Adulthood Rites

The other was Neci. She had graduated from attempting mutilation to attempting murder.

What had happened to Macy? Where were Tate and Gabe? How could the fire make so much noise and light and not awaken everyone? It had crept up outside one window now. The windows were high off the ground. The fire he could see must already be eating its way through the wall and floor.

He began to shout Tate’s name, Gabe’s name. He could move a little now, but not enough to make a difference.

No one came.

The fire ate its way into the room, making choking smoke that Akin discovered he could breathe easier if he did not breathe through his mouth. He had a sair at his throat now, surrounded by large and strong sensory tentacles. These moved automatically to filter the smoke from the air he breathed.

But, still, no one came to help him. He would burn. He had no protection against fire.

He would die. Neci and her friend would destroy Human chances at a new world because they were drunk and out of their minds.

He would end.

He shouted and choked because he did not quite understand yet how to talk through a familiar orifice and breathe through an unfamiliar one.

Why was he being left to burn? People heard him. They must have heard! He could hear them now—running, shouting, their sounds blending into the snapping and roaring of the fire.

He managed to fall off the bed.

Landing was only a small shock. His sensory tentacles automatically protected themselves by flattening into his body. Once he was on the wood floor, he tried to roll toward the door.

Then he stopped, trying to understand what his senses were telling him. Vibrations. Someone coming.

Someone running toward the room he was in. Gabe’s footsteps.

He shouted, hoping to guide the man in the smoke. He saw the door open, felt hands on him.

With an effort that was almost painful, Akin managed not to sink his sensory tentacles into the man’s flesh. The man’s touch was like an invitation to investigate him with enhanced adult senses. But now was not the time for such things. He must do all he could not to hinder Gabe.

He let himself become a thing—a sack of vegetables to be thrown over someone’s shoulder. For once, he was glad to be small.

Gabe fell once, coughing, seared by the heat. He dropped Akin, picked him up, and again threw him over one shoulder.

The front door was blocked by sheets of fire. The back would be blocked in a moment. Gabe kicked it open and ran down the steps, for a moment actually plunging through flames. His hair caught fire, and Akin shouted at him to put it out.

Gabe stopped once he was clear of the house, dropped Akin into the dirt, and collapsed, beating at himself and coughing.

The tree they had stopped under had caught fire from the house. They had to move again, quickly, to avoid burning branches. Once Gabe had put out his own fire, he picked Akin up and staggered farther away toward the forest.

“Where are you going?” Akin asked him.

He did not answer. It seemed all he could do to breathe and move.

Behind them, the house was totally engulfed. Nothing could be alive in there now.

“Tate!” Akin said suddenly. Where was she? Gabe would never save him and leave Tate to burn.

“Ahead,” Gabe wheezed.

She was all right, then.

Gabe fell again, this time half-atop Akin. Hurt, Akin locked into him in helpless reflex. He immediately paralyzed the man, stopping significant messages of movement between the brain and the rest of the body.

“Lie still,” he said, hoping to give Gabe the illusion of choice. “Just lie there and let me help you.”

“You can’t help yourself,” Gabe whispered, struggling to breathe, to move.

“I can help myself by healing you! If you fall on me again, I might sting you. Now shut up and stop trying to move. Your lungs are damaged and you’re burned.” The lung damage was serious and could kill him. The burns were only very painful. Yet Gabe would not be quiet.

“The town

Can they see us?”

“No. There’s a cornfield between us and Phoenix now. The fire is still visible, though. And it’s spreading.” At least one other house was burning now. Perhaps it had caught from the burning tree.

“If it doesn’t rain, half the town might burn. Fools.”

“It isn’t going to rain. Now be quiet, Gabe.”

“If they catch us, they’ll probably kill us!”

“What? Who?”

“People from town. Not everybody. Just troublemakers.”

“They’ll be too busy trying to put out the fire. It hasn’t rained for days. They chose the wrong season for all this. Just be quiet and let me help you. I won’t make you sleep, so you might feel something. But I won’t hurt you.”

“I hurt so bad already, I probably wouldn’t know if you did.”

Akin interrupted the messages of pain that Gabe’s nerves were sending to his brain and encouraged his brain to secrete specific endorphins.

“Jesus Christ!” the man said, gasping, coughing. For him the pain had abruptly ceased. He felt nothing. It was less confusing for him that way. For Akin, it meant sudden, terrible pain, then slow alleviation. Not euphoria. He did not want Gabe drunk on his own endorphins. But the man could be made to feel good and alert. It was almost like making music—balancing endorphins, silencing pain, maintaining sobriety. He made simple music. Ooloi made great harmonies, interweaving people and sharing pleasure. And ooloi contributed substances of their own to the union. Akin would feel that soon when Dehkiaht changed. For now, there was the pleasure of healing.

Gabe began to breathe easier as his lungs improved. He did not notice when his flesh began to heal. Akin let the useless burned flesh slough off. Gabe would need water and food soon. Akin would finish by stimulating feelings of hunger and thirst in the man so that he would be willing to eat or drink whatever Akin could spot for him. It was especially important that he drink soon.

“Someone’s coming,” Gabe whispered.

“Gilbert Senn,” Akin said into his ear. “He’s been searching for some time. If we’re still, he may not find us.”

“How do you know it’s—?”

“Footsteps. He still sounds the same as he did when I was here before. He’s alone.”

Silently Akin finished his work and withdrew the filaments of his sensory tentacles from Gabe. “You can move now,” he whispered. “But don’t.”

Akin could move too, a little more, although he doubted that he could walk.

Abruptly Gilbert Senn found them—all but stumbled over them in the moonlight and the firelight. He leaped back, his rifle aimed at them.

Gabe sat up. Akin used Gabe to pull himself up and managed not to fall when he let go. He could hurry everyone’s bodily processes but his own. Gilbert Senn looked at him, then carefully avoided looking at him. He lowered the rifle.

“Are you all right, Gabe?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re burned.”

“I was.” Gabe glanced at Akin.

Gilbert Senn carefully did not look at Akin. “I see.” He turned toward the fire. “I wish that hadn’t happened. We would never have burned your home.”

“For all I know, you did,” Gabe muttered.

“Neci did,” Akin said quickly. “She and the man who wanted to get into the house to see me. I heard them.”

The rifle came up again, aimed only at Akin this time. “You will be quiet,” he said.

“If he dies, we all die,” Gabe said softly.

“We all die no matter what. Some of us choose to die free!”

“There will be freedom on Mars, Gil.”

The corners of Gilbert Senn’s mouth turned down. Gabe shook his head. To Akin he said, “He believes your Mars idea is a trick. A way of gathering in the resisters easily to use them on the ship or in the Oankali villages on Earth. A lot of people feel that way.”

“This is my world,” Gilbert Senn said. “I was born here, and I’ll die here. And if I can’t have Human children—fully Human children—I’ll have no children at all.”