"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."
"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?"