Lilith's Brood: Dawn / Adulthood Rites / Imago

by Octavia E. Butler

  “Loyalties can change according to who people are sleeping with,” Lilith said.

  “So what!” demanded Gabriel. “So you don’t trust anybody? So you wind up in pieces on the floor?”

  Lilith shook her head. “I know it has to be done. So stupid, isn’t it. It’s like ‘Let’s play Americans against the Russians. Again.’ ”

  “Talk to your friends,” Gabriel said. “Maybe that’s not the show they had in mind. Maybe they’ll help you rewrite the script.”

  She stared at him, frowning. “Do you really talk like that?”

  “Whatever works,” he said.

  11

  THE OANKALI DID NOT choose to play the part of Lilith’s friends. When she sealed herself into her room and spoke to them, they neither appeared nor answered her calls. And they continued to hold Derrick. Lilith thought he had probably been made to sleep again.

  None of this surprised her. She would organize the humans into a coherent unit or she would serve as a scapegoat for whoever else organized them. Nikanj and its mates would save her life if they could—if it seemed her life was in immediate danger. But beyond that, she was on her own.

  But she did have powers. Or that was the way people thought of the things she could do with the walls and the suspended animation plants. Peter Van Weerden had nothing. Some people believed he had caused Derrick’s disappearance, perhaps his death. Fortunately Peter was not eloquent enough, not charismatic enough to shift blame for this to Lilith—though he tried.

  What he did manage to do was portray Derrick as a hero, a martyr who had acted for the group, who had at least tried to do something. What the hell was Lilith doing, he would demand. What was her group doing? Sitting on their hands, talking and talking, waiting for their captors to tell them what to do next.

  People who favored action sided with Peter. People like Leah and Wray, Tate and Gabriel who were biding their time, waiting for more information or a real chance to escape sided with Lilith.

  There were also people like Beatrice Dwyer who were afraid of any kind of action, but who had lost hope of ever controlling their own destinies. These sided with Lilith in the hope of peace and continued life. They wanted, Lilith thought, only to be let alone. That was all many people had wanted before the war. It was the one thing they could not have, then or now.

  Nevertheless, Lilith recruited these, too, and when she Awakened ten more people, she used only her recruits to help them. Peter’s people were reduced to heckling and jeering. The new people saw them first as troublemakers.

  Perhaps that was why Peter decided to impress his followers by helping one of them get a woman.

  The woman, Allison Zeigler, had not yet found a man she liked, but she had chosen Lilith’s side over Peter’s. She screamed Lilith’s name when Peter and the new man, Gregory Sebastes, stopped arguing with her and decided to drag her off to Gregory’s room.

  Lilith, alone in her own room, frowned, not certain what she had heard. Another fight?

  Wearily, she put down the stack of dossiers that she had been going through in search of a few more allies. She went out and saw the trouble at once.

  Two men holding a struggling woman between them. The trio was prevented from reaching any of the bedrooms by Lilith’s people who stood blocking the way. And Lilith’s people were prevented from reaching the trio by several of Peter’s people.

  A standoff—potentially deadly.

  “What the hell is she saving herself for?” Jean was demanding. “It’s her duty to get together with someone. There aren’t that many of us left.”

  “It’s my duty to find out where I am and how to get free,” Allison shouted. “Maybe you want to give whoever’s holding us prisoner a human baby to fool around with, but I don’t!”

  “We pair off!” Curt bellowed, drowning her out. “One man, one woman. Nobody has the right to hold you. It just causes trouble.”

  “Trouble for who!” someone demanded.

  “Who the shit are you to tell us our rights!” called someone else.

  “What is she to you!” Gregory used his free hand to knock someone away from Allison. “Get your own damn woman!”

  At that moment, Allison hit him. He cursed and hit her. She screamed, twisted her body violently. Blood streamed from her nose.

  Lilith reached the crowd. “Stop,” she called. “Let her go!” But her voice was lost in the many.

  “Goddammit, stop!” She shouted in a voice that surprised even her.

  People near her froze, staring at her, but the group around Allison was too involved to notice her until she reached it.

  This was too familiar, too much like what Paul Titus had said and done.

  She stepped up to the knot of people surrounding Allison, too furious to worry about their blocking her. Two of them caught her arms. She threw them aside without ever seeing their faces. For once she did not care what happened to them. Cavemen. Fools!

  She grabbed Peter’s free arm as he tried to hit her. She held the arm, squeezed it, twisted it.

  Peter screamed and fell to his knees, his grip on Allison released, forgotten. For a moment, Lilith stared at him. He was garbage. Human garbage. How had she made the mistake of Awakening him? And what could she do with him now?

  She threw him aside, not caring that he hit a nearby wall.

  The other man, Gregory Sebastes, held his ground. Curt stood beside him, challenging Lilith. They had seen what she had done to Peter, but they did not seem to believe it. They let her walk up to them.

  She hit Curt hard in the stomach, doubling him, toppling him.

  Gregory let go of Allison and lunged at Lilith.

  She hit him, catching him in midair, snapping his head back, collapsing him to the floor unconscious.

  Abruptly, all was still except for Curt’s gasping and Peter’s groaning—“My arm! Oh, god, my arm!”

  Lilith looked at each of Peter’s people, daring them to attack, almost wanting them to attack. But now five of them were injured, and Lilith was untouched. Even her own people stood back from her.

  “There’ll be no rape here,” she said evenly. She raised her voice. “Nobody here is property. Nobody here has the right to the use of anybody else’s body. There’ll be no back-to-the-Stone-Age, caveman bullshit!” She let her voice drop to normal. “We stay human. We treat each other like people, and we get through this like people. Anyone who wants to be something less will have his chance in the forest. There’ll be plenty of room for him to run away and play at being an ape.”

  She turned and walked back toward her room. Her body trembled with residual anger and frustration. She did not want the others to see her tremble. She had never come closer to losing control, killing people.

  Joseph spoke her name softly. She swung around, ready to fight, then made herself relax as she recognized his voice. She stood looking at him, longing to go to him, but restraining herself. What did he think of what she had done?

  “I know those guys don’t deserve it,” he said, “but some of them need help. Peter’s arm is broken. The others … Can you get the Oankali to help them?”

  Alarmed, she looked back at the carnage she had created. She drew a deep breath, managed to still her trembling. Then she spoke quietly in Oankali.

  “Whoever is on watch, come in and check these people. Some of them may be badly hurt.”

  “Not so badly,” a disembodied voice answered in Oankali. “The ones on the floor will heal without help. I’m in contact with them through the floor.”

  “What about the one with the broken arm?”

  “We’ll take care of him. Shall we keep him?”

  “I’d love to have you keep him. But no, leave him with us. You’re already suspected of being murderers.”

  “Derrick is asleep again.”

  “I thought so. What shall we do with Peter?”

  “Nothing. Let him think for a while about his behavior.”

  “Ahajas?”

  “Yes?”

 
Lilith drew another deep breath. “I’m surprised to realize how good it is to hear your voice.”

  There was no answer. Nothing more to be said.

  “What did he say?” Joseph wanted to know.

  “She. She said no one was seriously hurt. She said the Oankali would take care of Peter after he’s had time to think about his behavior.”

  “What do we do with him until then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I thought they wouldn’t talk to you,” Gabriel said, his voice filled with unconcealed suspicion. He and Tate and a few others had come over to her. They stood back cautiously.

  “They talk when they want to,” she said. “This is an emergency so they decided to talk.”

  “You knew that one, didn’t you?”

  She looked at Gabriel. “Yes, I knew her.”

  “I thought so. Your tone and the way you looked when you talked to her … You relaxed more, seemed almost wistful.”

  “She knows I never wanted this job.”

  “Was she a friend?”

  “As much as it’s possible to be friends with someone of a totally different species.” She gave a humorless laugh. “It’s hard enough for human beings to be friends with each other.”

  Yet she did think of Ahajas as a friend—Ahajas, Dichaan, Nikanj … But what was she to them? A tool? A pleasurable perversion? An accepted member of the household? Accepted as what? Round and round. It would have been easier not to care. Down on Earth, it would not matter. The Oankali used her relentlessly for their own purposes, and she worried about what they thought of her.

  “How can you be this strong?” Tate demanded. “How can you do all this?”

  Lilith rubbed a hand over her face wearily. “The same way I can open walls,” she said. “The Oankali changed me a little. I’m strong. I move fast. I heal fast. And all that is supposed to help me get as many of you as possible through this experience and back on Earth.” She looked around. “Where’s Allison?”

  “Here.” The woman stepped forward. She had already cleaned most of the blood from her face and now seemed to be trying to look as though nothing had happened. That was Allison. She would not be seen at anything less than her best for a moment longer than necessary.

  Lilith nodded. “Well, I can see you’re all right.”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Allison hesitated. “Look, I really am grateful to you no matter what the truth turns out to be, but …”

  “But?”

  Allison looked down, then seemed to force herself to face Lilith again. “There isn’t any nice way of saying this, but I’ve got to ask. Are you really human?”

  Lilith stared at her, tried to raise indignation, but managed only weariness. How many times would she have to answer that question? And why did she bother? Would her words ease anyone’s suspicions?

  “This would be so goddamn much easier if I weren’t human,” she said. “Think about it. If I weren’t human, why the hell would I care whether you got raped?”

  She turned once more toward her room, then stopped, turned back, remembering. “I’m Awakening ten more people tomorrow. The final ten.”

  12

  THERE WAS A SHUFFLING of people. Some avoided Lilith because they were afraid of her—afraid she was not human, or not human enough. Others came to her because they believed that she would win. They did not know what that would mean, but they thought it would be better to be with her than to have her as an enemy.

  Her core group, Joseph, Tate and Gabriel, Leah and Wray did not change. Peter’s core group shifted. Victor was added. He was a strong personality and he had been Awake longer than most people. That encouraged a few of the newer people to follow him.

  Peter himself was replaced by Curt. Peter’s broken arm kept him quiet, sullen, and usually alone in his room. Curt was brighter and more physically impressive anyway. He would probably have led the group from the first if he had moved a little faster.

  Peter’s arm remained broken, swollen, painful and useless for two days. On the night of the second day, he was healed. He slept late, missed breakfast, but when he awoke, his arm was no longer broken—and he was a badly frightened man. He could not simply pass off two days of debilitating pain as illusion or trickery. The bones of his arm had been broken, and badly broken. Everyone who looked at it had seen the displacement, the swelling, the discoloration. Everyone had seen that he could not use his hand.

  Now everyone saw a whole arm, undistorted, normal, and a hand that worked easily and well. Peter’s own people looked askance at him.

  Following lunch on the day of his healing, Lilith told the people carefully censored stories of her life among the Oankali. Peter did not stay to listen.

  “You need to hear these things more than the others do,” she told him later. “The Oankali will be a shock even if you’re prepared. They fixed your arm while you were asleep because they didn’t want you terrified and fighting them while they tried to help you.”

  “Tell them how grateful I am,” he muttered.

  “They want sanity, not gratitude,” she said. “They want—and I want—you to be bright enough to survive.”

  He stared at her with contempt so great that it made his face almost unrecognizable.

  She shook her head, spoke softly. “I hurt you because you were trying to hurt another person. No one else has hurt you at all. The Oankali have saved your life. Eventually, they’ll send you back to Earth to make a new life for yourself.” She paused. “A little thought, Pete. A little sanity.”

  She got up to leave him. He said nothing to her, only watched her with hatred and contempt. “Now there are forty-three of us,” she said. “The Oankali could show themselves anytime. Don’t do anything that will make them keep you here alone.”

  She left him, hoping he would begin to think. Hoping, but not believing.

  Five days after Peter’s healing, the evening meal was drugged.

  Lilith was not warned. She ate with the others, sitting off to one side with Joseph. She was aware as she ate of growing relaxation, a particular kind of comfort that made her think of—

  She sat up straight. What she felt now she had felt before only when she was with Nikanj, when it had established a neural link with her.

  And the sweet fog of anticipation dissipated. Her body seemed to shrug it off and she was alert again. Nearby, other people still spoke to one another, laughing a little more than they had before. Laughter had never quite disappeared from the group, though at times it had been rare. There had been more fighting, more bed-hopping and less laughter for the past few days.

  Now men and women had begun to hold hands, to sit closer to one another. They slipped arms around one another and sat together probably feeling better than they had since they had been Awakened. It was unlikely that any of them could shake off the feeling the way Lilith had. No ooloi had modified them.

  She looked around to see whether the Oankali were coming in yet. There was no sign of them. She turned to Joseph who was sitting next to her frowning.

  “Joe?”

  He looked at her. The frown smoothed away and he reached for her.

  She let him draw her closer, then spoke into his ear. “The Oankali are about to come in. We’ve been drugged.”

  He shook off the drug. “I thought …” He rubbed his face. “I thought something was wrong.” He breathed deeply, then looked around. “There,” he said softly.

  She followed the direction of his gaze and saw that the wall between the food cabinets was rippling, opening. In at least eight places, Oankali were coming in.

  “Oh no,” Joseph said, stiffening, looking away. “Why didn’t you leave me comfortably drugged?”

  “Sorry,” she said, and rested her head on his arm. He had had only one brief experience with one Oankali. Whatever happened might be almost as hard on him as it was on the others. “You’re modified,” she said. “I don’t think the drug could have held you once things got interesting.”

  More Oankali came thr
ough the openings. Lilith counted twenty-eight altogether. Would that be enough to handle forty-three terrified humans when the drug wore off?

  People seemed to react to the nonhuman presence in slow motion. Tate and Gabriel stood up together, leaning on each other, staring at the Oankali. An ooloi approached them and they drew back. They were not terrified as they could have been, but they were frightened.

  The ooloi spoke to them and Lilith realized it was Kahguyaht.

  She stood up, staring at the trio. She could not distinguish individual words in what Kahguyaht was saying, but its tone was not one she would have associated with Kahguyaht. The tone was quiet, calming, oddly compelling. It was a tone Lilith had learned to associate with Nikanj.

  Somewhere else in the room, a scuffle broke out. Curt, in spite of the drug, had attacked the ooloi that approached him. All the Oankali present were ooloi.

  Peter tried to go to Curt’s aid, but behind him, Jean screamed, and he turned back to help her.

  Beatrice fled from her ooloi. She managed to run several steps before it caught her. It wrapped one sensory arm around her and she collapsed unconscious.

  Around the room, other people collapsed—all the fighters, all the runners. No form of panic was tolerated.

  Tate and Gabriel were still awake. Leah was awake, but Wray was unconscious. An ooloi seemed to be calming her, probably assuring her that Wray was all right.

  Jean was still awake in spite of her momentary panic, but Peter was down.

  Celene was awake and frozen in place. An ooloi touched her, then jerked away as though in pain. Celene had fainted.

  Victor Dominic and Hilary Ballard were awake and together, holding one another, though they had shown no interest in one another until now.

  Allison screamed and threw food at her ooloi, then turned and ran. Her ooloi caught her, but kept her conscious, probably because she did not struggle. She went rigid, but seemed to listen as her ooloi spoke soothingly.

  Elsewhere in the room, small groups of people, supporting one another, confronted the ooloi without panic. The drug had quieted them just enough. The room was a scene of quiet, strangely gentle chaos.