Butler, Octavia - Survivor

I let white into my coloring and seized her by her huge nose until she threatened to pull out a handful of my fur.

She taught me the caress called a “kiss” among her people, and then complained that I had no “lips” to kiss. It was not a caress any Kohn people would enjoy anyway. There was not enough to it. A joining of mouths, a thrust of tongues. That was all. It could not be felt as biting could. She learned to caress me as I preferred and I was pleased. I sought to please her.

The season went by. The second planting was harvested and stored. My hunters went out to get as much meat as they could now—an excess to dry and store while the game was fat and plentiful. We raided all the small high valleys that could be closed to become our game traps. The record of Alanna’s kills with her bow and her arrows was impressive. Several of my judges decided to try the new weapons, though my hunters still scorned any weapon but their bodies against most animals. I was pleased with my judges’ flexibility.

My healers gathered a harvest of wild herbs to ease ailments of cold and old age that grew worse when the snows fell.

And I held on to Alanna. There was still much for me to teach her, and she was teaching me the language of her people. I knew I would have to deal with them someday. She was learning not only to fight, but to read the light speech that we used to signal each other through the mountains. We signaled warnings of raiders, of dangerous animals or good hunting, of places along the slopes that were not safe, and of other things. Light speech was difficult for Alanna to learn, especially at first, but her life would be safer when she understood it. As the snows came, and we were inside more, I spent much time teaching her. It was a pleasurable thing to do. Too much that had to do with her had become pleasurable. I realized that I was becoming too attached to her, and she to me. I promised myself I would let her go soon.

When she began to change, I thought it was because she sensed the nearness of our separation. I gave her no comfort because it was important to me to see how she handled her feelings alone. Her actions now would tell me whether or not I would ask her to come to me again after a few seasons. My cousin Kehyo had taught me that I should not ask a woman to come to me more than once if she could not control her feelings.

Alanna grew nervous. She watched me closely when she thought I did not see. She seemed to withdraw into herself and I could sense fear in her. Fear of parting?

I had already decided which apartment in the fighter section that I would give her, when she finally opened to me—told me what any other would have told me long before. And even on the night she told me, she was hesitant and evasive.

“Am I still ugly to you?” she asked. “Do you still see me as you did when we first came together?” It had been a long time since either of us mentioned such nonsense—back when she complained in jest that I had no lips. But she was serious now. Far more serious than she should have been over such a question. I refused to match her mood.

“How do you see me?” I asked, pulling her closer.

She lay silent by my side.

“Why are you afraid?” I asked.

“Because I think I’ve come to accept you more than you have me.”

“We have only a liaison, Alanna.”

“No.”

“No?” I turned my head slightly to look at her. “What more can there be for us?”

“A marriage… if you can accept a marriage with me.”

I sat up, controlling my annoyance. “Alanna, I have lost count of the number of my liaisons. Do you think I am without a wife, without children by choice?”

She said nothing, only watched me.

“How can I have a child with you when I have failed with so many Tehkohn women?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Our two peoples must not be as different as I thought.”

I looked down at her, suddenly confused. I could feel my body go iridescent. “What are you saying?”

“That I’m going to have a child, Diut. And it cannot be any harder for you to believe than it was for me.”

For a moment, I could not speak. When the words did come, my own voice sounded strange to me. “A child? Alanna, are you… can you be certain?”

“Oh yes.” She spoke with unmistakable bitterness.

“But… you are a young woman. It may be that you have made a mistake.”

“Do you want it to be a mistake?”

“I mean only that you… Others of my mates have thought themselves pregnant with my child. They wanted it so badly that they…”

“That they imagined their wish had been granted, yes. There have been such women among the Missionaries too. But never once did I even imagine that it was possible for you and me to produce a child. I did not long for it because it seemed completely impossible. I only hoped that our time together could be long, and that we could come together again someday.”

“I… had planned that we should, but…”

She sat up and faced me, the fear and uncertainty gone from her face. She appeared resigned. “You planned to give me an apartment of my own when I left you, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised.

“I’ll go there then. I know our time together would have ended soon anyway. I’ll stay there alone until our child is born. Then I’ll come back to you if you want me, or I’ll stay there if you don’t.”

I could see both her certainty and her sadness, and almost against my will, I began to doubt. I knew I was hurting her. She was not the first woman I had hurt this way, but it was necessary. All my other mates had been wrong. I was afraid to believe her. Yet she was not the kind of woman who made stories within her mind and then acted as though the stories were true. Different as she was, she had shown herself to be worthy of my trust. Now, suddenly, I found myself striving to trust her. How many years had I thought myself to be flawed in the Hao way, unable to do what my yellowest artisan could do-unable to father a child.

“When did you first know of the child?” I asked quietly.

“Supposed child,” she said bitterly. “Imaginary child.”

“Alanna!”

She sighed. “Since shortly after the gathering at Kehyo’s apartment. I waited to tell you because at first I didn’t believe it myself. I waited to be sure.”

At once my suspicions increased. Kehyo had insulted Alanna that night. Might Alanna not now be trying to best Kehyo by doing what Kehyo could not—having my child? I knew that Tahneh had told Alanna about Kehyo. I spoke my thought as gently as I could. When I had finished, even someone who had never known a member of Alanna’s race could have read her anger.

“Show me where the new apartment is,” she said. “I’ll go there now. I can’t listen to any more of this.” She started to rise to her feet. I pulled her down again.

“You will listen. There is a decision for you to make. I will be guided by you.”

Some of her anger gave way to curiosity. “What decision?”

“Whether we will have a gathering of our own. Whether we will announce to our friends—who will surely tell everyone—that you are going to have a child.”

Her too-round eyes grew rounder. “So? You believe me?”

“I believe that you believe. And in the time we have been together, I have seen little foolishness in you.”

She stared down at her own brown leg. “I thought I was prepared for anything you might say. ‘Yes, I believe.’ ‘No, I don’t believe.’ ‘Yes, I want the child.’ ‘No, such a mixed child would be a monster.

“Choose, Alanna.”

“I want the gathering! Of course I want it. It’s my right. And I want more. Need more.” She looked into my face. “I would rather have you send me away than give me only your grudging acceptance. ‘Oh, well, she’s not entirely stupid. Maybe there’s a chance that she’s right.’ Diut, let me be alone until you can be sure.”