Imago

“She’s part lizard,” TomÁs said, smiling. “It’s disgusting. I’m not clumsy myself, I’ve never even seen her fall.”

“She’s always done this?” Aaor asked.

“I’ve seen her go up naked rock,” TomÁs said.

I looked at Aaor and saw that it, too, had reacted with fear. This trip had begun to do it good. The trip had forced it to use its body and focus attention on something other than its own misery. It had made the safety of the two Humans its main concern. It understood the sacrifice they were making for it, and the sacrifice they had already made.

It was last across the gulf, holding on with both feet and all four arms. “I make a better insect than you do,” it told TomÁs as it reached the rest of us and safety.

TomÁs laughed as much with surprise as with pleasure. I don’t think he had ever heard Aaor even try to make a joke before.

There were times when we could descend to the river and walk alongside it or bathe in it. Jesusa and TomÁs caught fish occasionally and cooked and ate them while Aaor and I took ourselves as far away as we could and focused on other things.

“Why do you let them do that?” Aaor demanded of me the second time it happened. “They shouldn’t be hungry.”

“They’re not,” I agreed. “Jesusa told me they lost most of their supplies coming out of the mountains—accidentally dropped them into those rapids we passed two days ago.”

“That was then! They don’t have to kill animals and eat them now!” Aaor sounded petulant and miserable. It brushed away my sensory arm when I reached out to it, then changed its mind and grasped the sensory arm in its strength hands.

I extended my sensory hand and reached into its body to understand what was wrong with it. As always, it was like reaching into a slightly different version of myself. It was feeling sick—nauseated, disgusted, oddly Human, yet unable to cope with the Humanity of Jesusa and TomÁs.

“When you have Human mates,” I told it, “you have to remember to let them be Human. They’ve killed fish and eaten them all their lives. They know we hate it. They need to do it anyway—for reasons that don’t have much to do with nutrition.”

Aaor let me soothe it, but still said, “What reasons?”

“Sometimes they need to prove to themselves that they still own themselves, that they can still care for themselves, that they still have things—customs—that are their own.”

“Sounds like an expression of the Human conflict,” Aaor said.

“It is,” I agreed. “They’re proving their independence at a time when they’re no longer independent. But if this is the worst thing they do, I’ll be grateful.”

“Will you sleep with them tonight?”

“No. And they know it.”

“They—” It stopped, froze utterly still, and signaled me silently. “There are other Humans nearby!”

“Where?” I demanded, silent and frozen myself, trying to catch the sight or the scent.

“Ahead. Can’t you smell them?” It gave me an illusion of scent, faint and strange and dangerous. Even with this prompting, I could not smell the new Humans on my own, but Aaor was completely focused on them.

“Males,” it said. “Three, I think. Maybe four. Headed away from us. No females.”

“At least they’re headed away,” I whispered aloud. “Do any of them smell anything like TomÁs? I can’t tell from what you gave me.”

“They all smell very much like TomÁs. That’s why I can’t tell how many there are. Like TomÁs, but including a certain odd element. The genetic disorder, I suppose. Can’t you smell them?”

“I can now. They’re so far away, though, I don’t think I would have noticed them on my own. They have a dead animal with them, did you notice?”

Aaor nodded miserably.

“They’ve been hunting,” I said. “Now they’re probably heading home. Although I don’t smell anything that could be their home. Do you?”

“No,” it said. “I’ve been trying. Maybe they’re just looking for a place to camp—a place to cook the animal and eat it.”

“Whatever their intentions, we’ll have to be careful tomorrow.” I focused on it. “You’ve never been shot, have you?”

“Never. People always aim at you for some reason.”

I shook my head. “You’re picking up TomÁs’s sense of humor. I don’t know what your new mates will think of that.” I paused. “Being shot hurts more than I would want to show you. I could probably handle the pain better now, but I wouldn’t want to have to. I wouldn’t want you to have to.”

It moved closer to me and linked into me with its sensory tentacles. “I’m not sure I could survive being shot,” it said. “I think part of me might, but not as me.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

It said nothing, but there was no tenacity to it, no feeling that it could withstand abrupt shock and pain. It thought it would dissolve. It was probably right.

“They’ve finished eating their fish,” I said. “Let’s go back.”

We detached from one another and it turned wearily to follow me. “Do you know,” it said, “that before we left home, Ooan still said it couldn’t find the flaw in us, couldn’t see why we needed mates so early—needed, not just wanted? And why we focus so on Humans.” It paused. “Do you want other mates?”

“Oankali mates,” I said. “Not construct.”

“Why?”

“I think

I feel as though it will balance the two parts of me—Human and Oankali. I don’t know what the Oankali will think about that, though.”

“If they ever accept us and if you find two that you like, don’t let them make their decision from a distance.”

I smiled. “What about you? Humans and Oankali?”

It rested one strength arm around my shoulders. It almost never touched me with its sensory arms, though it accepted my own gladly. It behaved as though it were not yet mature. “What about me?” it repeated. “I can’t plan anything. It’s hard for me to believe from one day to the next that I’m even going to survive.” It made a fist with its free strength hand, then relaxed the hand. “Most of the time I feel as though I could just let go like this and dissolve. Sometimes I feel as though I should.”

I slept with it that night. I couldn’t do as much for it alone, but it couldn’t have tolerated Jesusa or TomÁs until they had digested their meal. I couldn’t imagine it not existing, truly gone, never to be touched again—like never being able to touch my own face again.

Two days later, Jesusa and TomÁs told me to give them back the marks of their genetic disorder. We had crawled up the nearly nonexistent trail on the mountain and back down again to the river. We had crossed the trail of the hunters we had scented earlier. There were four of them and they were still ahead of us. And now, when the wind was right, I could scent more Humans. Many more. Aaor’s head and body tentacles kept sweeping forward, controlled by the tantalizing scent.

“The more Human you can make yourselves look, the less likely you are to be shot if you’re seen,” TomÁs told us. He was looking at Aaor as he spoke. Then he faced me. “I’ve seen you both change by accident. Why can’t you change deliberately?”

“I can,” I said. “But Aaor’s control is just not firm enough. It already looks as Human as it can look.”

He drew a deep breath. “Then this is as close as it should get. You should change us and camp here.”

“We can’t even see your town from here,” Aaor protested.

“And they can’t see you. If you round that next bend, though, part of our settlement will be visible to you. But the way is guarded. You would be shot.”

Aaor seemed to sink in on itself. We had made a fireless camp. My mates were on either side of me, linked with me. Aaor was alone. “You should change yourself and go with them,” it said. “They’ll function better if they are not separated from you. I can survive alone for a few days.”