when he told them. All her tentacles had flattened invisibly to her flesh.
?They might try,? Akin said. ?We have to stop them from trying.?
?How??
Shkaht touched him with one of her small, sensitive hands. ?Which Humans do you trust?? she asked. She was the younger of the two, but she had managed to learn more.
?The woman I live with. Tate. Not her husband. Just her. I?m going to tell her the truth.?
?Can she really do anything??
?She can. She might not. She does
strange things sometimes. She
The worst thing she might do now is nothing.?
?What?s wrong with her??
?What?s wrong with them all? Haven?t you noticed??
?
yes. But I don?t understand.?
?I don?t either, really. But it?s the way they have to live. They want kids, so they buy us. But we still aren?t their kids. They want to have kids. Sometimes they hate us because they can?t. And sometimes they hate us because we?re part of the Oankali and the Oankali are the ones who won?t let them have kids.?
?They could have dozens of kids if they stop living by themselves and join us.?
?They want kids the way they used to have them before the war. Without the Oankali.?
?Why??
?It?s their way.? He lay in a jumble with them so that sensory spot found sensory spot, so that the girls were able to use their sensory tentacles and he was able to use his tongue. They were almost unaware that the conversation had ceased to be vocal. Akin had already learned that Humans considered them to be asleep half-atop one another when they lay this way.
?There won?t be any more of them,? he said, trying to project the sensations of aloneness and fear he believed the Humans felt. ?Their kind is all they?ve ever known or been, and now there won?t be any more. They try to make us like them, but we won?t ever be really like them, and they know it.?
The girls shuddered, broke contact briefly, minutely. When they touched him again they seemed to communicate as one person.
?We are them! And we are the Oankali. You know. If they could perceive, they would know!?
?If they could perceive, they would be us. They can?t and they aren?t. We?re the best of what they are and the best of what the Oankali are. But because of us, they won?t exist anymore.?
?Oankali Dinso and Toaht won?t exist anymore.?
?No. But Akjai will go away unchanged. If the Human-Oankali construct doesn?t work here or with the Toaht, Akjai will continue.?
?Only if they find some other people to blend with.? This came distinctly from Amma.
?Humans had come to their own end,? Shkaht said. ?They were flawed and overspecialized. If they hadn?t had their war, they would have found another way to kill themselves.?
?Perhaps,? Akin admitted. ?I was taught that, too. And I can see the conflict in their genes?the new intelligence put at the service of ancient hierarchical tendencies. But
they didn?t have to destroy themselves. They certainly don?t have to do it again.?
?How could they not?? Amma demanded. All that she had learned, all that the bodies of her own Human parents had shown her told her he was talking nonsense. She had not been among resister Humans long enough to begin to see them as a truly separate people. Yet she must understand. She would be female. Someday, she would tell her children what Humans were. And she did not know. He was only beginning to learn himself.
He said with intensity, with utter certainty, ?There should be a Human Akjai! There should be Humans who don?t change or die?Humans to go on if the Dinso and Toaht unions fail.?
Amma was moving uncomfortably against him, first touching, then breaking contact as though it hurt her to know what he was saying, but her curiosity would not let her stay away. Shkaht was still, fastened to him by slender head tentacles, trying to absorb what he was saying.
?You?re here for this,? she said aloud softly. Her voice startled him, though he did not move. She had spoken in Oankali, and her communication, like his, had the feel of intensity and truth.
Amma linked more deeply into both of them, giving them her frustration. She did not understand.
?He is being left here,? Shkaht explained silently. She deliberately soothed her sibling with her own calm certainly. ?They want him to know the Humans,? she said. ?They would not have sent him to them, but since he?s here and not being hurt, they want him to learn so that later he can teach.?
?What about us??
?I don?t know. They couldn?t come for us without taking him. And they probably didn?t know where we would be sold?or even whether we would be sold. I think we?ll be left here until they decide to come for him?unless we?re in danger.?
?We?re in danger now,? Amma whispered aloud.
?No. Akin will talk to Tate. If Tate can?t help us, we?ll disappear some night soon.?
