Survivor (21 page)

"Have I? Do you understand that you have already earned this punishment—you and your daughter?"

Jules said nothing, sat very straight, waiting.

"Perhaps you were ignorant of the possible consequences of your betrayal, but you can see that Alanna was not. And I have no doubt that whatever contact you had with the Tehkohn was arranged through her."

Alarmed, Jules cut him off. "Now just a moment, Natahk—"

"Be still!" Natahk did not raise his voice but Jules fell silent as though he had shouted. "She does not deny it. Why should you?"

Jules looked at Alanna and she looked back expressionlessly.

Natahk went on. "Your lives are mine. Only I can save them. Only I can deny justice to the twelve families who lost kinsmen last night."

Jules watched him closely. "You intend to do this then. And this talk of torture is only to frighten us."

"It is to warn you, Verrick. I will intercede for you now, but I will not do it again. And even now, I expect to be paid for the protection that I give. I expect you to accept yourselves as Garkohn, and then turn and help your people to do the same. I want your word that you will do this."

"You want too much," said Jules.

"So? Even in exchange for your life?"

"Shall I give you my word that I'll betray my people in exchange for my life? Would you believe me?"

Natahk whitened slightly. "What bargain shall we make then, Verrick? What will you give me in exchange for your life?"

Jules watched him silently for several seconds. "Nothing," he said finally. "I'll go on doing what I have to do. I can't promise anyone more than that."

The white went out of Natahk's body and his normal green glowed with the intensity of his emotions. "You choose death then?"

Jules tensed. "If that's the only alternative."

Natahk stared at him for several seconds. Then he smiled. "I have heard Alanna speak this way. She was lying. I think you are lying too."

Jules shrugged.

"You Missionaries find it very easy to say you would rather die than do this or that. But you won't die, Verrick. And you will learn, to obey me. Because each time you disobey, I will kill one of your people."

"What!"

"I will begin with Alanna."

Jules turned to look at Alanna.

"Relations between us were much simpler before she was returned to you," said Natahk. "Without her, they will become simple again. And you, remembering her, will become much more tractable."

Neila came out of the bedroom where she had obviously been listening, and stood staring first at Natahk, then at Jules. Alanna watched them all as though nothing they said had anything to do with her. Jules was bluffing, feeling himself too valuable to be casually murdered. Natahk was bluffing. He might kill others, but he had no intention of killing Alanna. Not yet. Jules was trying to salvage pride, and Natahk was trying to intimidate. A game then. One miscalculation from either of them, and the people would be destroyed because of the outcome of a game.

"Jules…" said Neila softly.

Jules glanced at her.

"You can't let him…" She went to stand beside Alanna, put an arm around her protectively.

"You won't do it," said Jules to Natahk. "You won't kill my daughter and then expect me to co-operate with you."

Natahk stood up, stepped toward Alanna, and Alanna deliberately entered the game on Natahk's side. She stood quickly, as though frightened, and moved so that her chair was between herself and Natahk.

"Jules!" cried Neila once more.

"All right!" Jules was on his feet. "Stop!" For his daughter, for his pleading wife, he could do what he refused to do for himself.

Natahk stopped, looked at him.

"I'll do as you say. Leave them alone."

"What will you do?"

"I'll… I'll try to guide my people in the way you want, help them to accept their new lives… and you."

"You don't believe what you're saying," said Natahk. "But your saying it is a beginning. You will say it again, and again. You will act as though it was true in order to deceive me. You will deceive yourself instead. Your lie will become truth. You and your people are mine, Verrick."

Jules said nothing.

"In time," said Natahk more softly, "you will realize that there is no shame in your submission. I don't rule this valley through weakness. And all who live here submit to me in one way or another."

Still, Jules was silent.

Watching him, Natahk whitened slowly, then just as slowly settled back to his normal green. "You are First Missionary then, Verrick. Go out to your people and see that no more of them throw their lives away. Take your wife with you. I want to speak privately with Alanna."

Alanna had not thought anything could bring Jules's resistance back so quickly.

"You want to… My God, Natahk, haven't you done enough? Can't you leave us any peace at all?"

"I want only to speak with her, Verrick. I won't harm her as long as you obey me."

Alanna spoke up quickly. "Jules, it's all right. I'm not afraid." She was, but her fear was for him. "Go, please. I'll be all right."

Jules stared at her with such a strange mixture of anger and concern that she was confused and silenced.

"My daughter?" he said to Natahk. "My house? You leave me no rights at all, do you, First Hunter?"

"The right to live your life with your family in peace, as long as you obey me. Go."

Alanna spoke up again. "Please, Jules. Go."

Jules looked from Natahk to Alanna, and finally to Neila. He gestured Neila to him, but she hesitated.

"Go," said Alanna urgently. "Don't let me be the cause of your getting hurt."

Neila went to Jules and they left the house together. Alanna looked after them sadly. Then she heard Natahk sit down again and she turned to face him. "You are destroying him."

"If he cannot change, he will be destroyed. He knows that."

Alanna sighed and sat down. "What do you want of me, Natahk?"

"A narrative. Reasonably detailed, true."

It was what she had expected—what he had promised her days before. She relaxed a little. "Where shall I begin?"

"With your capture."

She obeyed, telling her story easily, altering only those facts that would indicate that her husband was something more than a judge.

Natahk questioned her from time to time, but for the most part, he listened. She did not know how much he believed, did not care. She kept to the truth as much as she could because her story was so long. She wanted to be able to tell it over in the same way as many times as Natahk might wish without having to struggle to remember too many lies. But surprisingly, Natahk seemed content with one telling.

"Why are you still here?" he asked when she had finished. "You could have left with the prisoners—should have left with them."

She looked at him, startled. "Should have?"

"If you intended to rejoin your husband. It was your last chance."

She shrugged.

"You do not believe me. You still expect your Tehkohn friends to help you, even though you will be on your way south before noon."

Alanna said nothing. Let him worry. She would have been busy praying herself—if she had been Missionary enough to pray.

"You ask for punishment," said Natahk. "You challenge."

"I have said nothing."

"Yes." Natahk yellowed slightly. "Even your silences challenge. Why did you stay, Alanna?"

"To help my people."

"Which group?"

"The Missionaries. Do you think the Tehkohn need my help?"

"And what is it you want to help them do?"

"Live. In spite of your goading. In spite of their beliefs."

"That is a fragment of truth. Now tell me the rest."

"I… hoped to free them from the meklah."

"Why? The meklah does no harm as long as it is eaten regularly."

"And it does no good. Do you not withhold it to torture your captive Missionaries?"

"We withhold it until they obey-and they learn to obey very quickly. But are you less vulnerable to me because you are free of the meklah? Was your father?"

She did not answer.

"You planned for the Missionaries to leave the valley," he accused. "It is the only answer. But where were they to go?"

The truth? No. But what lie was possible? "I don't know."

He stood and came to face her. "I have not wanted to beat you."

She did not have to pretend fear. "When Jules talked with the Tehkohn Hao, Diut promised to move the Missionaries to a place of safety if they co-operated. And he promised to have them all killed if they refused."

Natahk stared at her, unbelieving. "Are you saying that he did nothing more than threaten, and Verrick believed?"

"Yes."

"Even though Diut was Verrick's prisoner at the time?"

Alanna manufactured cold anger. "And was he really a prisoner, First Hunter—yours or ours—when you forbade the Missionaries to paint him? When your own people obeyed him? Perhaps you would have believed his threats too if you had ever dared go near enough to him to hear him speak!"

She thought he would hit her. In fact, she expected him to hit her. She feared his strength less than she feared his questions now. But he only stood watching her. "You sided with the blue one, counseled your father to accept his word."

Again, she did not feel that an answer was necessary.

"Even so, that should not have been enough. There is something missing. Something to do with your husband perhaps?"

"You know Jules doesn't know about him." She forced a note of bitterness into her voice. "And he's out of favor with Diut—because of me. I only wish he did have enough influence to help."

Natahk made a sound of disgust. "Somehow, you are lying. You are worthless. Gehl was right. She said it would be better to kill you."

Had she? Then somehow Gehl too had noticed what Alanna could not help noticing. Natahk had b2en careless. But at least now, Alanna knew how to stop his questions. She looked at him calmly. "You are not going to kill me."

He stared back at her for a moment without speaking. "So you realize that." He whitened slightly. ''We will speak of it then, in a moment. Were the Missionaries to be taken to the mountain dwelling?"

The question did not take her by surprise, but she chose to pretend that it had. She hesitated as though nervous, then answered, "I don't know."

"Don't you?" His voice was comfortingly filled with suspicion. "And what use could the Tehkohn have for a tribe of your kind?"

She feigned annoyance. "Why bother to ask me questions if you're not going to believe my answers?"

His coloring became iridescent, flecks of yellow glinting within the green. Doubt. "You are a worthy enemy, Alanna, with your half truths and your lies. It will be interesting to reshape you and make you less of an enemy."

"That, you will never do." Deliberate challenge. But now was the time for it.

His iridescence faded to white. "Did I not say that all in this valley submitted to me? You will see. What was the name of your husband?"

"Natahk…" She shook her head. "Would you have me invent a name and give it to you?"

"I would have you obey me and answer my questions!"

"Yahnoh is my husband."

Natahk lifted his head slightly. "I know of a Tehkohn judge called Yahnoh."

"Of course. My husband."

"'Of course,'" he mimicked. "I think I will give you a meklah fruit to swallow back your next lie with."

Frightened, Alanna said nothing. The risk had always been there. She might have to undergo a third withdrawal. But she was not weak or sick now. She would not sell either group of her people to avoid readdiction—any more than Jules had.

But Natahk's mood seemed to change. His anger faded and he moved closer to her. As he spoke he touched her throat lightly. "And even with that threat, I will not stop you from lying or counseling your Missionaries to side with the Tehkohn. But soon I will stop them from listening to you. I wonder if the Tehkohn have really found some use for them. Or if they only planned to kill them."

Alanna pulled away from the caressing fingers in disgust and stood up. At least he was diverted from his questioning.

"Be still," he said quietly. He touched her again. "Am I so different from your husband? After all, judge that he is, even he is not the leader of his people."

"He's my husband. What more does he have to be than that to bar your way?"

"A Tehkohn marriage means nothing to us."

She frowned at him. He was more right than he knew about one thing. He sounded far too much like Diut—like the Diut who had demanded a liaison with her such a short time ago. But Diut had changed, had allowed her to mold him as he molded her. And Diut was trying to help the Missionaries while Natahk was endangering them.

"Why should you want me?" she asked him. "You have Gehl now. You could have any other without trouble."

"You must become part of the tie," he said. "That will turn your people away from you so that you can no longer counsel them against me—also, it will protect you from their foolish customs. My only other choice would be to kill you and I don't want to do that. We're much alike, Alanna, you and I. I risk the anger of my hunters by saving and tying in with the Missionaries because I can see that in spite of the Missionaries' weakness, their knowledge will strengthen us. And you risk the anger, the savagery, of your people as you try to save them from me."

Another parallel. He was right, of course. However much she hated him, she and Natahk had similar goals—they worked for the good of their respective peoples. But they were not as alike as he wished. "I will not accept a liaison with you," she said.

"So? Shall I give you to another hunter? Or perhaps several other hunters until one of them becomes your husband."

"Why should you choose my mate? That is not the custom."

"But you have no blue." He smiled. "The power of the blue is a lie. My people believe it. I only use it. I killed a hunter and huntress bluer than myself to become First Hunter." He clasped her throat between thumb and fingers, deliberately intimate. "And now, I will have the wife of a man blue enough to be called a judge—but not blue enough to stop me!"