Adulthood Rites

“Stay away from that,” Tate said. “Even when it’s cold. Make a habit of staying away from it, you hear?”

“All right. I wouldn’t touch anything hot by accident, though. And I’m finally too old to poison, so—”

“You just poisoned yourself!”

“No. I was careless, and it hurt, but I wouldn’t have gotten very sick or died. It was like when you hit your toe and stumbled on the trail. It didn’t mean you don’t know how to walk. You were just careless.”

“Yeah. That may or may not be a good analogy. You stay away from the stove anyway. You want something to eat or has everyone already stuffed you with food?”

“I’ll have to get rid of some of what I’ve already eaten so that I can eat some more protein.”

“Want to eat with us or would you rather go out and eat leaves?”

“I’d rather go out and eat leaves.”

She frowned at him for a second, then began to laugh. “Go,” she said. “And be careful.”

17

Neci Roybal wanted one of the girls. And she had not given up the idea of having both girls’ tentacles removed. She had begun again to campaign for that among the salvagers. The tentacles looked more like slugs than worms most of the time, she said. It was criminal to allow little girls to be afflicted with such things. Girl children who might someday be the mothers of a new Human race ought to look Human—ought to see Human features when they looked in the mirror

“They’re not Oankali,” Akin heard her tell Abira one night. “What happened to the man Tate and Gabe knew—that might only happen with Oankali.”

“Neci,” Abira told her, “if you go near those kids with a knife, and they don’t finish you, I will.”

Others were more receptive. A pair of salvagers named Senn converted quickly to Neci’s point of view. Akin spent much of his third night at the salvage camp lying in Abira’s hammock, listening as in the next house Neci and Gilbert and Anne Senn strove to convert Yori Shinizu and Sabina Dobrowski. Yori, the doctor, was obviously the person they hoped would remove the girls’ tentacles.

“It’s not just the way the tentacles look,” Gil said in his soft voice. Everyone called him Gil. He had a soft, ooloilike voice. “Yes, they are ugly, but it’s what they represent that’s important. They’re alien. Un-Human. How can little girls grow up to be Human women when their own sense organs betray them?”

“What about the boy?” Yori asked. “He has the same alien senses, but they’re located in his tongue. We couldn’t remove that.”

“No,” Anne said, soft-voiced like her husband. She looked and sounded enough like him to be his sister, but Humans did not marry their siblings, and these two had been married before the war. They had come from a place called Switzerland and had been visiting a place called Kenya when the war happened. They had gone to look at huge, fabulous animals, now extinct. In her spare time, Anne painted pictures of the animals on cloth or paper or wood. Giraffes, she called them, lions, elephants, cheetahs

She had already shown Akin some of her work. She seemed to like him.

“No,” she repeated. “But the boy must be taught as any child should be taught. It’s wrong to let him always put things into his mouth. It’s wrong to let him eat grass and leaves like a cow. It’s wrong to let him lick people. Tate says he calls it tasting them. It’s disgusting.”

“She lets him give in to any alien impulse,” Neci said. “She had no children before. I heard there was some sickness in her family so that she didn’t dare have children. She doesn’t know how to care for them.”

“The boy loves her,” Yori said.

“Because she spoils him,” Neci said. “But he’s young. He can learn to love other people.”

“You?” Gil asked.

“Why not me! I had two children before the war. I know how to bring them up.”

“We also had two,” Anne said. “Two little girls.” She gave a low laugh. “Shkaht and Amma look nothing like them, but I would give anything to make one of those girls my daughter.”

“With or without tentacles?” Sabina said.

“If Yori would do it, I would want them removed.”

“I don’t know whether I’d do it,” Yori said. “I don’t believe Tate was lying about what she saw.”

“But what she saw was between a Human and an adult Oankali,” Anne said. “These are children. Almost babies. And they’re almost Human.”

“They look almost Human,” Sabina put in. “We don’t know what they really are.”

“Children,” Anne said. “They’re children.”

Silence.

“It should be done,” Neci said. “Everyone knows it should be done. We don’t know how to do it yet, but, Yori, you should be finding out how. You should study them. You came along to guard their health. Doesn’t that mean you should spend time with them, get to know more about them?”

“That won’t help,” Yori said. “I already know they’re venomous. Perhaps I could protect myself, and perhaps I couldn’t. But

this is cosmetic surgery, Neci. Unnecessary. And I’m no surgeon anyway. Why should we risk the girls’ health and my life just because they have what amounts to ugly birthmarks? Tate says the tentacles grow back, anyway.” She drew a deep breath. “No, I won’t do it. I wasn’t sure before, but I am now. I won’t do it.”

Silence. Sounds of moving about, someone walking—Yori’s short, light steps. Sound of a door being opened.

“Good night,” Yori said.

No one wished her a good night.

“It’s not that complicated,” Neci said moments later. “Especially not with Amma. She has so few tentacles—eight or ten—and they’re so small. Anyone could do it—with gloves for protection.”

“I couldn’t do it,” Anne said. “I couldn’t use a knife on anyone.”

“I could,” Gil said. “But

if only they weren’t such little girls.”

“Is there any liquor here?” Neci asked. “Even that foul cassava stuff the wanderers drink would do.”

“We make the corn whiskey here, too,” Gil said. “There’s always plenty. Too much.”

“So we give it to the girls and then do it.”

“I don’t know,” Sabina said. “They’re so young. And if they get sick

”

“Yori will care for them if they get sick. She’ll care for them, even if she doesn’t like what we’ve done. And it will be done, as it should be.”

“But—”

“It must be done! We must raise Human children, not aliens who don’t even understand how we see things.”

Silence.

“Tomorrow, Gil? Can it be done tomorrow?”

“I

don’t know

.”

“We can collect the kids when they’re out eating plants. No one will notice for a while that they’re gone. Sabina, you’ll get the liquor, won’t you?”

“I—”

“Are there very sharp knives here? It should be done quickly and cleanly. And we’ll need clean cloths for bandages, gloves for all of us, just in case, and that antiseptic Yori has. I’ll get that. There probably won’t be any infection, but we won’t take chances.” She stopped abruptly, then spoke one word harshly.

“Tomorrow!”

Silence.

Akin got up, managed to struggle out of the hammock. Abira awoke, but only mumbled something and went back to sleep. Akin headed toward the next room where Amma and Shkaht shared a hammock. They met him coming out. All three linked instantly and spoke without sound.

“We have to go,” Shkaht said sadly.

“You don’t,” Akin argued. “They’re only a few, and not that strong. We have Tate and Gabe, Yori, Abira, Macy and Kolina. They would help us!”

“They would help us tomorrow. Neci would wait and recruit and try again later.”

“Tate could talk to the salvagers the way she talked to the camp on the way up here. People believe her when she talks.”

“Neci didn’t.”

“Yes she did. She just wants to have everything her way—even if her way is wrong. And she’s not very smart. She’s seen me taste metal and flesh and wood, but she thinks gloves will protect her hands from being tasted or stung when she cuts you.”