It was delicately controlling his nervous system, stimulating the release of certain endorphins in his brain?in effect, causing him to drug himself into pleasurable relaxation and acceptance. His body was refusing to allow him to panic. As he was enfolded in a union that felt more like drowning than joining, he kept jerking toward panic only to have the emotion smothered in something that was almost pleasure. He felt as though something were crawling down his throat and he could not manage a reflexive cough to bring it up.
The Akjai could have helped him more, could have suppressed all discomfort. It did not, Akin realized, because it was already teaching. Akin strove to control his own feelings, strove to accept the self-dissolving closeness.
Gradually, he did accept it. He discovered he could, with a shift of attention, perceive as the Akjai perceived?a silent, mainly tactile world. It could see?see far more than Akin could in the dim room. It could see most forms of electromagnetic radiation. It could look at a wall and see great differences in the flesh, where Akin saw none. And it knew?could see?the ship?s circulatory system. It could see, somehow, the nearest outside plates. As it happened, the nearest outside plates were some distance above their heads where Akin?s Earth-trained senses told him the sky should be. The Akjai knew all this and more simply by sight. Tactilely, though, it was in constant contact with Chkahichdahk. If it chose to, it could know what the ship was doing in any part of the huge shipbody at any time. In fact, it did know. It simply did not care because nothing required its attention. All the many small things that had gone wrong or that seemed about to go wrong were being attended to by others. The Akjai could know this through the contact of its many limbs with the floor.
The startling thing was, Taishokaht knew it, too. The thirty-two toes of its two bare feet told it exactly what the Akjai?s limbs told it. He had never noticed Oankali doing this at home. He had certainly never done it himself with his very Human, five-toed feet.
He was no longer afraid.
No matter how closely he was joined to the two ooloi, he was aware of himself. He was equally aware of them and their bodies and their sensations. But, somehow, they were still themselves, and he was still himself. He felt as though he were a floating, disembodied mind, like the souls some resisters spoke of in their churches, as though he looked from some impossible angle and saw everything, including his own body as !t leaned against the Akjai. He tried to move his left hand and saw it move. He tried to move one of the Akjai?s limbs, and once he understood the nerves and musculature, the limb moved.
?You see?? the Akjai said, its touches feeling oddly like Akin touching his own skin. ?People don?t lose themselves. You can do this.?
He could. He examined the Akjai?s body, comparing it to Taishokaht?s and to his own. ?How can Dinso and Toaht people give up such strong, versatile bodies to trade with Humans?? he asked.
Both ooloi were amused. ?You only ask that because you don?t know your own potential,? the Akjai told him. ?Now I?ll show you the structure of a tilio. You don?t know it even as completely as a child can. When you understand it, I?ll show you the things that go wrong with it and what you can do about them.?
7
Akin lived with the Akjai as it traveled around the ship. The Akjai taught him, withholding nothing that he could absorb. He learned to understand not only the animals of Chkahichdahk and Earth, but the plants. When he asked for information on the resisters? bodies, the Akjai found several visiting Dinso ooloi. It learned in a matter of minutes all that they could teach it. Then it fed the information to Akin in a long series of lessons.
?Now you know more than you realize,? the Akjai said when it had given its information on Humans. ?You have information you won?t even be able to use until after your own metamorphosis.?
?I know more than I thought I could learn,? Akin said. ?I know enough to heal ulcers in a resister?s stomach or cuts or puncture wounds in flesh and in organs.?
?Eka, I don?t think they?ll let you.?
?Yes, they will. At least, they will until I change. Some will.?
?What do you want for them, Eka? What would you give them??
?What you have. What you are.? Akin sat with his back against the Akjai?s curved side. It could touch him with several limbs and give him one sensory limb to signal into. ?I want a Human Akjai,? he told it.
?I?ve heard that you did. But your kind can?t exist alongside them. Not separately. You know that.?
Akin took the slender, glowing limb from his mouth and looked at it. He liked the Akjai. It had been his teacher for months now. It had taken him into parts of the ship that most people never saw. It had enjoyed his fascination and deliberately suggested new things that he might be interested in learning. He was, it said, more energetic than the older students it had had.
It was a friend. Perhaps he could talk to it, reach it as he had not been able to reach his family. Perhaps he could trust it. He tasted the limb again.
?I want to make a place for them,? he said. ?I know what will happen to Earth. But there are other worlds. We could change the second one or the fourth one?make one of them more like Earth. A few of us could do it. I?ve heard that there is nothing living on either world.?
?There?s nothing living there. The fourth world could be more easily transformed than the second.?
?It could be done??
?Yes.?
?It was so obvious
. I thought I might be wrong, thought I had missed something.?
?Time, Akin.?
?Get things started and turn them over to the resisters. They need metal, machinery, things they can control.?
?No.?
Akin focused his whole attention on the Akjai. It was not saying, no, the Humans could not have their machines. Its signals did not communicate that at all. It was saying, no, Humans did not need machines.
