thought, too tame, too planned. No grazing here for exploring children. The ship gave food when asked. Once it was taught how to synthesize a food, it never forgot. There were no bananas or papayas or pineapples to pick, no cassava to pull, no sweet potatoes to dig, no growing, living things except appendages of the ship. Perfect ?sweet potatoes? could be made to grow on the pseudotrees if an Oankali or a construct adult asked it of Chkahichdahk.
He looked up at the limbs above him and saw that nothing other than the usual hairlike, green, oxygen- producing tentacles hung from the huge pseudotrees.
Why was he thinking about such things? Homesickness? Where were Dehkiaht and Tiikuchahk? Why had they left him?
He put his face to the pseudotree he had emerged from and probed with his tongue, allowing the ship to identify him so that it would give him any message they had left.
The ship complied. ?Wait,? the message said. Nothing more. They had not abandoned him, then. Most likely, Dehkiaht had taken what it had learned from Akin to some adult ooloi for interpretation. When it came back to him it would probably still smell tormenting. An adult would have to change it?or change him. It would have been simpler for adults to find a solution for him and Tiikuchahk directly.
He went back in to wait and knew at once that Dehkiaht, at least, had already returned.
He could have found it without sight. In fact, its scent overwhelmed his senses so completely that he could hardly see, hear, or feel anything. This was worse than before.
He discovered that his hands were on the ooloi, grasping it as though he expected it to be taken from him, as though it were his own personal property.
Then, gradually, he was able to let go of it, able to think and focus on something other than its enveloping scent. He realized he was lying down again. Lying alongside Dehkiaht, pressed against it, and comfortable.
Content.
Dehkiaht?s scent was still interesting, still enticing, but no longer overwhelming. He wanted to stay near the ooloi, felt possessive of it, but was not so totally focused on it. He liked it. He had felt this way about resister women who let him make love to them and who saw him as something other than a container of sperm they hoped might prove fertile.
He breathed deeply and enjoyed the many light touches of Dehkiaht?s head and body tentacles.
?Better,? he whispered. ?Will I stay this way, or will you have to keep readjusting me??
?If you stayed this way, you?d never do any work,? the ooloi said, flattening its free tentacles in amusement. ?This is good, though. Especially after the other. Tiikuchahk is here.?
?Tip? Akin raised his head to look over the ooloi?s body. ?I didn?t
I don?t feel you.?
It gave him a Human smile. ?I feel you, but no more than I do anyone else I?m near.?
Feeling oddly bereft, Akin reached over Dehkiaht to touch it.
Dehkiaht seized his hand and put it back at his side.
Surprised, Akin focused all his senses on it. ?Why should you care whether I touch Ti? You aren?t mature. We aren?t mated.?
?Yes. I do care, though. It would be better if you don?t touch each other for a while.?
?I
I don?t want to be bound to you.?
?I couldn?t bind you. That?s why you confused me so. I went back to my parents to show them what I had learned about you and ask their advice. They say you can?t be bound. You were not constructed to be bound.?
Akin moved against Dehkiaht, wanting to move closer, welcoming the inadequate strength arm the ooloi put around him. It was not an Oankali thing to put strength arms around people or to caress with strength hands. Someone must have told Dehkiaht that Humans and constructs found such gestures comforting.
?I?ve been told that I would wander,? he said. ?I wander now when I?m on Earth, but I always come home. I?m afraid that when I?m adult, I won?t have a home.?
?Lo will be your home,? Tiikuchahk said.
?Not the way it will be yours.? It would almost certainly be female and become part of a family like the one he had been raised in. Or it would mate with a construct male like him or his Oankali-born brothers. Even then, it would have an ooloi and children to live with. But who would he live with? His parents? home would remain the only true home he knew.
?When you?re adult,? Dehkiaht said, ?you?ll feel what you can do. You?ll feel what you want to do. It will seem good to you.?
?How would you know!? Akin demanded bitterly.
?You aren?t flawed. I noticed even before I went to my parents that there was a wholeness to you?a strong wholeness. I don?t know whether you?ll be what your parents wanted you to be, but whatever you become, you?ll be complete. You?ll have within yourself everything you need to content yourself. Just follow what seems right to you.?
?Walk away from mates and children??
?Only if it seems right to you.?
?Some Human men do it. It doesn?t seem right to me, though.?
?Do what seems right. Even now.?
