Survivor

by Octavia E. Butler

  “They’d do that regardless.”

  “No. Not if we let the Tehkohn think we’re on their side. They can help us stay out of it—or out of most of it. After all, it will be better for them if we stay out.”

  “From what you’ve said so far, I don’t see how we can make the Tehkohn think anything at all.”

  “We can change their thinking toward us. Because we can do the one thing Natahk can’t do. We can make peace with them. Even now, we can make peace.”

  “With people who won’t believe a word we say. With people we certainly don’t have any reason to trust. With kidnapers and murderers…”

  “But…”

  “No, let me finish. What do you think would happen if we did make overtures to the Tehkohn, successful or not, and the Garkohn found out. They would, you know, the way they spy on us. And what do you think they would do then? Surely slavery would be too gentle.”

  “Will you hear me, Jules?”

  “I’d rather listen to you in the morning when you’ve…when we’ve both had food and sleep and time to think.”

  “No, now, please. Because now you have a prisoner you can work through—one of the ones Natahk left. He’s a leader of the Tehkohn and I think he’d listen to you if you approached him. He’s freer to decide who to trust than the others are, and if he gives you his promise, you can trust him.”

  “An honorable butcher.”

  “A fighter, yes. All the ones with authority are fighters. But he could help you against Natahk.”

  “I don’t want his…”

  “And he’s not going to be here long.”

  “What?”

  “He’s the blue one, Jules, the big one. And what he would face at the Garkohn dwelling is a lot worse than just meklah addiction. I don’t think he’ll wait for it. He’ll either escape soon or get killed trying.” She took a deep breath. This talk was forcing her to put into words things she had not even wanted to think about. But she went on. “If you talk to him and he’s killed, you lose nothing. But if he escapes, he can go back to his people as your emissary. He can not only stop their vengeance, but make them our allies. If you’ll just talk to him.”

  “Alanna, do you know how many of our people have been kidnapped by the Tehkohn since you were taken? Kidnapped and apparently murdered.”

  Alanna opened her mouth to answer, then realized fully what he had said. “Since I was taken?”

  “In the two years since you were…”

  “Wait a moment.” She frowned. “There haven’t been any Tehkohn raids on the Mission colony since I was taken.”

  Jules stared at her. “Listen, girl, the Tehkohn may have kept what they were doing from you, but…”

  “They couldn’t keep it from me! Jules, I wasn’t locked up somewhere for two years. I was working out among the people. I spoke their language, and I couldn’t help knowing what was going on. There were two raids on the Garkohn. I saw the raiders leave, and I saw them come back with Garkohn prisoners—only Garkohn. No Missionaries.”

  “I saw them take three people,” said Neila. “They almost took me too.”

  “Not the Tehkohn.”

  “Lanna, you’re wrong! I saw…”

  “You saw natives abducting people. Who told you they were Tehkohn?”

  Neila stared at her, speechless.

  “I don’t know what’s happened here,” Alanna continued. “But whatever it was, the Tehkohn weren’t part of it. What they did do to us was bad enough, but if we don’t put that behind us, and join with them, we’re finished. Only they can help us to stop our more treacherous enemies—our Clayark friends.”

  Jules looked at her silently for a long time—too long. He looked at her until she knew he was wondering about her own loyalty. She met his gaze and hid her sudden fear.

  “You saved me once,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to. People said, ‘She’s an animal. She’d be better dead.’ But you saved me. Let me save you.”

  “I don’t believe what you’re saying, Lanna—that our people are being abducted by the Garkohn.”

  “You will.”

  “But why would they bother? They already have us trapped here in a meklah cage.”

  “Maybe to make more trouble between you and the Tehkohn. Maybe to make the stolen people work as slaves—I don’t know.” And then she did know. The idea came to her so suddenly that she almost spoke it aloud. But she caught herself in time. This was not a thing for her to say to her foster father. He had already looked at her with suspicion. Let her husband tell him—if she could ever bring the two together, if the Garkohn had not destroyed all hope of an alliance.

  They were not taking slaves, the Garkohn, although Jules would see it that way. He had said himself what they were doing, although he did not know it. He had complained that Natahk treated the Missionaries as though they were just another branch of the Garkohn. Well, by now, according to Kohn custom, the Missionaries were exactly that. The abducted Missionaries were in the southern part of the valley at the Garkohn farming town. And like Alanna, they had found out for themselves how human the Kohn people were. She spoke to Jules.

  “For the sake of the people we have left here, Jules, talk to the Tehkohn Hao.”

  “Form an alliance with him?”

  “Yes, if he’ll co-operate.” He would try. Surely he would try.

  “And if he won’t?”

  “Then we have no chance. You know it. We can’t fight either tribe alone. We can’t even run with both tribes considering us fair game. Not that we’d know where to run anyway—to avoid running into people worse than the Tehkohn or the Garkohn.”

  Jules sat staring downward at his clenched hands, and Alanna imagined what he must be feeling. The Missionaries looked to him for leadership. They had ever since he had brought them together as a colony. He had always been much aware of his responsibility to them. Now the best he could do for them was choose which of the many dangers he would expose them to. And he had to choose quickly. His prime prisoner might escape even that night.

  “Jules, I’m pushing, I know. I have to push. Will you see the Tehkohn Hao?”

  He sighed. “Tell me about him, Lanna. Make me understand why you trust him so much.”

  If only she could, she thought wearily. But no, the half truths had to go on. “I trust his ability to handle his people,” she said. “If he decides we’re worth helping, we’ll get help.”

  “One Tehkohn,” said Jules. “What would it take to make some other Tehkohn challenge him and get rid of him?”

  “The same thing it would take to make you overrule the Bible words of Jesus Christ.”

  “Alanna!” said Neila, shocked.

  “The Hao are not overruled except by other Hao. And the only other Tehkohn Hao is old and not active in governing the people any longer. Diut’s word will stand.”

  “His kind are considered gods?”

  “No. The Kohn don’t pray to him. They don’t expect him to perform miracles—exactly. But they obey him as though they thought he was a god. Even the Garkohn are glad to obey him when they can. It’s more…more comfortable than disobeying. He’s like a symbol that God or fate or something is on your side if you have him.”

  “A walking good luck charm.”

  “Maybe. Whatever he is, his power is in the natural reaction of the Kohn people to blue—to that special kind of blue. No Kohn other than the Hao can attain it and all Kohn seem to be in awe of it.”

  “But if the Garkohn are in awe of him…”

  “But he’s not their Hao. In things that don’t matter much, they’ll obey him, honoring his blue. Remember when they were knocking some of their prisoners around just after the raid? He told them to stop and they stopped.”

  “I saw that. I wondered about it. And they wouldn’t let my men paint him.”

  “It would be sacrilege to mar the blue.”

  Jules looked at her strangely. “Yes, that’s what they said.”

  “They mean to have that bl
ue for themselves. They intend to keep him—damage his legs so that he can’t escape. They might not force the meklah on him, but they would call him Garkohn Hao. A captive Hao doesn’t lead unless he renounces his former people and shows that he has joined his captors. But whether that happens or not, his presence gives his captors unity and strength that they’ll turn and use—in this case, against the Tehkohn. Diut won’t let that happen. And he’s a man in need of allies now, Jules. Even if he breaks free, you can be of use to him, and him to you.”

  Jules was silent for a long moment. Finally, he said, “I’ll talk to him, girl. I won’t promise anything or bow down to his blue, but I’ll talk to him.”

  “Nobody bows. They call him Tehkohn Hao instead of his name and they look at him. No more formality than that.”

  “What do you mean, they look at him? What’s special about that?”

  “It’s insulting to look away from him when he’s talking. What he’s saying with his coloring can be as important as what he’s saying with his mouth. Even if you don’t understand, it’s best to look at him.” This was a small thing. Diut did not demand it of his close friends or his family. He would not have demanded it of Jules. But he would notice if Jules seemed to be refusing to look at all—as Jules surely would without this warning. The Hao appearance took some getting used to, especially at close quarters, and for the sake of the colony, Jules had to get used to it quickly. If he did not, Diut would sit and talk to him and listen and learn whatever he could about the Missionaries. He would behave with respect as Kohn custom demanded that he behave toward the father of his wife, but he would promise Jules nothing. Eventually, he would make his escape and abandon the Missionaries to their fate.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alanna

  My first memories as I came out of withdrawal were of pain, cold, hunger, and thirst. Someone gave me water—not enough. Someone lifted me and carried me to a place that was warm.

  Someone tore my filthy ragged clothing from my body and washed me. I felt as though I was again under the care of the Verricks and the Mission doctor—as though I was reliving my first hours with the Missionaries. I kept listening for Jules’s voice or the voice of Dr. Bartholomew. But the voices I heard were strange to me. They spoke in a language I could not quite understand. Then I remembered that I had been captured, that the speakers must be Tehkohn. I couldn’t see. My eyes were swollen shut. I was able to take a little more water though, and something that must have been a kind of soup. Finally, I fell asleep under the care of my captors.

  When I had slept for a time—I had no idea how long—I was awakened by people talking near me. I tried to open my eyes, found that I could, a little. The swelling was going down. Through the blurred screen of my own eyelashes, I could see two Tehkohn. Cold dim light came from patches of luminescence scattered on the wall behind them and the Tehkohn themselves radiated some light—glowed softly. One was blue-green and about my size, and the other was blue. Deep blue all over and huge—larger than any native I had ever seen, and perhaps larger than any of the Missionaries. He had the powerful stocky build of a hunter, but no hunter could have been as tall. And there was something different about the way the native looked. I couldn’t see him clearly enough to know just what, but something besides his size was bothering me, frightening me. I moved a little, trying to see him better. My movement attracted his attention and he came over to me.

  He knelt beside me and I tried to see his face clearly. But he had ceased to radiate light now and his deep blue was swallowed in the shadows of the room. He seemed only a shadow himself there beside me, and in spite of my fear, I reached out to touch him—to find out for certain whether or not I was dreaming.

  The blue-green man in the background spoke to me sharply in Garkohn, but the blue one silenced him with a gesture. Then he held out a dark shadowy arm to me. I felt the thick soft fur and the hard hand with its thick clawlike nails. The huge Tehkohn was real. And he was clearly a person of authority. He was probably deciding now what was to be done with me.

  And what might he decide? What else would I have to face now that I had survived meklah withdrawal? I lay still, feeling even more frightened and helpless than I had during my first hours among the Missionaries. But I was too weak to sustain even fear for long. I drifted off to sleep.

  When I awoke again, I was stronger. I could see better though the room was only a little brighter than it had been. There were no windows. The irregular wall patches still gave off their dim light and now there was also light from a low fire in a large fireplace. The fireplace was rounded and deep, protruding farther into the room than it would have in a Missionary house. I lay on the floor near it, wrapped in furs. Not far from me lay a Tehkohn man and woman quietly making love.

  I slept again, awoke, and finally got a good look at two of my captors. I recognized them. There was a huntress, unusually small, very quick, her coloring a deeper green than I had seen among the Garkohn. With her was her husband or temporary mate, the blue-green man. The man was the same one who had captured me at the Mission colony. I remembered that now—his coloring, his height. I would have killed him if I could have. As it was, I had nearly blinded him. But he had won. And later, during my withdrawal, he won again, he and the huntress. I had searched for hours—at least for hours—to find a way out of the prison room away from the sickness and the dying. Away from people who could think of nothing better to do than wait to die.

  Finally, I found the hidden door and got out. Then this man and woman found me. I was not strong enough to fight them. They simply lifted me and threw me back into the room. I swore to myself then that I would kill them. Of all the Tehkohn I had seen, I could think of none who deserved death more.

  And yet here I was alone with them in their apartment, weak as a child, and totally at their mercy. I lay watching them and wondering what they would do to me.

  The huntress came over and knelt beside me. She spoke in Garkohn. “Can you understand me?”

  “Yes,” I said. I was still hoarse, but my voice was returning.

  “Ah. Good. Do you have pain?”

  “When I move.”

  “Pain in your muscles, yes. That goes away easily. I have ointment. No pain here?” She laid a hand on my stomach.

  “No.”

  “Good. You’re, healing.” She rubbed my body with a pungent-smelling ointment that felt cold at first, and then very warm. Almost at once, I began to feel better. And I became less apprehensive. Clearly, these people wanted me healthy. I wondered why.

  I managed to sit up and the blue-green man brought me a wooden bowl filled with a kind of stew that I had never tasted—stew thick with tender chunks of meat. I ate slowly, savoring it.

  “What are you called?” the man asked.

  “Alanna.”

  He repeated my name courteously, then added, “I am Jeh.”

  “And I’m Cheah,” said the huntress.

  I repeated both names.

  “We are husband and wife,” said Jeh. “You will stay with us for a while. We will teach you Tehkohn ways.”

  I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath in relief. It would be only the Missionary experience again then. In exchange for food, shelter, and safety, I would learn to say the right words and observe the right customs—change my cultural “coloring” again and fade into Tehkohn society as much as I could. If I could. If I couldn’t, at least I would be able to bide my time until I was strong again. Strong enough to try to find my way back to the valley—or at least to take my revenge.

  “I will learn,” I told Jeh quietly.

  He whitened, pleased. Then he said something in Tehkohn to Cheah and turned and left the apartment.

  “Is he a hunter?” I asked Cheah when he was gone.

  She flashed white and I thought she was telling me yes, that Jeh was a hunter. But she was laughing. “He is a judge, Alanna. You should have said that when he was here.”

  I was glad I hadn’t. There would be time enough for me to mak
e insulting errors. “Judges are higher than hunters then?” I asked.

  “Higher, yes. From the judges come the Hao.”

  “Hao?”

  “You saw Diut last night—one of our Tehkohn Hao.”

  “The blue man?”

  “So. We have one other, Tahneh, but she is old.”

  “And these are your leaders, Diut and Tahneh?”

  “More than leaders. Judges can lead, or hunters. But when they do, there is dissension, sometimes fighting. It happened that way with the Garkohn because their Hao died childless and no judges had produced a new Hao from the air.”

  “From the…”

  “The Hao come either from other Hao, or from nowhere into the families of judges. Never from hunters or nonfighters. The Garkohn have thrown away their only source of the blue. Now, without unity or honor or power, they will die slowly.”

  The mention of dying sent my thoughts off in another direction. “Cheah?”

  She looked at me in a way that seemed friendly.

  “The Garkohn here, and the other Missionaries—are any of them still alive?”

  “None,” she said quietly. “Only you.”

  I lowered my head, realizing that this was the answer that I had expected. I could remember now crawling from corpse to corpse near the end of my withdrawal, groping blindly, hoping to find someone alive. But I had been alone even then. Now I looked up at Cheah’s furry face and knew that I was still alone. Flexible as I was, how could I hope to blend in among these people. At least among the Missionaries, there had been others who looked almost like me. But here…

  I found myself suddenly longing to see another furless Earth-human face,. I hadn’t even liked any of the Missionaries who had been captured with me but if one of them had been brought in to me now, alive, I would have welcomed him, as the Missionaries said, like a brother.