Adulthood Rites

“We did salvaging and quarrying in the mountains. I was never allowed to go. They were afraid something would happen to me. But I helped build the houses. Real houses, not huts. We even had glass for the windows. We made glass and traded it with other resister villages. One of them came in with us when they saw how well we were doing. That almost doubled our numbers. They had a guy about three years younger than me, but no young women.

“We made a town. We even had a couple of mills for power. That made building easier. We built like crazy. If you were really busy, you didn’t have to think that maybe you were doing it all for nothing. Maybe all we were going to do was sit in our handsome houses and pray in our nice church and watch everybody not getting old.

“Then in one week, two guys and a woman hung themselves. Four others just disappeared. It would hit us like that—like a disease that one person caught and spread. We never had one suicide or one murder or one disappearance. Somebody else always caught the disease. I guess I finally caught it. Where do people go when they disappear? Someplace like this?” He looked around, sighed, then frowned. His tone changed abruptly. “You people have all the advantages. The Oankali can get you anything. Why do you live this way?”

“We’re comfortable,” Akin’s oldest sister Ayre said. “This isn’t a terrible way to live.”

“It’s primitive! You live like savages! I mean

” He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. It’s just that

I don’t know any polite way to ask this: Why don’t you at least build real houses and get rid of these shacks! You should see what we have! And

Hell, you have spaceships. How can you live this way’.”

Lilith spoke softly to him. “How many of those real houses of yours were empty when you left, Tino?”

He faced her angrily. “My people never had a chance! They didn’t make the war. They didn’t make the Oankali. And they didn’t make themselves sterile! But you can be damn sure that everything they did make was good and it worked and they put their hearts into it. Hey, I thought, ‘If we made a town, the

traders

must have made a city!’ And what do I find? A village of huts with primitive gardens. This place is hardly even a clearing!” His voice had risen again. He looked around with disapproval. “You’ve got kids to plan for and provide for, and you’re going to let them slide right back to being cavemen!”

A Human woman named Leah spoke up. “Our kids will be okay,” she said. “But I wish we could get more of your people to come here. They’re as close to immortal as a Human being has ever been, and all they can think of to do is build useless houses and kill one another.”

“It’s time we offered the resisters a way back to us,” Ahajas said. “I think we’ve been too comfortable here.”

Several Oankali made silent gestures of agreement.

“Leave them alone,” Tino said. “You’ve done enough to them! I’m not going to tell you where they are!”

Nikanj, still holding Akin, got up and moved through the seated people until it could sit with no one between itself and Tino. “None of the resister villages are hidden from us,” it said softly. “We wouldn’t have asked you where Phoenix was. And we don’t mean to focus on Phoenix. It’s time for us to approach all the resister villages and invite them to join us. It’s only to remind them that they don’t have to live sterile, pointless lives. We won’t force them to come to us, but we will let them know they’re still welcome. We let them go originally because we didn’t want to hold prisoners.”

Tino laughed bitterly. “So everyone here is here of their own freewill, huh?”

“Everyone here is free to leave.”

Tino gave Nikanj another of his unreadable looks and turned deliberately so that he faced Lilith. “How many men are there here?” he asked.

Lilith looked around, found Wray Ordway who kept the small guest house stocked with food and other supplies. This was where newly arrived men lived until they paired off with one of the village women. It was the only house in the village that had been built of cut trees and palm thatch. Tino might sleep there tonight. Wray kept the guest house because he had chosen not to wander. He had paired with Leah and apparently never tired of her. The two of them with their three Oankali mates had nine Human-born daughters and eleven Oankali-born children.

“How many men have we got now, Wray?” Lilith asked.

“Five,” he said. “None in the guest house, though. Tino can have it all to himself if he wants.”

“Five men.” Tino shook his head. “No wonder you haven’t built anything.”

“We build ourselves,” Wray said. “We’re building a new way of life here. You don’t know anything about us. Why don’t you ask questions instead of shooting off your mouth!”

“What is there to ask? Except for your garden—which barely looks like a garden—you don’t grow anything. Except for your shacks, you haven’t built anything! And as for building yourselves, the Oankali are doing that. You’re their clay, that’s all!”

“They change us and we change them,” Lilith said. “The whole next generation is made up of genetically engineered people, Tino—constructs, whether they’re born to Oankali or to Human mothers.” She sighed. “I don’t like what they’re doing, and I’ve never made any secret of it. But they’re in this with us. When the ships leave, they’re stuck here. And with their own biology driving them, they can’t not blend with us. But some of what makes us Human will survive, just as some of what makes them Oankali will survive.” She paused, looked around the large room. “Look at the children here, Tino. Look at the construct adults. You can’t tell who was born to whom. But you can see some Human features on every one of them. And as for the way we live

well, we’re not as primitive as you think—and not as advanced as we could be. It was all a matter of how much like the ship we wanted our homes to be. The Oankali made us learn to live here without them so that if we did resist, we could survive. So that people like your parents would have a choice.”

“Some choice,” Tino muttered.

“Better than being a prisoner or a slave,” she said. “They should have been ready for the forest. I’m surprised they ate the palm fruit that made them sick.”

“We were city people, and we were hungry. My father didn’t believe something could be poison raw but okay to eat cooked.”

Lilith shook her head. “I was a city person, too, but there were some things I was willing not to learn from experience.” She returned to her original subject. “Anyway, once we had learned to live in the forest on our own, the Oankali told us we didn’t have to. They meant to live in homes as comfortable as the ones they had on the ship, and we were free to do the same. We accepted their offer. Believe me, weaving thatch and tying logs together with lianas doesn’t hold any more fascination for me than it does for you—and I’ve done my share of it.”

“This place has a thatched roof,” Tino argued. “In fact, it looks freshly thatched.”

“Because the leaves are green? Hell, they’re green because they’re alive. We didn’t build this house, Tino, we grew it. Nikanj provided the seed; we cleared the land; everyone who was going to live here trained the walls and made them aware of us.”

Tino frowned. “What do you mean, ‘aware’ of you? I thought you were telling me it was a plant.”

“It’s an Oankali construct. Actually, it’s a kind of larval version of the ship. A neotenic larva. It can reproduce without growing up. It can also get a lot bigger without maturing sexually. This one will have to do that for a while. We don’t need more than one.”