I held my hand open, palm up so that she could see it, and her expression flickered from curiosity and surprise through embarrassment back to curiosity.
?Will you change much in metamorphosis?? she asked.
?Probably. The Human-born get more Oankali and the Oankali-born get more Human. I?m first-generation. If you want to see the future, take a look at some of the third and fourth-generations constructs. They?re a lot more uniform from start to finish.?
?That?s not our future,? the male said.
?Your choice,? I said.
The male walked away toward the empty house. The female hesitated. ?What do you think of our emigration?? she asked.
I looked at her, liking her, not wanting to answer. But such questions should be answered. Why, though, were the Human females who insisted on asking them so often small, weak people? The Martian environment they were headed for was harsher than any they had known. We would see that they had the best possible chance to survive. Many would live to bear children on their new world. But they would suffer so. And in the end, it would all be for nothing. Their own genetic conflict had betrayed and destroyed them once. It would do so again.
?You should stay,? I told the female. ?You should join us.?
?Why??
I wanted very much not to look at her, to go away from her. Instead I continued to face her. ?I understand that Humans must be free to go,? I said softly. ?I?m Human enough for my body to understand that. But I?m Oankali enough to know that you will eventually destroy yourselves again.?
She frowned, marring her smooth forehead. ?You mean another war??
?Perhaps. Or maybe you?ll find some other way to do it. You were working on several ways before your war.?
?You don?t know anything about it. You?re too young.?
?You should stay and mate with constructs or with Oankali,? I said. ?The children we construct are free of inherent flaws. What we build will last.?
?You?re just a child, repeating what you?ve been told!?
I shook my head. ?I perceive what I perceive. No one had to tell me how to use my senses any more than they had to tell you how to see or hear. There is a lethal genetic conflict in Humanity, and you know it.?
?All we know is what the Oankali have told us.? The male had come back. He put his arm around the female, drawing her away from me as though I had offered some threat. ?They could be lying for their own reasons.?
I shifted my attention to him. ?You know they?re not,? I said softly. ?Your own history tells you. Your people are intelligent, and that?s good. The Oankali say you?re potentially one of the most intelligent species they?ve found. But you?re also hierarchical?you and your nearest animal relatives and your most distant animal ancestors. Intelligence is relatively new to life on Earth, but your hierarchical tendencies are ancient. The new was too often put at the service of the old. It will be again. You?re bright enough to learn to live on your new world, but you?re so hierarchical you?ll destroy yourselves trying to dominate it and each other. You might last a long time, but in the end, you?ll destroy yourselves.?
?We could last a thousand years,? the male said. ?We did all right on Earth until the war.?
?You could. Your new world will be difficult. It will demand most of your attention, perhaps occupy your hierarchical tendencies safely for a while.?
?We?ll be free?us, our children, their children.?
?Perhaps.?
?We?ll be fully Human and free. That?s enough. We might even get into space again on our own someday. Your people might be dead wrong about us.?
?No.? He couldn?t read the gene combinations as I could. It was as though he were about to walk off a cliff simply because he could not see it?or because he, or rather his descendants, would not hit the rocks below for a long time. And what were we doing, we who knew the truth? Helping him reach the cliff. Ferrying him to it.
?We might outlast your people here on Earth,? he said.
?I hope so,? I told him. His expression said he didn?t believe me, but I meant it. We would not be here?the Earth he knew would not be here?for more than a few centuries. We, Oankali and construct, were space-going people, as curious about other life and as acquisitive of it as Humans were hierarchical. Eventually we would have to begin the long, long search for a new species to combine with to construct new life-forms. Much of Oankali existence was spent in such searches. We would leave this solar system in perhaps three centuries. I would live to see the leave- taking myself. And when we broke and scattered, we would leave behind a lump of stripped rock more like the moon than like his blue Earth. He did not know that. He would never know it. To tell him would be a cruelty.
?Do you ever think of yourself or your kind as Human?? the female asked. ?Some of you look so Human.?
?We feel our Humanity. It helps us to understand both you and the Oankali. Oankali alone could never have let you have your Mars colony.?
?I heard they were helping!? the male said. ?Your
your parent said they were helping!?
?They help because of what we constructs tell them: that you should be allowed to go even though you?ll eventually destroy yourselves. The Oankali believe
the Oankali know to the bone that it?s wrong to help the Human species regenerate unchanged because it will destroy itself again. To them it?s like deliberately causing the conception of a child who is so defective that it must die in infancy.?
?They?re wrong. Someday we?ll show them how wrong.?
