After four days, I couldn?t stand it any longer. I just joined them. If I could not have them as mates permanently, I could enjoy them for a while.
They had caught no fish that night. They had found wild figs and eaten them, but I doubted that these had satisfied them.
I found nuts and fruit for them, and root stalks that could be roasted and eaten. I wrapped all this in a crude basket I had woven of thin lianas and lined with large leaves. I could only do this by biting through the lianas in a way that would have disturbed the resisters, so I was glad they could not see me. A resister had said to me years before that we constructs and Oankali were supposed to be superior beings, but we insisted on acting like animals. Oddly both ideas seemed to disturb him.
I took my basket of food and went quietly into Jesusa and TomAs?s camp. It was dark and they had built a small shelter and made a fire. Their fire still burned, but they had lain down on their pallets. Jesusa?s even breathing said she was asleep, but TomAs lay awake. His eyes were open, but he did not see me until I was beside him.
Then before he could get up, before he could shout, I was down beside him, one hand over his mouth, the other grasping his hand and forcing it to maintain its hold on the machete, but to be still.
?Jodahs,? I whispered, and he stopped struggling and stared at me.
?It can?t be you!? he whispered when I let him speak. He remembered a scaly Jodahs, like a humanoid reptile. But I could not stay within range of their scent for four days and go on looking that way. Now I was brown-skinned and black-haired and I thought it was likely that I looked the way TomAs would when I healed him. He was the one I had touched and studied.
He let me take the machete from his hand and put it aside. I already had several body tentacles linked into his nervous system. I put him to sleep so that I could take care of Jesusa before she awoke.
From the moment I said my name, he was never afraid. ?Will you heal me?? he whispered in his last moments of consciousness.
?I will,? I said. ?Completely.?
He closed his eye, trusting himself to me in a way that made it hard for me to withdraw from him and turn to attend to Jesusa.
When I did turn, it was almost too late. She was awake, her eyes full of confusion and terror. She drew back as I turned, and she almost pulled the trigger on the rifle she was holding.
?I?m Jodahs,? I told her.
She shot me.
The bullet went through one of my hearts and I had all I could do to stop myself from lunging at her reflexively and stinging her to death. I grabbed the gun from her and threw it against a nearby tree. It broke into two pieces, the wooden stock splintering and separating from the metal, and the metal bending.
I grasped her wrists so she couldn?t run. I couldn?t trust myself to put her to sleep until I had my own problem under control.
She struggled and shouted for TomAs to wake up and help her. She managed to bite me twice, managed to kick me between the legs, then stopped her struggling for a moment to absorb the reality that I had only smooth skin between my legs, and that her kick did not bother me at all.
She twisted frantically and tried to gouge my eyes. I held on. I had to hold her. She couldn?t see in the dark. She might run into the surrounding forest and hurt herself?or run toward the river and fall down the high, steep bluff there. Or perhaps she meant to try to shoot me again with what was left of the gun or use the machete on me. I could not let her hurt herself or hurt me again and perhaps make me kill her. Nothing would be more irrational than that.
She stopped struggling abruptly and stared at one of the bite wounds she had inflicted on my left arm. In the firelight, even Human eyes could see it. It was healing, and that seemed to fascinate her. She watched until there was no visible sign of injury. Just a little smeared blood and saliva.
?You?re doing that inside,? she said, ?healing your wound.?
I lay down, dragging her with me. She lay facing me, watching me with fear and distrust.
?I can heal myself as well as most adults,? I said. ?I?m not very good at controlling pain in myself, though.?
She looked concerned, then deliberately hardened her expression. ?What did you do to TomAs??
?He?s only asleep.?
?No! He would have awakened.?
?I drugged him a little. He didn?t mind. I promised I would heal him.?
?We don?t want your healing!?
The worst of the pain from my wound was over. I relaxed in relief and drew a long breath. I let go of her hands and she drew them away, looked at them, then back to me.
I grinned at her. ?You?re not afraid of me now. And you don?t want to hurt me again.?
I could feel her face grow warmer. She sat up abruptly, very much against her own will. My scent was at work on her. She would probably have difficulty resisting it because she was not consciously aware of it.
?We truly don?t want your healing,? she repeated. ?Though
I?m sorry I shot you.? She sat still, looking down at me. ?You look like TomAs, you know? You look the way he should look. You could be our brother?or perhaps our sister.?
?Neither.?
?I know. Why did you follow us??
