Survivor (2 page)

Alanna looked at him with Tehkohn-trained eyes. At once, she detected the slight brightening of his coloring—lighter toward white. That was the only sign he gave of his triumph, his success at tricking her into confirming his suspicions. And he was not used to Missionaries reading such small signs. He seemed to think he was still adequately maintaining his facade of solemnity and concern. He had tricked her so easily. Now he sat waiting to do it again.

"Do you know how my daughter died?" she asked. She kept her voice low and calm.

"I was told that a Tehkohn huntress killed her to keep her from being taken by my hunters."

"So." She switched abruptly to Tehkohn, allowing her anger to show. It made no difference now. The Garkohn was already well aware of which side she had to be on. "One of your hunters fed her from his bag of meklah poison while several Tehkohn were forced to watch. He did it so that he could enjoy their reactions; I was there. It is only because the Tehkohn broke ranks so quickly to tear him apart that your hunters had no time to notice my reaction. By the time your hunters had killed some of the Tehkohn and restored order, a Tehkohn huntress had killed my child." Alanna stared at him in silence for a moment, then continued bitterly. "Do you know that I understand what she did, First Hunter? Do you know that I am grateful to her for saving my child from the life that meklah addiction would have condemned her to—the life of a Garkohn!" She made the name an obscenity.

But she was lying. Tien's life meant more to her than any tribal feud, more than any personal prejudice. She would rather have had her daughter alive even addicted to meklah, and thus confined to the valley. But Natahk did not know that. He would believe her, and he would know that he could never again use Tien's death as a tool to pry information from her. That was all Alanna wanted.

She started to rise to leave him and he caught her arm in a thick, powerful, short-fingered hand. His grip was loose, however, only warning.

"I'm not finished, Alanna."

She looked at his hand, then at him. "The Missionaries may not be able to hear us at this distance, Natahk, but they can see us well enough."

He released her arm and again she started to leave.

"Sit still!"

She was stopped by his tone rather than his words. She looked at him and saw that his coloring had taken on more yellow with his anger. He spoke again.

"You will talk to me now, or I will have my hunters take you from the Mission settlement and bring you to me later."

Slowly, stunned, she sat back down. He meant it. She was alerted now; he would not deceive her again. But he had already goaded her into admitting that she was his enemy, and he would treat her as an enemy. He knew the Missionaries well enough to realize that she could not afford to have them learn that she had accepted a Tehkohn man, borne a "subhuman" child. Exodus 22:19: "Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death." Such a sin could turn even Jules and Neila Verrick against her. Thus, Natahk felt free to threaten her, and to carry out his threat if she made it necessary. She would be in no position to complain.

"So," he said softly. "You understand." And he leaned back, looked at her curiously, appraisingly, letting her know the subject of his next words before he spoke them. Her husband…

"I try to imagine what kind of Tehkohn man would accept you in a liaison," he said. "And how such a man might feel when he learned that you carried his child and the liaison had become a marriage. Which clan does your husband belong to?"

"He's a judge." She was careful to say the words with the proper amount of pride and disdain. Judges were, among other things, lawgivers, advisers to rulers, and sometimes, rulers themselves. The judge blue-green could have accounted for the lack of yellow in Tien's coloring. It did not, but it could have.

"A judge." Natahk seemed to believe her. "We have captured four judges, we lowly hunters. Four judges and a Hao!" He shimmered, gleefully luminescent, and turned to look at the prisoners. Most of them were half covered with a red paint made especially for shaming enemies, criminals, and prisoners of war. With prisoners, it also served to neutralize their camouflage ability. No red-painted captive, even if he escaped his captors, could hope simply to fade away into the woods. Red was too rare a color aboveground in both the mountains and the valley. No matter how well the unpainted parts of a prisoner's body blended with his background, the red blazed forth to reveal him.

"I wonder," said Natahk, "whether we have captured your husband."

"You haven't," she said shortly. Another lie—but this time, perhaps only half a lie.

"So? But I've watched you, Alanna. The way you look at the prisoners. The way you avoid looking at the prisoners. Your face shows more than fear and painful memories. Yes, I think we've captured him—or driven him into the hands of the Missionaries. Is he their one crippled judge?"

She realized peripherally that the Missionaries' lone judge must have been the one with the broken arm and the long red gash in his forehead.

"Which is it?" asked Natahk.

Alanna said nothing.

"If you have feeling for the man who fathered your child, you'll tell me. If he belongs to the Missionaries, I can speak to Verrick, perhaps make a trade. He would be safer in my hands. I know better than to kill my prisoners. The Missionaries may not." He paused, trying to read her carefully expressionless face, then went on. "In the southern end of this valley, there is another Garkohn town."

"A town of farmers," said Alanna. "I know."

"Mostly farmers, yes, and some hunters to defend against animals and raiders, and to get meat. I'm First among them too. I could make a place there for you and your husband to resume your lives together."

Alanna smiled grimly. "My husband is not a captive, hunter."

He looked doubtful. "If you are telling the truth, you may be less fortunate than you think. You may have no other chance for reunion with him."

"Reunited to live as Garkohn, our loyalties ensured by the meklah?"

"That is our way, Alanna."

"And I have said what I thought of that 'way.'"

"Oh yes. Death would be preferable." He rose to his feet. "Stand up."

She obeyed slowly, suspiciously, taking real comfort in the fact that she was still within sight of the Missionaries.

"Walk with me. I have something to show you."

She stayed where she was. Now she had reason for her fear. "Then bring it to me, Natahk."

He laid a hand on her shoulder. The companionable gesture had a meaning all its own among the Kohn. It was as much a threat as a raised club. "You will come with me now or later," he said. "It makes no difference."

She looked around desperately, not knowing what to do. Whatever he had in mind for her would no doubt be worse if she made him wait and abduct her. She could not call on the Missionaries for help. And the other who had an interest in her welfare, her husband, was in no position to help her. He should not have been a captive, probably would not be one long, but he was one now, and that meant he had problems of his own.

She told herself that Natahk would not dare do her any real harm. Hurting her would lose him the friendship of the Missionaries, and for some reason he had gone to great trouble to maintain that friendship. Surely whatever satisfaction he might get from hurting her was not worth its loss. She followed him, holding that thought.

Natahk led her by the arm as though he was afraid she might suddenly change her mind and try to go back. When she saw the heavily laden meklah tree that he was leading her toward, she did exactly that. But by then, it was too late.

She panicked, twisted away from him, ran a few steps. She was quick—easily quicker than most hunters, she knew. But Natahk was not an ordinary hunter. He caught her arm and she kicked at him.' But she was off balance. He dodged easily. He jerked her to him, twisted her arm behind her. His other arm clamped across her throat painfully, cutting off her breath.

"You're being foolish, Alanna," he said quietly. "What would you have done if you had managed to break away? Where would you go to escape me?"

She could not answer. She stood bent slightly backward against him by the pressure of his arm across her throat.

He pushed and guided her the rest of the way toward the tree, then spoke quietly into her ear. "What I intend to show you is a truth about yourself. I cannot believe that a Missionary can become Tehkohn in only two years. Now many Tehkohn would truly prefer death to the meklah. I know because I have watched them starve themselves to death when they reali/e that they cannot escape—that death is the only alternative to becoming Garkohn. But I have never seen Missionaries deliberately kill themselves for any reason." He moved his arm from hei throat and suddenly she could breathe again. As she stood gasping, she felt his hand caress her throat, now obscenely gentle. "Pick a meklah fruit and eat it, Alanna, or I will kill you."

She started to speak but he raised his hand to touch her mouth.

"Make no pleas and no outcry. Do exactly as I say, and you will live. Do anything else, and you will die. Now. Pick the fruit."

One small fruit. Only one. It seemed so harmless. Yet the Tehkohn had warned her, She had been addicted once. Even one fruit would mean readdiction.

She had watched a room full of people, Missionary and Garkohn, die very slowly in meklah withdrawal. She had not been able to watch too carefully because she had been in withdrawal herself. For days, she had been near death. She could no longer remember all that had happened to her during that time, but she remembered the pain.

Her hand seemed to reach up against her will to pick a ripe yellow fruit.

She looked at the fruit and wondered whether it would kill her this time the way it had killed the others. Because she would have to withdraw again. She would have no choice.

She bit into the fruit, found it firm and sweet, delicious against all reason. No wonder the Missionaries had welcomed it so warmly .when the Garkohn introduced them to it. It had been one of the first gifts of the Garkohn to the new colonists three years before. The Mission doctor had tested it and declared it safe to eat. No one had thought that it might not be safe to stop eating.

She finished the fruit and the Garkohn released her. She did not move, did not even turn to look at him. "When the Tehkohn come to kill you, Natahk, I hope they do it slowly. I hope they take away your meklah and let me watch."

"So?" He smiled again grotesquely. "You should use your time thinking of things that are possible. Your husband, for instance, freed and cleansed of the red stigma."

She ignored him, started to walk back to where the raiding party rested. He moved after her quickly.

"Why do you continually force me to threaten you?"

"What more do you think your threats can do?" Her voice was flat, dead. "I've told you that you don't have my husband. You can't force me to point out someone who isn't a captive. If you try, I'll choose one of your judges and claim him to please you. And you will be pleased with a lie."

She walked faster and left him behind. He did not call her again. She skirted widely around the prisoners and returned to the Missionaries, who were just preparing to resume their homeward march.

Alanna

We were busy cannibalizing the ship, clearing land, and building our cabins when I decided to learn the Garkohn language. It bothered me, frightened me to live among people I couldn't understand-especially since they were learning to understand us so quickly. To the disgust of several Missionaries, Jules not only agreed with me, but he lessened my share of the work so that I would have time to learn.

Next, I had to find a teacher. I asked around. Missionaries were often approached by Garkohn who had been ordered by their leader Natahk to learn English. Most Missionaries did not want to learn the Garkohn language, but sometimes they condescended to teach English. Industriously, the Garkohn learned. Now, I was told that there was a persistent huntress who had been living in the woods near our settlement for days trying to get someone to teach her. A Missionary man pointed her out to me.

She was sitting on the thick exposed root of a meklah tree. Such trees spread some of their roots vinelike over the ground until they found open sunlight. Then they anchored themselves to the ground and began growing into new trees—or new extensions of old trees. Aboveground, much of the valley was covered with roots as thick as the bodies of two or three men. Missionaries had blasted loose many of them. The Garkohn had watched the blasting with fascination.

Now though, the Garkohn woman I wanted to talk with was leaning back watching nothing at all. The coloring of her legs and lower torso blended into the rich yellow-brown of the wood she was sitting on so that she appeared to be growing out of it. Unconscious camouflage. Already we Missionaries had seen it too often to be surprised by it.

I walked over to the woman and when she saw me she stood up, her coloring darkening to its normal deep green. She was tall—only half a head shorter than I was—and even then I knew that because of her coloring she ranked high among her people. Her body was straight and stocky and her eyes were wary. She examined me as closely as I was examining her.

"Alanna," I said, raising my hand to my chest. "
Toh
Alanna.
Ehtoh kai
?" I had learned that much just from living around Garkohn for two of Jules's thirty-day months. On a world without a moon, Jules had decided to stay with thirty and thirty-one-day months at least for a while.

"Ah," the woman said. "
Toh
Gehl." She was silent for a moment, then said my name. "Ah-la-na?"

It was a start. I took her arm and sat down, pulling her down beside me. The Garkohn seemed always to be touching each other so I did not expect her to be offended. I was surprised, though, at the hardness of her muscle beneath her soft fur.

She caught my hand as I released her and looked at it, examined it really, seeing how much longer my fingers were than her own, bending my fingers at the joints, testing the strength of my fingernails. She brushed a furry finger over the short sparse hairs that grew out of the back of my hand.