She drew back from me. ?We?ve never touched one another that way!?
?I know.?
?People had to do what they did in the past. Like the children of Adam and Eve. There wasn?t anyone else.?
?On Mars there are already a great many others. Why should your people want to stay here and breed dead children or disabled children? They should go to Mars or come to us. We would welcome them.?
She shook her head slowly. ?They told us you were of the devil.?
Now it was my turn to keep quiet. She didn?t believe in devils. In spite of her name, she probably didn?t believe strongly in gods. She believed in her people and in what her senses told her.
?Your people won?t be hurt,? I assured her. ?People who spend as much time as we do living inside one another?s skins are very slow to kill. And if we injure people, we heal them.?
?You should let them alone.?
?No. We shouldn?t.?
?They own themselves. They don?t belong to you.?
?They can?t survive as they are. Their gene pool is too small. It?s only a matter of time before some disease or defect wipes them out.? I stopped for a moment, thinking. ?I?m Human enough to understand what they?re trying to do. One of my brothers began the Mars colony because he understood the need of Humans to live as themselves, not to blend completely with the Oankali.?
?You have brothers?? She was frowning at me as though it had never occurred to her that she and I had anything in common.
?I have brothers and sisters. I even have one ooloi sibling.? Had it completed its first metamorphosis yet? Was the family simply waiting for me to return so that Aaor and I could begin our extraterrestrial exile? Let them wait.
I focused on Jesusa. I couldn?t lie to her, yet I couldn?t tell her everything. I was desperate to keep her and TomAs with me. The people would almost certainly not allow me to find Human mates on the ship, but they would not take away mates I had found on my own. And perhaps they would not exile me at all if they saw that with these two Humans, I was stable?not changing others, not changing myself except in a deliberate, controlled way. And Aaor could get mates from among Jesusa?s people. It would want them. I had no doubt of that.
So what to do?
?My people will fight,? Jesusa said.
?They?ll be gassed and taken,? I said. ?My people like to get that kind of thing over quickly so that they don?t have to hurt anyone.?
She looked at me with anger?almost with hatred. ?I won?t tell you where my people are. I would drown myself before I would tell you.?
?I wouldn?t have asked.?
?Why? How will you find out??
?I won?t. My people will. Once they know that your people exist, they?ll find them.?
She did not look toward the broken gun. She probably could not have seen it in the darkness now, but her body wanted to turn and look. Her hands wanted the gun. Her muscles twitched. If she killed me, no one would find out what I knew. No one would look for her hidden people.
I made up my mind abruptly. She had to know everything or she might die defending her people. She probably could not kill me, but she could force me to act reflexively and kill her.
?Jesusa,? I said, ?come over here.?
She stared at me with hostility.
?Come. I?m going to tell you something my own Human mother didn?t learn until she had given birth to two construct children. Your people are not usually told this at all. I
I should not tell it to you, but I think I have to. Come.?
Her muscles wanted to move her toward me. My scent and her memory of comfort and pleasure drew her, but she moved deliberately away. ?Tell me,? she said. ?Just tell me. Don?t touch me again.?
I said nothing for a while. It would be easier for her to believe what I said if we were in contact. Humans did not usually understand why being linked into our nervous systems enabled them to feel the truth of what we said, but they did feel it. Now she would not. All her body language told me she would not be persuaded.
Should she still be told?
Se had to be.
I spoke to her very softly. ?You and your brother mean life to me.? I paused. ?And in a different way, I mean life to your people. They?ll die if they stay where they are. They?ll all die.?
?Some of us die. Some live.? She shook her head. ?I don?t care what you say. Nothing will kill us if your people let us alone. We?re strong enough to stand anything else.?
?No.?
?You don?t know??
?Jesusa! Listen.? When she had settled into an angry silence, I told her what would happen to the Earth, what would be left of it when we were gone. ?Nothing will be able to live on what we leave,? I said. ?If your people stay where they are and keep breeding, they?ll be destroyed. Every one of them. There?s life for them on Mars, and there?s life here with us. But if they insist on staying where they are
