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 1 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.