Silence. Sadness. ?It remembers you as something there then not there. Nakanj kept you in its thoughts for a while, and the rest of us searched. As soon as we could leave it, we began searching. No one would help us until now.?
?Why now?? Akin asked.
?The people believed you had learned enough. They knew they had deprived you of your sibling.?
?It?s
too late for bonding.? He knew it was.
?Yes.?
?There was a pair of construct siblings here.?
?We know. They?re all right.?
?I saw what they had, how it was for them.? He paused for a moment remembering, longing. ?I?ll never have that.? Without realizing it, he had begun to cry.
?Eka, you?ll have something very like it when you mate. Until then, you have us.? Dichaan did not have to be told how little this was. It would be long years before Akin was old enough to mate. And bonding with parents was not the same as bonding with a close sibling. Nothing he had touched was as sweet as that bonding.
Dichaan gave him to Nikanj, and Nikanj coaxed from him all the information he had discovered about plant and animal life, about the salvage pit. This could be given with great speed to an ooloi. It was the work of ooloi to absorb and assimilate information others had gathered. They compared familiar forms of life with what had been or should be. They detected changes and found new forms of life that could be understood, assembled, and used as they were needed. Males and females went to the ooloi with caches of biological information. The ooloi took the information and gave in exchange intense pleasure. The taking and the giving were one act.
Akin had experienced mild versions of this exchange with Nikanj all his life, but this experience taught him he had known nothing about what an ooloi could take and give until now. Locked to Nikanj, he forgot for a time the pain of being denied bonding with his sibling.
When he was able to think again, he understood why people treasured the ooloi. Males and females did not collect information only to please the ooloi or get pleasure from them. They collected it because the collecting felt necessary to them and pleased them.
But, still, they did know that at some point an ooloi must take the information and coordinate it so that the people could use it. At some point, an ooloi must give them the sensation that only an ooloi could give. Even Humans were vulnerable to this enticement. They could not deliberately gather the kind of specific biological information the ooloi wanted, but they could share with an ooloi all that they had recently eaten, breathed, or absorbed through their skins. They could share any changes in their bodies since their last contact with the ooloi. They did not understand what they gave the ooloi. But they knew what the ooloi gave them. Akin understood exactly what he was giving to Nikanj. And for the first time, he began to understand what an ooloi could give him. It did not take the place of an ongoing closeness like Amma?s and Shkaht?s. Nothing could do that. But this was better than anything he had ever known. It was an easing of pain for now and a foreshadowing of healing for the distant, adult future.
Sometime later, Akin became aware again of the three Humans. They were sitting on the ground talking to one another. On the hill behind them, the hill that concealed them from the salvage camp, Gabe stood. Apparently, none of the Humans had seen him yet. All the Oankali must be aware of him. He was watching Tate, no doubt focusing on her yellow hair.
?Don?t say anything,? Nikanj told him silently. ?Let them talk.?
?He?s her mate,? Akin whispered aloud. ?He?s afraid she?ll come with us and leave him.?
?Yes.?
?Let me go and get him.?
?No, Eka.?
?He?s a friend. He took me all around the hills. It was because of him that I had so much information to give you.?
?He?s a resister. I won?t give him the chance to use you as a hostage. You don?t realize how valuable you are.?
?He wouldn?t do it.?
?What if he simply picked you up and stepped over the hill and called his friends. There are guns in that camp, aren?t there??
Silence. Gabe might do such a thing if he thought he was losing both Akin and Tate. He might. Just as Tino?s father had gathered his friends and killed so many even though he believed nothing he could do would bring Tino back or even properly avenge him.
?Come with us!? Lilith was saying. ?You like kids? Have some of your own. Teach them everything you know about what Earth used to be.?
?That?s not what you used to say,? Tate said softly.
Lilith nodded. ?I used to think you resisters would find an answer. I hoped you would. But, Jesus, your only answer has been to steal kids from us. The same kids you?re too good to have yourselves. What?s the point??
?We thought
we thought they would be able to have children without an ooloi.?
Lilith took a deep breath. ?No one does it without the ooloi. They?ve seen to that.?
?I can?t come back to them.?
?It?s not bad,? Tino said. ?It?s not what I thought.?
