Adulthood Rites (11 page)

But they did not belong to any resister village. That much had already been learned. They were nomads—traveling traders when they had trade goods, raiders when they had nothing. Would they try to keep Akin and raise him to be one of them, use his Oankali senses against the Oankali? Others had tried that before them, but they had never tried it with a child so young. They had never tried it with a Human-born male child, since there had been none before Akin. That worried Dichaan most. He was Akin’s only living same-sex parent, and he felt uncertain, apprehensive, and painfully responsible. Where in the vast rain forest was the child? He probably could not escape and return home as so many others had before him. He simply did not have the speed or the strength. He must know that by now, and he must know he had to cooperate with the men, make them value him.
If
he were still alive, he
must
know.

The child would emerge from Ahajas’s left side. She lay down on her right side. Dichaan and Lilith moved to maintain contact while Nikanj stroked the area of slowly rippling flesh. In tiny circular waves, the flesh withdrew itself from a central point, which grew slowly to show a darker gray—a temporary orifice within which the child’s head tentacles could be seen moving slowly. These tentacles had released the substance that began the birth process. They were responsible now for the way Ahajas’s flesh rippled aside.

Nikanj exposed one of its sensory hands, reached into the orifice, and lightly touched the child’s head tentacles.

Instantly, the head tentacles grasped the sensory arm—the familiar thing amid so much strangeness. Ahajas, feeling the sudden movement and understanding it, rolled carefully onto her back. The child knew now that it was coming into an accepting, welcoming place. Without that small contact, its body would have prepared it to live in a harsher place—an environment less safe because it contained no ooloi parent. In truly dangerous environments, ooloi were likely to be killed trying to handle hostile new forms of life. That was why children who had no ooloi parents to welcome them at birth tended to become ooloi themselves when they matured. Their bodies assumed the worst. But in order for them to mature in the assumed hostile environment, they had to become unusually hardy and resilient early. This child, though, would not have to undergo such changes. Nikanj was with it. And someday it would probably be female to balance Akin—if Akin returned in time to influence it.

Nikanj caught the child as it slipped easily through its birth orifice. It was gray with a full complement of head tentacles, but only a few small body tentacles. It had a startlingly Human face—eyes, ears, nose, mouth—and it had a functioning sair orifice at its throat surrounded by pale, well-developed tentacles. The tentacles quivered slightly as the child breathed. That meant the small Human nose was probably only cosmetic.

It had a full set of teeth, as many construct newborns did, and unlike Human-born constructs, it would be using them at once. It would be given small portions of what everyone else ate. And once it had shown to Nikanj’s satisfaction that it was not likely to poison itself, it would have the freedom to eat whatever it found edible—to graze, as the Humans said.

Akin might be doing that now to keep himself alive—grazing or browsing on whatever he could find. The resisters might or might not feed him. If they simply let him feed himself in the forest, it would be enough. Humans, though, were always frightened when they saw a young child putting something strange in its mouth. If the raiders were conscientious, normal Humans, they might kill him.

T
HE RIVER BRANCHED AND
branched, and the men never seemed in doubt about which branch to take. The journey seemed endless. Five days. Ten days. Twelve days. …

Akin said nothing as they traveled. He had made one mistake. He was afraid to make another. The red-haired man, whose name was Galt, never told anyone about his talking. It was as though the man did not quite believe he had heard Akin speak. He kept away from Akin as much as he could, never spoke to him, hardly spoke of him. The three others swung Akin around by his arms and legs or shoved him with their feet or carried him when necessary.

It took Akin days to realize that the men were not, in their own minds, treating him cruelly. There were no more drunken attempts to poison him, and no one hit him. They did hit each other occasionally. Twice, a pair of them rolled in the mud, punching and clutching at one another. Even when they did not fight, they cursed each other and cursed him.

They did not wash themselves often enough, and sometimes they stank. They talked at night about their dead comrade Tilden and about other men they had traveled with and raided with. Most of these, it seemed, were also dead. So many men, uselessly dead.

When the current grew too strong against them, they hid the boat and began to walk. The land was rising now. It was still rain forest, but it was climbing slowly into the hills. There, they hoped to trade Akin to a rich resister village called Hillmann where the people spoke German and Spanish. Tilden had been the group’s German speaker. His mother, someone said, had been German. The men believed it was necessary to speak German because the majority of the people in the village were German, and they were likely to have the best trade goods. Yet only one other man, Damek, the man who had hit Tino, spoke any German at all. And he spoke only a little. Two people spoke Spanish—Iriarte and Kaliq. Iriarte had lived in a place called Chile before the war. The other, Kaliq, had spent years in Argentina. It was decided that bargaining would be done in Spanish. Many of the Germans spoke their neighbors’ language. The traders would pretend not to know German, and Damek would listen to what he was not supposed to hear. Villagers who thought they could not be understood might talk too much among themselves.

Akin looked forward to seeing and hearing different kinds of Humans. He had heard and learned some Spanish from Tino. He had liked the sound of it when Tino had gotten Nikanj to speak it to him. He had never heard German at all. He wished that someone other than Damek spoke it. He avoided Damek as best he could, remembering Tino. But the thought of meeting an entirely new people was almost enticing enough to ease his grief and his disappointment at not being taken to Phoenix, where he believed he would have been welcomed by Tino’s parents. He would not have pretended to them to be Tino’s son, but if the color of his skin and the shape of his eyes reminded them of Tino, he would not have been sorry. Perhaps the Germans would not want him.

The four resisters and Akin approached Hillmann through fields of bananas, papaya trees, pineapple plants, and corn. The fields looked well kept and fruitful. They looked more impressive to Akin than Lilith’s gardens because they were so much larger and so many more trees had been cut down. There was a great deal of cassava and rows of something that had not yet come up. Hillmann must have lost a great deal of top soil to the rain in all those long, neat rows. How long could they farm this way before the land was ruined and they had to move? How much land had they already ruined?

The village was two neat rows of thatched-roof wooden houses on stilts. Within the village, several large trees had been preserved. Akin liked the way the place looked. There was a calming symmetry to it.

But there were no people in it.

Akin could see no one. Worse, he could hear no one. Humans were noisy even when they tried not to be. These Humans, though, should be talking and working and going about their lives. Instead, there was absolutely no sound of them. They were not hiding. They were simply gone.

Akin stared at the village from the arms of Iriarte and wondered how long it would take the men to realize that something was wrong.

Iriarte seemed to notice first. He stopped, stood staring straight ahead. He glanced at Akin whose face was so close to his own, saw that Akin had turned in his arms and was also staring with his eyes.

“What is it?” he asked as though expecting Akin to answer. Akin almost did—almost forgot himself and spoke aloud. “Something is crazy here,” Iriarte said to the others.

Immediately Kaliq took the opposite position. “It’s a nice place. Still looks rich. There’s nothing wrong.”

“No one is here,” Iriarte said.

“Why? Because they don’t rush out to meet us? They’re around somewhere, watching.”

“No. Even the kid noticed something.”

“Yes,” Galt agreed. “He did. I was watching him. His kind are supposed to see and hear better than we are.” He gave Akin a look of suspicion. “What we walk into, you walk into with us, kid.”

“For godsake,” Damek said, “he’s a baby. He doesn’t know anything. Let’s go.”

He had gone out several steps ahead before the others began to follow. He drew even farther ahead, showing his scorn for their caution, but he drew neither bullets nor arrows. There was no one to shoot him. Akin rested his chin on Iriarte’s shoulder and savored the strange pale scents—all pale now. Humans had been gone from this place for several days. There was food spoiling in some of the houses. The scent of that grew stronger as they neared the village. Many men, a few women, spoiling food, and agoutis—the small rodents that some resisters ate.

And Oankali.

Many Oankali had been here several days ago. Did it have anything to do with Akin’s abduction? No. How could it? The Oankali would not empty a village on his account. If someone in the village had harmed him, they would certainly find that person, but they would not bother anyone else. And this emptying may have occurred before he was abducted.

“There’s nobody here,” Damek said. He had stopped, finally, in the middle of the village, surrounded by empty houses.

“I told you that a long time ago,” Iriarte muttered. “I think it’s okay for us, though. The kid was nervous before, but he’s relaxed now.”

“Put him down,” Galt said. “Let’s see what he does.”

“If he’s not nervous, maybe we ought to be.” Kaliq looked around warily, peered through the open doorway of a house. “Oankali did this. They must have.”

“Put the kid down,” Galt repeated. He had ignored Akin for most of Akin’s captivity, but seemed to forget or deny Akin’s precocity. Now he seemed to want something.

Iriarte put Akin down, though Akin would have been content to stay in the man’s arms. But Galt seemed to expect something. Best to give him something and keep him quiet. Akin turned slowly, drawing breaths over his tongue. Something unusual but not likely to stimulate fear or anger.

Blood in one direction. Old human blood, dry on dead wood. No. It would do no good to show them that.

An agouti nearby. Most of these had gone—apparently either carried away by the villagers or released into the forest. This one was still in the village, eating the seedpods that had fallen from one of the few remaining trees. Best not to make the men notice it. They might shoot it. They craved meat. Within the last few days, they had caught, cooked, and eaten several fish, but they talked a great deal about real meat—steaks and chops and roasts and burgers …

A faint smell of the kind of vegetable dye Humans at Lo used to write with. Writing. Books. Perhaps the people of Hillmann had left some record of the reason for their leaving.

Without speaking, the men followed Akin to the house that smelled strongest of the dye, the ink, Lilith called it. She used it so often that the smell of it made Akin see her in his mind and almost cry with wanting her.

“Just like a bloodhound,” Damek said. “He doesn’t waste a step.”

“He eats mushrooms and flowers and leaves,” Kaliq said inconsequentially. “It’s a wonder he hasn’t poisoned himself.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? What’s he found?” Iriarte picked up a large book that Akin had been trying to reach. The paper, Akin could see, was heavy and smooth. The cover was of polished, dark-stained wood.

“Shit,” Iriarte muttered. “It’s in German.” He passed the book to Damek.

Damek rested the book on the little table and turned pages slowly. “
Ananas … bohnen … bananen … mangos. …
This is just stuff about crops. I can’t read most of it, but it’s … records. Crop yields, farming methods …” He turned several more pages to the end of the book. “Here’s some Spanish, I think.”

Iriarte came back to look. “Yeah. It says … shit. Ah, shit!”

Kaliq pushed forward to look. “I don’t believe this,” he said after a moment. “Someone was forced to write this!”

“Damek,” Iriarte said, gesturing. “Look at this German shit up here. The Spanish says they gave it up. The Oankali invited them again to join the trade villages, and they voted to do it. To have Oankali mates and kids. They say, ‘Part of what we are will continue. Part of what we are will go to the stars someday. That seems better than sitting here, rotting alive or dying and leaving nothing. How can it be a sin for the people to continue?’ “ Iriarte looked at Damek. “Does it say anything like that in German?”

Damek studied the book for so long that Akin sat down on the floor to wait. Finally Damek faced the others, frowning. “It says just about that,” he told them. “But there are two writers. One says ‘We’re joining the Oankali. Our blood will continue.’ But the other one says the Oankali should be killed—that to join with them is against God. I’m not sure, but I think one group went to join the Oankali and another went to kill the Oankali. God knows what happened.”

“They just walked away,” Galt said. “Left their homes, their crops …” He began looking through the house to see what else had been left. Trade goods.

The other men scattered through the village to carry on their own searches. Akin looked around to be certain he was unobserved, then went out to watch the agouti. He had not seen one close up before. Lilith claimed they looked like a cross between deer and rats. Nikanj said they were larger now than they had been before the war, and they were more inclined now to seek out insects. They had lived mainly on fruits and seeds before, though even then they took insects as well. This agouti was clearly more interested in the insect larvae that infested the seedpods than in the pods themselves. Its forelegs ended in tiny hands, and it sat back on its haunches and used the hands to pluck out the white larvae. Akin watched it, fascinated. It looked at him, tensed for a moment, then selected another seedpod. Akin was smaller than it was. Apparently it did not see him as a threat. He stooped near it and watched it. He inched closer, wanting to touch it, see how the furred body felt.