Who among the Oankali was speaking for the interests of resister Humans? Who had seriously considered that it might not be enough to let Humans choose either union with the Oankali or sterile lives free of the Oankali? Trade-village Humans said it, but they were so flawed, so genetically contradictory that they were often not listened to.
He did not have their flaw. He had been assembled within the body of an ooloi. He was Oankali enough to be listened to by other Oankali and Human enough to know that resister Humans were being treated with cruelty and condescension.
Yet he had not even been able to make Amma and Shkaht understand. He did not know enough yet. These resisters had to help him learn more.
20
Akin was with the people of Phoenix for over a year. He spent most of this time in the hills, watching the salvaging and taking part when the salvagers would let him. One of the men set him to cleaning small, decorative itemsjewelry, figurines, small bottles, jars, eating utensils. He knew he was given the job mainly to keep him from underfoot, but the work pleased him. He tasted everything before he cleaned it and afterward. Often he found Human leavings protected within containers. There were bits of hair, skin, nail. From some of these he salvaged lost Human genetic patterns that ooloi could recreate if they needed the Human genetic diversity. Only an ooloi could tell him what was useful. He memorized everything to give to Nikanj someday.
Once Sabina caught him tasting the inside of a small bottle. She tried to snatch the bottle away. Fortunately, he managed to dodge her hands and withdraw the thin, searching filaments of his tongue before she broke them. She should have gone back to Phoenix when her group left. She had done her share of what she called grubbing in the dirt, but she had stayed. Akin believed she had stayed because of him. He had not forgotten that she had been willing to take part in cutting off Ammas and Shkahts tentacles. But she seemed brighter than Neci, more able, more willing to learn.
What was this called? he asked her once there was no chance of her injuring him.
It was a perfume bottle. You keep it out of your mouth.
Where were you going? he asked.
What?
If you have time, Ill tell you why I put things in my mouth.
All kids put things in their mouthsand sometimes they poison themselves.
I must put things in my mouth to understand them. And I must try to understand them. Not to try would be like having hands and eyes and yet always being tied and blindfolded. It would make me
not sane.
Oh, but
And Im too old now to poison myself. I could drink the fluid that used to be in this bottle and nothing would happen. It would pass through me quickly, almost unchanged, because it isnt very dangerous. If it were very dangerous, my body would either change its structure and neutralize it or
contain it in a kind of sealed flesh bottle and expel it. Do you see?
I
understand what youre saying, but Im not sure I believe you.
Its important that you understand. Especially you.
Why?
Because just now, you almost hurt me a lot. You could have injured me more than any poison could. And you could have made me sting you. If I did that, you would die. Thats why.
She had drawn back from him. Her face had changed slightly. You always look so normal
sometimes I forget.
Dont forget. But dont hate me either. Ive never stung anyone, and I dont ever want to.
Some of the wariness left her eyes.
Help me learn, he said. I want to know the Human part of myself better.
What can I teach you?
He smiled. Tell me why Human kids put things in their mouths. Ive never known.
21
He made them all his teachers. He told only Tate what he meant to do. When she had heard, she looked at him then shook her head sadly. Go ahead, she said. Learn all you can about us. It cant do any harm. But afterward, I think youll find you have a few more things to learn about the Oankali, too.
He worried about that. No other resister could have made him worry about the Oankali. But Tate had been almost a relative. She would have been an ooloi relative if she had stayed with Kahguyaht and its mates. He felt her to be almost a relative now. He trusted her. Yet he could not give up his own belief that he could someday speak for the resisters.
Shall I tell them there must be Akjai Humans? he asked her. Would you be willing to begin again, isolated somewhere far from here? Where, he could not imagine, but somewhere!
If it were a place where we could live, and if we could have children. She drew a breath, wet her lips. We would do anything for that. Anything.
There was an intensity that he had never heard before in her voice. And there was something else. He frowned. Would you go?
She had come over to watch him scrub a piece of colorful mosaica square of bright bits of glass fitted together to make a red flower against a blue field.
Thats beautiful, Tate said softly. There was a time when I would have thought it was cheap junk. Now, its beautiful.
Would you go? Akin asked again.
She turned and walked away.
22
Gabe took him away from his tasting and cleaning for a whiletook him higher into the hills where the great mountains in the distance could be seen clearly. One of them smoked and steamed into the blue sky and was somehow very beautifula pathway deep into the Earth. A breathing place. A kind of joint where great segments of the Earths crust came together. Akin could look at the huge volcano and understand a little better how the Earth workedhow it would work until it was broken and divided between departing Dinso groups.
Akin chose the edible plants he thought would taste best to Gabe and introduced the man to them. In return, Gabe told him about a place called New York and what it had been like to grow up there. Gabe talked more than he ever hadtalked about acting, which Akin did not understand at all at first.
Gabe had been an actor. People gave him money and goods so that he would pretend to be someone elseso that he would take part in acting out a story someone had made up.
Didnt your mother ever tell you any stories? he asked Akin.
Yes, Akin said. But they were true.
She never told you about the three bears?
Whats a bear?
Gabe looked first angry, then resigned. I still forget sometimes, he said. A bear is just one more large, extinct animal. Forget it.
That night in a small, half-ruined stone shelter before a camp-fire, Gabe became another person for Akin. He became an old man. Akin had never seen an old man. Most of the old Humans who had survived the war had been kept aboard the ship. The oldest were dead by now. The Oankali had not been able to extend their lives for more than a few years, but they kept them healthy and free of pain for as long as possible.
Gabe became an old man. His voice became heavier, thicker. His body seemed heavier, too, and painfully weary, bent, yet hard to bend. He was a man whose daughters had betrayed him. He was sane, and then not sane. He was terrifying. He was another person altogether. Akin wanted to get up and run out into the darkness.
Yet he sat still, spellbound. He could not understand much of what Gabe said, though it seemed to be English. Somehow, though, he felt what Gabe seemed to want him to feel. Surprise, anger, betrayal, utter bewilderment, despair, madness
.
The performance ended, and Gabe was Gabe again. He turned his face upward and laughed aloud. Jesus, he said. Lear for a three-year-old. Damn. It felt good, anyway. Its been so long. I didnt know I remembered all that stuff.
Dont you do that for the people in Phoenix? Akin asked timidly.
No. I never have. Dont ask me why. I dont know. I farm now or I work metal. I dig up junk from the past and turn it into stuff people can use today. Thats what I do.