Lilith's Brood: Dawn / Adulthood Rites / Imago

by Octavia E. Butler

  Lilith watched Kahguyaht with Tate and Gabriel. The ooloi was sitting down now, facing them, talking to them, even giving them time to stare at the way its joints bent and the way its sensory tentacles followed movement. When it moved, it moved very slowly. When it spoke, Lilith could hear none of the hectoring contempt or amused tolerance that she was used to.

  “You know that one?” Joseph asked.

  “Yes. It’s one of Nikanj’s parents. I never got along with it.”

  Across the room, Kahguyaht’s head tentacles swept in her direction for a moment and she knew it had heard. She considered saying more, giving it an earful—figuratively.

  But before she could begin, Nikanj arrived. It stood before Joseph and looked at him critically. “You’re doing very well,” it said. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You will be.” It glanced at Tate and Gabriel. “Your friends won’t be, I think. Not both of them, anyway.”

  “What? Why not?”

  Nikanj rustled its tentacles. “Kahguyaht will try. I warned it, and it admits I have a talent for humans, but it wants them badly. The woman will survive, but the man may not.”

  “Why!” Lilith demanded.

  “He may choose not to. But Kahguyaht is skillful. Those two humans are the calmest in the room apart from you two.” It focused for a moment on Joseph’s hands, on the fact that he had gouged one with the nails of the other and that the gouged hand was dripping blood onto the floor.

  Nikanj shifted its attention, even turning its body away from Joseph. Its instinct was to help, to heal a wound, stop pain. Yet it knew enough to let Joseph go on hurting himself for now.

  “What are you doing, foretelling the future?” Joseph asked. His voice was a harsh whisper. “Gabe will kill himself?”

  “Indirectly, he might. I hope not. I can’t foretell anything. Maybe Kahguyaht will save him. He’s worth saving. But his past behavior says he will be hard to work with.” It reached out and took Joseph’s hands, apparently unable to stand the gouging any longer.

  “You were only given a weak, ooloi-neutral drug in your food,” it told him. “I can help you with something better.”

  Joseph tried to pull away, but it ignored his effort. It examined the hand he had injured, then further tranquilized him, all the while talking to him quietly.

  “You know I won’t hurt you. You’re not afraid of being hurt or of pain. And your fear of my strangeness will pass eventually. No, be still. Let your body go limp. Let it relax. If your body is relaxed, it will be easier for you to handle your fear. That’s it. Lean back against this wall. I can help you maintain this state without blurring your intellect. You see?”

  Joseph turned his head to look at Nikanj, then turned away, his movements slow, almost languid, belying the emotion behind them. Nikanj moved to sit next to him and maintain its hold on him. “Your fear is less than it was,” it said. “And even what you feel now will pass quickly.”

  Lilith watched Nikanj work, knowing that it would drug Joseph only lightly—perhaps stimulate the release of his own endorphins and leave him feeling relaxed and slightly high. Nikanj’s words, spoken with quiet assurance, only reinforced new feelings of security and well-being.

  Joseph sighed. “I don’t understand why the sight of you should scare me so,” Joseph said. He did not sound frightened. “You don’t look that threatening. Just … very different.”

  “Different is threatening to most species,” Nikanj answered. “Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it’s true for you.” Nikanj smoothed its head tentacles. “It’s safer for your people to overcome the feeling on an individual basis than as members of a large group. That’s why we’ve handled this the way we have.” It looked around at individuals and pairs of humans, each with an ooloi.

  Nikanj focused on Lilith. “It would have been easier for you to be handled this way—with drugs, with an adult ooloi.”

  “Why wasn’t I?”

  “You were being prepared for me, Lilith. Adults believed you would be best paired with me during my subadult stage. Jdahya believed he could bring you to me without drugs, and he was right.”

  Lilith shuddered. “I wouldn’t want to go through anything like that again.”

  “You won’t. Look at your friend Tate.”

  Lilith turned and saw that Tate had extended a hand to Kahguyaht. Gabriel grabbed it and hauled it back, arguing.

  Tate said only a few words while Gabriel said many, but after a while, he let her go. Kahguyaht had not moved or spoken. It waited. It let Tate look at it again, perhaps build up her courage again. When she extended her hand again, it seized the hand in a coil of sensory arm in a move that seemed impossibly swift, yet gentle, nonthreatening. The arm moved like a striking cobra, yet there was that strange gentleness. Tate did not even seem startled.

  “How can it move that way?” Lilith murmured.

  “Kahguyaht was afraid she would not have the courage to finish the gesture,” Nikanj said. “It was right, I think.”

  “I drew back any number of times.”

  “Jdahya had to make you do all the work yourself. He couldn’t help.”

  “What will happen now?” Joseph asked.

  “We’ll stay with you for several days. When you’re used to us, we’ll take you to the training floor we’ve created—the forest.” It focused on Lilith. “For a little while, you won’t have any duties. I could take you and your mate outside for a while, show him more of the ship.”

  Lilith looked around the room. There were no more struggles, no manifest terror. People who could not control themselves were unconscious. Others were totally focused on their ooloi and suffering through confused combinations of fear and drug-induced well-being.

  “I’m the only human who has any idea what’s going on,” she said. “Some of them might want to talk to me.”

  Silence.

  “Yeah. What about it, Joe? Want to look around outside?”

  He frowned. “What just didn’t get said?”

  She sighed. “The humans here aren’t going to want us near them for a while. In fact, you may not want them near you. It’s a reaction to the ooloi drugs. So we can stay here and be ignored or we can go outside.”

  Nikanj coiled the end of one sensory arm around her wrist, prompting her to consider a third possibility. She said nothing, but the eagerness that suddenly blossomed in her was so intense, it was suspicious.

  “Let go!” she said.

  It released her, but was now completely focused on her. It had felt her body’s leap of response to its wordless suggestion—or to its chemical suggestion.

  “Did you do that?” she demanded. “Did you … inject something.”

  “Nothing.” It wrapped its free sensory arm around her neck. “Oh, but I will ‘inject something.’ We can go out later.” It stood up, bringing them both up with it.

  “What?” Joseph said as he was hauled to his feet. “What’s happening?”

  No one answered him, but he did not resist being guided into Lilith’s bedroom. As Lilith sealed the doorway, he asked again, “What’s going on?”

  Nikanj slid its sensory arm from Lilith’s neck. “Wait,” it told her. Then it focused on Joseph, releasing him, but not moving away. “The second time will be the hardest for you. I left you no choice the first time. You could not have understood what there was to choose. Now you have some small idea. And you have a choice.”

  He understood now. “No!” he said sharply. “Not again.”

  Silence.

  “I’d rather have the real thing!”

  “With Lilith?”

  “Of course.” He looked as though he would say something more, but he glanced at Lilith and fell silent.

  “Rather with any human than with me,” Nikanj supplied softly.

  Joseph only stared at it.

  “And yet I pleased you. I pleased you very much.”
<
br />   “Illusion!”

  “Interpretation. Electrochemical stimulation of certain nerves, certain parts of your brain … What happened was real. Your body knows how real it was. Your interpretations were illusion. The sensations were entirely real. You can have them again—or you can have others.”

  “No!”

  “And all that you have, you can share with Lilith.”

  Silence.

  “All that she feels, she’ll share with you.” It reached out and caught his hand in a coil of sensory arm. “I won’t hurt you. And I offer a oneness that your people strive for, dream of, but can’t truly attain alone.”

  He pulled his arm free. “You said I could choose. I’ve made my choice!”

  “You have, yes.” It opened his jacket with its many-fingered true hands and stripped the garment from him. When he would have backed away, it held him. It managed to lie down on the bed with him without seeming to force him down. “You see. Your body has made a different choice.”

  He struggled violently for several seconds, then stopped. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Lie here with me for a while and close your eyes.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. Close your eyes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You’re not afraid of me. Close your eyes.”

  Silence.

  After a long while, he closed his eyes and the two of them lay together. Joseph held his body rigid at first, but slowly, as nothing happened, he began to relax. Sometime later his breathing evened and he seemed to be asleep.

  Lilith sat on the table, waiting, watching. She was patient and interested. This might be her only chance ever to watch close up as an ooloi seduced someone. She thought it should have bothered her that the “someone” in this case was Joseph. She knew more than she wanted to about the wildly conflicting feelings he was subject to now.

  Yet, in this matter, she trusted Nikanj completely. It was enjoying itself with Joseph. It would not spoil its enjoyment by hurting him or rushing him. In a perverse way, Joseph too was probably enjoying himself, though he could not have said so.

  Lilith was dozing when Nikanj stroked Joseph’s shoulders, rousing him. His voice roused her.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Waking you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep!”

  Silence.

  “My god,” he said after a while. “I did fall asleep, didn’t I? You must have drugged me.”

  “No.”

  He rubbed his eyes, but made no effort to get up.

  “Why didn’t you … just do it?”

  “I told you. This time you can choose.”

  “I’ve chosen! You ignored me.”

  “Your body said one thing. Your words said another.” It moved a sensory arm to the back of his neck, looping one coil loosely around his neck. “This is the position,” it said. “I’ll stop now if you like.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Joseph gave a long sigh. “I can’t give you—or myself—permission,” he said. “No matter what I feel, I can’t.”

  Nikanj’s head and body became mirror smooth. The change was so dramatic that Joseph jumped and drew back. “Does that … amuse you somehow?” he asked bitterly.

  “It pleases me. It’s what I expected.”

  “So … what happens now?”

  “You are very strong-willed. You can hurt yourself as badly as you think necessary to achieve a goal or hold to a conviction.”

  “Let go of me.”

  It smoothed its tentacles again. “Be grateful, Joe. I’m not going to let go of you.”

  Lilith saw Joseph’s body stiffen, struggle, then relax, and she knew Nikanj had read him correctly. He neither struggled nor argued as Nikanj positioned him more comfortably against its body. Lilith saw that he had closed his eyes again, his face peaceful. Now he was ready to accept what he had wanted from the beginning.

  Silently, Lilith got up, stripped off her jacket, and went to the bed. She stood over it, looking down. For a moment, she saw Nikanj as she had once seen Jdahya—as a totally alien being, grotesque, repellant beyond mere ugliness with its night crawler body tentacles, its snake head tentacles, and its tendency to keep both moving, signaling attention and emotion.

  She froze where she stood and had all she could to keep from turning and running away.

  The moment passed, left her almost gasping. She jumped when Nikanj touched her with the tip of a sensory arm. She stared at it for a moment longer wondering how she had lost her horror of such a being.

  Then she lay down, perversely eager for what it could give her. She positioned herself against it, and was not content until she felt the deceptively light touch of the sensory hand and felt the ooloi body tremble against her.

  13

  HUMANS WERE KEPT DRUGGED for days—drugged, and guarded, each individual or pair by an ooloi.

  “Imprinting is the best word for what they’re doing,” Nikanj told Joseph. “Imprinting, chemical and social.”

  “What you’re doing to me!” Joseph accused.

  “What I’m doing to you, what I’ve done to Lilith. It has to be done. No one will be returned to Earth without it.”

  “How long will they be drugged?”

  “Some are not heavily drugged now. Tate Marah isn’t. Gabriel Rinaldi is.” It focused on Joseph. “You aren’t. You know.”

  Joseph looked away. “No one should be.”

  “In the end, no one will be. We dull your natural fear of strangers and of difference. We keep you from injuring or killing us or yourselves. We teach you more pleasant things to do.”

  “That’s not enough!”

  “It’s a beginning.”

  14

  PETER’S OOLOI PROVED THAT ooloi were not infallible. Drugged, Peter was a different man. For perhaps the first time since his Awakening, he was at peace, not fighting even with himself, not trying to prove anything, joking with Jean and their ooloi about his arm and the fighting.

  Lilith, hearing this later, wondered what there was to laugh at in that incident. But the ooloi-produced drugs could be potent. Under their influence, Peter might have laughed at anything. Under their influence, he accepted union and pleasure. When that influence was allowed to wane and Peter began to think, he apparently decided he had been humiliated and enslaved. The drug seemed to him to be not a less painful way of getting used to frightening nonhumans, but a way of turning him against himself, causing him to demean himself in alien perversions. His humanity was profaned. His manhood was taken away.

  Peter’s ooloi should have noticed that at some point what Peter said and the expression he assumed ceased to agree with what his body told it. Perhaps it did not know enough about human beings to handle someone like Peter. It was older than Nikanj—more a contemporary of Kahguyaht. But it was not as perceptive as either of them—and perhaps not as bright.

  Sealed in Peter’s room, alone with Peter, it allowed itself to be attacked, pounded by Peter’s bare fists. Unfortunately for Peter, he hit a sensitive spot with his first hammering blow, and triggered the ooloi’s defensive reflexes. It gave him a lethal sting before it could regain control of itself and he collapsed in convulsions. His own contracting muscles broke several of his bones, then he went into shock.

  The ooloi tried to help him once it had recovered from the worst of its own pain, but it was too late. He was dead. The ooloi sat down beside his body, its head and body tentacles drawn into hard lumps. It did not move or speak. Its cool flesh grew even cooler, and it seemed to be as dead as the human it was apparently mourning.

  There were no Oankali on watch above. Peter might have been saved if there had been. But the great room was full of ooloi. Where was the need to keep watch?

  By the time one of these ooloi noticed Jean sitting alone and forlorn outside the sealed room, it was too late. There was nothing to do
but take Peter’s body out and send for the ooloi’s mates. The ooloi remained catatonic.

  Jean, still lightly drugged, frightened, and alone, retreated from the people clustering around the room. She stood apart and watched as the body was carried out. Lilith noticed her, approached her, knowing she couldn’t help, but hoping at least to give comfort.

  “No!” Jean said, backing toward a wall. “Get away!”

  Lilith sighed. Jean was going through a prolonged period of ooloi-induced reclusiveness. All of the humans who had been kept heavily drugged were this way—unable to tolerate the nearness of anyone except their human mate and the ooloi who had drugged them. Neither Lilith nor Joseph had experienced this extreme reaction. Lilith had hardly noticed any reaction at all beyond an increased aversion to Kahguyaht back when Nikanj matured and bound her to it. More recently, Joseph had reacted by simply staying close to Lilith and Nikanj for a couple of days. Then his reaction passed. Jean’s was far from passing. What would happen to her now?

  Lilith looked around for Nikanj. She spotted it in a cluster of ooloi, went to it and laid a hand on its shoulder.

  It focused on her without turning or breaking the various sensory tentacle and sensory arm contacts it had with the others. She spoke to the point of a thin cone of head tentacles.

  “Can’t you help Jean?”

  “Help is coming for her.”

  “Look at her! She’s going to break before it gets here.”

  The cone focused on Jean. She had wedged herself into a corner. Now she stood crying silently and looking around in confusion. She was a tall, strongly built woman. Now, though, she looked like a large child.

  Nikanj detached itself from the other ooloi, apparently ending whatever communication was going on. The other ooloi relaxed away from one another. They went to their various human charges who stood waiting for them in widely separated ones and twos. The moment the news of the death had gone around, every human except Lilith and Jean had been drugged heavily. Nikanj had refused to drug Lilith. It trusted her to control her own behavior and the other ooloi trusted it. As for Jean, there was no one present who could drug her without harming her.