?We can make it possible for them to live on the fourth world,? it said. ?They wouldn?t need machines. If they wanted them, they would have to build them themselves.?
?I would help. I would do whatever was needed.?
?When you change, you?ll want to mate.?
?I know. But??
?You don?t know. The urge is stronger than you can understand now.?
?It?s
? He projected amusement. ?It?s pretty strong now. I know it will be different after metamorphosis. If I have to mate, I have to mate. I?ll find people who?ll work with me on this. There must be others that I can convince.?
?Find them now.?
Startled, Akin said nothing for a moment. Finally he asked, ?Do you mean I?m close to metamorphosis now??
?Closer than you think. But that isn?t what I meant.?
?You agree with me that it can be done? The resisters can be transplanted? Their Human-to-Human fertility can be restored??
?It?s possible if you can get a consensus. But if you get a consensus, you may find that you?ve chosen your life?s work.?
?Wasn?t that work chosen for me years ago??
The Akjai hesitated. ?I know about that. The Akjai had no part in the decision to leave you so long with the resisters.?
?I didn?t think you had. I?ve never been able to talk about it to anyone I felt had taken part?who had chosen to break me from my nearest sibling.?
?Yet you?ll do the work that was chosen for you??
?I will. But for the Humans and for the Human part of me. Not for the Oankali.?
?Eka
?
?Shall I show you what I can feel, all I can feel with Tiikuchahk, my nearest sibling? Shall I show you all I?ve ever had with it? All Oankali, all constructs have something that Oankali and constructs came together and decided to deny me.?
?Show me.?
Again Akin was startled. But why? What Oankali would decline a new sensation? He remembered for it all the jarring, tearing dissonance of his relationship with Tiikuchahk. He duplicated the sensations in the Akjai?s body along with the revulsion they made him feel and the need he felt to avoid this person whom he should have been closest to.
?I think it almost wants to be male to avoid any sexual feelings for me,? he finished.
?Keeping you separated was a mistake,? the Akjai agreed. ?I can see now why it was done, but it was a mistake.?
Only Akin?s family had ever said that before. They had said it because he was one of them, and it hurt them to see him hurt. It hurt them to see the family unbalanced by paired siblings who had failed to pair. People who had never had close siblings or whose closest siblings had died did not damage the balance as much as close siblings who had failed to bond.
?You should go back to your relatives,? the Akjai said. ?Make them find a young ooloi for you and your sibling. You should not go through metamorphosis with so much pain cutting you off from your sibling.?
?Ti was talking about finding a young ooloi before I left to study
with you. I don?t think I could stand to share an ooloi with it.?
?You will,? the Akjai said. ?You must. Go back now, Eka. I can feel what you?re feeling, but it doesn?t matter. Some things hurt. Go back and reconcile with your sibling. Then come to me and I?ll find new teachers for you?people who know the processes of changing a cold, dry, lifeless world into something Humans might survive on.?
The Akjai straightened its body and broke contact with him. When Akin stood still, looking at it, not wanting to leave it, it turned and left him, opening the floor beneath itself and surging into the hole it had made. Akin let the hole seal itself, knowing that once it was sealed he would not find the Akjai again until it wished to be found.
8
The ooloi subadult was a relative of Taishokaht. Jahdehkiaht, its personal name was at this stage of its life. Dehkiaht. It had been living with Taishokaht?s family and Tiikuchahk, waiting for him to return from the Akjai.
The young ooloi looked sexless but did not smell sexless. It would not develop sensory arms until its second metamorphosis. That made its scent all the more startling and disturbing.
Akin had never been aroused by the scent of an ooloi before. He liked them, but only resister and construct women had interested him sexually. What could an immature ooloi do for anyone sexually, anyway?
Akin took a step back the moment he caught the ooloi scent. He looked at Tiikuchahk who was with the ooloi, who had introduced it eagerly.
There was no one else in the room. Akin and Dehkiaht stared at each other.
?You aren?t what I thought,? it whispered. ?Ti told me, showed me
and I still didn?t understand.?
