Butler, Octavia - Survivor

“Why don’t you tell me why you think he can.”

“Maybe he can’t. But the fact that he found out about my withdrawal and didn’t readdict me means he has something planned for me.”

He drew his mouth into a straight line, remembering. “Yes, I see your point. One of them at least. You want me to settle for that one?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t give the trust you’re asking for?”

“Not yet.”

“The people are my first concern, Alanna.”

She said nothing, watched him.

“Natahk has shown himself to be our enemy. I’d trust your word over his unless, somehow, you too showed yourself to be against us.” His tone changed slightly. “And I still can’t quite believe you’d do that.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “For what it’s worth, I couldn’t.” She felt as though she had fought a battle and lost. She had come within a hair of telling him the whole truth. But she had not been able to make herself take the chance. Now, all she had accomplished was to make him suspicious again—and Natahk could still destroy her with a few words. She shook her head, tried to put the mistake behind her. She couldn’t correct it; it was done. “Is there anything I can do to help you keep order tomorrow night?” she asked.

There wasn’t. He gave her little part in that. He thought about it, then invited a few of his friends to have dinner with him that night. This was something he had done often before. It would raise little interest among the Garkohn at the settlement. Two Garkohn did attend invisibly for a while, but they soon left, having heard enough talk of crops, rabbits, chickens, etc.

Alanna signaled Jules when they were gone and he made a short announcement. A brother of one of the men scheduled to guard the gate the next night was present. Also present was the father of a man scheduled to help guard the Tehkohn prisoners. Alanna had wanted to be more direct—speak with at least two of the actual guards so that the information would only have to be transmitted once more. Her goal was not to prevent Natahk from learning that the dinner had taken place, and understanding through hindsight why certain guests had been invited. Unlike Jules, she believed that that would happen anyway—that it was inevitable. Her goal was only to prevent Natahk’s learning too soon. She wanted to be certain that the Garkohn at the settlement had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. If they did suspect, if they signaled Natahk and Natahk arrived with an army, the Missionaries could be crushed between the two warring tribes. No punishment that Natahk was likely to inflict on the settlement after the raid would hurt the Missionaries as badly as would being caught in that vise.

But by Jules’s roundabout plan, the two special guests would speak to their relatives, and the relatives would speak to their fellow guards. The best that Alanna had been able to do was to convince Jules that at least the orders should not be relayed until the next night—until the last minute. That way, even if someone did fail to notice a lurking Garkohn, it would be too late for the Garkohn to contact Natahk and turn the raid into a war.

The other guests at Jules’s dinner were to speak to no one. Their only function would be to do what they could to stop any trouble that arose before Missionaries could be hurt. Jules was emphasizing the importance of his instructions and at the same time undergoing some intense questioning when a late-arriving guest knocked and had to be let in. Alanna caught Jules’s eye to lei him know that a Garkohn had come in with the guest. That ended ths business portion of the dinner.

The escape the next night began well. Both sets of Missionary guards received their warnings and behaved as they had been told to behave. And apparently, the Garkohn remained ignorant until the raid was in progress. The only trouble came when a Tehkohn hunter, hard-pressed by the Garkohn, and impatient with the unfamiliar latch on the storehouse door, kicked the door in. The sudden noise brought several Missionaries spilling carelessly out of their houses.

Someone shouted that the Tehkohn were raiding.

Someone else called for the men to get their guns.

Then one of the men who had had dinner with Jules the night before shouted, “Get back inside! You can’t tell one native from another in the dark. Let them fight it out”

Only two young men did not hear him—or chose not to heed. Their home was near the storehouse, and they moved quickly. They managed to tackle a pair of escaping prisoners. The prisoners, both hunters, paused a moment to break their attackers’ necks, then fled on. Raiders and ex-prisoners combined to dispose of the few Garkohn who got in their way. Then they left the settlement, carrying their own dead and injured with them.

The dead Missionaries were brothers, Kyle and Lee Everett. Alanna had known them. One of her few friends among the Missionaries had been their sister, Tate, who had been taken by the Garkohn over a year before. It occurred to Alanna that the memory of their sister might have been what spurred the two men to run so recklessly into danger. They would have been infuriated at seeing the Tehkohn escaping since, like most Missionaries, they had still believed that the Tehkohn were responsible for all the abductions. Jules had not dared to risk the chaos that might follow a general announcement of the truth.

And, Alanna thought unhappily, Jules had been right. Just as she had been right not to try to convince the prisoners that the Missionaries were not their enemies, and thus should be handled gently. The prisoners would not have believed her and more important, the Garkohn might have overheard. Her fear of the Garkohn and Jules’s fear of the temper of his people—their temper and their guns—had killed Kyle and Lee, but had doubtless saved many others.

Most Missionaries did not realize that anything had happened until early the next morning when Natahk arrived with an army of hunters. The First Hunter was as angry as Alanna had expected him to be. He and Gehl came straight to the Verrick house. Natahk was luminescent yellow in his fury. He stood looking from one to another of the three Verricks until his eyes came to rest on Jules. “I have heard that you were sick, Verrick, confined to your bed for days.”

He stopped, clearly waiting to trample any defense Jules made. Jules said nothing.

“Was it your sickness that prevented you from hearing the Tehkohn who came raiding last night? Were you asleep in your bed while they slaughtered my hunters and freed the prisoners?”

“I heard them,” said Jules. And his tone caused Alanna to turn and look at him with apprehension. He sounded the way he had the night before when he stood over the bodies of the Everett brothers—the way he had when he stopped blaming himself and began blaming the natives. All the natives.

“You heard?” Natahk feigned surprise. “And you did nothing? Called none of your people to the aid of my outnumbered hunters?”

“To what purpose?” demanded Jules. “So that the Tehkohn could be diverted to killing Missionaries while your hunters escaped?”

Natahk’s luminescence seemed to intensify, probably because Jules had guessed exactly right.

“Would you like to see the bodies of the two men who did try to help your hunters?” asked Jules.

Natahk struck him openhanded across the face.

Jules reeled back against the wall and fell, upsetting a small chest that contained Neila’s cooking utensils. The chest spilled its contents over the floor as Natahk spoke.

“What do I care for your two men—two fools who gave their necks to the Tehkohn—when I have lost twelve hunters!” He went to the dining table where a bowl of meklah fruit still sat—for Neila and for guests. He took a piece of fruit, turned, and threw it hard so that it half smashed against Jules’s chest. “Eat, Verrick.”