Butler, Octavia - Survivor

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.

Oblivious to the exchange, Jules answered Diut’s question. “Things are bad, Tehkohn Hao, but not as bad as that. We were not simply used by Natahk. We helped him willingly. I had been losing people steadily for two years and I was convinced that you were responsible.”

“And do you know now that I was not?”

Jules glanced at Alanna. “My daughter has told me that you were not. I believe that she reports the truth as she has been allowed to see it. But I find it hard to believe that she has not been deceived in some way.”

Diut said nothing for several seconds. Jules sat glaring at him, waiting impatiently for his defense. Finally, Diut spoke. “Do you understand the way we group ourselves, Verrick—our clans?”