In another it hadn?t helped at all. They still feel guilt, feel as though they?ve deserted their people for aliens, as though they still suspect that they are the betrayers the resisters accused them of being. No Human could see the genetic conflict that made them such a volcanic species?so certain to destroy themselves. Thus, perhaps no Human completely believed it.
?I was always glad when they took whole plants,? Lilith was saying, ?Something to feed them now and something to transplant later.?
?There are some peanuts here that survived,? Tino said. ?Do you want them?? He bent to pull a few of the small plants from the loose soil I had watched Lilith prepare for them.
?Leave them,? she said. ?I have some.? She turned back to face the garden, watched the Oankali members of the family place what they had gathered on a blanket of overlapping banana leaves. Ahajas stopped Oni from eating a salvaged papaya and sent her to tell Lo what had happened and that the food was being left. Oni was Human-born, and so deceptively Human-looking that I had gone on thinking of her as female? though it would be more than ten years before she would have any sex at all.
?Wait,? Lilith said.
Oni stopped near her, stood looking up at her.
Lilith walked over to Dichaan. ?Will you go instead?? she asked him.
?The people who did this are gone, Lilith,? he told her. ?They?ve been gone for over a day. There?s no sound of them, no fresh scent.?
?I know. But
just for my peace of mind, will you go??
?Yes.? He turned and went. He would go only to the edge of Lo where some of the trees and smaller plants were not what they appeared to be. There he could signal Lo by touch, and Lo would pass the message on exactly to the next several people to open a wall or request food or in some other way come into direct contact with the Lo entity. Lo would pass the message on eight or ten times, then stop and store the message away. It couldn?t forget any more than we could, but unless someone requested the memory, it would never bother anyone with it again. Humans could neither leave nor receive such messages. Even though Lilith and a few others had learned some of what they called Oankali codes, their fingers were not sensitive enough to receive messages or fine and penetrating enough to send them.
Oni watched Dichaan go, then returned to Hozh, who had finished her papaya. She stood close to him. He was no more male than she female, but it was easier to go on thinking of them the way I always had. The two of them slipped automatically into silent communication. Whenever they stood close together that way, Hozh?s sensory tentacles immediately found Oni?s sensory spots?she had very few sensory tentacles of her own?and established communication. Paired siblings.
Watching them made me lonely, and I looked around for Aaor. I caught it watching me. It had avoided me carefully since I got up from my metamorphosis. I had let it keep its distance in spite of what Tehkorahs had told me because Aaor obviously did not want contact. It did not seem to need me as much as I needed it. As I watched, it turned away from me and focused its attention on a large beetle.
Lilith and Tino joined the family group where it had settled to wait for Dichaan. ?This is just the beginning,? Lilith said to no one in particular. ?We?ll be meeting people like the ones who destroyed this garden. Sooner or later they?ll spot us and come after us.?
?You have your machete,? Nikanj said.
It could not have gotten more attention if it had screamed. I focused on it to the exclusion of everything, felt pulled around to face it. Oankali did not suggest violence. Humans said violence was against Oankali beliefs. Actually it was against their flesh and bone, against every cell of them. Humans had evolved from hierarchical life, dominating, often killing other life. Oankali had evolved from acquisitive life, collecting and combining with other life. To kill was not simply wasteful to the Oankali. It was as unacceptable as slicing off their own healthy limbs. They fought only to save their lives and the lives of others. Even then, they fought to subdue, not to kill. If they were forced to kill, they resorted to biological weapons collected genetically on thousands of worlds. They could be utterly deadly, but they paid for it later. It cost them so dearly that they had no history at all of striking out in anger, frustration, jealousy, or any other emotion, no matter how keenly they felt it. When they killed even to save life, they died a little themselves.
I knew all this because it was as much a part of me as it was of them. Life was treasure. The only treasure. Nikanj was the one who had made it part of me. How could Nikanj be the one to suggest that anyone kill?
?
Nika?? Ahajas whispered. She sounded the way I felt. Uncomprehending, disbelieving.
?They have to protect their lives and the family,? Nikanj whispered. ?If this were only a journey, we could guard them. We?ve guarded them before. But we?re leaving home. We?ll live cut off from others for
I don?t know, perhaps a long time. There will be times when we aren?t with them. And there are resisters who would kill them on sight.?
?I don?t want anyone to die because of me,? I said. ?I thought we were leaving to save life.?
It focused on me, reached out a sensory arm, and drew me to its side. ?We?re leaving because the forest is the only place where we can live together as a family,? it said. ?No one will die because of you.?
?But??
?If they die, it will only be because they work very hard to make us kill them.?
My siblings and other parents began to focus away from it. It had never said such things before. I stared at it and saw what they had missed. It was almost making itself sick with this talk. It would have been happier holding its hand in fire.
?There are easier ways to say these things,? it admitted. ?But some things shouldn?t be said easily.? It hesitated as Dichaan rejoined us. ?We will leave the group only in pairs. We won?t leave if it isn?t necessary. You children?all of you? look out for one another. There will be new things everywhere to taste and understand. If your sibling is tasting something, you stand guard. If you see or smell Humans, hide. If you?re caught in the open, run?even if it means being shot. If you?re brought down, scream. Make as much noise as you can. Don?t let them carry you away. Struggle. Make yourselves inconvenient to hold. If they seem intent on killing you, sting.?
