Survivor

by Octavia E. Butler

  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.”

  “With all his guards looking on?”

  “Oh yes,” said Jules bitterly. “It was all some Tehkohn trick, you see, and I was in on it. I told him it was a lot more likely that some of his own people had let Diut get away—out of respect for the blue.”

  “And?”

  “He lit up the room. Brightest yellow I’ve ever seen. I think a lot of his rage came out of his knowledge that I might be right. He questioned me about my talk with Diut. I had to tell him something so I told him Diut had accused him of kidnapping our people. He not only admitted that it was true, but he told me he had us too. Confirmed everything Diut said against him.”

  Alanna sighed, nodded. “Well, at least now you can be sure.”

  Jules went on with increasing bitterness. “He said he wanted me to understand exactly what the situation was so that I wouldn’t endanger my people by following any instructions Diut had given. He said it was unfortunate that I couldn’t have been content with things as they were, because now he had to take away even the limited authority that he had let me exercise over my people.” Jules took a deep breath and the rage that Alanna had only glimpsed the day before was back, intensified. “My people! People I worked over half my life to save. People who trusted me! I’ll kill Natahk before I let him get away with this!”

  Alanna sympathized silently. But Jules’s anger, like her own, would have to wait. Now the Garkohn would watch him more closely than ever, and they would be less tolerant about what they permitted him to do.

  “Jules, this means you can’t go through with your withdrawal.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

  “They’ll be watching you! My God, if they found out about my withdrawal, you know they’ll find out about yours.”

  “Possibly.”

  “They’ll readdict you—at least. They might not even let you get all the way through. You’re a lot more important to them than I am. Natahk will see your freedom as a threat to his control over the settlement.”

  “You might be right,” he said, “but it doesn’t matter. The whole idea of my withdrawing now was to test your hypnosis idea. I didn’t want to ask anyone else to serve as a guinea pig, and now, I don’t want to expose anyone else to Natahk’s anger if he finds out what we’re doing.”

  She looked at him closely. He was sitting in his chair near the fireplace, his body limp, seemingly relaxed, his hands first clasped, then moving nervously. He was pale and the lines in his face seemed more deeply etched.

  “You’re in withdrawal.”

  He nodded. “I haven’t eaten anything since early yesterday evening.”

  “Nathan hypnotized you?”

  “Yes. Three times. He gave me about the same suggestions he gave you.”

  “But for you, they worked.”

  “So far. I’m weak, hungry—God, I’m hungry—but I’ve felt worse. And I probably feel better than you did eighteen or twenty hours in. I’m supposed to be in bed though.”

  “I can believe that! Why aren’t you?”

  He smiled thinly. “I wanted to talk to you while I could still make sense. Wanted you to know just how things stood between us and the Garkohn.”

  “Who else knows?”

  He grunted. “Neila’s been careful not to ask—which means she knows. Jacob knows. He even sat in on a couple of my sessions with Nathan. The Garkohn are getting bolder, ordering people around, spying more openly. Most people know something is wrong. I’ve had complaints.” He had been gazing off into space. Now he looked at Alanna. “I wanted you t
o know because you can deal with the Tehkohn. You’re the only one here who knows anything about them. I’m hoping you won’t have to do anything before my withdrawal is over, but I want you to be able to if necessary.”

  “Does Jacob know you want that of me?”

  “Yes. He doesn’t think much of the idea, but while I’m alive, he’ll obey.”

  She did not want to talk or think of his dying, did not want to remember how easily it could happen during the next few days. He seemed to misunderstand her sudden pensiveness. He spoke softly.

  “I know it’s a heavy responsibility, girl, and you’re just out of withdrawal. I’m sorry to have to…”

  She got up and went to him, laid a hand on his shoulder. She had just been able to stop herself in time from touching his throat in the Kohn gesture of affection. “It’s a responsibility I had already accepted. You know it’s not the responsibility I’m concerned about.”

  For a moment, there was silence. He covered her hand with his own in what first seemed to her an oddly Kohn response. But no. Some gestures were universal.

  “Why don’t you go to bed now?” she asked.

  He nodded, got up. But as he started away, she thought of something else. “Jules, what happened to the Tehkohn prisoners?”

  He turned back. “Nothing. Natahk didn’t mention moving them even after Diut escaped.”

  “Has anyone fed them?”

  “We tried. They’ve refused to eat. No one has forced them.”

  Alanna nodded. “Do you mind if I take them something?”

  He looked at her strangely. “If you want to. If the Garkohn guards will let you.” As sick as he was, he was curious. The dangerous kind of curiosity. But he would not ask his questions. She spoke quietly.

  “I know some of them, Jules. Some of them helped to make things easier for me when I was their prisoner. After my withdrawal, none of them were any more cruel to me than they were to each other. It wouldn’t be right for me to let them starve without trying to help.” Half truths. She wondered why she didn’t tell him her real reason for wanting to feed the prisoners—that if they were fuzzy-minded from hunger, even in their slightly weakened condition, they might do some unnecessary killing when they escaped. Missionary lives might be lost. But no. It was not yet time for him to know that they definitely would escape. She could not let him know that until Diut was ready. She would have to tell him something more though. His curiosity was clearly not satisfied. And now he was ready to ask questions.

  “They treated you…well, Lanna, when they held you captive?”

  “As well as could be expected, I guess. As long as I did as I was told.” Again, she was not telling the whole truth. But then, very little that she told him about herself and the Tehkohn could be wholly true.

  “They didn’t…?” He struggled with the words and his struggle gave her warning of what was coming. She stood watching him coldly and feeling no inclination to help. “They didn’t rape you?”

  “No,” she said. “They didn’t.” He would want to believe her and he would find a way to do so. He would not even have asked such a question if the Garkohn kidnappings had not forced him to consider the Kohn human enough to do such a thing.

  “I haven’t wanted to ask you these things, Lanna.” He met her eyes sadly. “Perhaps because I was afraid of the answers you might give. It seemed so incredible that we found you alive. I just wanted to thank God that we had you back and let it go at that. But this damned Garkohn thing wouldn’t let me. It started me wondering…”He broke off abruptly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Obviously it mattered. How had he been able to give her charge of the settlement’s relations with the Tehkohn while he entertained such doubts? Or had he given her the responsibility in the hope that his apparent trust would touch her conscience and forestall any act of treachery? She finished his sentence for him. “Started you wondering whether or not you really did have me back.”

  He accepted the accusation. “Do we, Lanna?”

  “I was like a servant among the Tehkohn,” she lied softly. “Like a slave, really—the way you and Neila were on Earth in Forsyth. I had no blue in my coloring and thus no rank among them. They didn’t know quite what to do with me so they accepted me as a kind of interesting freak. They gave me whatever jobs they thought I could do. Other than that, they left me alone. I was an alien, an outsider.” She paused for a moment, watching him. “Please don’t make me feel as though I’m still an outsider, even here at home.”

  He sighed, seemed to deflate, and she knew she had won at least temporarily. He came back to her and hugged her. “I’m sorry, girl. It’s the withdrawal. I’m not thinking clearly or it would never occur to me to doubt you.”

  She said nothing, let him go off to bed thinking he had hurt her. Surprisingly, he had.

  Natahk’s hunters let her in to see the prisoners without trouble. By now, they were probably used to allowing Missionaries to go in and try to convince the Tehkohn to eat.

  The captives did not bother to look up at her as she entered. Their prison was a single large room with walls and ceiling of rough wood and a floor of hard-packed earth. It had a few tiny windows near the ceiling—enough to let in a little light and air. None of the captives brightened the room further with their personal luminescence. None of them wasted energy in any way at all. They sat or lay on the floor, silent and unmoving. Alanna spoke to them bluntly in Tehkohn.

  “If I bring you food and guarantee it safe, will you eat?”

  There was a long silence. Finally a judge near her answered quietly. “We will not eat.” No one contradicted him.

  Alanna faced him. “Can you believe that I would poison you?”

  “We don’t know.”-His coloring became dimly iridescent with indecision. “We don’t know who you are, Alanna.”

  “So,” she said softly. She could have taken offense. The judge had insulted her by questioning her loyalty. Another Tehkohn, even of a lower clan, could probably have made the judge apologize. Alanna might have been able to do it herself, but it would accomplish nothing. The captives would still refuse to eat, would still doubt her. They would simply keep their doubts to themselves.

  Now all three groups had questioned her loyalty—Garkohn, Missionary, and Tehkon. No one knew who she was except Diut. What would she do, she wondered bleakly, if he began to doubt. She spoke again to the Tehkohn.

  “Is there nothing that I can do for you…to ease your wait?”

  “Nothing that you would be permitted to do.”

  There was nothing more to be said. She turned to go.

  “Alanna!” The voice was quick and just a little louder than necessary. Loud enough to shift everyone’s attention to the speaker, a small well-colored huntress. Cheah, her name was. She rose to her feet in one swift motion, and came to stand before Alanna. It was she who with her judge-husband Jeh had found Alanna sprawled in the doorway of the Tehkohn prison room. It was she whom Alanna had lived to kill. And yet they had become friends. Cheah was raucous and Alanna quiet, but somehow they enjoyed each other’s company—and admired each other’s savagery.

  “We have heard what the Garkohn did to you,” said the huntress.

  Alanna lifted her head slightly, stifling a rush of humiliation. “It is undone. And the Garkohn will pay.”

  “Didn’t I say it!” Cheah looked around at the other prisoners, her body suddenly shimmering triumphant in the room’s half light.

  “Many things may be said,” muttered a hunter off to Cheah’s left. Alanna looked at him and saw by his poor coloring that he had made a mistake. Perhaps his hunger had made him careless.

  “So?” Cheah looked at him coldly. “Talk is not enough for you? Shall we discuss it another way?”

  But the hunter had realized his mistake. His body was already fading to yellow in the slow way that signified submission to a more powerful person. Cheah was not only well-colored, but she had lived up to her coloring by earning an impressive reputation as a fighter, an
d when necessary, a killer. Her size did not deceive those who knew her.

  “Alanna has suffered as we have,” said Cheah to the group. “You understand what I mean. And now, she offers help and ignores your insults in order to prove what she should not have to prove.” She lowered her voice abruptly and the others leaned forward to hear. But her words were not for them. “I know who you are, Alanna. And if you bring food, I will eat.”

  Alanna smiled, stepped to Cheah, and touched the back of her hand briefly to one side of the huntress’s face in a gesture of friendship. Then Alanna turned and left the building, barely able to conceal her elation.

  Cheah had given her a victory. Alanna would bring enough food for all the prisoners, and Cheah would eat, would taste everything. Then she would fast. She knew what to do. When the others saw that she suffered no ill effects, they would eat too.

  Cheah’s confidence in Alanna had restored Alanna’s wavering confidence in herself—in her ability to play two separate roles. As long as she had Cheah’s support among the Tehkohn prisoners and Jules’s support among the Missionaries, she had a chance.

  And when Natahk returned, things would become even more complicated. She would have to play three roles. But she could do it. She would do it.

  She hurried back to the Verrick cabin to get food for the captives.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Alanna

  I had managed to avoid the Tehkohn Hao for most of my first season with the Tehkohn. It had not been hard since he lived in a different section of the dwelling and since people who wanted to see him usually had to go to him. I had not wanted to see him—although I was probably lucky I did, when I did. I had just hit one hunter with a stone—he had earned the blow—and I was about to face his friend. I would have had to fight, and though I was careful not to show it, I was afraid. Hunters were trained to kill with their hands and they possessed great strength. Also, even if I fought this hunter and won, how many of his friends would I have to fight? How many others would leap to his defense as he was coming to the defense of his fallen friend?