Butler, Octavia - Survivor

Time crawled by. She found herself thinking of Diut, feeling glad that he could not see her as she was now, as she would be shortly. When he saw her again, the ordeal would be over and he would be able to speak more than his few illegal words to her. She would be clean. Not that her situation was directly comparable to that of a Tehkohn captured by the Garkohn, and not that Diut was subject to every rule that bound other Tehkohn. He could hardly have spoken more with her before Jules anyway. But still, addiction was a shameful stigma in his culture. An addict who did not withdraw as quickly as possible could not expect to remain in favor with him. She was surprised to realize how important that had become to her—that she keep his favor. She had expected him to suffer in comparison with Missionary men—men of more human appearance. He had not. She could no longer see him as the monster he had once appeared to be.

He would return for her as well as for the Tehkohn captives. She was certain of that. And he would kill Natahk both because Natahk was too dangerous to be left alive, and for another more personal reason. As she withdrew, she would think of Natahk dying as Tien had died. Natahk, who was the reason for her past suffering and for the suffering she faced now. She would think of it while she could think.

After a while her awareness of time grew distorted. She seemed to move too quickly, or in slow motion. She lay down on her bed and before she realized it, she had fallen into a meklah dream. A bad dream this time. The nightmare of her first withdrawal.

She could feel the cold sand beneath her and hear the convulsive gagging of those Missionaries who had tried to eat the meklah-free mountain food that the Tehkohn had left them.

There were Garkohn huddled silently around the mound of their yellowed dead, waiting for their own deaths. They maintained what dignity they could until their senses left them. Then they groveled unknowingly with the Missionaries in the filth on the floor.

Alanna remembered searching for the door, finding it too late. Remembered the two Tehkohn who lifted her like a sack of grain and threw her back into the cleansing room. Remembered hatred. Remembered landing on someone who groaned and tried feebly to crawl away. Remembered the pain of awakening once and finding her head pillowed on a yellowed Garkohn corpse. Remembered crawling away sickened, dragging herself to a Missionary man and finding him equally dead. Remembered terror and fury that she should be abandoned in such a place—she who was not dead.

The entire experience was there, replayed in seconds, or in hours. Alanna did not know which, but it held her, gripped her. It threatened to replay again and Alanna strained away from it. The present flickered before her, stable for a moment. Her bed, her room, shadowy figures nearby.

Then heavy gluey sleep sucked her away from them. Sleep held her tarlike, though she tried to waken. She could not open her eyes. She struggled, not knowing whether her struggle was physical or mental. She fought and seemed to hear animal sounds around her. Her own voice gibbering.

She awoke sweating and vomiting and choking. Her body heaved convulsively again and again and again and there were moments when she was aware of being covered with her own filth.

And there was the pain. The agony that would not stop. As though her body, having been denied the meklah, had somehow begun to consume itself.

She trembled, convulsed, trembled…

She was aware briefly of other people with her, staring at her. She felt her breath ragged, knife-edged against a throat already raw from screaming. Her voice was a mere husk of itself, her tongue dry, thick, choking. Remembered anger exploded anew within her at the one responsible for her ordeal. Natahk. The one who would pay. She could hear her own voice, a harsh whisper, cursing.

Over and over again, waves of pain, convulsions, pain…

Peace.

Someone was wiping her face with a damp cloth. She opened her eyes—was surprised to find that she could open them—and saw that it was Neila. Disoriented, she tried to think. Was it only a few moments ago that she had left her foster mother in the other room?

“How long…?” She could only mouth the words; her voice was gone. But Neila understood.

“Four days.”

Alanna closed her eyes again, not thinking about the time gone, not thinking about anything. Only enjoying the sensation of peace, the near-absence of pain.

“I have water,” said Neila, “and some broth, meklah-free. Do you think you can take it now?”

She could. Somehow she forced herself to drink slowly. She was as weak as though she had fasted for weeks, but even at that, her condition was not as bad as it had been after her first withdrawal.

Jules came in as she was swallowing a little broth, and for some reason, Natahk was with him. Alanna could only stare her hatred at the Garkohn and wonder why he was there.

Jules said small meaningless things and managed to let her know that he was glad to see her alive. Natahk only shook his head—one of the Missionary gestures he had picked up. He spoke quietly.

“It is unthinkable that anyone should be able to do this twice.” He came closer and touched her with his offensive careless intimacy. “How is it that we did not notice you before we lost you to the Tehkohn?”

She was not yet alert enough for his openness to frighten her. She only glared at him, then appealed with her eyes to Jules and Neila to get him out of her room. Natahk saw the appeal and understood it.

“You would like them to send me away? I will go soon. I only wished to see for myself that my hunters’ reports of you were true.” He was secure. He did not even look at Jules, who was now behind him. He spoke again, softly. “Shall I leave you as you are now, free of the meklah, the only one of your kind granted such freedom?”

She turned her face away from him, wondering furiously who had given her away. Jules? Neila? Nathan? Who had failed to notice the concealed listening Garkohn. The thought of yet another withdrawal made her sick with fear. She would readily have begged, groveled before Natahk if she had thought it would do any good. The four-day ordeal had drained her pride away. But it had not stripped her of her knowledge of the Kohn. She faced him again, carefully showing only her real anger and hatred. She managed a whisper.

“Leave me free or kill me!”

He stared at her silently for a long moment, giving no sign of his feelings. “And still you challenge,” he said finally. “When you’re fully recovered, Alanna, we must talk. You have much to tell me. I’m leaving now, but in a few days, I’ll return with questions for you. Keep your freedom until then, and think on what you would do to keep it longer.”

He turned and left the room. Jules moved so quickly to follow him that Alanna almost missed the look of cold rage on her foster father’s face.

For a moment, she was aware of loud arguing from the next room. Jules’s voice and Natahk’s raised against each other. She did not understand what they said, nor did she care. She could not even make herself worry about Natahk’s threats now that he had left her alone. She was too tired. She drifted off into much-needed sleep.

Not until noon the next day when Alanna got up—against Nathan’s orders—did she begin to take a real interest in anything outside herself. She was still weak, still hoarse. She had bruises and sore muscles, but none of that mattered. Something had happened between the Garkohn and the colonists. She had to know what it was. She found Jules sitting alone in the cabin’s main room.

“It’s simple,” he told her. “Natahk’s guards reported my meeting with Diut. Then they reported Diut’s escape. Natahk connected the two and decided that I had let his prize prisoner escape.”