Survivor (9 page)

Artisans and farmers were naturally small people, members of a race different from those of the stocky hunters and the tall lean judges.

"Did artisans build this dwelling?" I asked Choh.

He glanced up at me and his body whitened. "Yes. The Hao came to them—to my ancestors—and said, 'Build us a home that will help us fight by concealing itself as we do.' And for the time it took to build this dwelling, artisans ruled. Others obeyed them—hunters, judges, even the Hao listened when artisans spoke. And when the building was finished, the Hao looked at it and saw that there was greater value in nonfighting people than they had thought."

He had a low quiet way of speaking that I liked, and he was at ease with me now that his curiosity about my differences had been satisfied. I began to think that my stay with him and Gehnahteh would not be as bad as I had feared.

After the general tour, Choh took me to the heavily draped doorways of three apartments. These were visible doorways with only the hides of animals serving as doors. Hidden doors of stone and metal were used only for special purposes. Choh stopped at each of these doorways and called out a name. He introduced me first to a hunter, then to a pair of judges, then to a pair of farmers who were just leaving their apartment. These were the trade families of Gehnahteh and Choh. They performed special services for each other and considered themselves to be related as though by blood. Now I was part of their group. From now on, the hunter—he was a widower—would supply Choh's artisan friend with leather for my shoes.

Choh made me guide him once to each of these three apartments. When he saw that I knew the way, he took me down to a lower level of the dwelling where wood had been cut and stored in great piles. There were wooden handcarts there much like the Missionaries' carts. I was surprised because the Garkohn did not use such things in their dwelling or even on their trails through the meklah-tangled valley.

"Load a cart," Choh told me. "Take one load of wood to each of the three apartments, and to our apartment. When you have finished, leave the cart here, and come home."

He turned and left me. And I did my work, and went home.

Thus began my life as a Tehkohn—a life of working and learning through my work. I ran errands for Gehnahteh and Choh. I learned to cook Tehkohn foods over the fire in the fireplace of their apartment. I learned to clean the apartment with a soap made from the roots of one of the mountain plants. I learned to make the soap and the brushes I used. I was loaned to the trade-family farmers to help with the planting. The farmers put me to work with the adolescent children who were breaking up clods of earth while the adults plowed with a tool that looked like a long narrow version of an Earth-made shovel. The tool had a strong wooden handle and a flat narrow metal head that tapered to a point. On one side of each handle, down near the metal, there was a footrest that the farmers used to push the metal deep into the ground. My farmers watched me for a half day, then gave me a shovel.

Their main crop was a kind of tuber that they ate in some form with almost every meal—their nonaddictive version of the meklah. They also raised a small sweet melon, sweet berries, other fruit, and at least three kinds of bean or pea that grew in pods underground. They had no domestic animals. The native animals would not breed in captivity. Usually, they sickened and died soon after they were caught. The Tehkohn simply did what they could to insure a plentiful supply of wild game. They killed off all the non-Tehkohn predators they could, and they diverted rivers and streams to irrigate the territory around them more evenly and make it lush for the plant eaters. Then the hunters killed as much game as they could when they could, and preserved large amounts of it. Both they and the farmers were skillful. The people did not go hungry.

All the Tehkohn were skillful. They were absorbing me. They kept me working harder than I had ever worked with the Missionaries, and when I was not working, I was either learning or sleeping. There seemed to be no time for anything else. Gehnahteh and Choh made sure there was no time.

I felt myself slipping away not only from the Missionaries, but from the wilds. The wild human within me who watched and cautioned and alerted me, who kept me ready to do and be whatever I had to do and be to survive, was becoming Tehkohn. Too Tehkohn. If the Tehkohn had not been so different physically, that might not have been a bad thing. I had found more acceptance among them in my short time with them than I had in more than three years with the Missionaries. But I could not spend my life among people so alien, no matter how accepting they were. Now and then, in spite of the work, I found myself still longing to see another Missionary. Furless skin, black or white or brown. I spoke aloud to myself in English and it sounded strange to me. I began to resent the Tehkohn, their work, their customs. I grew careless. There was one night in particular…

I was not yet used to the cooking and I had an accident. I had cooked over an open fire for most of my life, but it had been a haphazard kind of cooking. I had never had a heavy kettle to contend with. I burned myself, and in sharp reaction, dumped most of the stew into the fire.

Gehnahteh said several Tehkohn words that I had never heard before and seized a stick of firewood. Her body flared angry yellow as she hit me once, twice. I scrambled away from her more startled than hurt.

She followed me, beating me across the back and ribs, hitting the arm I held up to protect my head. The blows were jarring and painful, but strangely, I did not want to hit back if I could avoid it. I wasn't afraid, or even angry. I was annoyed—and much aware of Gehnahteh's smallness. Surely, I could handle this one furious little artisan—whom I happened to like—without hurting her.

Finally, I seized her arm, wrenched the stick away from her, and threw it into the half-smothered fire. Then I caught her by the throat, shook her once warningly, and let her go. She stumbled back from me and we stood glaring at each other. Choh, watching us, had stood up, but he had not had time to interfere. Now he stood looking at me uncertainly. In that moment, I knew I could kill them both if I wanted to. I couldn't get away with it, but I could do it. They were small and strong and I was large and stronger. Also, untrained as I was in the ways of their hunters and judges, I was still what they would call a fighter.

The knowledge gave me a security I had not had since my capture. I relaxed. Without a word, I took a basket from beside the door and went down to one of the storage rooms for more tubers, vegetables, and dried meat. I cleaned the kettle and cleaned the mess out of the fireplace, and I made more stew.

Nothing was said about the incident, but neither Gehnahteh nor Choh ever tried to beat me again. I began to refuse work when I didn't want it. Not often, but when I was tired. The first time I did it, Gehnahteh swore at me. I sat listening until she finished and went away. After that, she and Choh began to ask me to do things instead of telling me. They had handled young fighters before—had been second-parents to several. They understood what was happening better than I did.

Neila Verrick had gotten as close a look at the Tehkohn Hao as she wanted before the prisoners were locked up. As soon as she realized that Jules intended to have him brought to the cabin, she retreated next door to wait with the neighbors.

Alanna had not risked suggesting such a private meeting with Diut. That was something Jules had thought of himself. The only alternative was to meet in the storehouse where the prisoners were being kept—meet surrounded by other Tehkohn and watched by Garkohn guards. Apparently, Jules had decided that even being alone with the largest and least human-looking Tehkohn was preferable to that.

He had had some difficulty persuading the Garkohn to bring Diut to the cabin. And once they had brought him, they did not want to leave him there alone with Jules and Alanna. But finally, Jules persuaded them to go.

Alanna watched them very carefully as they filed out. Neila had lit two lamps in the main room before she left, but there were still areas of shadow, places where skillful Garkohn could conceal themselves almost invisibly. There must be no chance of the conversation Jules and Diut were about to have being overheard. Apparently Diut was checking too. It was he who spotted the intruder first—and again, the intruder was Gehl. But this time her camouflage was excellent. Diut's coloring yellowed minutely when he saw her and Alanna, every sense alert, spotted the change. Only then did she see Gehl.

Diut spoke softly. "Huntress, your kind and I have respected each other until now."

Gehl dropped her camouflage. "You are a prisoner," she said.

"So," admitted Diut.

There was yellow in Gehl's coloring. Alanna wondered what it signified in her—anger or fear. "I'm one of your captors," said Gehl. "Do you think you can command me as you do your Tehkohn?"

"Have I commanded you?"

Gehl flared pure yellow. "I will stay here as long as you are here."

"No."

"You cannot say…"

"Now you ask to be commanded. You will wait outside until I have spoken with the Missionaries," Diut's blue became luminescent. "Obey!"

For a long moment, the huntress faced him, not quite challenging, not quite giving way. She gazed into his blue and Alanna knew she was at war with her own instincts. This was only a small thing that Diut wanted. It would be so easy to obey. And what harm could it do? The house was surrounded by Garkohn. Finally, her instincts won. She turned and left.

Relief flooded Alanna. She knew, though Jules did not, how easily the confrontation might have ended in Gehl's death and immediate trouble with the Garkohn. But it was over.

Diut now made himself as unimpressive as he could. He muted his coloring so that his face and body seemed to be veiled in shadow. He had kept it that way—quietly unobtrusive—through most of the trip down from the mountains. His height, well over two meters, made him a giant among both Missionaries and Kohn. That he could not disguise. There were two or three Missionaries almost as tall, but so large a native, especially a Tehkohn, had to be startling and threatening to the colonists. Facing Jules now, Diut seemed to understand this. He sat down as soon as he could. He was not so much trying to avoid alarming Jules, Alanna knew, although his general "dimming" would have that effect. He was trying to see that attention would be focused on the subject at hand rather than on his rank and his—to Jules's mind—unusual physical appearance. He did this with his judges when he needed opinions from them that were honest rather than "respectful." Jules would not understand the sign, but he would respond to it in the way Diut wanted.

Seeing Diut take such care, Alanna relaxed slightly. She felt more confident now that she had done the right thing in urging this meeting.

They sat at the dining table, and Diut stared at the bowl of meklah fruit that Alanna had forgotten to remove. He had glanced briefly at Jules, then at Alanna. Neither glance was significant. It simply acknowledged their presence. Jules spoke to him in Garkohn to Alanna's surprise. She realized that Jules must have learned the language during her absence. During that same period, she had taught Diut English, but there was no need for Jules to know that.

"My daughter has told me a little about you, Tehkohn Hao," Jules said. "Not much. But enough with what I've just seen, to make me wonder why you're here. What do you want?"

Diut raised his large head and gave Jules his attention. This was disconcerting in spite of the shadows he cast about himself. Diut was the only Kohn Alanna had seen who managed, in spite of the humanoid arrangement of his features, to seem frighteningly alien. No Missionary would see him as simply a caricature of the Sacred Image. Alanna saw Jules jump, saw him sit up straighter in his chair. But he continued to look at Diut.

"Perhaps only to find out whether you would be able to ask that question," Diut said. His voice had depth without hollowness or harshness. It was clear, but somehow, not pleasing, not human. Like his appearance, it took getting used to. "To see whether the Garkohn would let you," he continued, "and whether you would bother."

It was an admission! Alanna stared down at the table, her expression carefully neutral. Just as she had guessed, Diut had come to see whether the Missionaries were worth the trouble it would cost him to let them live.

"I bothered," said Jules, "because I want the hostilities between your people and mine to end now before there is more killing. As for the Garkohn, their authority is over their own people. They don't give orders here at the Mission settlement."

"So?" Diut watched Jules silently for a moment. "Do we not discuss matters too important to be obscured by ritual lying, Missionary?"

Jules looked startled. Then he leaned back and sighed. He seemed resigned rather than offended. "You've come to understand our situation here very quickly."

"I'm still learning. Just before you sent for me, for instance, I learned that you rather than Natahk planned the raid in which I was captured."

Pride burned for a moment in Jules's eyes. "My people were going to be involved. I had none that I could afford to lose."

"Neither had I," said Diut. "Yet from your point of view, it was a highly successful raid."

"As was yours two years ago. I hope, Tehkohn Hao, that we can make this the last such hostility between our peoples."

"Peace, Verrick?" Diut reached out and took a meklah fruit from the bowl. He held it before him—between them. "And what of the Garkohn? What if we two sit here and decide not to fight each other again? How would you stop Natahk when he next decides to use your people?" As he spoke, he replaced the fruit in its bowl. During the instant that the bowl completely hid his hand from Jules, that hand was the same brown as Alanna's own skin. Alanna understood the sign, realized that he knew of her readdiction. And did he condemn her, she wondered. She found herself examining his coloring for any trace of yellow disapproval. She found none. Perhaps he felt none. But he could hide his feelings when he wanted to.