Adulthood Rites

First there were his older siblings, some born to Ahajas and becoming more Human, and some born to Lilith and becoming more Oankali. There were also children of older siblings, and finally, frighteningly, unrelated people. Akin could not understand why some of the unrelated ones were more like Lilith than Joseph had been. And none of them were like Joseph.

Dichaan read Akin’s unspoken confusion.

“The differences you perceive between Humans—between groups of Humans—are the result of isolation and inbreeding, mutation, and adaptation to different Earth environments,” he said, illustrating each concept with quick multiple images. “Joseph and Lilith were born in very different parts of this world—born to long separated peoples. Do you understand?”

“Where are Joseph’s kind?” Akin asked aloud.

“Now there are villages of them to the southwest. They’re called Chinese.”

“I want to see them.”

“You will. You can travel to them when you’re older.” He ignored Akin’s rush of frustration. “And someday I’ll take you to the ship. You’ll be able to see Oankali differences, too.” He gave Akin an image of the ship—a vast sphere made up of huge, still-growing, many-sided plates like the shell of a turtle. In fact, it was the outer shell of a living being. “There,” Dichaan said, “you’ll see Oankali who will never come to Earth or trade with Humans. For now, they tend the ship in ways that require a different physical form.” He gave Akin an image, and Akin thought it resembled a huge caterpillar.

Akin projected silent questioning.

“Speak aloud,” Dichaan told him.

“Is it a child?” Akin asked, thinking of the changes caterpillars underwent.

“No. It’s adult. It’s larger than I am.”

“Can it talk?”

“In images, in tactile, bioelectric, and bioluminescent signals, in pheromones, and in gestures. It can gesture with ten limbs at once. But its throat and mouth parts won’t produce speech. And it is deaf. It must live in places where there is a great deal of noise. My parents’ parents had that shape.”

This seemed terrible to Akin—Oankali forced to live in an ugly form that did not even allow them to hear or speak.

“What they are is as natural to them as what you are is to you,” Dichaan told him. “And they are much closer to the ship than we can be. They’re companions to it, knowing its body better than you know your own. When I was a little older than you are now, I wanted to be one of them. They let me taste a little of their relationship with the ship.”

“Show me.”

“Not yet. It’s a very powerful thing. I’ll show you when you’re a little older.”

Everything was to happen when he was older. He must wait! He must always wait! In frustration, Akin had stopped speaking. He could not help hearing and remembering all that Dichaan told him, but he would not speak to Dichaan again for days.

Yet it was Dichaan who began leaving him in the care of his older sisters, letting him begin to investigate them—while they thoroughly investigated him. His favorite among them was Margit. She was six years old—too small to carry him long, but he was content to ride on her back or sit on her lap for as long as she could handle him comfortably. She did not have sensory tentacles like his Oankali-born sisters, but she had clusters of sensitive nodules that would probably be tentacles when she grew up. She could match some of these to the smooth, invisible sensory patches on his skin, and the two of them could exchange images and emotions as well as words. She could teach him.

“You should be careful,” she said as she took him to shelter in their family house, away from a hard afternoon rain. “Your eyes don’t track a lot of the time. Can you see with them?”

He thought about this. “I can,” he said, “but I don’t always. Sometimes it’s easier to see things from other parts of my body.”

“When you’re older, you’ll be expected to turn your face and body toward people when you talk to them. Even now, you should look at Humans with your eyes. If you don’t, they yell at you or repeat things because they’re not sure they have your attention. Or they start to ignore you because they think you’re ignoring them.”

“No one’s done that to me.”

“They will. Just wait until you get past the stage when they try to talk stupid to you.”

“Baby talk, you mean?”

“Human talk!”

Silence.

“Don’t worry,” she said after a while. “It’s them I’m mad at, not you.”

“Why?”

“They blame me for not looking like them. They can’t help doing it, and I can’t help resenting it. I don’t know which is worse—the ones who cringe if I touch them or the ones who pretend it’s all right while they cringe inside.”

“What does Lilith feel?” Akin asked only because he already knew the answer.

“For her, I might as well look the way you do. I remember when I was about your age, she would wonder how I would find a mate, but Nikanj told her there would be plenty of males like me by the time I grew up. She never said anything after that. She tells me to stick with the constructs. I do, mostly.”

“Humans like me,” he said. “I guess because I look like them.”

“Just remember to look at them with your eyes when they talk to you or you talk to them. And be careful about tasting them. You won’t be able to get away with that for much longer. Besides, your tongue doesn’t look Human.”

“Humans say it shouldn’t be gray, but they don’t realize how different it really is.”

“Don’t let them guess. They can be dangerous, Akin. Don’t show them everything you can do. But

hang around them when you can. Study their behavior. Maybe you can collect things about them that we can’t. It would be wrong if anything that they are is lost.”

“Your legs are going to sleep,” Akin observed. “You’re tired. You should take me to Lilith.”

“In a little while.”

She did not want to give him up, he realized. He did not mind. She was, Humans said, gray and warty—more different than most Human-born children. And she could hear as well as any construct. She caught every whisper whether she wanted to or not, and if she were near Humans, they soon began to talk about her. “If she looks this bad now, what will she look like after metamorphosis?” they would begin. Then they would speculate or pity her or condemn her or laugh at her. Better a few more minutes of peace alone with him.

Her full Human name was Margita Iyapo Domonkos Kaalnikanjlo. Margit. She had all four of his living parents in common with him. Her Human father, though, was Vidor Domonkos, not the dead Joseph. Vidor—some people called him Victor—had moved to a village several miles upriver when he and Lilith tired of one another. He came back two or three times a year to see Margit. He did not like the way she looked, yet he loved her. She had seen that he did, and Akin was certain she had read his emotion correctly. He had never met Vidor himself. He had been too young for contact with strangers during the man’s last visit.

“Will you tell Vidor to let me touch him when he comes to see you again?” Akin asked.

“Father? Why?”

“I want to find you in him.”

She laughed. “He and I have a lot in common. He doesn’t like having anyone explore him, though. Says he doesn’t need anything burrowing through his skin.” She hesitated. “He means that. He only let me do it once. Just talk to him if you meet him, Akin. In some ways he can be just as dangerous as any other Human.”

“Your father?”

‘Akin

All of them! Haven’t you explored any of them? Can’t you feel it?” She gave him a complex image. He understood it only because he had explored a few Humans himself. Humans were a compelling, seductive, deadly contradiction. He felt drawn to them, yet warned against them. To touch a Human deeply—to taste one—was to feel this.

“I know,” he said. “But I don’t understand.”

“Talk to Ooan. It knows and understands. Talk to Mother, too. She knows more than she likes to admit.”