Lilith's Brood, page 72
“I’ve come for them,” I agreed softly.
People began to look uncertain. I was reaching them—probably more with my scent than with anything I was saying. All I had to do was keep them here a little longer. They might go in and get Jesusa and TomÁs for me. The two in my hands would probably do that now if I asked it of them. But I still needed them—for just a while longer.
“If you kill me,” I said, “my people will find out about it. And those who shoot me will never live on a planet or know freedom again. Ask your elders. They remember.”
People began to look at one another doubtfully. Some of them lowered their guns and stood not knowing what to do. There had always been a fear among Humans that we could read their thoughts. No doubt that was why they had feared letting even one of their people go down into the lowland forest. Most had never understood that it was their bodies we read—inside and out. And if we were alert and competent—more so than I had been with Santos—their bodies kept few secrets.
“Who will speak for you?” I asked the crowd. If they had been Oankali or construct, I would never have asked such a question. I could have made my case to anyone, and the people would have joined person-to-person or through their town organisms, and there would have been a consensus.
But these people were Human. I had to find their leaders.
Two males stepped forward out of the crowd.
“Elders?” I asked.
One of them nodded. The other only stared at me in obvious disgust.
“I mean no harm,” I said. “Harm will only be done if you shoot me. Do you accept that?”
“Perhaps,” the one who had nodded said.
I shrugged. “Examine your own memories.” And I kept quiet and left them to their memories. Meanwhile, without drawing attention to the gesture, I took my hands from the two men in front of me. They didn’t move.
“Why do you want Jesusa and TomÁs?” demanded the disgusted elder.
“They are my mates.”
There was a sudden rush of surprised muttering from the people. I heard disbelief and questioning, threats and cursing, honor and disgust.
“Why should you be surprised?” I asked. “Why did you think I wanted them? Why else would I be willing to risk your killing me?” I paused, but no one spoke. “We care for our mates as deeply as you do for yours,” I said.
“It would be better for them to be killed than to be given to you,” the disgusted elder said.
“Your people almost destroyed themselves,” I said, “and you still haven’t had enough killing?”
“Your people want to kill us!” someone said from the crowd.
I spoke into renewed muttering. “My people are coming here, but they won’t kill. They didn’t kill your elders. They plucked them out of the ashes of their war, healed them, mated with those who were willing, and let the others go. If my people were killers, you wouldn’t be here.” I paused to let them think, then I continued. “And there wouldn’t be a Human colony on the planet Mars where Humans live and breed totally free of us. The Humans there are healthy and thriving. Any Human who wants to join them will be given healing, restored fertility if necessary, and transported.”
What happened next was totally irrational, yet somehow, later, I felt that I should have anticipated it.
The disgusted elder’s face twisted with anger and revulsion. He cursed me, called on his god to damn me. Then he fired his gun.
One of the two Human guards whom I had held, and then released, jumped between the elder’s gun and me.
An instant later, the guard lay dying and the two elders struggled for possession of the disgusted one’s rifle.
I saw the murderous elder subdued by his companion and two deformed young people. Then I was on the floor beside the injured man. “Keep them off me,” I told the remaining guard. “His heart is damaged. I can save him, but only if they let me alone.”
I paid no more attention to what they did. The injured guard needed all my attention. By the definition of most Humans, he was already dead. The large-caliber bullet fired at close range had gone through his heart and come out of his back just missing his spine. I had all I could do to keep him alive while I repaired the heart. The Humans would not murder me. The moment for that had passed.
12
I was hungry when I finished the healing. I was almost weak with hunger. And the scent of Jesusa and TomÁs so nearby was tormenting. I could not let the Humans keep them from me much longer.
I began to pay attention to my immediate surroundings again and found myself looking into the eyes of the man I had just healed.
“I was shot,” he said. “I remember … but it doesn’t hurt.”
“You’re healed,” I said. I hugged him. “Thank you for shielding me.”
He said nothing. He sat up when I did and looked around at the people who had gathered around us and sat down. We were the center of a ring of elders and aged fertiles—people who looked ancient, but were not nearly as old as the youthful-looking elders. There were no females present.
“Give me something to eat,” I told them. “Plant material. No meat.”
No one moved or spoke.
I looked at the guard I had just healed. “Get me something, please.”
He nodded. No one stopped him from going out, though everyone was armed.
I sat still and waited. Eventually the Humans would begin to talk to me. They were playing a game now, trying to make me uneasy, trying to put me at more of a disadvantage than I was. A small, Human, hierarchical game. They might not let my guard back in. Well, I was uncomfortably hungry, not desperately hungry. And I didn’t know their game well enough to play it. At some time they would probably take pleasure in telling me what they intended to do to me. I was in no hurry to hear that. I didn’t expect to like it.
I almost slept. My guard came back with a dish of cooked beans and some grain and fruit that I did not recognize. A good meal. I thanked him and sent him away because I was afraid he would speak for me and get into trouble.
Sometime later, Francisco came in. There were three more elders with him. From their looks, they were probably the oldest males in the village. They were gray-haired, and their faces were deeply lined. One of them walked with a severe limp. The other two were gaunt and bent. They had probably been old before the war.
These four sat down facing me, and Francisco spoke quietly. “Are you all right?”
I looked at him, trying to guess what his situation was. Why had he come? It was too late for him to play the part he had promised to play. He was holding himself very tightly, yet trying hard to seem relaxed. I decided not to recognize him—for now.
“My mates are still imprisoned,” I said.
“We’ll let you see them soon. We want you to know first what we’ve decided.”
I waited.
“You’ve said your people will be coming here.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll wait here for them.” His body inclined toward me, full of repressed tension. It was important to him that I accept what he was saying.
I kept quiet, turned my face away from him so that I could watch him without making him feel watched. There was no triumph in him, no slyness, no sign that he was doing anything more than telling me what his people had decided—and perhaps hoping that I didn’t give him away.
“The guards have captured your companion,” Francisco said in the same quiet way. “It will be brought here soon.”
“Aaor?” I asked. “Is it injured? Is anyone injured?”
“Nothing serious. Your companion was shot in the leg, but it seems to have healed itself. One of our people whom you’ve tampered with was injured slightly.”
“Who? Which one?”
“Santos Ibarra Ruiz.”
Of course. I shook my head. Someone in the group of elders groaned. “Is he all right?” I asked.
“Our guards heard him arguing with someone in your companion’s party,” Francisco said. “When they investigated and took prisoners, Santos bit one of them. He was clubbed. He’s all right except for a few bruises and a headache.”
Santos had given Aaor away. Who but Santos would? How many lives had he endangered or destroyed?
“What will happen to the Humans we’ve … tampered with?” I asked.
“We haven’t decided yet,” Francisco said. “Nothing probably.”
“They should be hanged,” someone muttered. “Supposed to be on watch….”
“They were taken by surprise,” Francisco said. “If I hadn’t decided to come down and sleep in my own bed, I could have been taken myself.”
So that was why he was still free. He had convinced his people that we had arrived after he left. That story might protect him and enable him to help the others. His body expressed his discomfort with the lie, but he told it well.
“Will you keep Aaor here, too?” I asked.
“Yes. It won’t be hurt unless it tries to escape. Neither will you. Our people feel that having you here will assure their safety when your people arrive.”
I nodded. “Was this your idea?”
The elder with the limp spoke up. “It doesn’t matter to you whose idea it was! You’ll stay here. And if your people don’t come … perhaps we’ll be able to think of something to do with you.”
I turned to face him. “Use me to heal your leg,” I said softly. “It must pain you.”
“You’ll never get your poisonous hands on me.”
I would. Of course I would. If they kept Aaor and me here, nothing would stop them for using us to rid them of their many physical problems.
“This wasn’t my idea,” Francisco said. “My only idea was that you shouldn’t be shot. A great many people here would like to shoot you, you know.”
“That would be a serious mistake.”
“I know.” He paused. “Santos was the one who suggested keeping you here.”
I did not shout with laughter. Laughter would have made the elders even more intensely suspicious than they were. But within myself, I howled. Santos was making up for his error. He knew exactly what he was doing. He knew his people would use Aaor’s and my healing ability and breathe our scents, and finally, when our people arrived, his would meet them without hostility. In that way, I would, as Francisco had said, assure the mountain people’s safety. People who did not fight would be in no danger at all, would not even be gassed once the shuttle caught Aaor’s and my scents.
“Bring Aaor,” I said.
“Aaor is coming.” Francisco paused. “If you try anything, if you frighten these people in any way at all, they will shoot you. And they won’t stop shooting until there’s nothing living left of you.”
I nodded. There would be a great deal that was living left of me, but it would certainly not survive as me. And it might do harm here—as a disease. It was best for us to die on a ship or in one of our towns. Our substance would be safely absorbed into the larger organism. If it were not absorbed, the Oankali organelles in it would find things to do on their own.
Aaor was brought in by young guards. I looked at its legs for traces of a bullet wound, but could see none. The Humans had let it heal itself completely before they brought it in.
It walked over and sat down beside me on the stone floor. It did not touch me.
“They want us to stay here,” it said in Spanish.
“I know.”
“Shall we?”
“Yes, of course.”
It nodded. “I thought so, too.” It pulled its mouth into something less than a smile. “You were right about being shot. I don’t want to go through it again.”
“Where are your mates?”
“At their home not far from here—under guard.”
I faced Francisco again. “We agree to stay here until our people come, but Aaor should live with its mates. And I should live with mine.”
“You’ll be imprisoned here in this tower!” one of the gaunt old elders said. “Both of you! You’ll stay here under guard. And you’ll have no mates!”
“We’ll live in houses as people should,” I said softly.
Someone spat the words “Four-arms!” and someone else muttered, “Animals!”
“We’ll live with the people you know to be our mates,” I continued. “If we don’t, we’ll become … very dangerous to ourselves and to you.”
Silence.
My scent and Aaor’s probably could not convert these people quickly without direct contact, but our scents could make everyone more likely to believe what we said. We could persuade them to do what they knew they really should do.
“You’ll live with your mates,” Francisco said above much muttering. “Most of us accept that. But wherever you live, you will be guarded. You must be.”
I glanced at Aaor. “All right,” I said. “Guard us. There’s no need for it, but if it comforts you, we’ll put up with it.”
“Guards to keep people from accepting your poison!” muttered the lame elder.
“Give me my mates now,” I said very softly. People leaned forward to hear. “I need them and they need me. We keep one another healthy.”
“Let it be with them,” Aaor supplemented. “Let them comfort one another. They’ve been apart for days now.”
They argued for a while, their hostility slowly decreasing like a wound healing. In the end Francisco himself freed Jesusa and TomÁs. They came out of their prison rooms and took me between them, and the elders and old fertiles watched with conflicting emotions of fear, anger, envy, and fascination.
13
We stayed.
We healed the people in spite of our guards. We healed our guards.
Young people came to us first, and went away without their tumors, sensory losses, limps, paralysis…. People brought their children to us. Jesusa, TomÁs, and I shared a stone house with Aaor, Javier, and Paz. Once we were settled, Jesusa went out and found all the people she remembered as having deformed or disabled children. She badgered them until they began to bring their children to us. The small house was often full of healing children.
And Santos began to grow. I gave him a handsome new nose and he went right on talking too much and risking getting it broken again. But people seemed less inclined to hit him.
The first elder to come to us was female with only one leg. The stump of her amputated leg pained her and she hoped I could stop the pain. I sent her to Aaor because I had more people to heal than I could manage. Over a period of weeks, Aaor grew her a new leg and foot.
After that, everyone came to us. Even the most stubborn elders forgot how much they hated us once we’d touched them. They didn’t suddenly begin to love us, but they stopped spitting as we walked by, stopped muttering curses or threats at us, stopped pointing their guns at us to remind us of their power and their fear. They let us alone. That was enough.
Their people, however, did begin to love us and to believe what we told them and to talk to us about Oankali and construct mates.
14
The shuttle, when it arrived, landed down in the canyon. There it could drink from the river and eat something other than the mountain people’s crops. No one was gassed. There was no panic on the part of the Humans. It was a measure of the Humans’ trust that they let Aaor and me and our mates go down to meet the newcomers. At the last moment, Francisco decided to come with us, but only because, as he had admitted, his long years had not taught him patience.
Seven families had come with the shuttle. Most were from Chkahichdahk, since that was where shuttles lived when they were not in use. They had stopped at Lo, however, to pick up my parents. The first person I spotted in the small crowd was Tino—and I came closer than I should have to grabbing him and hugging him. Too Human a reaction. I hugged Nikanj instead, though Nikanj did not particularly want to be hugged. It tolerated the gesture and used it as an opportunity to sink its sensory tentacles into me and examine me thoroughly. When it had finished, without a word, it reached for Aaor and examined it. It held Aaor longer, then focused on Javier and Paz. They were watching with obvious curiosity but without alarm. They had already passed the stage of extreme avoidance of everyone except Aaor. Now, like Jesusa and TomÁs, they were simply careful.
Neither of them had ever seen an Oankali before. They were fascinated, but they were not afraid.
Nikanj flattened its sensory tentacles to that glittering smoothness it could achieve when it was gleefully happy. “Lelka,” it said, “if you will introduce us to your mates, we may begin to forgive you for staying here and not letting us know you were all right.”
“I’m not sure I’ll forgive it,” Lilith said. But she was smiling, and for a time, everything else had to wait until Javier and Paz were welcomed into the family and the rest of us rewelcomed and forgiven. I saw Jesusa reach out to my mother for the first time since their break. The two embraced and I felt my own sensory tentacles go smooth with pleasure.
“The mountain Humans decided to keep us,” Aaor was explaining to the rest of the family. “Since their only alternative as they saw it was to kill us, we were willing to stay.”
“Is this one of them?” Ahajas asked, looking at Francisco.
I introduced him and he, too, met her with curiosity but no fear.
“Would you have killed them?” she asked with odd amusement.
Francisco smiled, showing very white teeth. “Of course not. Jodahs captured me long before it captured most of my people.”
Ahajas focused on me. “Captured?”
“No one has captured him,” I said. “He wants to go to the Mars colony.”
Ahajas went very smooth. “Do you want that?”
“I did.” Francisco shook his head. “Maybe I still do.”
I looked at him, surprised. He had been one of the holdouts—very certain. Now that the shuttle was here, he was less certain. “Shall we find mates for you?” I asked.
He looked at me, then did something very Oankali. He turned and walked away. He walked quickly, would have gone back to the steep road and up to the village if Ahajas had not spoken.
