Adulthood Rites

“Why did Humans attack one another?”

Suddenly there was shouting outside.

“Okay,” Tate said. “They’ve realized the girls are gone. They’ll be here in a moment.”

Almost before she had finished speaking, Macy Wilton and Neci Roybal were at the door, looking around the room.

“Have you seen the girls?” Macy demanded.

Tate shook her head. “No, we haven’t been out.”

“Did you see them at all this morning?”

“No.”

“Akin?”

“No.” If Tate thought it was best to lie, then he would lie—although neither of them had begun lying yet.

“I heard you were sick, Akin,” Neci said.

“I’m all right now.”

“What made you sick?”

He stared at her with quiet dislike, wondering what it might be safe to say.

Tate spoke up with uncharacteristic softness. “He had a dream that upset him. A dream about his mother.”

Neci raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I didn’t know they dreamed.”

Tate shook her head, smiled slightly. “Neci, why not? He’s at least as Human as you are.”

The woman drew back. “You should be out helping to search for the girls!” she said. “Who knows what’s happened to them!”

“Maybe someone decided to follow your advice, grab them, and cut off their sensory tentacles.”

“What!” demanded Macy. He had gone into the room where he and the girls and his wife had slept. Now he came out, staring at Tate.

“She has an obscene sense of humor,” Neci said.

Tate made a wordless sound. “These days, I have no sense of humor at all where you’re concerned.” She looked at Macy. “She was still pushing to have the girls’ tentacles amputated. She’s been talking to the salvagers about it,” Now she looked directly at Neci. “Deny it.”

“Why should I? They would be better off without them—more Human!”

“Just as much better off as you would be without your eyes! Let’s go look for them, Macy. I hope to god they never heard the things Neci’s been saying.”

Amazed, Akin followed her out. She had put the blame for the girls’ flight exactly where it belonged without involving him at all. She left him with a salvager who had injured his knee and joined the search as though she had every expectation of finding the girls quickly.

19

Amma and Shkaht were not found. They were simply gone—perhaps found by other resisters, perhaps safe in some trade village. Most of the resisters seemed to think they were dead—eaten by caimans or anacondas, bitten by poisonous snakes or insects. The idea that such young children could find their way to safety seemed completely impossible to them.

And most of the resisters blamed Neci. Tate seemed to find that satisfying. Akin did not care. If Neci left him alone, he was content with her. And she did leave him alone—but only after planting the idea that he must be watched more carefully. She was not the only one who believed this, but she was the only one to suggest that he be kept out of the pit, kept away from the river, be harnessed and tied outside the cabins when everyone was too busy to watch him.

He would not have stood for that. He would have stung the rope or chain that they tied him with until it rotted or corroded through, and he would have run away—up the mountain, not down. They might not find him higher up. He would probably not make it back to Lo. He was too far from it now, and there were so many resister villages between it and him that he would probably be picked up once he headed down from the hills. But he would not stay with people who tied him.

He was not tied. He was watched more closely than before, but it seemed the resisters had as great an aversion to tying or confining people as he did.

Neci finally left with a group of salvagers going home—men and women carrying wealth on their backs. They took two of the guns with them. There had been a general agreement among new salvagers and old that Phoenix would begin to manufacture guns. Tate was against it. Yori was so strongly against it that she threatened to move to another resister village. Nevertheless, guns would be made.

“We’ve got to protect ourselves,” Gabe said. “Too many of the raiders have guns now, and Phoenix is too rich. Sooner or later, they’ll realize it’s easier to steal from us than carry on honest trade.”

Tate slept several nights alone or with Akin once the decision was made. Sometimes she hardly slept at all, and Akin wished he could comfort her the way Amma and Shkaht had comforted him. Sleep could be a great gift. But he could have given it only with the help of a close Oankali-born sibling.

“Would raiders begin raiding you the way they raid us?” he asked her one night as they lay together in a hammock.

“Probably.”

“Why haven’t they already?”

“They have occasionally—trying to steal metal or women. But Phoenix is a strong town—plenty of people willing to fight if they have to. There are smaller, weaker settlements that are easier pickings.”

“Are guns really a bad idea, then?”

In the dark she tried to stare at him. She couldn’t have seen him—although he saw her clearly. “What do you think?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I like a lot of the people in Phoenix. And I remember what raiders did to Tino. They didn’t have to. They just did it. Later, though, while I was with them, they didn’t really seem

I don’t know. Most of the time, they were like the men in Phoenix.”

“They probably came from someplace like Phoenix—some village or town. They got sick of one pointless, endless existence and chose another.”

“Pointless because resisters can’t have children?”

“That’s it. It means a lot more than I could ever explain to you. We don’t get old. We don’t have kids, and nothing we do means shit.”

“What would it mean

if you had a kid like me?”

“We have got a kid like you. You.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Go to sleep, Akin.”

“Why are you afraid of guns?”

“They make killing too easy. Too impersonal. You know what that means?”

“Yes. I’ll ask if you say something I don’t understand.”

“So we’ll kill more of each other than we already do. We’ll learn to make better and better guns. Someday, we’ll take on the Oankali, and that will be the end of us.”

“It would. What do you want to happen instead?”

Silence.

“Do you know?”

“Not extinction,” she whispered. “Not extinction in any form. As long as we’re alive, we have some chance.”

Akin frowned, trying to understand. “If you had kids in the old way, your prewar way, with Gabe, would that mean you and Gabe were becoming extinct?”

“It would mean we weren’t. Our kids would be Human like us.”

“I’m Human like you—and Oankali like Ahajas and Dichaan.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to.”

“Are you?” She touched his face. “Why?”

“I need to. It’s part of me, too. It concerns me, too.”

“Not really.”

Abruptly he was angry. He hated her soft condescension. “Then why am I here! Why are you here! You and Gabe would be down in Phoenix if it didn’t concern me. I would be back in Lo. Oankali and Human have done what Human male and female used to do. And they made me and Amma and Shkaht, and they’re no more extinct than you would be if you had kids with Gabe!”

She turned slightly—turned her back to him as much as she could in a hammock. “Go to sleep, Akin.”

But he did not sleep. It was his turn to lie awake thinking. He understood more than she thought. He recalled his argument with Amma and Shkaht that Humans should be permitted their own Akjai division—their own hedge against disaster and true extinction. Why should it be so difficult? There were, according to Lilith, bodies of land surrounded by vast amounts of water. Humans could be isolated and their ability to reproduce in their own way restored to them. But then what would happen when the constructs scattered to the stars, leaving the Earth a stripped ruin. Tate’s hopes were in vain.

Or were they?