Nikanj rouses itself to tell them that they had to wipe that memory from the humans' brains because those who kept it were too hard to control.

However, after several failed attempts to begin The Parable of the Trickster, she decided to stop work in the series. This gives her the ability to roam relatively freely throughout the ship and serve herself food whenever she is hungry. By then, her books had been translated into 10 languages, selling more than 1 million copies altogether.But Lilith and all humanity must now share the world with uncanny, unimaginably alien creatures: their own children.

In particular, the ooloi seem to have more power, even though the Oankali claim they are not hierarchical. Upon Awaking, Curt asks who is in charge; Lilith responds that she is but that she is a prisoner just as much as the rest of them. At once a coming-of-age story, science fiction adventure, and philosophical exploration, Butler’s ambitious and breathtaking novel ultimately raises the question of what it means to be human. In "Near of Kin", the protagonist discovers a taboo relationship in her family as she goes through her mother's things after her death.Finally, as Nikanj undergoes its metamorphosis, Kahguyaht surprisingly gives Lilith tools for writing and books to read. The only survivor of a vicious attack on her families that left her an amnesiac, she must seek justice for her dead, build a new family, and relearn how to be an Ina. Nikanj tells Lilith that it wants her to live and is worried about the growing hostility towards her among the others. Nikanj tells her that it will remember that and Lilith feels like she has finally communicated something important to Nikanj. Even though the Oankali have–against their better judgment–created a human colony on Mars so that humanity as a species can continue unaltered, many human “resisters” either have not heard of the Mars colony or don’t believe the Oankali will allow them to live there.

For example, when it comes to the procedure that will alter her memory, Lilith is only given two limited choices: let Nikanj perform the procedure or wait until Kahguyaht surprises her with it at a later date.She believes that Paul acted the way he did when he was alone with her because "'he has no one to teach him to be a man'" among the Oankali (99). Like Lilith when she first interacted with one of these plants in "Family," Tate puts her hand into the plant and is afraid when it won't let her go. She is not given the ability to move freely through the entire ship, but their entire living quarters are open to her now. In "Amnesty", an alien abductee recounts her painful abuse at the hand of the unwitting aliens, and upon her release, by humans, and explains why she chose to work as a translator for the aliens now that the Earth's economy is in a deep depression.