?What will you do, then? You just go on repairing him until finally he leaves us and maybe kills himself??
?He won?t leave us.?
It meant it would not let him go, could not. Ooloi could be that way when they found a Human they were strongly attracted to. Nikanj certainly could not let Lilith go, no matter how much it let her wander.
?Will Akin be all right??
?I don?t know.?
Dichaan detached himself from Nikanj and sat up, folding his legs under him. ?I?m going to separate him from the resisters.?
?Why??
?Sooner or later, one of them will kill him. We?ve collected their guns twice since they took him. They always make more, and the new ones are always more effective. Greater range, greater accuracy, greater safety for the Humans using them
Humans are too dangerous. And they?re only one part of him. Let him learn what else he is.?
Nikanj drew its body tentacles in, upset, but it said nothing. If it had favorites among its children, Akin was one of them. It had no same-sex children, and that was a real deprivation. Akin was unique, and when he was at home, he spent much of his time with Nikanj. But Dichaan was still his same-sex parent.
?Not for long, Chkah,? Dichaan said softly. ?I won?t keep him from you long. And he?ll bring you all the changes he finds in Chkahichdahk.?
?He always brings me things,? Nikanj whispered. It seemed to relax, accepting Dichaan?s decision. ?He goes out of his way to find unusual things to taste and bring back. There?s so little time until he metamorphoses and begins giving all his acquisitions to his mates.?
?A year,? Dichaan said. ?I?ll bring him back in only a year.? He lay down again to comfort Nikanj and was not surprised to find that the ooloi needed comfort. It had been upset by the way Tino continually took his frustration and confusion out on his own body. Now it was even more upset. It was to lose a year of Akin?s childhood. In its home with its large family all around, it felt alone and tired.
Dichaan linked himself into the nervous system of the ooloi. He could feel his own deep family bond stimulating Nikanj?s. These bonds expanded and changed over the years, but they did not weaken. And they never failed to capture Nikanj?s most intense interest.
Later Dichaan would tell Lo to signal the ship and have it send a shuttle. Later he would tell Akin it was time for him to learn more about the Oankali side of his heritage.
2
Sometimes it seemed to Akin that his world was made up of tight units of people who treated him kindly or coldly as they chose, but who could not let him in, no matter how much they might want to.
He could remember a time when blending into others seemed not only possible but inevitable?when Tiikuchahk was still unborn and he could reach out and taste it and know it as his closest sibling. Now, though, because he had not been able to bond with it, it was perhaps his least interesting sibling. He had spent as little time as possible with it.
Now it wanted to go to Chkahichdahk with him.
?Let it go and let me stay here,? he had told Dichaan.
?It is alone, too,? Dichaan had answered. ?You and it both need to learn more about what you are.?
?I know what I am.?
?Yes. You are my same-sex child, near his metamorphosis.?
Akin had not been able to answer this. It was time for him to listen to Dichaan, learn from him, prepare to be a mature male. He felt strongly inclined to obey.
Yet he had lost himself in the forest for days, resisting the inclination and deeply resenting it each time it returned to nag him.
No one came after him. And no one seemed surprised when he came home. The shuttle had eaten a new clearing waiting for him.
He stood staring at it. It was a great green-shelled thing?a male itself to the degree that the ship-entities could be of one sex or the other. Each one had the capacity to become female. But as long as it received a controlling substance from the body of Chkahichdahk, it would remain small and male. It would extend the reach of Chkahichdahk by investigating planets and moons of solar systems, bringing back information, supplies of minerals, life. It would carry passengers and work with them in exploration. And it would ferry people to the ship and back.
Akin had never been inside one. He would not be allowed to link into one?s nervous system until he was an adult. So much had to wait until he was an adult.
When he was an adult, he could speak for the resisters. Now, his voice could be ignored, would not even be heard without the amplification provided by one of the adult members of his family. He remembered Nikanj?s stories of its own childhood?of being right, knowing it was right, and yet being ignored because it was not adult. Lilith had occasionally been hurt during those years because people did not listen to Nikanj, who knew her better than they did.
Akin would not make Nikanj?s mistake. He had decided that long ago. But now
Why had Dichaan decided to send him to Chkahichdahk? Was it only to keep him out of danger or was there some other reason?
He moved closer to the shuttle, waiting to go inside but wanting first to walk around the thing, look at it, appreciate it with the senses he and the Humans shared.
