Butler, Octavia - Survivor

He took one of my hands and put it into his mane. I felt the fur, the flesh beneath. There was a neck there, completely hidden. And broad as the shoulders were, they were not as broad as they looked.

“I find your smoothness pleasing too,” he said. “Good to touch.” He began to whiten a little and I realized that my hand exploring his mane was giving him pleasure. He closed his eyes—and they did vanish. There was no sign in what seemed now an even surface of fur that he had ever had eyes. Not even a slight indentation. I shuddered and put my head against his shoulder so that I would not have to look at him. I could get used to his strangeness. I was already getting used to it. But there were some things about him that would probably always be alien to me.

On the second night of Jules’s withdrawal, Diut returned to the Mission colony.

Alanna had spent most of the day sitting with Jules. He was in pain now, perspiring, vomiting, tossing. But at that, Neila said he was having an easier time than Alanna had had. Still, Nathan wanted someone with him at all times. Alanna had not minded the duty. Neila had her regular housework to do. Alanna had broken her watch only to take food to the Tehkohn prisoners. Finally, though, Neila had relieved her and sent her off to bed.

She went to her room sleepily, carrying a lamp and feeling strangely alone now that she was cut off from the sounds of Jules’s suffering. As much as she hated to see him in pain, she realized that it was easier to be with him and be able to see for herself that he was still alive.

She put her lamp on the chest near her bed and turned to close the door. Not until it was closed did she realize that she was not alone in the room. She froze, ceasing even to breathe, every sense alert to pinpoint the direction from which the first warning sound had come.

Somewhere in the shadows, Diut said her name.

She identified the voice and the direction from which it came in the same instant and turned just in time to see him materialize from a wall.

She crossed the room to him quickly in silent relief and joy. He caught her by the shoulders and looked at her for a moment, holding her away from him. Then she struggled free of his hands and buried herself in his fur.

Mentally, she gave him all her trouble—her heavy responsibility to the colony, the doubted loyalties, the Garkohn danger. Let him hold them for a while. He was accustomed to such things. It was only a game played within her own mind, but she felt as though she had shed a great weight, as though she could relax completely for the first time since her return to the settlement.

She spoke finally, softly. “You’ve been home?”

“Yes.”

She drew back from him now, waiting. They sat down together on the bed.

“The defeat was bad,” he said, “but not as bad as it first seemed. The escape passages were created to be overlooked by invaders. Most of them were.”

She nodded, remembering that she had fled into one of these passages herself when Garkohn invaded the dwelling. She had run to the inner apartments where the young children were left in the care of artisan families. But somehow, despite the deliberately confusing maze of corridors, the Garkohn had gotten there ahead of her and it was too late.

As though responding to her thoughts, Diut said, “The people waited until I returned to hold the ceremony for Tien.”

She looked at him but he would not meet her eyes.

“Our trade families had already painted her,” he continued softly. “Blue. A good blue. All who were left alive came to see her. Even the injured.”

She lowered her head, eyes closed. She had not meant to cry again. She had shed no tears since her first night with Jules on the trail back to the settlement. Jules had thought then that she cried with relief at her rescue.

But now she found herself weeping soundlessly against Diut. She was glad that she had not been able to attend the Tehkohn funeral rites. The Kohn had no concept of life after death and such rites were held solely for the benefit of the living. The dead were judged by those likely to know the best and worst sides of their character, the families with whom they traded—families from clans other than their own. If a hunter was lazy or dishonest, no one knew it better than the farmer with whom he traded. Thus the trade families judged and gave honor or dishonor through the color of the dye they used to cover the mottled yellow of death. The reputation of the surviving blood family could be helped or injured by one of these judgments. But of course, Diut’s infant child would be painted blue to honor Diut. It would not be the unique Hao blue, but the trade families would approximate it as closely as they could. And Diut said they had done well. The funeral would have been a time to show pride in the honor done. Expression of grief was a private thing—one of the few private things in Kohn life.

Diut held her until her spasm of weeping passed. He spoke no words of comfort, but in the Kohn way, he allowed his coloring to fade to the rare gray of grief and mourning. The color, like the emotion it symbolized, was a private thing. It was an admission not only of inner pain, but of helplessness and human vulnerability. A Hao was the personification of Kohn power, a being who must show only strength before his people. But now, alone with one who shared his pain, he was free to admit his own vulnerability, free to let Alanna know that she did not grieve alone. To her, his coloring said as much as words could have from a Missionary man, and she had long ago realized that she preferred the silent Kohn ways to the Missionary groping for words.

After a while, she regained control and ceased crying. She knew that Diut had other things to tell her, and that for the sake of the settlement, she had to compose herself and listen.

“You have made plans while you were away,” she said. “Tell me my part in them.”

His coloring slowly returned to normal. He gave her a long quiet look. “I have heard that your father is in withdrawal.”

“So. I was with him all day. My mother is with him now.”

“Only your father? No others?”

She shrugged. “Me. I have withdrawn.”

“I know of that.” He touched her throat briefly. “It is harder to break away without the ceremony. I knew what I asked of you. But I believed that you were strong enough to do it.”

She accepted this as the combined apology and compliment that it was and acknowledged it with a nod.

“How is your father?”

“Well. We may have found a Missionary counterpart for the returning ceremony.” She told him briefly of the experiment with hypnosis. He seemed to understand.

“Verrick tests this way then. But if it works as he hopes, will he order other Missionaries to use it now or will he wait until he has moved them north?”

Alanna thought for a moment, realized that though she had not considered the question before, she knew what the answer had to be. “I think he will wait, because of Natahk. I think he will not want the people exposed to Natahk’s anger—as he will be exposed himself s” She told him of Natahk’s recent arrogance and its cause. By the time she finished, he had yellowed slightly.

“Verrick must choose his own way,” he said. “But if he waits as you say, the Missionaries will be able to carry little more than the supply of meklah that they will need when they leave. Meklah enough for the trip over the mountains and enough to last until they find a place to settle again. They will have to abandon many more of their possessions to the Garkohn than should be necessary.”

Alanna knew he was right, but then, so was Jules in his way. She said nothing.

Diut changed the subject abruptly. “Have you been able to see the captives yet?”