Lilith's Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago (Xenogenesis Trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler Read Free Book Online

your family history? What if we or the humans hadn’t discovered the cancer?”
    “It was malignant, I assume.”
    “Of course.”
    “Then I suppose it would eventually have killed me.”
    “Yes, it would have. And your people were in a similar position. If they had been able to perceive and solve their problem, they might have been able to avoid destruction. Of course, they too would have to remember to reexamine themselves periodically.”
    “But what was the problem? You said we had two incompatible characteristics. What were they?”
    Jdahya made a rustling noise that could have been a sigh, but that did not seem to come from his mouth or throat. “You are intelligent,” he said. “That’s the newer of the two characteristics, and the one you might have put to work to save yourselves. You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we’ve found, though your focus is different from ours. Still, you had a good start in the life sciences, and even in genetics.”
    “What’s the second characteristic?”
    “You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic. We saw it in your closest animal relatives and in your most distant ones. It’s a terrestrial characteristic. When human intelligence served it instead of guiding it, when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all …” The rattling sounded again. “That was like ignoring cancer. I think your people did not realize what a dangerous thing they were doing.”
    “I don’t think most of us thought of it as a genetic problem. I didn’t. I’m not sure I do now.” Her feet had begun to hurt from walking so long on the uneven ground. She wanted to end both the walk and the conversation. The conversation made her uncomfortable. Jdahya sounded … almost plausible.
    “Yes,” he said, “intelligence does enable you to deny facts you dislike. But your denial doesn’t matter. A cancer growing in someone’s body will go on growing in spite of denial. And a complex combination of genes that work together to make you intelligent as well as hierarchical will still handicap you whether you acknowledge it or not.”
    “I just don’t believe it’s that simple. Just a bad gene or two.”
    “It isn’t simple, and it isn’t a gene or two. It’s many—the result of a tangled combination of factors that only begins with genes.” He stopped, let his head tentacles drift toward a rough circle of huge trees. The tentacles seemed to point. “My family lives there,” he said.
    She stood still, now truly frightened.
    “No one will touch you without your consent,” he said. “And I’ll stay with you for as long as you like.”
    She was comforted by his words and ashamed of needing comfort. How had she become so dependent on him? She shook her head. The answer was obvious. He wanted her dependent. That was the reason for her continued isolation from her own kind. She was to be dependent on an Oankali—dependent and trusting. To hell with that!
    “Tell me what you want of me,” she demanded abruptly, “and what you want of my people.”
    His tentacles swung to examine her. “I’ve told you a great deal.”
    “Tell me the price, Jdahya. What do you want? What will your people take from us in return for having saved us?”
    All his tentacles seemed to hang limp, giving him an almost comical droop. Lilith found no humor in it. “You’ll live,” he said. “Your people will live. You’ll have your world again. We already have much of what we want of you. Your cancer in particular.”
    “What?”
    “The ooloi are intensely interested in it. It suggests abilities we have never been able to trade for successfully before.”
    “Abilities? From cancer?”
    “Yes. The ooloi see great potential in it. So the trade has already been useful.”
    “You’re welcome to it. But before when I asked, you said you trade … yourselves.”
    “Yes. We trade the essence