?Don?t. Not to me. The Akjai says you learned it here.?
?I must have?without realizing it.? He paused, watching Tiikuchahk. It was sitting next to him in apparent comfort. ?Is it all right between us??
?Seems to be.?
?Will you help me??
?I don?t know.? It focused narrowly on him. ?I don?t know what I am yet. I don?t even know what I want to be.?
?Do you want Dehkiaht??
?I like it. It helped us, and I feel better when it?s around. If I were like you, I would probably want to keep it.?
?I do.?
?It wants you, too. It says you?re the most interesting person it?s known. I think it will help you.?
?If you become female, you could join us?mate with it.?
?And you??
He looked away from it. ?I can?t imagine how I would feel to have it and not you. What I?ve felt of it was
partly you.?
?I don?t know. No one knows yet what I?ll be. I can?t feel what you feel yet.?
He managed to stop himself from arguing. Tiikuchahk was right. He still occasionally thought of it as female, but its body was neuter. It could not feel as he did. He was amazed at his own feelings, although they were natural. Now that Tiikuchahk was no longer a source of irritation and confusion, he could begin to feel about it the way people tended to feel about their closest siblings. He did not know whether he truly wanted to have it as one of his mates?or whether a wandering male of the kind he was supposed to be could be said to have mates. But the idea of mating with it felt right, now. It, Dehkiaht, and himself. That was the way it should be.
?Do you know what the people have decided?? he asked.
Tiikuchahk shook its head Humanly. ?No.?
After a time, Dehkiaht and the Akjai separated, and Dehkiaht climbed to the Akjai?s long, broad back.
?Come join us,? Dehkiaht called.
Akin got up and started toward it. Behind him, though, Tiikuchahk did not move.
Akin stopped, turned to face it. ?Are you afraid?? he asked.
?Yes.?
?You know the Akjai won?t hurt you.?
?It will hurt me if it thinks hurting me is necessary.?
That was true. The Akjai had hurt Akin in order to teach him?and had taught Akin much more than he realized.
?Come anyway,? Akin said. He wanted to touch Tiikuchahk now, draw it to him, comfort it. He had never before wanted to do such a thing. And in spite of the impulse, he found he was not willing to touch it now. It would not want him to. Dehkiaht would not want him to.
He went back to it and sat next to it. ?I?ll wait for you,? he said.
It focused on him, head tentacles knotting miserably. ?Join them,? it said.
He said nothing. He sat with it, comfortably patient, wondering whether it feared the joining because it might find itself making decisions it did not feel ready to make.
Dehkiaht simply lay down on the Akjai?s back, and the Akjai squatted, resting on its belly, waiting. Humans said no one knew how to wait better than the Oankali. Humans, perhaps remembering their earlier short life spans, tended to hurry without reason.
He did not know how much time had passed when Tiikuchahk stood up and he roused and stood up beside it. He focused on it, and when it moved, he followed it to the Akjai and Dehkiaht.
The Akjai drew its body into the familiar curve and welcomed Tiikuchahk and Akin to sit or lie against it. The Akjai gave each a sensory arm and gave Dehkiaht one too when it slid down one of the plates to settle beside them.
Now Akin learned for the first time what the people had decided. He felt now what he had not been able to feel before. That the people saw him as something they had helped to make.
He was intended to decide the fate of the resisters. He was; intended to make the decision the Dinso and the Toaht could not make. He was intended to see what must be done and convince others.
He had been abandoned to the resisters when they took him so that he could learn them as no adult could, as no Oankali-born construct could, as no construct who did not look quite Human could. Everyone knew the resisters? bodies, but no one knew their thinking as Akin did. No one except other Humans. And they had not been allowed to convince Oankali to do the profoundly immoral, antilife thing that Akin had decided must be done. The people had suspected what he would decide?had feared it. They would not have accepted it if he had not been able to stir confusion and some agreement among constructs, both Oankali-born and Human-born.
They had deliberately rested the fate of the resisters?the fate of the Human species?on him.
Why? Why not on one of the Human-born females? Some of them were adults before he was born.
The Akjai supplied him with the answer before he was aware of having asked the question. ?You?re more Oankali than you think, Akin?and far more Oankali than you look. Yet you?re very Human. You skirt as close to the
