"And in spite of all that," Lilith said, facing Tate, "I'm a prisoner just as you are."
"More like a trustee," Tate said quietly.
"More like. I have to Awaken at least thirty-nine more people before any of us are allowed out of this room. I chose to start with you."
"Why?" She was incredibly self-possessed--or seemed to be. She had only been Awakened twice before-average among people not chosen to parent a group-but she behaved almost as though nothing unusual were happening. That was a relief to Lilith, a vindication of her choice of Tate.
"Why did I begin with you?" Lilith said. "You seemed least likely to try to kill me, least likely to fall apart, and most likely to be able to help with the others as they Awaken."
Tate seemed to think about that. She fiddled with her jacket, re-examining the way the front panels adhered to one another, the way they pulled apart. She felt the material itself, frowning.
"Where the hell are we?" she asked.
"Some distance beyond the orbit of the moon."
Silence. Then finally, "What was that big green slug-thing you pushed into the wall?"
"A... a plant. Our captors-our rescuers-use them for keeping people in suspended animation. You were in the one you saw. I took you out of it."
"Suspended animation?"
"For over two hundred and fifty years. The Earth is just about ready to have us back now."
"We're going back!"
"Yes."
Tate looked around at the vast, empty room. "Back to what?"
"Tropical forest. Somewhere in the Amazon basin. There are no more Cities."
"No. I didn't think there would be." She drew a deep breath. "When are we fed?"
"I put some food in your room before I Awoke you. Come on."
Tate followed. "I'm hungry enough to eat even that plaster of Paris garbage they served me when I was Awake before."
"No more plaster. Fruit, nuts, a kind of stew, bread, something like cheese, coconut milk..."
"Meat? A steak?"
"You can't have everything."
Tate was too good to be true. Lilith worried for a moment that at some point she would break-begin to cry or be sick or scream or beat her head against the wall-lose that seemingly easy control. But whatever happened to her Lilith would try to help. Just these few minutes of apparent normality were worth a great deal of trouble. She was actually speaking with and being understood by another human being-after so long.
Tate dove into the food, eating until she was satisfied, not wasting time talking. She had not, Lilith thought, asked one very important question. Of course there was a great deal she had not asked, but one thing in particular made Lilith wonder.
"What's your name, by the' way?" Tate asked, finally resting from her eating. She sipped coconut milk tentatively, then drank it all.
"Lilith Iyapo."
"Lilith. Lil?"
"Lilith. I've never had a nickname. Never wanted one. Is there anything apart from your name that you'd like to be called?"
"No. Tate will do. Tate Marah. They told you my name, didn't they?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. All those damn questions. They kept me Awake and in solitary for. . . it must have been two or three months. Did they tell you that? Or were you watching?"
"I was either asleep or in solitary myself, but yes, I knew about your confinement. It was three months in all. Mine was just over two years."
"It took them that long to make a trustee of you, did it?"
Lilith frowned, took a few nuts and ate them. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
For an instant, Tate looked uncomfortable, uncertain. The expression appeared and vanished so quickly that Lilith could have missed it through just a moment's inattention.
"Well, why should they keep you awake and alone for so long?" Tate demanded.
"I wouldn't talk to them at first. Then later when I began to talk, apparently a number of them were interested in me. They weren't trying to make a trustee of me at that point. They were trying to decide whether I was fit to be one. If I had had a vote, I'd still be asleep."
"Why wouldn't you talk to them? Were you military?"
"God, no. I just didn't like the idea of being locked up, questioned, and ordered around by I-didn't-know-who. And Tate, it's time you knew who-even though you've been careful not to ask."
She drew a deep breath, rested her forehead on her hand and stared down at the table. "I asked them. They wouldn't tell me. After a while I got scared and stopped asking."
"Yeah. I did that too."
"Are they... Russians?"
"They're not human."
Tate did not move, did not say anything for so long that Lilith continued.
"They call themselves Oankali, and they look like sea creatures, though they are bipedal. They. . . are you taking any of this in?"
''I'm listening.''
Lilith hesitated. "Are you believing?"
Tate looked up at her, seemed to smile a little. "How can I?"
Lilith nodded. "Yeah. But you'll have to sooner or later, of course, and I'm supposed to do what I can to prepare you. The Oankali are ugly. Grotesque. But we can get used to them, and they won't hurt us. Remember that. Maybe it will help when the time comes."
3
For three days, Tate slept a great deal, ate a great deal, and asked questions that Lilith answered completely honestly. Tate also talked about her life before the war. Lilith saw that it seemed to relax her, ease that shell of emotional control she usually wore. That made it worthwhile. It meant Lilith felt obligated to talk a little about herself-her past before the war-something she would not normally have been inclined to do. She had learned to keep her sanity by accepting things as she found them, adapting herself to new circumstances by putting aside the old ones whose memories might overwhelm her. She had tried to talk to Nikanj about humans in general, only occasionally bringing in personal anecdotes. Her father, her brothers, her sister, her husband and son. . . . She chose now to talk about her return to college.
"Anthropology," Tate said disparagingly. "Why did you want to snoop through other people's cultures? Couldn't you find what you wanted in your own?"
Lilith smiled and noticed that Tate frowned as though this were the beginning of a wrong answer. "I started out wanting to do exactly that," Lilith said. "Snoop. Seek. It seemed to me that my culture-ours-was running headlong over a cliff. And, of course, as it turned out, it was. I thought there must be saner ways of life."
"Find any?"
"Didn't have much of a chance. It wouldn't have mattered much anyway. It was the cultures of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that counted."
"I wonder."
"What?"
"Human beings are more alike than different-damn sure more alike than we like to admit. I wonder if the same thing wouldn't have happened eventually, no matter which two cultures gained the ability to wipe one another out along with the rest of the world"
Lilith gave a bitter laugh. "You might like it here. The Oankali think a lot like you do."
Tate turned away, suddenly disturbed. She wandered over to look at the new third and fourth rooms Lilith had grown on either side of the second restroom. One of them was back to back with her own room, and in part, an extension of one of her walls. She had watched the walls growing- watched first with disbelief, then anger, refusing to believe she was not being tricked somehow. Then she began to keep her distance from Lilith, to watch Lilith suspiciously, to be jumpy and silent.
That had not lasted long. Tate was adaptable if nothing else. "I don't understand," she had said softly, though by then, Lilith had explained why she could control the walls, how she could find and Awaken specific individuals.
Now, Tate wandered back and said again, "I don't understand. None of this makes sense!"