?What language??
?Yoruba.?
?Yor?
what? What country??
?Nigeria.?
?Why should you have a Nigerian name? Is one of your parents Nigerian??
?It means hero. If you put an s on it, it means brave boy. I?m the first boy born to a Human woman on Earth since the war.?
?That?s what the worms hunting for you said,? Rinaldi agreed. He was frowning again. ?Can you read??
?Yes.?
?How can you have had time to learn to read??
Akin hesitated. ?I don?t forget things,? he said softly.
The raiders looked startled. ?Ever?? Damek demanded. ?Anything??
Rinaldi only nodded. ?That?s the way the Oankali are,? he said. ?They can bring out the ability in Humans when they want to?and when the Humans agree to be useful to them. I thought that was the boy?s secret.?
Akin, who had considering lying, was glad he had not. He had always found it easy to tell the truth and difficult to make himself lie. He could lie very convincingly, though, if lying would keep him alive and spare him pain among these men. It was easier, though, to divert questions?as he had diverted the question about his parents.
?Do you want to stay here, Akin?? Rinaldi asked.
?If you buy me, I?ll stay,? Akin said.
?Shall we buy you??
?Yes.?
?Why??
Akin glanced at Iriarte. ?They want to sell me. If I have to be sold, I?d like to stay here.?
?Why??
?You aren?t afraid of me, and you don?t hate me. I don?t hate you, either.?
Rinaldi laughed. Akin was pleased. He had hoped to make the man laugh. He had learned back in Lo that if he made Humans laugh, they were more comfortable with him?though, of course, in Lo, he had never been exposed to people who might injure him simply because he was not Human.
Rinaldi asked his age, the number of languages he spoke, and the purpose of his long, gray tongue. Akin withheld information only about the tongue.
?I smell and taste with it,? he said. ?I can smell with my nose, too, but my tongue tells me more.? All true, but Akin had decided not to tell anyone what else his tongue could do. The idea of his tasting their cells, their genes, might disturb them too much.
A woman called a doctor came in, took Akin from Rinaldi, and began to examine, poke, and probe his body. She did not talk to him, though Rinaldi had told her he could talk.
?He?s got some oddly textured spots on his back, arms, and abdomen,? she said. ?I suspect they?re where he?ll grow tentacles in a few years.?
?Are they?? Rinaldi asked him.
?I don?t know,? Akin said. ?People never know what they?ll be like after metamorphosis.?
The doctor stumbled back from him with a wordless sound.
?I told you he could talk, Yori.?
She shook her head. ?I thought you meant
baby talk.?
?I meant like you and me. Ask him questions. He?ll answer.?
?What can you tell me about the spots?? she asked.
?Sensory spots. I can see and taste with most of them.? And he could complete sensory connections with anyone else who had sensory tentacles or spots. But he would not talk to Humans about that.
?Does it bother you when we touch them??
?Yes. I?m used to it, but it still bothers me.?
Two women came into the room and called Rinaldi away.
A man and woman came in to look at Akin?just to stand and stare at him and listen as he answered the doctor?s questions. He guessed who they were before they finally spoke to him.
?Did you really know our son?? the woman asked. She was very small. All the women he had seen so far were almost tiny. They would have looked like children alongside his mother and sisters. Still, they were gentle and knew how to lift him without hurting him. And they were neither afraid of him nor disgusted by him.
?Was Tino your son?? he asked the woman.
