Xenogesis Triology

Notes

The three books in Octavia Butler's Xenogesis Trilogy are:

• Book 1 - Dawn
• Book 2 - Adulthood Rites
• Book 3 - Imago

This trilogy was incredible. Where to even begin?

Quotes

Dawn

Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Opening and closing her jacket, her hand touched the long scar across her abdomen. She had acquired it somehow between her second and third Awakenings, had examined it fearfully, wondering what had been done to her. What had she lost or gained, and why? And what else might be done? She did not own herself any longer. Even her flesh could be cut and stitched without her consent or knowledge. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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So she refused them, gave them no answers, ignored the tests, physical and mental, that they tried to put her through. She did not know what they would do to her. She was terrified that she would be hurt, punished. But she felt she had to risk bargaining, try to gain something, and her only currency was cooperation. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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We collected as many as we could. The ones we didn’t find in time died of injury, disease, hunger, radiation, cold. … We found them later.” She believed him. Humanity in its attempt to destroy itself had made the world unlivable. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“I can only say that your people have something we value. You may begin to know how much we value it when I tell you that by your way of measuring time, it has been several million years since we dared to interfere in another people’s act of self-destruction. Many of us disputed the wisdom of doing it this time. We thought … that there had been a consensus among you, that you had agreed to die.” “No species would do that!” “Yes. Some have. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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He let her hide there for a while, let her wash and be alone and wallow in self-pity and self-contempt. She could not remember ever having been so continually afraid, so out of control of her emotions. Jdahya had done nothing, yet she cowered. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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My relative examined you, observed a few of your normal body cells, compared them with what it had learned from other humans most like you, and said you had not only a cancer, but a talent for cancer.” “I wouldn’t call it a talent. A curse, maybe. But how could your relative know about that from just … observing.” “Maybe perceiving would be a better word,” he said. “There’s much more involved than sight. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She tried to imagine herself surrounded by beings like him and was almost overwhelmed by panic. As though she had suddenly developed a phobia—something she had never before experienced. But what she felt was like what she had heard others describe. A true xenophobia—and apparently she was not alone in it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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After … however many days it had been, she felt none of the old panic; only relief at somehow having finally shed it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Back into your cage, Lilith?” Jdahya asked softly. She stared at him through the hole, realized at once that he was trying to provoke her, make her overcome her fear. It would not have worked if he had not been so right. She was retreating into her cage—like a zoo animal that had been shut up for so long that the cage had become home. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Your diet in particular encouraged your body not to grow cancers while your genetic inclination to grow them was corrected.” “It has been corrected, then?” “Yes. Correcting genes have been inserted into your cells, and your cells have accepted and replicated them. Now you won’t grow cancers by accident.” That, she thought, was an odd qualification, but she let it pass for the moment. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“We’ve strengthened your immune system, increased your resistance to disease in general.” “How? Something else done to our genes?” He said nothing. She let the silence lengthen until she was certain he would not answer. This was one more thing they had done to her body without her consent and supposedly for her own good. “We used to treat animals that way,” she muttered bitterly. “What?” he said. “We did things to them—inoculations, surgery, isolation—all for their own good. We wanted them healthy and protected—sometimes so we could eat them later. “ His tentacles did not flatten to his body, but she got the impression he was laughing at her. “Doesn’t it frighten you to say things like that to me?” he asked. “No,” she said. “It scares me to have people doing things to me that I don’t understand.” “You’ve been given health. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Why can’t you go back to your homeworld?” she asked. “It … still exists, doesn’t it?” He seemed to think for a moment. “We left it so long ago … I doubt that it does still exist.” “Why did you leave?” “It was a womb. The time had come for us to be born.” 
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She smiled sadly. “There were humans who thought that way—right up to the moment the missiles were fired. People who believed space was our destiny. I believed it myself.” “I know—though from what the ooloi have told me, your people could not have fulfilled that destiny. Their own bodies handicapped them.” “Their … our bodies? What do you mean? We’ve been into space. There’s nothing about our bodies that prevented—” “Your bodies are fatally flawed. The ooloi perceived this at once. At first it was very hard for them to touch you. Then you became an obsession with them. Now it’s hard for them to let you alone.” “What are you talking about?” “You have a mismatched pair of genetic characteristics. Either alone would have been useful, would have aided the survival of your species. But the two together are lethal. It was only a matter of time before they destroyed you.” 
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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.” 
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“We do what you would call genetic engineering. We know you had begun to do it yourselves a little, but it’s foreign to you. We do it naturally. We must do it. It renews us, enables us to survive as an evolving species instead of specializing ourselves into extinction or stagnation.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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I don’t care what you do with what you’ve already learned—how you apply it to yourselves—but leave us out of it. Just let us go. If we have the problem you think we do, let us work it out as human beings.” “We are committed to the trade,” he said, softly implacable. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Oh god,” she whispered. “Why didn’t I do it? Why can’t I do it?” He stood up and waited uncomplaining for several minutes until she dragged herself to her feet. “You’ll meet my mates and one of my children now,” he said. “Then rest and food, Lilith.” She looked at him, longing for a human expression. “Would you have done it?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. “Why?” “For you.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Before we found these plants,” Kahguyaht said, “they used to capture living animals and keep them alive for a long while, using their carbon dioxide and supplying them with oxygen while slowly digesting nonessential parts of their bodies: limbs, skin, sensory organs. The plants even passed some of their own substance through their prey to nourish the prey and keep it alive as long as possible. And the plants were enriched by the prey’s waste products. They gave a very, very long death. Lilith swallowed. “Did the prey feel what was being done to it?” “No. That would have hastened death. The prey … slept.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Its tentacles smoothed flat against its body briefly, then it took her hand and would have opened the wall and led her out but she stopped it. “Can you show me how to make it open?” she asked. The child hesitated, then took one of her hands and brushed it over the forest of its long head tentacles, leaving the hand slightly wet. Then it touched her fingers to the wall, and the wall began to open. More programmed reaction to chemical stimuli. No special areas to press, no special series of pressures. Just a chemical the Oankali manufactured within their bodies. She would go on being a prisoner, forced to stay wherever they chose to leave her. She would not be permitted even the illusion of freedom. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Second, she wanted to catch an Oankali in a lie. Any Oankali. Any lie. But she saw no sign of other humans. And the closest she came to catching the Oankali lying was to catch them in half-truths—though they were honest even about this. They freely admitted that they would tell her only part of what she wanted to know. Beyond this, the Oankali seemed to tell the truth as they perceived it, always. This left her with an almost intolerable sense of hopelessness and helplessness—as though catching them in lies would make them vulnerable. As though it would make the thing they intended to do less real, easier to deny. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“You can do what you’re doing with your fingers,” it told her. “That’s not enough. I need to be able to keep my writing … to study it. I need—” “No.” She stopped in midsentence, blinked at it. “This isn’t anything dangerous,” she said. “Some of your people must have seen our books, tapes, disks, films—our records of history, medicine, language, science, all kinds of things. I just want to make my own records of your language.” “I know about the … records your people kept. I didn’t know what they were called in English, but I’ve seen them. We’ve saved many of them and learned to use them to know humans better. I don’t understand them, but others do.” “May I see them?” “No. None of your people are permitted to see them.” “Why?” It did not answer. “Nikanj?” Silence. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She let it go on, not questioning when she did not understand, not wanting to care. The idea of Oankali blending with a species of intelligent, schooling, fishlike creatures was fascinating, but she was too angry to give it her full attention. Writing materials. Such small things, and yet they were denied to her. Such small things! 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She looked at its tightly contracted body tentacles and decided it did not look happy. It really was concerned over her failure to learn quickly and retain everything. “Are you going to let me have writing materials?” she asked. “No. It will be done our way. Not yours.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“I’m growing up,” it told her. “Ooan wants me to hurry with you so that you can be given your work and I can mate.” “You mean … the faster I learn, the sooner you mate?” “Yes. Until I have taught you, shown that I can teach you, I won’t be considered ready to mate.” There it was. She was not just its experimental animal. She was, in some way she did not fully understand, its final exam. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Helped raise them,” Lilith said, “or helped rear them.” “… rear?” “The word has multiple meanings.” “Oh. There’s no logic to such things.” “There probably is, but you’d need an etymologist to explain it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Ooan wanted me to act and say nothing … to … surprise you. I won’t do that.” “What!” “I must make small changes—a few small changes. I must help you reach your memories as you need them.” “What do you mean? What is it you want to change?” “Very small things. In the end, there will be a tiny alteration in your brain chemistry.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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How much did sex determine personality among the Oankali? She shook her head. Stupid question. She did not know how much sex determined personality even among human beings. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Nikanj, do you ever build machinery? Tamper with metal and plastic instead of living things?” “We do that when we have to. We … don’t like it. There’s no trade.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“I had natural childbirth,” she said. “It wasn’t any fun, but it went okay.” “What do you mean? No painkiller?” “None. No hospital either. Just something called a birthing center—a place for pregnant women who don’t like the idea of being treated as though they were sick.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“He was content with his Oankali family until he met you.” “What did he know? You never let him see anybody else!” “It wasn’t necessary. His family took care of him.” She stared at it, feeling more strongly than ever, the difference between them—the unbridgeable alienness of Nikanj. 
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“His family thought you should have mated with him,” it said. “They knew you wouldn’t stay with him permanently, but they believed you would share sex with him at least once.” Share sex, she thought sadly. Where had it picked up that expression? She had never said it. She liked it, though. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Your people called it birth control. You are slightly changed. It was done while you slept, as it was done to all humans at first. It will be undone eventually.” “When?” she asked bitterly. “When you’re ready to breed me?” “No. When you’re ready. Only then.” “Who decides? You?” “You, Lilith. You.” Its sincerity confused her. 
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“He had a right to know!” “Knowing frightened him and made him miserable. You discovered one of his fears—that perhaps one of his female relatives had survived and been impregnated with his sperm. He’s been told that this did not happen. Sometimes he believes; sometimes he doesn’t.” 
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“What we’ve preserved of you isn’t living tissue. It’s memory. A gene map, your people might call it—though they couldn’t have made one like those we remember and use. It’s more like what they would call a mental blueprint. A plan for the assembly of one specific human being: You. A tool for reconstruction.” It let her digest this, said nothing more to her for several minutes. So few humans could do that—just let someone have a few minutes to think. 
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Now she could keep herself occupied until someone decided it was time to send her off to the work she did not want and could not do—the work that would probably get her killed. How many more Paul Tituses could she survive, after all? 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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What is this mark? What will it do to me?” “No harm. You’ll want to avoid deep contact—contact that involves penetration of the flesh—with other ooloi, you understand? Perhaps for a while after Nikanj matures, you’ll want to avoid all contact with most people. Follow your feelings. People will understand.” “But … how long will it last?” “It’s different with humans. Some linger in the avoidance stage much longer than we would. The longest I’ve known it to last is forty days.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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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. 
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“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. 
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“Wonderful,” Tate muttered bitterly. “We’re on our own.” “Exactly.” Tate shook her head. “I don’t know whether I should be shedding the constraints of civilization and getting ready to fight for my life or keeping and enhancing them for the sake of our future.” “We’ll do what’s necessary,” Lilith said. “Sooner or later, that will probably mean fighting for our lives.” “I hope you’re wrong,” Tate said. “What have we learned if all we can do now is go on fighting among ourselves?” 
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“Pointless,” Lilith said. “Not hard. I lived in those memories for my two years of solitary. By the time the Oankali showed up in my room, I was ready to move into the present and stay there. My life before was a lot of groping around, looking for I-didn’t-know-what. 
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“We … do need you.” Nikanj spoke so softly that Joseph leaned forward to hear. “A partner must be biologically interesting, attractive to us, and you are fascinating. You are horror and beauty in rare combination. In a very real way, you’ve captured us, and we can’t escape. But you’re more than only the composition and the workings of your bodies. You are your personalities, your cultures. We’re interested in those too. That’s why we saved as many of you as we could.” 
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“Those of us who survive this room and the training room.” “Those of you who survive.” “You could have done this another way!” “We’ve tried other ways. This way is best. There is incentive not to do harm. No one who has killed or severely injured another will set foot on Earth again.” “They’ll be kept here?” “For the rest of their lives.” “Even …” Joseph glanced at Lilith, then faced Nikanj again. “Even if the killing is in self-defense?” “She is exempt,” Nikanj said. “What?” “She knows. We’ve given her abilities that at least one of you must have. They make her different, and therefore they make her a target. It would be self-defeating for us to forbid her to defend herself.” “Nikanj,” Lilith said, and when she saw that she had its attention she spoke in Oankali. “Exempt him.” “No.” Flat refusal. That was that, and she knew it. 
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“All that and you only screamed once,” it told her. “How’d you let me do even that?” she asked. “You surprised me. I’ve never made you scream before.” She let it withdraw from her throat, then moved languidly to stroke it. “How much of that experience was Joseph’s and mine?” she asked. “How much did you make up?” “I’ve never made up an experience for you,” it said. “I won’t have to for him either. You both have memories filled with experiences.” “That was a new one.” “A combination. You had your own experiences and his. He had his and yours. You both had me to keep it going much longer than it would have otherwise. The whole was … overwhelming.” She looked around. “Joseph?” “Asleep. Very deeply asleep. I didn’t induce it. He’s tired. He’s all right, though.” “He … felt everything I felt?” “On a sensory level. Intellectually, he made his interpretations and you made yours.” “I wouldn’t call them intellectual.” “You understand me.” “Yes.” She moved her hand over its chest, taking a perverse pleasure in feeling its tentacles squirm, then flatten under her hand. “Why do you do that?” it asked. “Does it bother you?” she asked stilling her hand. 
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“During his testing, his responses were closer to yours than anyone else I’m aware of. He doesn’t look like you but he’s like you.” “He might …” She forced herself to voice the thought. “He might not want anything more to do with me when he realizes what I helped you do with him.” “He’ll be angry—and frightened and eager for the next time and determined to see that there won’t be a next time. I’ve told you, I know this one.” 
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I examined memory records of thousands of males. This one might have been taught to parent a group himself, but when I showed other ooloi the match, they agreed that the two of you should be together.” “You … You chose him for me?” “I offered you to one another. The two of you did your own choosing.” It opened a wall and left her. 
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She drew a deep breath, walked over to Peter’s group. “Things can change,” she said quietly. “Maybe you can turn everybody here against me. That would make me a failure.” She raised her voice slightly, though even her quiet words had carried. “That would mean all of you put back into suspended animation so that you can be separated and put through all this again with other people.” She paused. “If that’s what you want—to be split up, to begin again alone, to go through this however many times it takes for you to let yourself get all the way through it, keep trying. You might succeed.” 
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“What happened to Derrick!” Jean Pelerin demanded. “He did something stupid,” Lilith told her. “And while he was doing it, you helped hold me so that I couldn’t stop him.” Jean drew back a little, spoke louder. “What happened to him?” “I don’t know.” “Liar!” The volume increased again. “What did your friends do to him? Kill him?” “What ever happened to him, you’re partly to blame,” Lilith said. “Handle your own guilt.” She looked around at other equally guilty, equally accusing faces. Jean never made her complaints privately. She needed an audience. 
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Abruptly, all was still except for Curt’s gasping and Peter’s groaning—“My arm! Oh, god, my arm!” Lilith looked at each of Peter’s people, daring them to attack, almost wanting them to attack. But now five of them were injured, and Lilith was untouched. Even her own people stood back from her. “There’ll be no rape here,” she said evenly. She raised her voice. “Nobody here is property. Nobody here has the right to the use of anybody else’s body. There’ll be no back-to-the-Stone-Age, caveman bullshit!” She let her voice drop to normal. “We stay human. We treat each other like people, and we get through this like people. Anyone who wants to be something less will have his chance in the forest. There’ll be plenty of room for him to run away and play at being an ape.” 
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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.” 
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Elsewhere in the room, small groups of people, supporting one another, confronted the ooloi without panic. The drug had quieted them just enough. The room was a scene of quiet, strangely gentle chaos. 
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“What are you doing, foretelling the future?” Joseph asked. His voice was a harsh whisper. “Gabe will kill himself?” “Indirectly, he might. I hope not. I can’t foretell anything. Maybe Kahguyaht will save him. He’s worth saving. But his past behavior says he will be hard to work with.” It reached out and took Joseph’s hands, apparently unable to stand the gouging any longer. “You were only given a weak, ooloi-neutral drug in your food,” it told him. “I can help you with something better.” Joseph tried to pull away, but it ignored his effort. It examined the hand he had injured, then further tranquilized him, all the while talking to him quietly. “You know I won’t hurt you. You’re not afraid of being hurt or of pain. And your fear of my strangeness will pass eventually. No, be still. Let your body go limp. Let it relax. If your body is relaxed, it will be easier for you to handle your fear. That’s it. Lean back against this wall. I can help you maintain this state without blurring your intellect. You see?” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Joseph sighed. “I don’t understand why the sight of you should scare me so,” Joseph said. He did not sound frightened. “You don’t look that threatening. Just … very different.” “Different is threatening to most species,” Nikanj answered. “Different is dangerous. It might kill you. That was true to your animal ancestors and your nearest animal relatives. And it’s true for you.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“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.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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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!” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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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. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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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. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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the ooloi-produced drugs could be potent. Under their influence, Peter might have laughed at anything. Under their influence, he accepted union and pleasure. When that influence was allowed to wane and Peter began to think, he apparently decided he had been humiliated and enslaved. The drug seemed to him to be not a less painful way of getting used to frightening nonhumans, but a way of turning him against himself, causing him to demean himself in alien perversions. His humanity was profaned. His manhood was taken away. Peter’s ooloi should have noticed that at some point what Peter said and the expression he assumed ceased to agree with what his body told it. Perhaps it did not know enough about human beings to handle someone like Peter. It was older than Nikanj—more a contemporary of Kahguyaht. But it was not as perceptive as either of them—and perhaps not as bright. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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The ooloi tried to help him once it had recovered from the worst of its own pain, but it was too late. He was dead. The ooloi sat down beside his body, its head and body tentacles drawn into hard lumps. It did not move or speak. Its cool flesh grew even cooler, and it seemed to be as dead as the human it was apparently mourning. There were no Oankali on watch above. Peter might have been saved if there had been. But the great room was full of ooloi. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She frowned, looking more childlike than ever as she tried to understand. Then her face changed. Curt, heavily drugged, edged along the wall toward her. He kept himself comfortably far from Nikanj, but moved a little too close to Jean. She cringed back from him. Curt shook his head, took a step backward. “Jeanie?” he called, his heavy voice sounding too loud, sounding drunk. Jean jumped, but said nothing. Curt faced Nikanj. “She’s one of ours! We should be the ones to take care of her!” “It isn’t possible,” Nikanj said. “It should be possible! It should be! Why isn’t it?” “Her bonding with her ooloi is too strong, too heavily reinforced—as yours is with your ooloi. Later when the bond is more relaxed, you’ll be able to go near her again. Later. Not now.” “Goddammit, she needs us now!” “No.” Curt’s ooloi came up to him, took him by the arm. Curt would have pulled away, but suddenly his strength seemed to leave him. He stumbled, fell to his knees. Nearby, Lilith looked away. Curt was as unlikely to forgive any humbling as Peter had been. And he would not always be drugged. He would remember. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Lilith stood staring after Jean, hardly aware of Joseph’s coming to stand beside her. He was drugged, but the drug had only made him reckless. “Peter was right,” he said angrily. She frowned. “Peter? Right to try to kill? Right to die?” “He died human! And he almost managed to take one of them with him!” She looked at him. “So what? What’s changed? On Earth we can change things. Not here.” “Will we want to by then? What will we be, I wonder? Not human. Not anymore.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Let them explore and see for themselves that they are in a forest on an island. Let them begin to feel what it’s like to live here.” It hesitated. “Let them settle more firmly into their places with their ooloi. They can tolerate one another now. Let them learn that it isn’t shameful to be together with one another and with us.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Why did you want me on this trip, Gabe? Why did you personally want me here?” “I didn’t. I just—” “Liar.” He frowned, glared at her. “I just thought you deserved a chance to get away from the Oankali—if you wanted it.” “You thought I might be useful! You thought you’d eat better and be better able to survive out here. You didn’t think you were doing me a favor, you thought you were doing yourself one. It could work out that way.” She looked around at the others. “But it won’t. Not if everyone’s sitting around waiting for me to play Judas.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Lilith pointed. “If that’s land over there instead of some kind of illusion, then that’s your goal. Your first goal anyway.” “We find the others first!” Gabriel insisted. Lilith looked at him with interest. He was in the open now. Probably in his mind he was in some kind of struggle with her. He wanted to lead and she did not—yet she had to. He could easily get someone killed. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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An ooloi needed a male and female pair to be able to play its part in reproduction, but it neither needed nor wanted two-way contact between that male and female. Oankali males and females never touched each other sexually. That worked fine for them. It could not possibly work for human beings. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She must go back to the settlement and get help from the Oankali. She must get nonhumans to help her against her own people in a place that might or might not be on Earth. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Would he want it? Or would he choose to stay with the others who were trying to do the thing she had always wanted them all to do? Learn and run. Learn to live in this country, then lose themselves in it, go beyond the reach of the Oankali. Learn to touch one another as human beings again. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Us,” Nikanj repeated. “We wanted to keep him safe, you and I. He was slightly injured and unconscious when they took him away. He had fought for you. But his injuries healed. Curt saw the flesh healing. He believed Joe wasn’t human.” “Why didn’t you help him!” she screamed. She had begun to cry. She turned again to see the terrible wounds and did not understand how she could even look at Joseph’s body so mutilated, dead. She had had no last words from him, no memory of fighting alongside him, no chance to protect him. Her last memory was of him flinching away from her too-human touch. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“Why didn’t you help?” she demanded. “If you could see and hear everything, why—” “We don’t have an entrance near enough to this place.” She made a sound of anger and despair. “And there was no sign that Curt meant to kill. He blames you for almost everything, yet he didn’t kill you. What happened here was … totally unplanned.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Nikanj pressed the back of her neck with a sensory hand—warning pressure. It would give her something then. They stopped walking by mutual consent and faced one another. It gave her … a new color. A totally alien, unique, nameless thing, half seen, half felt or … tasted. A blaze of something frightening, yet overwhelmingly, compelling. Extinguished. A half known mystery beautiful and complex. A deep, impossibly sensuous promise. Broken. Gone. Dead. The forest came back around her slowly and she realized she was still standing with Nikanj, facing it, her back to the waiting ooloi. “That’s all I can give you,” Nikanj said. “That’s what I feel. I don’t even know whether there are words in any human language to speak of it.” “Probably not,” she whispered. After a moment, she let herself hug it. There was some comfort even in cool, gray flesh. Grief was grief, she thought. It was pain and loss and despair—an abrupt end where there should have been a continuing. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“We didn’t kill a human being,” Curt shouted. “We killed one of your animals!” “We?” Kahguyaht said mildly. “And who helped you kill him?” Curt did not answer. “You beat him,” Kahguyaht continued, “and when he was unconscious, you killed him with your ax. You did it alone, and in doing it, you’ve exiled yourself permanently from your Earth.” It spoke to the others. “Will you join him? Will you be taken from this training room and placed with Toaht families to live the rest of your lives aboard the ship?” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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The ooloi focused on her again. “If you had used a weapon, you could probably have killed at least one of us. These others couldn’t, but you could.” “I don’t want to kill you. I want to get away from you. You know that.” “I know you think that.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She looked at Nikanj’s still-healing sensory arm. “Listen to me,” she said. “Let me help you learn about us, or there’ll be more injuries, more deaths.” “Will you walk through the forest,” Nikanj asked, “or shall we go the shorter way beneath the training room?” She sighed. She was Cassandra, warning and predicting to people who went deaf whenever she began to warn and predict. “Let’s walk through the forest,” she said. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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They could give each other whole experiences, then discuss the experience in nonverbal conversation. They had a whole language of sensory images and accepted signals that took the place of words. Lilith watched them enviously. They didn’t lie often to humans because their sensory language had left them with no habit of lying—only of withholding information, refusing contact. Humans, on the other hand, lied easily and often. They could not trust one another. They could not trust one of their own who seemed too close to aliens, who stripped off her clothing and lay down on the ground to help her jailer. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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She was content to be let alone. Ahajas and Dichaan asked her if she wanted to go home with them when they left, but she declined the offer. She wanted to stay in an Earthlike setting until she went to Earth. She wanted to stay with human beings even though for a time, she did not love them. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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No one refused the fish because she had caught it. On the other hand, no one asked how she made her fish traps—so she did not tell them. She did no more teaching unless people came to her and asked questions. This was more punishing to her than to the Oankali since she had discovered that she liked teaching. But she found more gratification in teaching one willing student than a dozen resentful ones. 
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Tate had been a friend. Lilith missed her, but somehow could not manage any bitterness against her. There was no other close friend to take Tate’s place. Even the people who came to her with questions did not trust her. There was only Nikanj. Nikanj never tried to make her change her behavior. She had the feeling it would not object to anything she did unless she began hurting people. She lay with it and its mates at night and it pleasured her as it had before she met Joseph. She did not want this at first, but she came to appreciate it. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“You stopped teaching here. People are learning more slowly. But I think they’ll be ready soon.” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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It knotted its head and body tentacles in distress. “You could have reacted very badly. With your strength, you could have injured or killed someone. You could have earned a place alongside Curt.” It relaxed the knots and let its tentacles hang limp. “Joseph is gone. I didn’t want to risk losing you too.” And she could not go on hating it. Its words reminded her too much of her own thoughts when she lay down to help it in spite of what other humans might think of her. She went to one of the cut logs that served as benches around the fire and sat down. “How long do I have to stay here?” she whispered. “Do they ever let the Judas goat go?” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“You haven’t answered,” it said. “What?” “Shall we tell them they can come back to us?” “No. And don’t be too obvious about helping them get away either. Let them decide for themselves what they’ll do. Otherwise people who decide later to come back will seem to be obeying you, betraying their humanity for you. That could get them killed. You won’t get many back, anyway. Some will think the human species deserves at least a clean death.” “Is it an unclean thing that we want, Lilith?” “Yes!” “Is it an unclean thing that I have made you pregnant?” She did not understand the words at first. It was as though it had begun speaking a language she did not know. “You … what?” “I have made you pregnant with Joseph’s child. I wouldn’t have done it so soon, but I wanted to use his seed, not a print. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“It won’t be a daughter.” She pulled again at her arms, but it would not let her go. “It will be a thing—not human.” She stared down at her own body in horror. “It’s inside me, and it isn’t human!” 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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“But it won’t be human,” she whispered. “It will be a thing. A monster.” “You shouldn’t begin to lie to yourself. It’s a deadly habit. The child will be yours and Joseph’s. Ahajas’ and Dichaan’s. And because I’ve mixed it, shaped it, seen that it will be beautiful and without deadly conflicts, it will be mine. It will be my first child, Lilith. First to be born, at least. 
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Dawn: 1 (The Xenogenesis Trilogy) (Octavia E. Butler)
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Our children won’t destroy themselves in a war, and if they need to regrow a limb or to change themselves in some other way they’ll be able to do it. And there will be other benefits.” “But they won’t be human,” Lilith said. “That’s what matters. You can’t understand, but that is what matters.” Its tentacles knotted. “The child inside you matters.” 
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Resources

http://biology.kenyon.edu/slonc/books/butler1.html