Akin felt himself held closer to Lilith. ?Why is he such an experiment?? she demanded. ?And why should Human- born men be such a problem? I know most prewar men don?t like you. They feel you?re displacing them and forcing them to do something perverted. From their point of view, they?re right. But you could teach the next generation to love you, no matter who their mothers are. All you?d have to do is start early. Indoctrinate them before they?re old enough to develop other opinions.?
?But
? Nikanj hesitated. ?But if we had to work that blindly, that clumsily, we couldn?t have trade. We would have to take your children from you soon after they were born. We wouldn?t dare trust you to raise them. You would be kept only for breeding?like nonsentient animals.?
Silence. A sigh. ?You say such god-awful things in such a gentle voice. No, hush, I know it?s the only voice you?ve got. Nika, will Akin survive the Human males who will hate him??
?They won?t hate him.?
?They will! He isn?t Human. Un-Human women are offensive to them, but they don?t usually try to hurt them, and they do sleep with them?like a racist sleeping with racially different women. But Akin
They?ll see him as a threat. Hell, he is a threat. He?s one of their replacements.?
?Lilith, they will not hate him.? Akin felt himself lifted from Lilith?s arms and held close to Nikanj?s body. He gasped at the lovely shock of contact with Nikanj?s sensory tentacles, many of which held him while others burrowed painlessly into his flesh. It was so easy to connect with Nikanj and to learn. ?They will see him as beautiful and like themselves,? Nikanj said. ?By the time he?s old enough for his body to reveal what he actually is, he?ll be an adult and able to hold his own.?
?Able to fight??
?Only to save his life. He?ll tend to avoid fighting. He?ll be like Oankali-born males now?a solitary wanderer when he?s not mated.?
?He won?t settle down with anyone??
?No. Most Human males aren?t particularly monogamous. No construct males will be.?
?But??
?Families will change, Lilith?are changing. A complete construct family will be a female, an ooloi, and children. Males will come and go as they wish and as they find welcome.?
?But they?ll have no homes.?
?A home like this would be a prison to them. They?ll have what they want, what they need.?
?The ability to be fathers to their kids??
Nikanj paused. ?They might choose to keep contact with their children. They won?t live with them permanently?and no construct, male or female, young or old, will feel that as a deprivation. It will be normal to them, and purposeful, since there will always be many more females and ooloi than males.? It rustled its head and body tentacles. ?Trade means change. Bodies change. Ways of living must change. Did you think your children would only look different??
3
Akin spent some part of the day with each of his parents. Lilith fed him and taught him. The others only taught him, but he went to them all eagerly. Ahajas usually held him after Lilith.
Ahajas was tall and broad. She carried him without seeming to notice his weight. He had never felt weariness in her. And he knew she enjoyed carrying him. He could feel pleasure the moment she sank filaments of her sensory tentacles into him. She was the first person to be able to reach him this way with more than simple emotions. She was the first to give him multisensory images and signaling pressures and to help him understand that she was speaking to him without words. As he grew, he realized that Nikanj and Dichaan also did this. Nikanj had done it even before he was born, but he had not understood. Ahajas had reached him and taught him quickly. Through the images she created for him, he learned about the child growing within her. She gave him images of it and even managed to give it images of him. It had several presences: all its parents except Lilith. And it had him. Sibling.
He knew he would be male when he grew up. He understood male, and female, and ooloi. And he knew that because he would be male, the unborn child who would begin its life seeming much less Human than he did would eventually become female. There was a balance, a naturalness to this that pleased him. He should have a sister to grow up with?a sister but not an ooloi sibling. Why? He wondered whether the child inside Ahajas would become ooloi, but Ahajas and Nikanj both assured him it would not. And they would not tell him how they knew. So this sibling should become a sister. It would take years to develop sexually, but he already thought of it as ?she.?
Dichaan usually took him once Ahajas had returned him to Lilith and Lilith had fed him. Dichaan taught him about strangers.
First there were his older siblings, some born to Ahajas and becoming more Human, and some born to Lilith and becoming more Oankali. There were also children of older siblings, and finally, frighteningly, unrelated people. Akin could not understand why some of the unrelated ones were more like Lilith than Joseph had been. And none of them were like Joseph.
Dichaan read Akin?s unspoken confusion.
?The differences you perceive between Humans?between groups of Humans?are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments,? he said, illustrating each concept with quick multiple images. ?Joseph and Lilith were born in very different parts of this world?born to long separated peoples. Do you understand??
?Where are Joseph?s kind?? Akin asked aloud.
?Now there are villages of them to the southwest. They?re called Chinese.?
?I want to see them.?
?You will. You can travel to them when you?re older.? He ignored Akin?s rush of frustration. ?And someday I?ll take you to the ship. You?ll be able to see Oankali differences, too.? He gave Akin an image of the ship?a vast sphere made
