Survivor (22 page)

Gehl opened the front door and came in.

Quickly, but seemingly casually, Natahk dropped his hand to his side. Knocking was not a Garkohn custom and Jules and Neila usually kept their door latched to avoid the most obvious intruders. But with all the recent coming and going, the latch had been left off. The Garkohn woman stood staring at Natahk and Alanna, noting, Alanna was certain, how close Natahk stood, and how Alanna had not moved away. Natahk had been bragging about his rank. Now Alanna remembered Gehl's. She too had fought her way up, killing those who opposed her. Natahk himself held the only authority she accepted.

Eyes downcast, Alanna stepped away from Natahk. She could not yellow as another Kohn would have, but she hoped Gehl would understand. Alanna felt no shame at giving way. With her incomplete training, she was not ready to face such an opponent even if she had considered Natahk a prize worth righting for—which she did not.

Gehl could have him. In fact, as insurance against a possible future, Alanna hoped the huntress became pregnant.

Gehl spoke to Natahk. "There is trouble outside. Come out."

"Trouble with the Missionaries? I told you…"

"Not with them. Come out."

Natahk went to the door, then stopped as he noticed that Gehl remained behind. She was looking at Alanna. Natahk called her name once, sharply, then waited while she went out before him. When only Alanna could see him, he whitened considerably with amusement. He glanced at Alanna, then followed Gehl out the door, his coloring settling to normal.

After a moment, Alanna went to the door and looked out. There were a few Missionaries gathered on the common with bundles tied in blankets and handcarts haphazardly loaded. And a few Garkohn stood with them guarding them. But everyone's attention was on the scene at the gate where several more Garkohn were gathered. Alanna could see that three of these were spattered with red paint, or with blood. And one of them sat on the ground, half propped up against the wall. This one seemed to be unconscious. And it was this one that Alanna recognized. He was one of those who had left with the load of Missionary weapons. The others were also from the weapons party. What was left of the weapons party.

Alanna withdrew back into the house, smiling grimly. Jules and Neila came in and she startled them by hugging them in sudden exuberant relief. Diut had not done the expected thing—had not taken his raiders and ex-prisoners and gone home to celebrate his successful raid. Perhaps it was nothing more than Alanna's stubbornness and his concern for her that had kept him in the valley, but Alanna thought otherwise. He had his people back now, and the Garkohn could not threaten him. He was ready to move.

Diut

I had decided to make Alanna a judge. She had just the right combination of speed and strength to hold her own among my judges and she was learning quickly. I trained her intensively because the time was near when I would break with her. I had first thought to keep her for only a season and thus make her acceptable to any others she might choose to mate with. Before I had her, I thought a season would be enough. Especially since she fought against coming to me at all.

But she and I found far more pleasure in each other than I had expected. We came to know each other first by touch, as blind people finding beauty with our hands that we could not see with our eyes. Her skin was smooth and firm, and yet soft. Very good to touch. And her hands seemed to wander by themselves through my fur. But there were times when I looked at her starkly naked ill-colored body and wondered how I could want to touch it. And her eyes were wrong-poorly protected and too round. She said they were more narrow than any of the Missionaries she had left in the Garkohn valley, but still they were too round to be pleasing. Her nose was too large. I asked her once whether it would be considered large among her people and she was offended. "It is very ordinary," she said. And then added, "Some Missionaries think the Kohn have no noses."

I let white into my coloring and seized her by her huge nose until she threatened to pull out a handful of my fur.

She taught me the caress called a "kiss" among her people, and then complained that I had no "lips" to kiss. It was not a caress any Kohn people would enjoy anyway. There was not enough to it. A joining of mouths, a thrust of tongues. That was all. It could not be felt as biting could. She learned to caress me as I preferred and I was pleased. I sought to please her.

The season went by. The second planting was harvested and stored. My hunters went out to get as much meat as they could now—an excess to dry and store while the game was fat and plentiful. We raided all the small high valleys that could be closed to become our game traps. The record of Alanna's kills with her bow and her arrows was impressive. Several of my judges decided to try the new weapons, though my hunters still scorned any weapon but their bodies against most animals. I was pleased with my judges' flexibility.

My healers gathered a harvest of wild herbs to ease ailments of cold and old age that grew worse when the snows fell.

And I held on to Alanna. There was still much for me to teach her, and she was teaching me the language of her people. I knew I would have to deal with them someday. She was learning not only to fight, but to read the light speech that we used to signal each other through the mountains. We signaled warnings of raiders, of dangerous animals or good hunting, of places along the slopes that were not safe, and of other things. Light speech was difficult for Alanna to learn, especially at first, but her life would be safer when she understood it. As the snows came, and we were inside more, I spent much time teaching her. It was a pleasurable thing to do. Too much that had to do with her had become pleasurable. I realized that I was becoming too attached to her, and she to me. I promised myself I would let her go soon.

When she began to change, I thought it was because she sensed the nearness of our separation. I gave her no comfort because it was important to me to see how she handled her feelings alone. Her actions now would tell me whether or not I would ask her to come to me again after a few seasons. My cousin Kehyo had taught me that I should not ask a woman to come to me more than once if she could not control her feelings.

Alanna grew nervous. She watched me closely when she thought I did not see. She seemed to withdraw into herself and I could sense fear in her. Fear of parting?

I had already decided which apartment in the fighter section that I would give her, when she finally opened to me—told me what any other would have told me long before. And even on the night she told me, she was hesitant and evasive.

"Am I still ugly to you?" she asked. "Do you still see me as you did when we first came together?" It had been a long time since either of us mentioned such nonsense—back when she complained in jest that I had no lips. But she was serious now. Far more serious than she should have been over such a question. I refused to match her mood.

"How do you see me?" I asked, pulling her closer.

She lay silent by my side.

"Why are you afraid?" I asked.

"Because I think I've come to accept you more than you have me."

"We have only a liaison, Alanna."

"No."

"No?" I turned my head slightly to look at her. "What more can there be for us?"

"A marriage… if you can accept a marriage with me."

I sat up, controlling my annoyance. "Alanna, I have lost count of the number of my liaisons. Do you think I am without a wife, without children by choice?"

She said nothing, only watched me.

"How can I have a child with you when I have failed with so many Tehkohn women?"

"I don't know," she said. "Our two peoples must not be as different as I thought."

I looked down at her, suddenly confused. I could feel my body go iridescent. "What are you saying?"

"That I'm going to have a child, Diut. And it cannot be any harder for you to believe than it was for me."

For a moment, I could not speak. When the words did come, my own voice sounded strange to me. "A child? Alanna, are you… can you be certain?"

"Oh yes." She spoke with unmistakable bitterness.

"But… you are a young woman. It may be that you have made a mistake."

"Do you want it to be a mistake?"

"I mean only that you… Others of my mates have thought themselves pregnant with my child. They wanted it so badly that they…"

"That they imagined their wish had been granted, yes. There have been such women among the Missionaries too. But never once did I even imagine that it was possible for you and me to produce a child. I did not long for it because it seemed completely impossible. I only hoped that our time together could be long, and that we could come together again someday."

"I… had planned that we should, but…"

She sat up and faced me, the fear and uncertainty gone from her face. She appeared resigned. "You planned to give me an apartment of my own when I left you, didn't you?"

"Yes," I said, surprised.

"I'll go there then. I know our time together would have ended soon anyway. I'll stay there alone until our child is born. Then I'll come back to you if you want me, or I'll stay there if you don't."

I could see both her certainty and her sadness, and almost against my will, I began to doubt. I knew I was hurting her. She was not the first woman I had hurt this way, but it was necessary. All my other mates had been wrong. I was afraid to believe her. Yet she was not the kind of woman who made stories within her mind and then acted as though the stories were true. Different as she was, she had shown herself to be worthy of my trust. Now, suddenly, I found myself striving to trust her. How many years had I thought myself to be flawed in the Hao way, unable to do what my yellowest artisan could do-unable to father a child.

"When did you first know of the child?" I asked quietly.

"Supposed child," she said bitterly. "Imaginary child."

"Alanna!"

She sighed. "Since shortly after the gathering at Kehyo's apartment. I waited to tell you because at first I didn't believe it myself. I waited to be sure."

At once my suspicions increased. Kehyo had insulted Alanna that night. Might Alanna not now be trying to best Kehyo by doing what Kehyo could not—having my child? I knew that Tahneh had told Alanna about Kehyo. I spoke my thought as gently as I could. When I had finished, even someone who had never known a member of Alanna's race could have read her anger.

"Show me where the new apartment is," she said. "I'll go there now. I can't listen to any more of this." She started to rise to her feet. I pulled her down again.

"You will listen. There is a decision for you to make. I will be guided by you."

Some of her anger gave way to curiosity. "What decision?"

"Whether we will have a gathering of our own. Whether we will announce to our friends—who will surely tell everyone—that you are going to have a child."

Her too-round eyes grew rounder. "So? You believe me?"

"I believe that you believe. And in the time we have been together, I have seen little foolishness in you."

She stared down at her own brown leg. "I thought I was prepared for anything you might say. 'Yes, I believe.' 'No, I don't believe.' 'Yes, I want the child.' 'No, such a mixed child would be a monster.

"Choose, Alanna."

"I want the gathering! Of course I want it. It's my right. And I want more. Need more." She looked into my face. "I would rather have you send me away than give me only your grudging acceptance. 'Oh, well, she's not entirely stupid. Maybe there's a chance that she's right.' Diut, let me be alone until you can be sure."

I lay on my back and looked up at her. There was a strange beauty to her when one did not try to fit her into the Kohn image—when one did not see her as a twisted Kohn. The day I realized that I was finding beauty in her was the day I knew it was time to be rid of her. People unable to produce children quickly learn the danger of becoming too attached to any mate.

"I have had other mates who thought they carried my child, Alanna."

"So you have said."

"One was Kehyo during our second liaison."

"Yes."

"Five others come to my mind quickly."

She winced as though from a blow, and looked away from me.

"Through them all, I have not permitted the gathering. I have never before permitted the gathering."

Now her eyes came back to me, filled with surprise. "Why not?"

"The first time, Kehyo's mother came to me and said, 'Wait. Be certain before you let her announce. With another, the people would laugh if there was a mistake. Then they would forget. With you, they might not laugh, but also, they might not forget. You are Hao, but very young. Let them have as little reason as possible to doubt you.' Kehyo's mother. My own mother was long dead. For that one piece of advice, I kept friendship with Kehyo's mother until she died. She was a wise woman. And, of course, Kehyo had no child until long after she had gone to Kahlahtkai."

"You kept her with you after her mother talked to you?"

"For two more seasons. I wanted a child by her very badly. And when she left me, she stayed alone for a time to be certain."

"And now… if I prove to be wrong, you will be shamed before the people."

I said nothing.

"We will wait until you are as certain as I am. Then we will have the gathering."

"I said I would be guided by you."

"So." I could feel her dissatisfaction.

"And instead, I have guided you." I pulled her down beside me and felt her move close. "I will go on guiding you then. Choose the friends you want to gather with you and tell them to come tomorrow. Tell them why if you like, or wait and I'll tell them myself when they are together."

She lifted herself on one elbow to look down at me. "Be careful what you say, Diut."

"So?"

"I'll do it. I'll even leave you to say the words."

"Well." I felt white come into my coloring. "At least you have learned to obey."

Natahk was gone. He had made a great show of gathering his fighters—all of them—and leaving the settlement. He had also made a show of shouting his anger at the Missionaries, blaming them for his weapons party's demise. He had promised ominously that he would deal with them as soon as he had dealt with the invading Tehkohn. Alanna had watched him carefully and decided that he was lying.