"Show him your hand," Nikanj said.
She hesitated, fearing that he would begin to see her as alien or too close to aliens-too much changed by them. But now that Nikanj had drawn attention to her hand, she could not conceal it. She raised her no-longer-bruised knuckles and showed them to Joseph.
He examined her hand minutely, then looked at the other one just to be certain he had not made a mistake. "They did this?" he asked. "Enabled you to heal so quickly?"
"Yes."
"What else?"
"Made me stronger than I was-and I was strong before- and enabled me to control interior walls and suspended animation plants. That's all."
He faced Nikanj. "How did you do this?"
Nikanj rustled its tentacles. "For the walls, I altered her body chemistry slightly. For the strength, I gave her more efficient use of what she already has. She should have been stronger. Her ancestors were stronger--her nonhuman ancestors in particular. I helped her fulfill her potential."
"How?"
"How do you move and coordinate the fingers of your hands? I'm an ooloi bred to work with humans. I can help them do anything their bodies are capable of doing. I made biochemical changes that caused her regular exercises to be much more effective than they would have been otherwise. There is also a slight genetic change. I haven't added or subtracted anything, but I have brought out latent ability. She is as strong and as fast as her nearest animal ancestors were." Nikanj paused, perhaps noticing the way Joseph was looking at Lilith. "The changes I've made are not hereditary," it said.
"You said you changed her genes!" Joseph charged.
"Body cells only. Not reproductive cells."
"But if you cloned her. .
"I will not clone her."
There was a long silence. Joseph looked at Nikanj, then stared long at Lilith. She spoke when she thought she had endured his stare long enough.
"If you want to go out and join the others, I'll open the wall," she said.
"Is that what you think?" he asked.
"That's what I fear," she whispered.
"Could you have prevented what was done to you?"
"I didn't try to prevent it." She swallowed. "They were going to give me this job no matter what I said. I told them they might as well kill me themselves. Even that didn't stop them. So when Nikanj and its mates offered me as much as they could offer, I didn't even have to think about it. I welcomed it."
After a time, he nodded.
"I'll give you some of what I gave her," Nikanj said. "I won't increase your strength, but I will enable you to heal faster, recover from injuries that might otherwise kill you. Do you want me to do this?"
"You're giving me a choice?"
"Yes."
"The change is permanent?"
"Unless you ask to be changed back."
"Side effects?"
"Psychological."
Joseph frowned. "What do you mean, psycho.. . Oh. So that's why you won't give me the strength."
"Yes."
"But you trust. . . Lilith."
"She has been Awake and living with my families for years. We know her. And, of course, we're always watching."
After a time, Joseph took Lilith's hands. "Do you see?" he asked gently. "Do you understand why they chose you-someone who desperately doesn't want the responsibility, who doesn't want to lead, who is a woman?"
The condescension in his voice first startled, then angered her. "Do I see, Joe? Oh, yes. I've had plenty of time to see."
He seemed to realize how he had sounded. "You have, yes-not that it helps to know."
Nikanj had shifted its attention from one of them to the other. Now it focused on Joseph. "Shall I make the change in you?" it asked.
Joseph released Lilith's hands. "What is it? Surgery? Something to do with blood or bone marrow?"
"You will be made to sleep. When you awake, the change will have been made. There won't be any pain or illness, no surgery in the usual sense of the word."
"How will you do it?"
"These are my tools." It extended both sensory arms. "Through them, I'll study you, then make the necessary adjustments. My body and yours will produce any substances I need."
Joseph shuddered visibly. "I. . . I don't think I could let you touch me."
Lilith looked at him until he turned to face her. "I was shut up for days with one of them before I could touch him," she said. "There were times... I'd rather take a beating than go through anything like that again."
Joseph moved closer to her, his manner protective. It was easier for him to give comfort than to ask for it. Now he managed to do both at once.
"How long are you going to stay here now?" he demanded of Nikanj.
"Not much longer. I'll come back. You'll probably feel less afraid when you see me again." It paused. "Eventually you must touch me. You must show at least that much control before I change you."
"I don't know. Maybe I don't want you to change me. I don't really understand what it is you do with those. . . those tentacles."
"Sensory arms, we call them in English. They're more than arms-much more-but the term is convenient." It focused its attention on Lilith and spoke in Oankali. "Do you think it would help if he saw a demonstration?"
"I'm afraid he would be repelled," she said.
"He's an unusual male. I think he might surprise you."
"No."
"You should trust me. I know a great deal about him."
"No! Leave him to me."
It stood up, unfolding itself dramatically. When she saw that it was about to leave, she almost relaxed. Then in a single swift sweep of motion, it stepped to her and looped a sensory arm around her neck forming an oddly comfortable noose. She was not afraid. She had been through this often enough to be used to it. Her first thoughts were concern for Joseph and anger at Nikanj.
Joseph had not moved. She stood between the two of them.
"It's all right," she told him. "It wanted you to see. This is all the contact it would need."
Joseph stared at the coil of sensory arm, looked from the arm to Nikanj and back to the arm again where it rested against Lilith's flesh. After a moment, he raised his hand toward it. He stopped. His hand twitched, drew back, then slowly reached out again. With only a moment's hesitation, he touched the cool, hard flesh of the sensory arm. His fingers rested on its hornlike tip and that tip twisted to grasp his wrist.
Now Lilith was no longer their intermediary. Joseph stood rigid and silent, sweating, but not trembling, his hand upright, fingers clawlike, a noose of sensory tentacle settled in a painless, unbreakable grip around the wrist.
With a sound that could have been the beginning of a scream, Joseph collapsed.
Lilith stepped to him quickly, but Nikanj caught him. He was unconscious. She said nothing until she had helped Nikanj put him on the bed. Then she caught it by the shoulders and turned it to face her.
"Why couldn't you let him alone!" she demanded. "I'm supposed to be in charge of them. Why didn't you just leave him to me?"
"Do you know," it said, "that no undrugged human has ever done that before? Some have touched us by accident this soon after meeting us, but no one has done it deliberately. I told you he was unusual."
"Why couldn't you let him alone!"
It unfastened Joseph's jacket and began to remove it. "Because there are already two human males speaking against him, trying to turn others against him. One has decided he's something called a faggot and the other dislikes the shape of his eyes. Actually, both are angry about the way he's allied himself with you. They would prefer to have you without allies. Your mate needs any extra protection I can give him now."
She listened, appalled. Joseph had talked about the danger to her. Had he known how immediate his own danger was?
Nikanj threw the jacket aside and lay down beside Joseph. It wrapped one sensory tentacle around Joseph's neck and the other around his waist, drawing Joseph's body close against its own.