Adulthood Rites

“Plastic gloves?”

Surprised, Akin thought for a moment. “They might have gloves made of some kind of plastic. I haven’t seen plastic that soft, but it could exist. But once you understand the plastic it can’t hurt you.”

“Neci probably doesn’t realize that. You said she wasn’t smart. That makes her more dangerous. Maybe if other people stop her from cutting us tomorrow, she’ll get angrier. She’ll want to hurt us just to prove she can.”

After a time, Akin agreed. “She would.”

“We have to go.”

“I want to go with you!”

Silence.

Frightened, Akin linked more deeply with them. “Don’t leave me here alone!”

More silence. Very gently, they held him between them and put him to sleep. He understood what they were doing and resisted them angrily at first, but they were right. They had a chance without him. They were stronger, larger, and could travel faster and farther without rest. Communication between them was quicker and more precise. They could act almost as though they shared a single nervous system. Only paired siblings and adult mates came to know each other that well. Akin would hamper them, probably get them recaptured. He knew this, and they could feel his contradictory feelings. They knew he knew. Thus, there was no need to argue. He must simply accept the reality.

He accepted it finally and allowed them to send him into a deep sleep.

18

He slept naked on the floor until Tate found him the next morning. She awoke him by lifting him and was startled when he grabbed her around the neck and would not let go. He did not cry or speak. He tasted her but did not study her. Later he realized he had actually tried to become her, to join with her as he might with his closest sibling. It was not possible. He was reaching for a union the Humans had denied him. It seemed to him that what he needed was just beyond his grasp, just beyond that final crossing he could not make, as with his mother. As with everyone. He could know so much and no more, feel so much and no more, join so close and no closer.

Desperately, he took what he could get. She could not comfort him or even know how deeply he perceived her. But she could, simply by permitting the attachment, divert his attention from himself, from his own misery.

Aside from her original jerk of surprise, Tate did not try to detach him. He did not know what she did. All his senses were focused on the worlds within the cells of her body. He did not know how long he was frozen to her, not thinking, not knowing or caring what she did as long as she did not disturb him.

When he finally drew away from her, he found that she was sitting on a mat on the floor, leaning against a wall. She had gone on holding him on her arm and resting her arm on her knees. Now as he straightened and reoriented himself, she took his chin between her fingers and turned his face toward hers.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

He said nothing for a moment, looked around the room.

“Everyone’s at breakfast,” she said. “I’ve had my regularly scheduled lecture about how I spoil you and a little extra to boot. Now, why don’t you tell me exactly what happened.”

She put him down beside her and stared down at him, waiting. Clearly she did not know the girls were gone. Perhaps no one had noticed yet, thanks to the morning grazing habits of all three children. He could not tell. Amma and Shkaht should have as much of a start as possible.

“It’s too late for me to bond with my sibling,” he said truthfully. “I was thinking about that last night. I was feeling

Lonely wouldn’t really be the right word. This was more like

something died.” Every word was true. His answer was simply incomplete. Amma and Shkaht had started his feelings—their union, their leaving

“Where are the girls?” Tate asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Have they gone, Akin?”

He looked away. Why was she always so hard to hide things from? Why did he hesitate so to lie to her?

“Good god,” she said, and started to get up.

“Wait!” Akin said. “They were going to cut them this morning. Neci and her friends were going to grab them while they were eating and hide them and cut off their sensory tentacles.”

“The hell they were!”

“They were! We heard them last night! Yori wouldn’t help them, but they were going to do it anyway. They were going to give them corn whiskey and—”

“Moonshine?”

“What?”

“They were going to make the girls drunk?”

“They couldn’t.”

Tate frowned. “Were they going to give them the moonshine—the whiskey?”

“Yes. But it wouldn’t make them drunk. I’ve seen drunk Humans. I don’t think anything we could drink would make us like that. Our bodies would reject the drink.”

“What would it have done to them?”

“Make them vomit or urinate a lot. It isn’t strong or deadly. Probably they would just pass it through almost unchanged. They would urinate a lot.”

“That stuff’s damn strong.”

“I mean

I mean it’s not a deadly poison. Humans can drink it without dying. We can drink it without vomiting it up wrapped in part of our flesh to keep it from injuring us.”

“So it wouldn’t hurt them—just in case Neci caught them.”

“It wouldn’t hurt them. They wouldn’t like it, though. And Neci hasn’t caught them.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve heard her. She’s been asking people where the girls are. No one’s seen them. She’s getting worried.”

Tate stared at nothing, believing, absorbing. “We wouldn’t have let her do it. All you had to do was tell me.”

“You would have stopped her this time,” he agreed. “She would have kept trying. People believe her after a while. They do what she wants them to.”

She shook her head. “Not this time. Too many of us were against her on this. Little girls, for godsake! Akin, we could waste days searching for them, but you could track them faster with your Oankali hearing and sight.”

“No.”

“Yes. Oh, yes! How far do you think those girls will get before something happens to them? They’re not much bigger than you are. They’ll die out there!”

“I wouldn’t. Why should they?”

Silence. She frowned down at him. “You mean you could get home from here?”

“I could if no Humans stopped me.”

“And you think no Humans will stop the girls?”

“I think

I think they’re afraid. I think they’re frightened enough to sting.”

“Oh, god.”

“What if someone were going to cut your eyes out, and you had a gun?”

“I thought the new species was supposed to be above that kind of thing.”

“They’re afraid. They only want to go home. They don’t want to be cut.”

“No.” She sighed. “Get dressed. Let’s go to breakfast. The riot should be starting any time now.”

“I don’t think they’ll find the girls.”

“If what you say is true, I hope they don’t. Akin?”

He waited, knowing what she would ask.

“Why didn’t they take you with them?”

“I’m too small.” He walked away from her, found his pants in the next room, and put them on. “I couldn’t work with them the way they could work with each other. I would have gotten them caught.”

“You wanted to go?”

Silence. If she did not know he had wanted to go, wanted desperately to go, she was stupid. And she was not stupid.

“I wonder why the hell your people don’t come for you,” she said. “They must know better than I do what they’re putting you through.”

“What they’re putting me through?” he asked, amazed.

She sighed. “We, then. Whatever good that admission does you. Oankali drove us to become what we are. If they hadn’t tampered with us, we’d have children of our own. We could live in our own ways, and they could live in theirs.”

“Some of you would attack them,” Akin said softly. “I think some Humans would have to attack them.”

“Why?”