Imago

Jesusa reached out abruptly and grasped his wrist. She held on for a moment, both of them rigid with a revulsion they might not want to recognize. TomÁs made himself cover her repellent hand with his own.

As abruptly as they had come together, they broke apart. Jesusa managed to stop herself from wiping her hand against her clothing. TomÁs did not.

“Oh, god,” she said. “What have you done to us?”

I got up, went around her to sit between them. I could still walk normally, but even those few steps were exhausting.

I took their hands, rested each of them on one of my thighs so that I would not have to maintain a grip. I linked into their nervous systems and brought them together as though they were touching one another. It was not illusion. They were in contact through me. Then I gave them a bit of illusion. I “vanished” for them. For a moment, they were together, holding one another. There was no one between them.

By the time Jesusa finished her scream of surprise, I was “back,” and more exhausted than ever. I let them go and lay down.

“If you stay,” I said, “what you do, you’ll do through me. You literally won’t touch one another.”

“What’s the matter with you?” TomÁs asked. “You didn’t feel the same just now.”

“Oh, I’m not the same. I’m changing. Now, I’m maturing.”

They did not understand. I saw concern and questioning on their faces, but no alarm. Not yet.

“My final metamorphosis is beginning now,” I said. “It will last for several months.”

Now they looked alarmed. “What will happen to you?” Jesusa asked. “What shall we do for you?”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “I had no idea it was so close. The first time, I had several days’ warning. If it had happened that way this time, I would have been able to go into the river and get home without your help. I can’t do that now.”

“Did you think we would abandon you?” she demanded. “Is that why you asked us again to stay?”

“Not that you would walk away and leave me here, no. But that

you wouldn’t wait.”

“A few months?”

“As much as a year.”

“We have to get you back to your people. We can’t find enough food

.”

“Wait. Can you

will you make a raft? There are young cecropia trees just above the sandbar. Farther inland, there are plenty of lianas. If you can put something together while I’m awake, we can go downriver to my family’s camp. I won’t let you pass it. Then

if you want to leave me, my family won’t try to hold you.”

Jesusa moved to sit near my head. “Will you be all right if we leave?”

I looked at her for a long time before I could make myself answer. “Of course not.”

She got up and walked a short distance away from me, kept her back to me. TomÁs moved to where she had been and took my hand.

“We’ll build the raft,” he said. “We’ll get you home.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t see why we can’t stay until you finish your metamorphosis.”

I closed my eyes, and I said nothing. Was that how Nikanj had done it a century before? Lilith had been with it when its second metamorphosis began. Had it been tempted to say, “If you stay with me now, you’ll never leave?” Or had it simply never thought to say anything? It was Oankali. It had probably never thought to say anything. It wouldn’t have been harboring any sexual feeling for her at that point. It had enjoyed her because she was so un-Oankali—different and dangerous and fascinating.

I felt those things myself about these two, but I felt more. As Nikanj had said, I was precocious.

I said nothing at all to TomÁs. Someday he would curse me for my silence.

He went to Jesusa and said, “If we stay, we’ll have a chance to see how their families work.”

“I’m afraid to stay,” she said.

“Afraid?”

She picked up the machete. “We should get started on the raft.”

“Jesusita, why are you afraid?”

“Why aren’t you?” she said. She looked at me, then at him. “This is an alien thing Jodahs wants of us. Certainly it’s an un-Christian thing, an un-Human thing. It’s the thing we’ve been taught against all our lives. How can we be accepting it or even considering it so easily?”

“Are you?” he asked quietly.

“Of course I am. So are you. You’ve said you want to stay.”

“Yes, but—”

“Something is not right. Jodahs sleeps with us and heals us and pleasures us—and asks only for the opportunity to go on doing these things.” She paused, shook her head. “When I think of leaving Jodahs, finding other Human beings, or perhaps going to the colony on Mars, my stomach knots. It wants us to stay and I want to stay and so do you, and we shouldn’t! Something is wrong.”

I fell asleep at that point. It was not deliberate, but it could not have been better timed. Second metamorphosis, I had been told, was not one long sleep as the first one had been. It was a series of shorter sleeps—sleeps several days long.

I frightened them. Jesusa thought first that I was faking, then that I was dead. Only when they were able to get some reaction from my body tentacles did they decide I was alive and probably all right. They carried me down to the river and left me under a tree while they found other, small trees to chop down with their machete. Slow, hard work. I perceived and remembered everything in latent memories, stored away for consideration later when I was conscious.

They took good care of me, moving me when they moved, keeping me near them. Without realizing it, they became a torment to me when they touched me, when I could smell them. But they were a much worse torment when they went too far away. My only salvation was the certainty that they would not abandon me and the knowledge that this, uncomfortable as it was, was normal. It would be the same if I were being cared for by a pair of Oankali or a pair of constructs. Nikanj had warned me. Helpless lust and unreasoning anxiety were just part of growing up.

I endured, grateful to Jesusa and TomÁs for their loyalty.

The raft took four days to finish. Not only was the machete not the best tool for the job, but Jesusa and TomÁs had never built such a thing before. They were not sure what would work and they would not load me onto a craft that would come apart in the water or one they could not control. They spent time learning to control it with long poles and with paddles. They worried that in some places the river might be too deep for poles. They worried about hostile people, too. We would be very visible on the river. People with guns could pick us off if they wanted to. What could we do about that?

I awoke as they were loading me and baskets of food onto the raft. Figs, nuts, bean pods with edible pulp, and several baked applesauce tubers.

“Are you all right?” TomÁs asked when he saw my eyes open. He was carrying me toward the raft. I felt as though I could sink into him, merge with him, become him. Yet I felt as though he were days away from me and beyond my reach completely.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t drop you. Jesusa might, but I won’t.”

“Don’t say that!” Jesusa said quickly. “Jodahs may not know you’re joking.”

TomÁs put me down on the raft. They had made a pallet for me there of large leaves covering soft grasses. I made myself relax and not clutch at TomÁs as he put me down.

He sat down next to me for a moment. “Is there anything you need? You haven’t eaten for days.”

“People don’t eat much during metamorphosis,” I said. “On the other hand, eating can take my mind off

other things. Do you see the bush there with the deep green leaves?”

He looked around, then pointed.

“Yes, that one. Pull several branches of young leaves from it. I eat the leaves.”

“Truly? They’re good for you?”

“Yes, but not for you, so don’t ever eat them. I can digest them and use their nutrients.”

“Eat some nuts.”

“No. You eat the nuts. Bring me the leaves.”

He obeyed, though slowly.

I ate the first few leaves while he watched incredulously. “I don’t understand enough about you,” he said.