nowhere else. We control the resisters only if we cage them, drug them, and allow them to live in an unreal world of drug-stimulated imaginings. We?ve done that to a few violent Humans. Shall we do it to more??
Lilith only stared at it, her expression unreadable.
?You won?t do that?? Tino asked.
?We won?t. We have prints of all of you. We would be sorry to lose you, but at least we would save something. We will be inviting your people to join us again. If any are injured or crippled or even sick in spite of our efforts, we?ll offer them our help. They?re free to accept our help yet stay in their villages. Or they can come to us.? It aimed a sharp cone of head tentacles at Tino. ?You?ve known since I sent you back to your parents years ago that you could choose to come to us.?
Tino shook his head, spoke softly. ?I seem to remember that I didn?t want to go back to my parents. I asked to stay with you. To this day, I don?t know why.?
?I wanted to keep you. If you?d been a little older
But we?ve been told and shown that we aren?t good at raising fully Human children.? It shifted its attention for a moment to Lilith, but she looked away. ?You had to be left with your parents to grow up. I thought I wouldn?t see you again.?
Tino caught himself staring at the ooloi?s long, gray sensory arms. Both arms seemed relaxed against the ooloi?s sides, their ends coiled, spiraling upward so that they did not touch the floor.
?They always look a little like elephants? trunks to me,? Lilith said.
Tino glanced at her and saw that she was smiling?a sad smile that became her somehow. For a moment, she was beautiful. He did not know what he wanted from the ooloi?if he wanted anything. But he knew what he wanted from the woman. He wished the ooloi were not there. And as soon as the thought occurred to him, he rejected it. Lilith and Nikanj were a pair somehow. Without Nikanj, she would not have been as desirable. He did not understand this, but he accepted it.
They would have to show him what was to happen. He would not ask. They had made it clear they wanted something from him. Let them ask.
?I was thinking,? Tino said, referring to the sensory arms, ?that I don?t know what they are.?
Nikanj?s body tentacles seemed to tremble, then solidify into discolored lumps. They sank into themselves the way the soft bodies of slugs seemed to when they drew themselves up to rest.
Tino drew back a little in revulsion. God, the Oankali were ugly creatures. How had Human beings come to tolerate them so easily, to touch them and allow them to
Lilith took the ooloi?s right sensory
