The infection seemed to heal eventually, though clear fluid continued to leak from the wound. Not until it stopped completely did Nikanj let her go.
She began to rouse slowly, began to realize that she had not been fully conscious for a long time. It was as though she were Awakening again from suspended animation, this time without pain. Muscles that should have screamed when she moved after lying still for so long made no protest at all.
She moved slowly, straightening her arms, stretching her legs, arching her back against the ground. But something was missing.
She looked around, suddenly alarmed, and found Nikanj sitting beside her, focusing on her.
"You're all right," it said in its normal neutral voice. "You'll feel a little unsteady at first, but you're all right."
She looked at its left sensory arm. The healing was not yet complete. There was still visible what looked like a bad cut-as though someone had slashed at the arm and managed only a flesh wound.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
It moved the arm easily, normally, used it to stroke her face in an acquired human gesture.
She smiled, sat up, steadied herself for a moment, then stood up and looked around. There were no humans in sight, no Oankali except Nikanj, Ahajas, and Dichaan. Dichaan handed her a jacket and a pair of pants, both clean. Cleaner than she was. She took the clothing, and put it on reluctantly. She was not as dirty as she thought she should have been, but she still wanted to wash.
"Where are the others?" she asked. "Is everyone all right?"
"The humans are back at the settlement," Dichaan said. "They'll be sent to Earth soon. They've been shown the walls here. They know they're still aboard the ship."
"You should have shown them the walls on their first day here."
"We will do that next time. That was one of the things we had to learn from this group."
"Better yet, prove to them they're in a ship as soon as they're Awakened," she said. "Illusion doesn't comfort them for long. It just confuses them, helps them make dangerous mistakes. I had begun to wonder myself where we really were."
Silence. Stubborn silence.
She looked at Nikanj's still-healing sensory arm. "Listen to me," she said. "Let me help you learn about us, or there'll be more injuries, more deaths."
"Will you walk through the forest," Nikanj asked, "or shall we go the shorter way beneath the training room?"
She sighed. She was Cassandra, warning and predicting to people who went deaf whenever she began to warn and predict. "Let's walk through the forest," she said.
It stood still, keenly focused on her.
"What?" she asked.
It looped its injured sensory arm around her neck. "No one has ever done what we did here. No one has ever healed a wound as serious as mine so quickly or so completely."
"There was no reason for you to die or be maimed," she said. "I couldn't help Joseph. I'm glad I could help you- even though I don't have any idea how I did it."
Nikanj focused on Ahajas and Dichaan. "Joseph's body?" it said softly.
"Frozen," Dichaan said. "Waiting to be sent to Earth." Nikanj rubbed the back of her neck with the cool, hard tip of its sensory arm. "I thought I had protected him enough," it said. "It should have been enough."
"Is Curt still with the others?"
"He's asleep."
"Suspended animation?"
"Yes."
"And he'll stay here? He'll never get to Earth?"
"Never."
She nodded. "That isn't enough, but it's better than nothing."
"He has a talent like yours," Ahajas said. "The ooloi will use him to study and explore the talent."
"Talent...?"
"You can't control it," Nikanj said, "but we can. Your body knows how to cause some of its cells to revert to an embryonic stage. It can awaken genes that most humans never use after birth. We have comparable genes that go dormant after metamorphosis. Your body showed mine how to awaken them, how to stimulate growth of cells that would not normally regenerate. The lesson was complex and painful, but very much worth learning."
"You mean. . ." She frowned. "You mean my family problem with cancer, don't you?"
"It isn't a problem anymore," Nikanj said, smoothing its body tentacles. "It's a gift. It has given me my life back."
"Would you have died?"
Silence.
After a while, Ahajas said, "It would have left us. It would have become Toaht or Akjai and left Earth."
"Why?" Lilith asked.
"Without your gift, it could not have regained full use of the sensory arm. It could not have conceived children." Ahajas hesitated. "When we heard what had happened, we thought we had lost it. It had been with us for so little time. We felt. . . Perhaps we felt what you did when your mate died. There seemed to be nothing at all ahead for us until Ooan Nikanj told us that you were helping it, and that it would recover completely."
"Kahguyaht behaved as though nothing unusual were happening," Lilith said.
"It was frightened for me," Nikanj said. "It knows you dislike it. It thought any instructions from it beyond the essential would anger or delay you. It was badly frightened."
Lilith laughed bitterly. "It's a good actor."
Nikanj rustled its tentacles. It took its sensory arm from Lilith's neck and led the group toward the settlement.
Lilith followed automatically, her thoughts shifting from Nikanj to Joseph to Curt. Curt whose body was to be used to teach the ooloi more about cancer. She could not make herself ask whether he would be conscious and aware during these experiments. She hoped he would be.
8
It was nearly dark when they reached the settlement. People were gathered around fires, talking, eating. Nikanj and its mates were welcomed by the Oankali in a kind of gleeful silence-a confusion of sensory arms and tentacles, a relating of experience by direct neural stimulation. They could give each other whole experiences, then discuss the experience in nonverbal conversation. They had a whole language of sensory images and accepted signals that took the place of words.
Lilith watched them enviously. They didn't lie often to humans because their sensory language had left them with no habit of lying-only of withholding information, refusing contact.
Humans, on the other hand, lied easily and often. They could not trust one another. They could not trust one of their own who seemed too close to aliens, who stripped off her clothing and lay down on the ground to help her jailer.
There was silence at the fire where Lilith chose to sit. Allison, Leah and Wray, Gabriel and Tate. Tate gave her a baked yam and, to her surprise, baked fish. She looked at Wray.
Wray shrugged. "I caught it with my hands. Crazy thing to do. It was half as big as I am. But it swam right up to me just begging to be caught. The Oankali claimed I could have been caught myself by some of the things swimming in the river-electric eels, piranha, caiman.. . They brought all the worst things from Earth. Nothing bothered me, though."
"Victor found a couple of turtles," Allison said. "Nobody knew how to cook them so they cut the meat up and roasted it.''
"How was it?" Lilith asked.
"They ate it." Allison smiled. "And while they were cooking it and eating it, the Oankali kept away from them."
Wray grinned broadly. "You don't see any of them around this fire either, do you?"
"I'm not sure," Gabriel answered.
Silence.
Lilith sighed. "Okay, Gabe, what have you got? Questions, accusations or condemnations?"
"Maybe all three."
"Well?"
"You didn't fight. You chose to stand with the Oankali!"
"Against you?"
Angry silence.
"Where were you standing when Curt hacked Joseph to death?"
Tate laid her hand on Lilith's arm. "Curt just went crazy," she said. She spoke very softly. "No one thought he would do anything like that."
"He did it," Lilith said. "And you all watched."