I held her and stroked her until she stopped shaking. TomAs touched her hair, reaching across me to do it, and making me want to grab his hand and stop him. Oankali male and female mates had no need to do this. I had to learn to endure it in Human mates.
?Shall we do it?? she asked him suddenly.
He drew back from her, looked from one of us to the other, then looked away.
She looked at me. ?Shall we?? she asked.
I opened my mouth to say yes, she should, of course. Then I closed it. ?I don?t want you to destroy yourself,? I said after a while. ?I don?t want to trade my sibling?s life for yours.? I felt what she felt. She could not give me multisensory illusions. Humans did not have that kind of control. But I could feel how tightly she held herself, how her stomach hurt her and her muscles ached. I had to keep stopping myself from giving her relief. She didn?t need or want that from me now. Both my mother and Nikanj had warned me that not every pain should be immediately healed. Her body language would tell me when she wanted relief.
?I won?t die,? she whispered. ?I?m not that fragile. Or maybe
not that lucky. If I can save your sibling, I will. But I think it would be easier for me to break several of my bones.?
Now she and I both looked at TomAs.
He shook his head. ?I hate that place,? he said softly. ?Full of pain and sickness and duty and false hope. I meant to die rather than see it again. You both know that.?
I nodded. Jesusa made no move at all. She watched him.
?Yet I love those people,? he said. ?I don?t want to do this to them. Isn?t there any other way??
?None that anyone?s thought of,? I said. ?If you can do this, you?ll save Aaor. If you can?t, we?ll get it to the ship and
hope for the best.?
?We?ve already betrayed our people,? Jesusa said softly. ?We did that with you, Jodahs. All we?re doing now is arguing about whether to bring two more of our people out early or let them all wait until the Oankali arrive.?
?Is that all?? TomAs said with bitter irony.
?Will you go with me?? she asked.
He sighed. ?Didn?t I promise you I?d get you back there?? He ran a hand through his own hair. After a moment he got up, and went outside.
4
There were complications.
We couldn?t leave until Aaor?s metamorphosis ended. Jesusa and TomAs thought I would give them back their disfigurement and they would go back to the mountains alone. They couldn?t have done that, even if I had been willing to let them try. They couldn?t leave me now.
I never told them they couldn?t leave. They found out as Lilith had. When they had had all they could take of Aaor for a while, when they realized I could not be talked out of going with them to their mountain home, they went away on their own. They went together into the forest and stayed for several days. It was a foretaste for me of what I would suffer when they died.
I panicked when I realized they were gone. TomAs was supposed to spend the night with Aaor and me. The moment I thought about him, though, I realized he wasn?t in camp. Neither was Jesusa. Their scent was beginning to fade.
Why? Where had they gone? Which way had they gone? I focused all my concentration on picking up their scent trail, finding out where their scent was strongest and freshest. Once I discovered the path they had taken into the forest, I would follow them.
Ahajas stopped me.
She was large and quiet and immensely comfortable to be near. Oankali females tended to be that way. I knew that sometimes after a session with Aaor, Nikanj went to her and literally seemed to grow into her body. She was so much larger, it looked like a child against her.
Now she blocked my path.
?Let them come back to you,? she said quietly.
I stared at her with my eyes while my sensory tentacles all focused to the path Jesusa and TomAs had taken.
?I saw them leave,? she said. ?They took packs and machetes. They?ll be all right, and in a few days, they?ll be back.?
?Resisters could capture them!? I said.
?Yes,? she said. ?But it isn?t likely. They were on their own for a long time before they met you.?
?But they??
?They are as able as any Humans to take care of themselves. Lelka, you should have told them how they were bound to you.?
?I was afraid to. I was afraid they?d do this.?
?They probably would have. But now when they begin to need you and feel desperate and afraid, they won?t know why.?
?That?s why I want to go after them.?
