Imago

“Is she all right?” TomÁs asked.

“Yes. Just sleeping now. I’ve lost track. How long has it been since she was shot?”

“Two days.”

“That long

?” I focused on him with sensory tentacles and saw evidence of the load of worry and work that he had carried. I could think of nothing sufficient to say to him. “Thank you for taking care of us.”

He smiled wearily. “I’ll go look for some of your people.”

“No, they’ll notice my scent if they haven’t already. They’ll be coming. Help Jesusa off, then come back for me. She can walk.”

I shook her and she awoke—or half awoke. She cringed away when TomÁs waded into the shallow water and reached for her. He drew back. After a while, she got up slowly, swayed, and followed TomÁs’s beckoning hand.

“Come on, Jesusita,” he whispered. “Off the raft.” He walked beside her through the water and up the bank where the ground was dry enough to be firm. There, she sat down and seemed to doze again.

When he came back for me, he held something in his fingers—held it up for me to see. An irregularly shaped piece of metal smaller than the end point of his smallest finger. It was the bullet I had caused Jesusa’s body to expel.

“Throw it away,” I said. “It almost took her from us.”

He threw it far out into the river.

11

Some of my family is coming now,” I said. TomÁs had put me on the bank beside Jesusa. He had sat down beside me to rest. Now he became alert again.

“TomÁs,” I said softly.

He glanced at me.

“You won’t feel comfortable about letting them get close to you or letting them surround you. Jesusa won’t either. My family will understand that. And no one will touch you—except the children. You won’t mind their touch.”

He frowned, gave me a longer look. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. It has to do with your being with me, letting me heal you, letting me sleep with you. You’ll feel

drawn to be with Jesusa and me and strongly repelled by others. The feeling won’t last. It’s normal, so don’t let it worry you.”

Lilith, Nikanj, and Aaor came out of the trees together. Aaor. It was awake and strong. The family must only have been waiting for me to get home. Exile—true exile—had been that close.

The three stood near enough to speak normally, but not near enough to make TomÁs uncomfortable.

“I’m going to have to learn not to worry about you,” Lilith said, smiling. “Welcome back.” She had spoken in Oankali. She switched to Spanish, which meant she had heard me talking to TomÁs. “Welcome,” she said to him. “Thank you for caring for our child and bringing it home.” She inserted the English “it” because in English the word was truly neuter. Spanish did not have a word that translated exactly. Spanish-speaking people usually handled the ooloi gender by ignoring it. They used masculine or feminine, whichever felt right to them—when they had to use anything.

I took TomÁs’s hand, felt it grip mine desperately, almost painfully, yet his face betrayed no sign of emotion.

“These are two of my parents,” I told him, gesturing with my free hand. “Lilith is my birth mother and Nikanj is my same-sex parent. This third one is Aaor, my paired sibling.” I enjoyed the sight of it for a moment. It was gray-furred now and, oddly, not that unusual-looking. Perhaps the other siblings helped it stay almost normal. “Aaor has been closer to me than my skin at times,” I said. “I think it turned out to be more like me than it would have preferred.”

Aaor, who was restraining itself with an obvious effort, said, “When I touch you, Jodahs, I won’t let you go for at least a day.”

I laughed, remembering its touch, realizing that I was eager to touch it, too, and understand exactly how it had changed. We would not be the same—Human-born and Oankali-born. Examining it would teach me more about myself by similarity and by contrast. And it would want even more urgently to know where I had found Jesusa and TomÁs. If its own sense of smell had not recognized them as young and fertile—as mine had not when I met them—Nikanj would have let it know.

“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But put us somewhere dry, first, and feed us.” I meant, and all three of them knew it, that TomÁs and Jesusa should be given a dry place and food.

Nikanj rested a sensory arm on Aaor’s shoulders and some of the straining eagerness went out of Aaor.

“What are you called?” Nikanj asked TomÁs. It spoke very softly, yet that soft voice carried so well. Did I sound that way?

TomÁs leaned forward, responding to the voice, then was barely able to keep himself from drawing back. He had never seen an Oankali before, and Nikanj, an adult ooloi, was especially startling. He stared, and then was ashamed and looked away. Then he stared again.

“What are you called?” Nikanj repeated.

“TomÁs,” he answered finally. “TomÁs Serrano y MartÍn.” He had not told me that much. He paused, then said, “This is Jesusa, my sister.” He touched her hair the way my Human parents sometimes touched one another’s hair. “She was shot.”

Nikanj focused sharply on me.

“She’s all right,” I said. “She’s exhausted because she hasn’t been eating well for a while—and you know how hard I had to make her body work.” I turned and shook her. “Jesusa,” I whispered. “You’re all right. Wake up. We’ve reached my family.” I kept my hand on her shoulder, shook her again gently, wishing I could give her the kind of comfort I would have been able to give only a few days before. But I had had all I could do to save her life.

She opened her eyes, looked around, and saw Nikanj. She turned her face from it and whimpered—a sound I had not heard from her before.

“You’re safe,” I told her. “These people are here to help us. You’re all right. No one will harm you.”

She realized finally what I was saying. She fell silent and became almost still. She could not stop her trembling, but she looked at me, then at Lilith, Aaor, and Nikanj. She made herself look longest at Nikanj.

“Excuse me,” she said after a moment. “I

haven’t seen anyone like you before.”

Nikanj’s many sensory tentacles flattened smooth as its body. “I haven’t seen anyone like you for a century,” it said.

At the sound of its voice, she looked startled. She turned to look at me, then looked back at Nikanj. I introduced it along with Lilith and Aaor.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Jesusa lied politely. She watched Nikanj, fascinated, not knowing that it held its position of amusement, of smoothness, extra long for her benefit. I went smooth every time I laughed, but my few sensory tentacles were not that visible even when they were not flattened. And I did laugh. Nikanj did not.

“I’m amazed and pleased,” Nikanj said. And to me in Oankali, it said, “Where are they from?”

“Later,” I said.

“Will they stay, Oeka?”

“Yes.”

It focused on me, seemed to expect me to say more. I kept quiet.

Aaor broke the silence. “You can’t walk, can you?” it said in Spanish. “We’ll have to carry you.”

TomÁs stood up quickly. “If you’ll show me the way,” he said, “I’ll carry Jodahs.” He hesitated for a moment beside Jesusa. “Sister, can you walk?”

“Yes.” She stood up slowly, holding her ragged bloody clothing together. She took a tentative step. “I feel all right,” she said, “but

so much blood.”

Aaor had turned to lead the way back to the cabin. TomÁs lifted me, and Jesusa walked close to him. I spoke to her from his arms. “You’ll have good food to eat here,” I told her. “You’ll probably be a little hungrier than usual for a while because you’re still regrowing part of yourself. Aside from that, you’re well.”

She took my dangling hand and kissed it.

TomÁs smiled. “If you really feel well, Jesusa, give it one more for me. You don’t know what it brought you back from.”