?Our people will be here soon. You will have to decide whether to mate with us, join the Human colony on Mars, or stay here sterile. If these males choose to mate with us or to go to Mars, why should they be sterilized? If they decide to stay here, others can sterilize them. It isn?t a job I?d want.?
?Mars colony? You mean Humans without Oankali are living on Mars? The planet Mars??
?Yes. Any Humans who want to go. The colony is about fifty years old now. If you go, we?ll give you back your fertility and see that you?re able to father healthy children.?
?No!?
I shrugged.
?This is our world. Your people can go to Mars.?
?You know we won?t.?
Silence.
He looked again at what Aaor was doing. Several of the smallest visible tumors had already vanished. His expression, his body language were oddly false. He was fascinated. He did not want to be. He wanted to be disgusted. He pretended to be disgusted.
He was more than fascinated. He was envious. He must have experienced the touch of an ooloi back before he was released to become a resister. All Humans of his age had been handled by ooloi. Did he remember and want it again, or was it only our scent working on him? Oankali ooloi frightened Humans because they looked so different. Aaor and I were much less frightening. Perhaps that allowed Humans to respond more freely to our scent. Or perhaps, being part Human ourselves, we had a more appealing scent.
When I had checked the two Humans on the floor, seen that they were truly unconscious and likely to stay that way for a while, I took the elder by the shoulder and led him back to the bed.
?More comfortable than the floor,? I said.
?What will you do?? he asked.
?Just have a look at you?make sure you?re as healthy as you appear to be.?
He had been resisting for a century. He had been teaching children that people like me were devils, monsters, that it was better to endure a disfiguring, disabling genetic disorder than to go down from the mountains and find the Oankali.
He lay down on the bed, eager rather than afraid, and when I lay down beside him, he reached out and pulled me to him, probably in the same way he reached out for his human mate when he was especially eager for her.
10
By the time it began to get dark, our captives had become our allies. They were Rafael, whose tumors Aaor had healed and whose mouth Aaor had improved, and RamOn, Rafael?s brother. RamOn was a hunchback, but he knew now that he didn?t have to be. And even though we had had not nearly enough time to change him completely, we had already straightened him a little. There was also Natal, who had been deaf for years. He was no longer deaf.
And there was the elder, Francisco, who was still confused in the way Santos had been. It frightened him that he had accepted us so quickly?but he had accepted us. He did not want to go back down the mountain to his people. He wanted to stay with us. I sent him up to bring Santos, Paz, and Javier back to us. He sighed and went, thinking it was a test of his new loyalty. He was the only one, after all, who had not needed our healing.
Not until he brought them back did I ask him whether he could get Jesusa and TomAs out.
?I could talk to them,? he said. ?But the guards wouldn?t let me take them out. Everyone is too nervous. Two of the guards last night swear they saw four people, not two. That?s why we were sent up here. Some people thought Paz and Javier might have seen something, or worse, might be in trouble.? He looked at Paz and Javier. They had come in and gone straight to Aaor, who coiled a sensory tentacle around each of their necks and welcomed them as though they had been away for days.
Jesusa and TomAs had been away from me for two days. I was not yet desperate for them, but I might be in two more days if I didn?t get them out. Knowing that made me uneasy, anxious to get started. I left the too-crowded cabin and went to sit on the bare rock of the ledge outside. It was dusk, and the two brothers, Rafael and RamOn, had gotten into the cabin?s food stores and begun to prepare a meal.
Francisco and Santos came out with me and settled on either side of me. We could see the village below through a haze of smoke from cooking fires.
?When will you leave?? Santos asked.
?After dark, before moonrise.?
?Are you going to help?? he asked Francisco.
Francisco frowned. ?I?ve been trying to think of what I could do. I think I?ll go down and just wait. If Jodahs needs help, if it?s caught, perhaps I can give it the time it needs to prove it isn?t a dangerous animal.?
Santos grinned. ?It is a dangerous animal.?
Francisco looked at him with distaste.
?You should be looking at Jodahs that way. Its people will come and destroy everything you?ve spent your life building.?
?Go back up to your cave, Santos. Rot there.?
?I?ll follow Jodahs,? Santos said. ?I don?t mind. In fact, it?s a pleasure. But I?m not asleep. These people probably won?t kill us, but they?ll swallow us whole.?
Francisco shook his head. ?How?s your breathing these days, Santos? How many times have you had that nose of yours broken? And what has it taught you??
