Adulthood Rites

As soon as the experience ended, people began objecting to its intensity, objecting to being so overwhelmed, objecting to the idea that this could have been the experience of such a young child

No one objected to the idea of a Human Akjai. For some time, no one mentioned it at all.

Akin perceived what he could through the Akjai, drawing back whenever the transmission was too fast or too intense. Drawing back felt like coming up for air. He found himself gasping, almost exhausted each time. But each time he went back, needing to feel what the Akjai felt, needing to follow the responses of the people. It was rare for children to take part in a consensus for more than a few seconds. No child who was not deeply concerned would want to take part for longer.

Akin could feel the people avoiding the subject of Akjai Humans. He did not understand their reactions to it: a turning away, a warding off, a denial, a revulsion. It confused him, and he tried to communicate his confusion to the Akjai.

The Akjai seemed at first not to notice his wordless questioning. It was fully occupied with its communication with the people. But suddenly, gently, it clasped Akin to it so that he would not break contact. It broadcast his bewilderment, letting people know they were experiencing the emotions of a construct child—a child too Human to understand their reactions naturally. A child too Oankali and too near adulthood to disregard.

They feared for him, that this search for a consensus would be too much for a child. The Akjai let them see that it was protecting him but that his feelings must be taken into account. The Akjai focused on the adult constructs aboard the ship. It pointed out that the Human-born among them had had to learn the Oankali understanding of life itself as a thing of inexpressible value. A thing beyond trade. Life could be changed, changed utterly. But not destroyed. The Human species could cease to exist independently, blending itself into the Oankali. Akin, it said, was still learning this.

Someone else cut in: Could Humans be given back their independent lives and allowed to ride their Contradiction to their deaths? To give them back their independent existence, their fertility, their own territory was to help them breed a new population only to destroy it a second time.

Many answers blended through the ship into one: “We’ve given them what we can of the things they value—long life, freedom from disease, freedom to live as they wish. We can’t help them create more life only to destroy it.”

“Then let me and those who choose to work with me do it,” Akin told them through the Akjai. “Give us the tools we need, and let us give the Humans the things they need. They’ll have a new world to settle—a difficult world even after we’ve prepared it. Perhaps by the time they’ve learned the skills and bred for the strengths to settle it, the Contradiction will be less. Perhaps this time their intelligence will stop them from destroying themselves.”

There was nothing. A neurosensory equivalent of silence. Denial.

He reached through the Akjai once more, struggling against sudden exhaustion. Only the Akjai’s efforts kept him conscious. “Look at the Human-born among you,” he told them. “If your flesh knows you’ve done all you can for Humanity, their flesh should know as mine does that you’ve done almost nothing. Their flesh should know that resister Humans must survive as a separate, self-sufficient species. Their flesh should know that Humanity must live!”

He stopped. He could have gone on, but it was time to stop. If he had not said enough, shown them enough, if he had not guessed accurately about the Human-born, he had failed. He must try again later when he was an adult, or he must find people who would help him in spite of the majority opinion. That would be difficult, perhaps impossible. But it must be tried.

As he realized he was about to be cut off, shielded by the Akjai, he felt confusion among the people. Confusion, dissension.

He had reached some of them, perhaps caused Human-born constructs to start to think, start to examine their Human heritage as they had not before. Toaht constructs could have little reason to pay close attention to their own Humanity. He would go to them if opinion went against him. He would seek them out and teach them about the people they were part of. He would go to them even if opinion did not go against him. Aboard the ship, they were the group most likely to help him.

“Sleep,” the Akjai advised him. “You’re too young for all this. I’ll argue for you now.”

“Why?” he asked. He was almost asleep, but the question was like an itch in his mind. “Why do you care so when my own kin-group doesn’t care?”

“Because you’re right,” the Akjai said. “If I were Human, little construct, I would be a resister myself. All people who know what it is to end should be allowed to continue if they can continue. Sleep.”

The Akjai coiled part of its body around him so that he lay in a broad curve of living flesh. He slept.

11

Tiikuchahk and Dehkiaht were with him when he awoke. The Akjai was there, too, but he realized it had not been with him continually. He had a memory of it going away and coming back with Tiikuchahk and Dehkiaht. As Akin took in his surroundings, he saw the Akjai draw Dehkiaht into an alarming embrace, lifting the ooloi child and clasping it in over a dozen limbs.

“They wanted to learn about one another,” Tiikuchahk said. These were the first words it had spoken to him since he caused it to experience his memories.

He sat up and focused on it questioningly.

“You shouldn’t have been able to grab us and hold us that way,” it said. “Dehkiaht and its parents say no child should be able to do that.”

“I didn’t know I could do it.”

“Dehkiaht’s parents say it’s a teaching thing—the way adults teach subadult ooloi sometimes when the ooloi have to learn something they aren’t really ready for. They’ve never heard of a subadult male.”

“But Dehkiaht says that’s what I am.”

“It is what you are. Human-born construct females could be called subadults too, I guess. But you’re a first. Again.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t like what I did. I’ll try not to do it again.”

“Don’t. Not to me. The Akjai says you learned it here.”

“I must have—without realizing it.” He paused, watching Tiikuchahk. It was sitting next to him in apparent comfort. “Is it all right between us?”

“Seems to be.”

“Will you help me?”

“I don’t know.” It focused narrowly on him. “I don’t know what I am yet. I don’t even know what I want to be.”

“Do you want Dehkiaht?”

“I like it. It helped us, and I feel better when it’s around. If I were like you, I would probably want to keep it.”

“I do.”

“It wants you, too. It says you’re the most interesting person it’s known. I think it will help you.”

“If you become female, you could join us—mate with it.”

“And you?”

He looked away from it. “I can’t imagine how I would feel to have it and not you. What I’ve felt of it was

partly you.”

“I don’t know. No one knows yet what I’ll be. I can’t feel what you feel yet.”

He managed to stop himself from arguing. Tiikuchahk was right. He still occasionally thought of it as female, but its body was neuter. It could not feel as he did. He was amazed at his own feelings, although they were natural. Now that Tiikuchahk was no longer a source of irritation and confusion, he could begin to feel about it the way people tended to feel about their closest siblings. He did not know whether he truly wanted to have it as one of his mates—or whether a wandering male of the kind he was supposed to be could be said to have mates. But the idea of mating with it felt right, now. It, Dehkiaht, and himself. That was the way it should be.

“Do you know what the people have decided?” he asked.

Tiikuchahk shook its head Humanly. “No.”

After a time, Dehkiaht and the Akjai separated, and Dehkiaht climbed to the Akjai’s long, broad back.