underwater. Without thinking I caught its second sensory arm between my hands.
Something went wrong then. Nikanj didn?t sting me. It wouldn?t do that. But something happened. I startled it. No, I shocked it profoundly?and it transmitted to me the full impact of that shock. Its multisensory illusions felt more real than things that actually happened, and this was worse than an illusion. This was a sudden, swift cycling of its own intense surprise and fear. From me to it to me. Closed loop.
I lost focus on everything else. I wasn?t aware of collapsing or of being caught in Nikanj?s two almost Human- looking strength arms. Later, I examined my latent memories of this and knew that for several seconds I had been simply held in all four of Nikanj?s arms. It had stood utterly still, frozen in shock and fear.
Finally, its shock ebbing, its fear growing, it put me on a broad platform. It focused a sharp cone of head tentacles on me and stood rock still again, observing. After a time it lay down beside me and helped me understand why it was so upset.
But by then, I knew.
?You?re becoming ooloi,? it said quietly.
I began to be afraid for myself. Nikanj lay alongside me. Its head and body tentacles did not touch me. It offered no comfort or reassurance, no movement, no sign that it was even conscious.
?Ooan?? I said. I hadn?t called it that for years. My older siblings called our parents by their names, and I had begun early to imitate them. Now, though, I was afraid. I did not want ?Nikanj.? I wanted ?Ooan,? the parent I had most often gone to or been carried to for healing or teaching. ?Ooan, can?t you change me back? I still look male.?
?You know better,? it said aloud.
?But
?
?You were never male, no matter how you looked. You were eka. You know that.?
I said nothing. All my life, I had been referred to as ?he? and treated as male by my Human parents, by all the Humans in Lo. Even Oankali sometimes said ?he.? And everyone had assumed that Dichaan and Tino were to be my same-sex parents. People were supposed to feel that way so that I would be prepared for the change that should have happened.
But the change had gone wrong. Until now, no construct had become ooloi. When people reached adulthood and were ready to mate, they went to the ship and found an Oankali ooloi or they signaled the ship and an Oankali ooloi was sent down.
Human-born males were still considered experimental and potentially dangerous. A few males from other towns had been sterilized and exiled to the ship. Nobody was ready for a construct ooloi. Certainly nobody was ready for a Human-born construct ooloi. Could there be a more potentially deadly being?
?Ooan!? I said desperately.
It drew me against it, its head and body tentacles touching, then penetrating my flesh. Its sensory arm coiled around me so that the sensory hand could seat itself at the back of my neck. This was the preferred ooloi grip with Humans and with many constructs. Both brain and spinal cord were easily accessible to the slender, slender filaments of the sensory hand.
For the first time since I stopped nursing, Nikanj drugged me?immobilized me?as though it could not trust me to be still. I was too frightened even to be offended. Maybe it was right not to trust me.
Still, it did not hurt me. And it did not calm me. Why should it calm me? I had good reason to be afraid.
?I should have noticed this,? it said aloud. ?I should have
I constructed you to look very male?so male that the females would be attracted to you and help convince you that you were male. Until today, I thought they had. Now I know I was the one who was convinced. I deceived myself into carelessness and blindness.?
?I?ve always felt male,? I said. ?I?ve never thought about being anything else.?
?I should have sent you to spend more time with Tino and Dichaan.? It paused for a moment, rustled its unengaged body tentacles. It did that when it was thinking. A dozen or so body tentacles rubbed together sounded like wind blowing through the trees. ?I liked having you around too much,? it said. ?All my children grow up and turn away from me, turn to their same-sex parents. I thought you would, too, when the time came.?
?That?s what I thought. I never wanted to do it, though.?
?You didn?t want to go to your fathers??
?No. I only left you when I knew I would be in the way.?
?I never felt that you were in the way.?
?I tried to be careful.?
It rustled its tentacles again, repeated, ?I should have noticed
.?
?You were always lonely,? I said. ?You had mates and children, but to me, you always tasted
empty in some way?as though you were hungry, almost starving.?
It said nothing for some time. It did not move, but I felt safely enveloped by it. Some Humans tried to give you that feeling when they hugged you and irritated your sensory spots and pinched your sensory tentacles. Only the Oankali could give it, really. And right now, only Nikanj could give it to me. In all its long life, it had had no same-sex child. It had used all its tricks to protect us from becoming ooloi. It had used all its tricks to keep itself agonizingly alone.
I think I had always known how lonely it was. Surely, of my five parents, I had always loved it best. Apparently my body had responded to it in the way an Oankali child?s would. I was taking on the sex of the parent I had felt
