Survivor (15 page)

"Well, get on with it," I said. "You are an animal and you want to mate. Mate then."

His coloring whitened. "People kept coming to me telling me that you were a fighter."

"I am a thing. A thing that you have become curious about. Satisfy your curiosity."

He took me by the shoulder and led me back into the bedroom to the bed. I lay down among the furs waiting for him, not looking at him.

Nothing happened.

After a while, I looked at him, saw that he had sat down on the edge of the bed and was watching me. He spoke quietly.

"It is a custom among the Garkohn to capture Tehkohn fighters and force them to eat meklah."

I frowned, wondering what that had to do with anything.

"Sometimes my fighters starve themselves, refusing to trust any food offered them. Sometimes the Garkohn let them starve themselves to death. Other times though, it's more amusing to the Garkohn to wait until my fighters are weak, and then force meklah down their throats."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because your behavior with me is much like the behavior of my captured fighters. When they are forced to give in, they continue to speak arrogantly, challengingly. When they can no longer fight with their bodies, they continue to fight with words."

"What else can they do?"

"Nonfighters submit at once. Abjectly."

I sat up looking at him. "Garkohn humiliate Tehkohn because the two are enemies. Why do you humiliate me?"

"There need be no humiliation in this for you, Alanna. I am the leader of my people." He paused for a moment, then flashed white blindingly. "And you have distinguished yourself. You are the only woman ever to try to refuse me."

And he flashed white on that. It amused him.

"What do you want of me?" I asked. "Only the night?"

"Many nights. And many days. I'll continue your teaching—help you live as a fighter among us. As I have said, you will be Tehkohn when you leave me. Tehkohn, and your own person, not dependent on others to guide or guard you."

I frowned, re-evaluating him in spite of myself. "I will be free? It will be as though I had some blue in my coloring?"

"Yes."

Watching him, I suddenly realized that if he closed his eyes, they would probably vanish entirely. As it was, he seemed to look through slanted holes in thick fur. "You should have told me that before," I said. "That I would be free, I mean."

He hesitated. "It was what I had planned for you but I was not certain that it was what you wanted, that it would calm you."

I said nothing. I was calmer now because I was able to control my reaction to his appearance, but there was no need to tell him that.

"And anyway," he said, whitening, "I have never bargained for a mate before. I had to find my way." He pulled me back on the bed, clearly ready now to see how good a bargain he had made.

He covered me with the thick, very soft blanket of his fur and hurt me as he forced his way into my body, an intruder too large and much unwelcome. Alien as we were to each other, he must have been able to read my pain in my expression.

"I always give pain before I give pleasure," he said. "Your body will accustom itself to me."

And if it didn't, that was my problem. I put my teeth together and closed my eyes and waited for it to be over. He startled me once, bit me just at the throat. Not hard, not painfully, but he let me feel his teeth more than I would have preferred. I was surprised enough to grab a handful of his head fur to pull his head away. But in doing that, I looked at him and saw that his body had gone luminescent white. He continued to bite me, but more gently.

I let go of his fur, smoothed it unnecessarily. Left alone, it would smooth itself but I found it pleasant to touch. His one good feature.

"You like my fur," he said later as we lay together, side by side.

"To touch," I said. "It's good to touch."

He took one of my hands and put it into his mane. I felt the fur, the flesh beneath. There was a neck there, completely hidden. And broad as the shoulders were, they were not as broad as they looked.

"I find your smoothness pleasing too," he said. "Good to touch." He began to whiten a little and I realized that my hand exploring his mane was giving him pleasure. He closed his eyes—and they did vanish. There was no sign in what seemed now an even surface of fur that he had ever had eyes. Not even a slight indentation. I shuddered and put my head against his shoulder so that I would not have to look at him. I could get used to his strangeness. I was already getting used to it. But there were some things about him that would probably always be alien to me.

On the second night of Jules's withdrawal, Diut returned to the Mission colony.

Alanna had spent most of the day sitting with Jules. He was in pain now, perspiring, vomiting, tossing. But at that, Neila said he was having an easier time than Alanna had had. Still, Nathan wanted someone with him at all times. Alanna had not minded the duty. Neila had her regular housework to do. Alanna had broken her watch only to take food to the Tehkohn prisoners. Finally, though, Neila had relieved her and sent her off to bed.

She went to her room sleepily, carrying a lamp and feeling strangely alone now that she was cut off from the sounds of Jules's suffering. As much as she hated to see him in pain, she realized that it was easier to be with him and be able to see for herself that he was still alive.

She put her lamp on the chest near her bed and turned to close the door. Not until it was closed did she realize that she was not alone in the room. She froze, ceasing even to breathe, every sense alert to pinpoint the direction from which the first warning sound had come.

Somewhere in the shadows, Diut said her name.

She identified the voice and the direction from which it came in the same instant and turned just in time to see him materialize from a wall.

She crossed the room to him quickly in silent relief and joy. He caught her by the shoulders and looked at her for a moment, holding her away from him. Then she struggled free of his hands and buried herself in his fur.

Mentally, she gave him all her trouble—her heavy responsibility to the colony, the doubted loyalties, the Garkohn danger. Let him hold them for a while. He was accustomed to such things. It was only a game played within her own mind, but she felt as though she had shed a great weight, as though she could relax completely for the first time since her return to the settlement.

She spoke finally, softly. "You've been home?"

"Yes."

She drew back from him now, waiting. They sat down together on the bed.

"The defeat was bad," he said, "but not as bad as it first seemed. The escape passages were created to be overlooked by invaders. Most of them were."

She nodded, remembering that she had fled into one of these passages herself when Garkohn invaded the dwelling. She had run to the inner apartments where the young children were left in the care of artisan families. But somehow, despite the deliberately confusing maze of corridors, the Garkohn had gotten there ahead of her and it was too late.

As though responding to her thoughts, Diut said, "The people waited until I returned to hold the ceremony for Tien."

She looked at him but he would not meet her eyes.

"Our trade families had already painted her," he continued softly. "Blue. A good blue. All who were left alive came to see her. Even the injured."

She lowered her head, eyes closed. She had not meant to cry again. She had shed no tears since her first night with Jules on the trail back to the settlement. Jules had thought then that she cried with relief at her rescue.

But now she found herself weeping soundlessly against Diut. She was glad that she had not been able to attend the Tehkohn funeral rites. The Kohn had no concept of life after death and such rites were held solely for the benefit of the living. The dead were judged by those likely to know the best and worst sides of their character, the families with whom they traded—families from clans other than their own. If a hunter was lazy or dishonest, no one knew it better than the farmer with whom he traded. Thus the trade families judged and gave honor or dishonor through the color of the dye they used to cover the mottled yellow of death. The reputation of the surviving blood family could be helped or injured by one of these judgments. But of course, Diut's infant child would be painted blue to honor Diut. It would not be the unique Hao blue, but the trade families would approximate it as closely as they could. And Diut said they had done well. The funeral would have been a time to show pride in the honor done. Expression of grief was a private thing—one of the few private things in Kohn life.

Diut held her until her spasm of weeping passed. He spoke no words of comfort, but in the Kohn way, he allowed his coloring to fade to the rare gray of grief and mourning. The color, like the emotion it symbolized, was a private thing. It was an admission not only of inner pain, but of helplessness and human vulnerability. A Hao was the personification of Kohn power, a being who must show only strength before his people. But now, alone with one who shared his pain, he was free to admit his own vulnerability, free to let Alanna know that she did not grieve alone. To her, his coloring said as much as words could have from a Missionary man, and she had long ago realized that she preferred the silent Kohn ways to the Missionary groping for words.

After a while, she regained control and ceased crying. She knew that Diut had other things to tell her, and that for the sake of the settlement, she had to compose herself and listen.

"You have made plans while you were away," she said. "Tell me my part in them."

His coloring slowly returned to normal. He gave her a long quiet look. "I have heard that your father is in withdrawal."

"So. I was with him all day. My mother is with him now."

"Only your father? No others?"

She shrugged. "Me. I have withdrawn."

"I know of that." He touched her throat briefly. "It is harder to break away without the ceremony. I knew what I asked of you. But I believed that you were strong enough to do it."

She accepted this as the combined apology and compliment that it was and acknowledged it with a nod.

"How is your father?"

"Well. We may have found a Missionary counterpart for the returning ceremony." She told him briefly of the experiment with hypnosis. He seemed to understand.

"Verrick tests this way then. But if it works as he hopes, will he order other Missionaries to use it now or will he wait until he has moved them north?"

Alanna thought for a moment, realized that though she had not considered the question before, she knew what the answer had to be. "I think he will wait, because of Natahk. I think he will not want the people exposed to Natahk's anger—as he will be exposed himself s" She told him of Natahk's recent arrogance and its cause. By the time she finished, he had yellowed slightly.

"Verrick must choose his own way," he said. "But if he waits as you say, the Missionaries will be able to carry little more than the supply of meklah that they will need when they leave. Meklah enough for the trip over the mountains and enough to last until they find a place to settle again. They will have to abandon many more of their possessions to the Garkohn than should be necessary."

Alanna knew he was right, but then, so was Jules in his way. She said nothing.

Diut changed the subject abruptly. "Have you been able to see the captives yet?"

She told him of her visits to the prisoners, of how they had at first refused to eat. That brought more yellow to his coloring.

"And do they all eat now? Has Cheah satisfied them?"

"Most ate today. Tomorrow, I think they will all eat."

"Then you know how careful you must be. Once their Garkohn guards see that they are all eating, they might decide to tamper with the food whether Natahk has ordered it or not. And he probably has. Deception is easier and safer than force."

"When will you free them?" she asked.

He thought about it. "I would have done it tonight, had you not managed to get food to them. But now… They will be better able to co-operate with their rescuers when they have all eaten. Also, it would be better if I gave Verrick time to finish his withdrawal. He will need his strength to face the Garkohn when Natahk learns of the escape." He paused for a moment. "I will wait three days more."

She felt cold suddenly as she realized that by feeding the prisoners, she had probably saved Jules's life. If Natahk lost his prisoners and found the leader of his captive Missionaries in the process of breaking free of the meklah, he might be angry enough to kill. But in three more days, Jules would surely be through his withdrawal. Perhaps he would even be strong enough to pretend that the withdrawal had not taken place. At least, he would be strong enough to face Natahk. Alanna had made it possible for Diut to give him that much. Now if only Diut could give him the other thing that he and the Missionaries needed so desperately: A new start.

"How will it be for them in the north?" she asked. "Very bad?"

"Drier," he said. "Colder. They will live if they want life badly enough."

"But there are no people there?"

"None."

"They will live then." She meant it. The Missionaries were resourceful and their Mission drove them. They could win a struggle against the elements as they and their ancestors had won many such struggles on Earth. Here, as on Earth, it was the struggle against more numerous other peoples that had stopped them.

Diut looked at her. "If Verrick wishes it, I will send a few Tehkohn with him to teach him the best ways of living there."

She did not have to think to realize that such help could save many lives. She lifted her hand in quick gratitude to lose it in the fur of his throat. He covered it for a moment with his own.

"I did not know how you would greet me when I came here tonight," he said softly.

She looked at him, startled.

"I wondered whether you would relearn your old way of seeing me, as a distortion of what should be. I looked at you with your Missionaries and tried to see you as one of them."