Imago

Francisco and Santos came out with me and settled on either side of me. We could see the village below through a haze of smoke from cooking fires.

“When will you leave?” Santos asked.

“After dark, before moonrise.”

“Are you going to help?” he asked Francisco.

Francisco frowned. “I’ve been trying to think of what I could do. I think I’ll go down and just wait. If Jodahs needs help, if it’s caught, perhaps I can give it the time it needs to prove it isn’t a dangerous animal.”

Santos grinned. “It is a dangerous animal.”

Francisco looked at him with distaste.

“You should be looking at Jodahs that way. Its people will come and destroy everything you’ve spent your life building.”

“Go back up to your cave, Santos. Rot there.”

“I’ll follow Jodahs,” Santos said. “I don’t mind. In fact, it’s a pleasure. But I’m not asleep. These people probably won’t kill us, but they’ll swallow us whole.”

Francisco shook his head. “How’s your breathing these days, Santos? How many times have you had that nose of yours broken? And what has it taught you?”

Santos stared at him for a moment, then screeched with laughter.

I looped a sensory arm around Santos’s neck, pulled him against me. He didn’t try to say anything more. He didn’t really seem to be out to do harm. He just enjoyed having the advantage, knowing something a century-old elder didn’t know—something I had overlooked, too. He was laughing at both of us. He kept quiet and held still, though, while I fixed his nose. In the short time I had, I couldn’t make it look much better. That would mean altering bone as well as cartilage. I did a little of that so he could breathe with his mouth closed if he wanted to. But the main thing I did was repair nerve damage. Santos hadn’t just been hit on the nose. He had been thoroughly beaten about the head. His body could “taste” and enjoy the ooloi substance I could not help giving when I penetrated his skin. That had won him over to me. But he could smell almost nothing.

“What are you doing to him?” Francisco asked with no particular concern. His sense of smell was excellent.

“Repairing him a little more,” I said. “It keeps him quiet, and I promised him I’d do it. Eventually he’ll be almost as tall as you are.”

“Seal up his mouth while you’re at it,” Francisco said. “I’ll walk down now.”

“Do you still want to come with us?”

“Of course.”

I smiled, liking him. It seemed I couldn’t help liking the people I seduced. Even Santos. “You’ll go to Mars, won’t you?”

“Yes.” He paused. “Yes, I think so. I might not if you were looking for mates. I wish you were.”

“Thank you,” I said. “If you change your mind, I can help you find Oankali or construct mates.”

“Like you?”

“Your ooloi would be Oankali.”

He shook his head. “Mars, then. With my fertility restored.”

“Absolutely.”

“Where shall I meet you once you’ve gotten TomÁs and Jesusa out?”

“Follow the trail downriver. Come as quickly as you can, but come carefully. If you can’t get away, remember that my people will be coming here soon anyway. They won’t hurt you, and they will send you to Mars if you still want to go.”

“I’d rather leave with you.”

“You’re welcome to come with us. Just don’t get killed trying to do it. You’re much older than I am. You’re supposed to have learned patience.”

He laughed without humor. “I haven’t learned it, little ooloi. I probably never will. Watch for me on the river trail.”

He left us, and I sat repairing Santos until it was time for me to go. I left him with a fairly good sense of smell.

“Don’t make trouble,” I told him. “Use that good mind of yours to help these people get away.”

“Francisco wouldn’t have minded what you’re doing to us,” he said. “I figured it out, and I don’t mind.”

“I’ll do experiments when my mates’ lives are not at stake. Until we’re away from this place, Santos, try to be quiet unless you have something useful to say.”

I went into the cabin and told Aaor I was leaving.

It left its mates and the meal it had been eating. It had used more energy than I had in healing the Humans. It probably needed food.

Now it settled all four of its arms around me and linked. “I will come back if you don’t follow us,” it said silently.

“I’ll follow. Francisco is going to help me—if necessary.”

“I know. I heard. And I still inherit Santos.”

“Use his mind and push his body hard. This trip should do that. You should start down now, too.”

“All right.”

I left it and headed down the mountain, using the path when it was convenient, and ignoring it otherwise. The Humans with Aaor would find it dark and would have to be careful. For me it was well lit with the heat of all the growing plants. I had to climb down past the flattened ridge on which the village had been built. I had to travel along the broad, flat part of the ridge below the level of sight of any guard watching from the village. I had to come up where terraces filled with growing things would conceal me for as long as possible.

11

When I reached the village, I lay on a terrace until the sounds of people talking and moving around had all but ceased. I calculated by hearing and smell where the guards patrolled. I tried to hear Jesusa or TomÁs, or her people talking about them, but there was almost nothing. Two males were wondering what they had seen in their wanderings. A female was explaining to a sleepy child that they had been “very, very bad” and were locked up as punishment. And somewhere far from where I lay, Francisco was explaining to someone that five guards on the mountain were enough, and that he wanted to sleep in his own bed, not on a stone floor.

He was not questioned further. No doubt being an elder gave him a few privileges. I wondered how long my influence on him would last, and how he would react to its ending. Best not to find out. I had deliberately not told him about the cave where we were to meet. Willingly or unwillingly, he might lead others to it.

There was a scream suddenly and the sound of a blow. I had lain frozen for some time before I realized it had nothing to do with us. Nearby, a male and female were arguing, cursing each other. The male had hit the female. He did this again several times and she went on screaming. Even Human ears must have been full of the terrible sound.

I crept out of the terraces and into the village.

I was close to Jesusa and TomÁs, close to the building I had been shown from the mountain. I could not go straight to it. There were houses in the way and two more high stone steps that raised the level of the ground. The flattened ridge was not as flat as it had seemed. Stone walls had been built here and there to retain the soil and create the level platforms on which the houses had been built. In that way, the houses as well as the crops were terraced.

There were pathways and stairs to make movement easy, but these were patrolled. I avoided them.

Crouching beneath one of these tiers, I caught Jesusa’s scent. She was just ahead, just above, and there was a faint scent of TomÁs as well.

But there were two others—armed males.

I stood up carefully and peered over the wall of the tier. From where I was, all I could see were more walls—walls of buildings. There were no people outside.

I climbed up slowly, looking everywhere. Someone came out of a doorway abruptly and walked away from me down the path. I flattened my body against a wall of large, smooth stones.

Around me, people slept with slow, even breathing. The angry male, still some distance from me, had stopped beating his mate. I did not stand away from the wall until the person from the doorway—a pregnant female—had crossed the path and taken the stairs down to a lower level.