Survivor (4 page)

But weary as she was, she saw that she was not to be left alone yet. Just before Neila shut the door, a tall Garkohn huntress slipped in fully camouflaged. Neila seemed not to see her, but Alanna saw her plainly, marveled at her carelessness. No Tehkohn would use camouflage so poorly and expect it to be successful. But clearly the Garkohn got away with it at the Mission settlement. Or they had been getting away with it. Now was the beginning of the end of that. Alanna greeted the huntress quietly.

"Gehl"

The huntress dropped her camouflage, became as visible to Neila as she had been to Alanna. Beside Alanna, Neila jumper!, nvje a quick "Oh!" of surprise.

"Alanna," murmured Gehl. This huntress had taught Alanna the Garkohn language and in return, Alanna had taught her English. Two years ago, Gehl had been a friend. Even now, with all the changes that had taken place, Alanna realized that she was glad to see the huntress. Gehl's presence, like Neila's, made the settlement seem more like home. But Gehl was Garkohn. Did she come now as persona] friend or tribal enemy.

"Your eyes are good," said Gehl in English.

"Very good," agreed Alanna.

"And you are strong—even stronger than I thought you were. In my life, I have never seen anyone return alive from Tehkohn captivity."

"Your strength was promising too," said Alanna. "What is your rank now?"

"Second, as I said it would be."

"So. And it has cost you." There was something wrong with Gehl's left eye. Alanna had not noticed it at first. Over the eye's natural deep green, there was a white film.

"It was worth the price," said Gehl.

"Can you see out of that eye?"

"No. It doesn't matter." It mattered, and Gehl knew it. Her blind eye coupled with her high position would increase the number of her challengers dramatically. And every challenger would strike at her one good eye. Sooner or later, someone would hit it. But that was Gehl's problem.

Alanna shrugged. "Are you with Natahk now?"

"We are together." She switched to Tehkohn abruptly. "Though I have been less fortunate than you."

Alanna lifted her head slightly and answered in Tehkohn. "You've already spoken to Natahk then."

"So."

"And after hearing what he had to say, you still think me fortunate?"

Gehl looked away. "No. I would not have wished you… that pain. Not even now when we must cause each other pain."

"Must we? We were friends once."

"Fighters of different tribes ask for pain when they form friendships."

The two stared at each other for a moment. Then Gehl turned and walked out of the house.

"What was all that?" asked Neila.

Alanna rubbed a hand over her face. "That was the end of a friendship."

"Because you were captured by the Tehkohn?"

"Yes. And because I survived."

"She would rather you had died?"

"I don't think so. She just can't trust me any more."

"You have an accent," said Neila softly.

Alanna turned to look at her. "Accent?"

"You speak English with an odd accent. Tehkohn, I suppose. That may be what bothered Gehl."

"I'll get rid of it as quickly as I can. It might bother people more important than Gehl." Alanna paused, looked at her foster mother with concern. "Does it bother you?"

Neila hugged her again. "Of course not. I'm so glad to have you home, nothing could bother me. Come over here. Look." She led Alanna to Alanna's old bedroom, small, clean, the bed made as though it was still in regular use. "People said, 'Why don't you turn it into a storage room now?'" Neila smiled. "And I said, 'Because I don't believe Alanna is dead. I'll believe it when our men have gone to the Tehkohn dwelling and found out for themselves.' It was the Garkohn who convinced everyone that you and the others were dead." She frowned. "Alanna… what about the others?"

"They really are dead."

"Oh." Neila turned away, her head bowed. Alanna went into the tiny bedroom that had been hers, saw the large wooden chest that held her clothing and possessions. It paralleled the bed on the opposite side of the room, leaving not much more than a T-shaped passageway to move in. There were curtains at the one small window and a cloth of the same pattern covering the chest. The bed was covered with a heavy quilt that had once belonged to one of Jules and Neila's three children. The bedroom was as simple as the main room was cluttered. It was as simple as the rooms Alanna had shared with her husband.

She went back to Neila, started to lift her hand in a Tehkohn gesture of affection that had become second nature to her. But she caught herself and let her hand fall to her side before it touched Neila. She spoke quietly.

"I'm going to rest a little before I do anything else. I'm so tired…"

"How did you survive, Alanna?"

"I'll tell you about it—you and Jules—as soon as he comes in. I just want to rest a little first."

Neila said nothing, but as Alanna retreated to her room, she could feel her foster mother's gaze following her with curiosity. Innocent dangerous curiosity.

Diut

We captured Alanna along with eight others of her kind and twelve Garkohn. The Garkohn, we knew, would die during their period of cleansing. They had been dependent on the meklah for too many generations ever to be cleansed. But as far as we knew, their strange new allies, who called themselves Missionaries, had only just come to the poison. We thought some of them might survive.

I realized later that if I had separated the Missionaries from the Garkohn—shut them in different rooms for cleansing—more Missionaries might have lived. As it was, they were unnerved by the fatalism of the Garkohn. Alanna said later that several of them gave up their lives almost without a struggle when they saw how completely the Garkohn had given up.

As it was though, I knew almost nothing of the Missionaries. They had joined themselves with the Garkohn and I had decided to treat them as Garkohn until they proved otherwise. Only Alanna gave me the proof I sought. Only she lived.

When the five-day period of cleansing was over, I went to the room where she and the others had been held. My fighters were cleaning the room and clearing out the corpses for burning. I saw her, strangely colored, furless, very thin after her ordeal, covered with filth. I thought she was dead, but as I was about to turn away from her, she moved. I brought her water from a pot on one of the carts my hunters had brought in. The water was for washing the room, but none of it had been used yet. I knelt beside Alanna, spoke to her in Garkohn.

"Can you understand me, Missionary?"

She turned her face to me weakly and I could see that it was cut and bruised. Her eyes were swollen shut. I supposed that she was still in pain. There is no gentle way to rid one's body of the poison and become clean.

She made a sound that was not a word and I realized that she could not speak. She had become so hoarse from screaming in pain that her voice was temporarily gone. From my cupped hands, I gave her water to drink. She swallowed it eagerly. I would not let her have as much as she wanted or let her drink it as quickly as she wanted. I had seen enough of my Tehkohn survive the meklah to know how easily she could make herself sick again.

I looked around the room at my fighters. "Who captured this Missionary?" I asked.

"I did," said one of my judges. Jeh. He was loading the body of a Garkohn huntress onto the cart that would take the dead out for burning. He threw the dead woman onto the cart and came over to us. He is a friend, Jeh. We were children together, though he is older. I sided with him when he broke tradition and began a liaison and then a marriage with the huntress Cheah. He is a well-colored judge, and she, a well-colored huntress. Neither of their clans wished to have them marry out. But they fought all challengers for their right to do so, in accordance with ancient custom. When they had each beaten their challengers and the people continued to complain, I said "Enough." I was still very young then but the people obeyed me. Jeh and Cheah were left alone. Now Jeh looked down at the Missionary he had captured.

"I thought she might live," he said. "She almost took my eyes when I caught her. And three days ago, Cheah and I found her crawling out of this room."

"She found her own way out?"

"Yes. By accident perhaps."

"Or perhaps not. Her people may not all be as blind as our watchers think."

"None of them saw our watchers."

I let my body whiten a little. "None saw them and knew them as Tehkohn, no. But to people as different as this one," I touched Alanna with my foot, "Tehkohn and Garkohn must look much alike."

"Our watchers say this one is the daughter of the Missionary leader."

"So? That may be important in the future—if you can keep her alive now."

"Cheah and I will care for her if you wish."

I flashed positive white. "It would be best for fighters to care for her now. You will be able to handle her when her strength returns."

He looked from Alanna to me. "Aside from tending her injuries, what care shall we give her?"

"Begin teaching her our language, our ways—as in the old stories. There was a time when Garkohn survived the cleansing and our ancestors made good Tehkohn of them."

"But she is so different…"

"She is. But I wonder how much the differences matter. We will let her show us. Through her we will learn more of what her kind can do—more of what the Garkohn might use them for."

Jeh flashed white assent, then bent and lifted Alanna. She moaned as though in pain. Her pain was almost at an end though, if she proved tractable. Jeh and Cheah would treat her kindly. Kindness was best. She might be a valuable hostage someday. Meanwhile, it would be interesting to watch her change—to help her change. I would take part in her re-education myself. And I would see to it that if she was ever returned to her people, she would greet them as an emissary of the Tehkohn. She would speak to her parents for me and against Natahk.

For the first time in two years, Alanna lay on her own bed at the Mission colony and slid uncomfortably into a meklah dream. She had intended to use these moments of privacy to think, to plan a way to thwart Natahk—and Gehl. They both knew of her marriage. The fact that they kept it secret indicated that they planned to use the information to control her somehow. Natahk could make her a pawn of the Garkohn whenever he chose. And as soon as he realized that she was undoing his work, bringing the Tehkohn and the Missionaries together in peace rather than in war, he would begin to apply pressure. Thus, Alanna's first moves had to be direct and sweeping. She had to give the Missionaries a hard push so that if she was silenced or killed or abducted again, the Missionaries would go on along the path that she had pointed out to them. To guide them, though, she had to become one of them again—or as much one of them as she had ever been. Now, ironically, her renewed meklah addiction helped her slip back into the ways of her Missionary past. Meklah dreams had their uses.

Meklah dreams came to people who allowed themselves to reach the second stage of meklah withdrawal—the stage of remembering. The first stage was hunger, uncomplicated, but intense, and distinctly, hunger for one of the many meklah products of the valley. Another ripe sweet meklah fruit or tea made from the leaves of the meklah tree or bread made from the unripe fruit dried and ground to flour or . But the list was endless. Meklah was the staple of the valley. Even meat and fish were seasoned with it. The Garkohn fermented it to make a kind of wine. No one had trouble getting enough of it. The tree was an evergreen that grew wild all over the valley. People were not even conscious of being addicted unless they left the valley—went into the mountains where the tree did not grow. Or unless they simply chose not to eat.

Fine sweat appeared on Alanna's forehead. She felt almost sick with hunger. The meklah was demanding. She was tempted to try to eat something that did not contain the meklah just to relieve her hunger a little. But she knew better. Eating anything other than meklah now would start her vomiting and bring her into full withdrawal. The time for her to risk that would come, certainly, but it had not come yet. Best to wait now and let the memories come as she knew they would.

She closed her eyes, let her thoughts drift into the past. It was not so much remembering as reliving. Only time was distorted so that she could experience the events of days, of months, in only minutes. In her mind, she returned to Earth.

There, she met a woman, small and slender with hair that was long and very black like Alanna's hair, and with eyes as narrow as Kohn eyes. And there was a man, as lean and tall as Alanna was now. His coloring was dark brown, almost black, contrasting strangely with the very fair skin of the woman. Alanna stood between them, her eyes only slightly narrowed, her skin a smooth medium brown.

They protected each other, these two, and together, they protected the child they had created. Even in the end when the Clayarks came to loot and kill, the man and woman held them off long enough for the child to escape.

Alanna had been eight years old then. And she was on her own. She had grown thin, hard, and feral stealing and foraging for herself. She had lived in the streets of the nearly deserted city of her birth, sometimes venturing out to the open land and to the walled Missionary town. By her fifteenth year when the Missionaries caught her stealing from their cornfield, she was an animal.

A Missionary guard shot her as she fled with an armload of corn. He was doing his job. Verrick Colony had lost too much in crops and in lives to disease-spreading thieves.

The shot only wounded her. The guard was stepping in close to finish her when Jules arrived. As she learned later, Jules had just lost his third and last child to the plague of Clay's Ark. No doubt that was why he reacted so emotionally to a scene that had become all too familiar at the colony.

He knocked the rifle from the hands of her would-be executioner before the man could fire. Then he lifted Alanna into his arms and carried her back to his home. If she had had the plague, his unwary handling of her could have cost him his life. Alanna, wild with tear and pain, struggled, tried to bite him. Fortunately, she was too weak to succeed.