She did shout, and for an instant I was distracted by the abrupt adrenaline scent of TomAs?s alarm.
With my free sensory arm, I touched the skin of his face. ?She?s all right,? I made myself say. ?Wait.?
Perhaps he believed me. Perhaps the expression on Jesusa?s face reassured him. Whatever the reason, he grew calm and I focused completely on Jesusa. I should have gone into both of them at once, but this first time as an adult, I wanted to savor their individual essences separately.
Adult awareness felt sharper to me, finer and different in some way I had not yet defined. The smell-taste-feel of Jesusa, the rhythm of her heartbeat, the rush of her blood, the texture of her flesh, the easy, right, life-sustaining working of her organs, her cells, the smallest organelles within her cells?all this was a vast, infinitely absorbing complexity. The genetic error that had caused her and her people so much misery was as obvious to me as a single cloud in an otherwise clear sky. I was tempted to begin now to make repairs. Her body cells would be easy to alter, though the alteration would take time. The sex cells, though, the ova, would have to be replaced. Both her parents had the disorder and about three quarters of her own ova were defective. I would have to cause parts of her body to function as they had not since before her birth. Best to save that kind of work until later. Best simply to enjoy Jesusa now?the complex harmonies of her, the built-in danger of her genetically inevitable Human conflict: intelligence versus hierarchical behavior. There was a time when that conflict or contradiction?it was called both?frightened some Oankali so badly that they withdrew from contact with Humans. They became Akjai?people who would eventually leave the vicinity of Earth without mixing with Humans.
To me, the conflict was spice. It had been deadly to the Human species, but it would not be deadly to Jesusa or TomAs any more than it had been to my parents. My children would not have it at all.
Jesusa, solemn and questioning, beautiful on levels she would probably never understand, would surely be one of the mothers of those children.
I enjoyed her for a few moments more, especially enjoyed her pleasure in me. I could see how my own ooloi substance stimulated the pleasure centers of her brain.
?Monitor them very carefully,? Nikanj had told me. ?Give them as much as they can take, and no more. Don?t hurt them, don?t frighten them, don?t overstimulate them. Start them slowly, and in only a little time, they will be more willing to give up eating than to give you up.?
Jesusa had only begun to taste me?me as an adult?and I could see that this was true. She had liked me very much as a subadult. But what she felt now went beyond liking, beyond loving, into the deep biological attachment of adulthood. Literal, physical addiction to another person, Lilith called it. I couldn?t think about it that coldly. For me it meant that soon Jesusa would not want to leave me, would not be able to leave me for more than a few days at a time.
It worked both ways, of course. Soon I would not be able to stand long separation from her. And she could hurt me by deliberately avoiding me. From what I knew of her, she would be willing to do this if she thought she had cause?even though she would inflict as much pain on herself as on me. Lilith had done that to Nikanj many times before the Mars colony was established.
Human males could be dangerous, and Human females frustrating. Yet I felt compelled to have both. So did Aaor, no doubt. If Jesusa and TomAs ever turned their worst Human characteristics against me, it would probably be on account of Aaor. I had no choice but to try to help it, and Jesusa and TomAs must help me with it. I did not know whether I could make the experience easy for them.
All the more reason to see that they enjoyed this experience.
Jesusa grew pleasantly weary as I explored her and healed the few bruises and small wounds she had acquired. Her greatest enjoyment would happen when I brought her together with TomAs and shared the pleasure of each of them with the other, mingling with it my own pleasure in them both. When I could make an ongoing loop of this, we would drown in one another.
But that was for later. Now, without apparent movement, I caressed and lulled Jesusa into deep sleep.
?They will never understand what treasure they are,? Nikanj had said to me once while it sat with me. ?They see our differences?even yours, Lelka?and they wonder why we want them.?
I detached myself from Jesusa, lingering for a moment over the salt taste of her skin. I had once heard my mother say to Nikanj, ?It?s a good thing your people don?t eat meat. If you did, the way you talk about us, our flavors and your hunger and your need to taste us, I think you would eat us instead of fiddling with our genes.? And after a moment of silence, ?That might even be better. It would be something we could understand and fight against.?
Nikanj had not said a word. It might have been feeding on her even then?sharing bits of her most recent meal, taking in dead or malformed cells from her flesh, even harvesting a ripe egg before it could begin its journey down her fallopian tubes to her uterus. It stored some of the eggs and consumed the rest. I would have taken an egg from Jesusa if one had been ready. ?We feed on them every day,? Nikanj had said to me. ?And in the process, we keep them in good health and mix children for them. But they don?t always have to know what we?re doing.?
I turned to face TomAs, and without a word, he lay down beside me, and used his arms to pull me closer to him. When he had kissed me very thoroughly, he said, ?Will I always have to wait??
?Oh, no,? I said, positioning him so that he would be comfortable. ?Once I?ve tasted you this way, I doubt that I?ll ever be able to keep you waiting again.?
I looped one sensory arm around his neck, exposed my sensory hand. I paralyzed him as I had Jesusa, but left him an illusion of movement. ?Males in particular need to feel that they?re moving,? Nikanj had told me. ?You?ll enjoy them more if you give them the illusion they?re climbing all over you.?
It was entirely right. And though I had not been able to collect an egg from Jesusa, I collected considerable sperm from TomAs. Much of it carried the defective gene and was useless for procreation. Protein. The rest of it I stored for future use.
TomAs was stronger than Jesusa. He lasted longer before he tired. Just before I put him to sleep, he said, ?I never intended to let you get away from me. Now I know you never will.?
I used his muscles to move us both close against Jesusa. There, with me wedged between them, the two could sleep and I could rest and take a little more of their dinner. They wouldn?t feel it. They could spare it, and I needed it to build strength fast now?for Aaor?s sake.
3
Aaor was in its second metamorphosis. When Nikanj brought it to me after several days of reconstruction, it was not yet recognizable. Not like a Human or an Oankali or any construct I had ever seen.
