The people stared at him in shock, then looked at each other. Now that they had been disarmed, they were being abducted. What could they do? They called out to Natahk, to Jules, to each other. They argued and shouted and drowned each other out. Jules came out of the crowd to stand beside Natahk.
“Do as the First Hunter says,” he ordered quickly. “Obey him! We can replace buildings and fields if we must. We can’t replace lives.”
There was silence for a moment as the people digested this. Then someone called out: “But our homes…! Our crops…!”
“We’ve built new homes before,” said Jules. “And we have enough seed and enough time to plant new crops. We can start again. Whatever happens, we must start again.”
“Go to your homes,” commanded Natahk. “Do as I have told you.”
“What about all the work we’ve done here?” Alanna could see that the speaker was John Williamson, a square burly man who served as the settlement blacksmith. “Just how much can we walk away from and still survive as civilized people.”
“Obey!” roared Natahk. “Or you will not survive at all!”
No one dared speak in the face of the naked threat. There were already five bodies strewn around within the circle of Garkohn. Resistance would clearly not be tolerated. Slowly, hesitantly, the crowd began to fragment into smaller groups. The ring of Garkohn fragmented also, at least one going with each family group. Alanna noticed that the heavily muscled Williamson and his grown son drew three Garkohn. The natives were taking no chances.
Alanna came up to Jules and Natahk just in time to hear Jules speak in a low strained voice.
“Why couldn’t you have warned me that you planned to do this? Are you just trying to drive them to violence so that you’ll have reason to kill them?”
Natahk looked at him coldly. “I already have twelve reasons to kill them, Verrick. The twelve fighters that I lost last night. Be grateful that I do not use those reasons.”
He started to walk away. Jules and Alanna followed when they realized that he was going toward the Verrick house. Neila was already there with Gehl. No doubt it was because of Gehl that Neila was gathering food, clothing, and tools to load onto Jules’s handcart. Like everyone else, she appeared confused, angry, and frightened.
Natahk spoke to Gehl. “Keep watch outside. Bring me word when they have all gathered. If there is trouble, kill.”
Gehl flashed white, glanced briefly at Alanna, and went out.
Natahk sat down, looked at Jules. “Sit, Verrick, and we will talk.”
Jules obeyed. Alanna, wanting as little to do with Natahk as possible, moved away to help Neila pack.
“Alanna!” said Natahk sharply.
She stopped as she was about to enter her bedroom where Neila had gone. She turned to face Natahk. He said nothing more, but after a moment she returned tight-lipped to sit in Neila’s chair.
He watched her with something between amusement and contempt. “Did you think that I would tell you any part of my plans and then leave you to warn the Tehkohn?”
She did not answer.
Natahk looked at Jules. “She has led you foolishly, and you have followed. Were you completely unable to see that you were endangering your own people?”
“Was I?” said Jules. “By keeping them out of a battle that would have killed many of them?”
“What do you think the Tehkohn will do to you now that they no longer need fear for the safety of the prisoners?”
Jules opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He could not tell the truth, and apparently, he had not yet thought of a lie that would fit.
“You have made some arrangement with the Tehkohn,” Natahk accused. “That is what I thought. They made you a few lying promises to save their people. And now that they have their people, how much do you think their promises are worth?”
Jules leaned back, watching Natahk. “I don’t think I could do any worse trusting the Tehkohn than I did trusting you.”
Natahk shrugged humanly. “I have never asked for your trust, Verrick. I am not asking for it now. I am telling you that it is in the best interests of the Tehkohn to kill you now before you can be of further use to me. That is why I am moving you. To save your foolish lives.”
Alanna was startled to realize that Natahk was completely serious. He was not mocking now, in spite of his anger. He believed what he was saying. And, from his point of view, he was right. He knew of no reason for the Tehkohn not to move against the Missionaries. The trouble was, neither did Jules, really. He was simply, desperately, trusting Diut, trusting Alanna. If only he could hold that trust.
“With our weapons,” said Jules, “we would have been willing to face the Tehkohn.”
Natahk sighed. “With your weapons, you would have been willing to face anyone, including Garkohn. Your weapons helped to make you foolish. Without them, perhaps it will be possible for you to learn.” He looked from Jules to Alanna. “Begin teaching your father. Tell him what he is.”
“What he is?” asked Alanna frowning.
“What you are, what all Missionaries are now. Perhaps he will understand, hearing it from you.”
“Oh.” She knew what he wanted her to say, and the anger in his voice told her that it would do no good to protest. But her fear now that his plan might become a reality—that the Missionaries would be dragged away south before Diut could prevent it—made her protest anyway. “There is no need, Natahk. He knows. You have told him yourself.”
“Let him hear it again.”
She sat in silence, knowing that it was not only Jules that he was trying to reach. She was the actual collaborator, and Natahk knew it. She wondered whether he had some special punishment in mind for her. If he did, his sudden move now might give him the chance to carry it out.
“Alanna!”
Resigned, she spoke as though reciting. “We are a Garkohn people, united under your leadership with the other Garkohn of the valley.”
“Not nearly as united as you will be,” said Natahk. He looked at Jules. “Do you think I would accept a group of people so childishly weak that they fight only with the aid of weapons, and so without honor that they would use those weapons against other Garkohn?”
“All right,” said Jules. “You’ve stripped us. We can’t fight you. What happens now? Do we become your new judges?”
Natahk ignored his manner, answered the question seriously. “What happens after you are settled in the south is up to you, Verrick. You will become whatever you can become. It is possible that you will rouse yourselves and learn to fight, show the strength and stability you will need to become a fighter clan. Then, you may be judges of a kind, though with your blueless coloring, you will never command hunters. Or you might find your physical handicaps too great and become merely another nonfighter clan.”
Alanna spoke up. “You hope for the former and expect the latter, don’t you?”
He looked at her mildly. “Your minds are good. And we can use you either way. But we need fighters more than nonfighters.”
“What of our needs?”
“Your… Mission?”
“At the very least,” said Jules, “our Mission.”
“Fulfill it. Breed, multiply, teach your young the glories of their past—as long as you can remember them. And as long as you remember that you are a part of us, subject to the orders of the First Hunter. You must change your thinking toward us, Verrick. You must learn the ways of the other clans so that you can deal with them without giving offense—just as they must learn your ways. And you must accept the tie. Other than that, you are free to stay together and live as you wish.”
“You make it sound deceptively simple,” said Alanna.
“It is simple,” said Natahk. “You should be able to obey without trouble. Especially without the kind of trouble you have had. I think you know that Garkohn clans do not deal separately with non-Garkohn peoples. Especially not with proven enemies of the Garkohn.” He paused, looked from Alanna to Jules. “Do
you both understand what would be done to a hunter or an artisan or a farmer caught working with the Tehkohn?”
“We understand,” said Alanna quickly. She was not eager to hear gruesome descriptions of Garkohn tortures. Diut had told her enough about them.
“I am not certain that Verrick knows, Alanna.” His tone made her wish that she had not spoken. Again he was going to make her recite—ostensibly for Jules. And again the threat was actually for her. “You will tell him,” Natahk ordered.
This time she was frightened enough not to argue. She spoke low-voiced to Jules. “A person caught working with an enemy tribe is painted red all over, and then he is blinded. They burn out his eyes. And they burn his hands until they can see that he will never use them again. Then they tie him with rope around his neck in the center of their dwelling, and wait to see whether or not he will live. If he lives, heals, they burn his legs. They burn behind the knee until the lower leg is useless. After that, he has to go on all fours if he wants to move. If he still lives, they keep him for sport, still tied by the neck like some special kind of animal, until someone gets too rough with him and he dies.” She shuddered. “I have heard that some of them live a very long time.”
“That part is wrong,” said Natahk. “You should have been told that they cease to live as soon as they betray their people.”
Jules looked at him with disgust. “All right, Natahk. You’ve made your point.”
“Have I? Do you understand that you have already earned this punishment—you and your daughter?”
Jules said nothing, sat very straight, waiting.
“Perhaps you were ignorant of the possible consequences of your betrayal, but you can see that Alanna was not. And I have no doubt that whatever contact you had with the Tehkohn was arranged through her.”
Alarmed, Jules cut him off. “Now just a moment, Natahk—”
“Be still!” Natahk did not raise his voice but Jules fell silent as though he had shouted. “She does not deny it. Why should you?”
Jules looked at Alanna and she looked back expressionlessly.
Natahk went on. “Your lives are mine. Only I can save them. Only I can deny justice to the twelve families who lost kinsmen last night.”
Jules watched him closely. “You intend to do this then. And this talk of torture is only to frighten us.”
“It is to warn you, Verrick. I will intercede for you now, but I will not do it again. And even now, I expect to be paid for the protection that I give. I expect you to accept yourselves as Garkohn, and then turn and help your people to do the same. I want your word that you will do this.”
“You want too much,” said Jules.
“So? Even in exchange for your life?”
“Shall I give you my word that I’ll betray my people in exchange for my life? Would you believe me?”
Natahk whitened slightly. “What bargain shall we make then, Verrick? What will you give me in exchange for your life?”
Jules watched him silently for several seconds. “Nothing,” he said finally. “I’ll go on doing what I have to do. I can’t promise anyone more than that.”
The white went out of Natahk’s body and his normal green glowed with the intensity of his emotions. “You choose death then?”
Jules tensed. “If that’s the only alternative.”
Natahk stared at him for several seconds. Then he smiled. “I have heard Alanna speak this way. She was lying. I think you are lying too.”
Jules shrugged.
“You Missionaries find it very easy to say you would rather die than do this or that. But you won’t die, Verrick. And you will learn, to obey me. Because each time you disobey, I will kill one of your people.”
“What!”
“I will begin with Alanna.”
Jules turned to look at Alanna.
“Relations between us were much simpler before she was returned to you,” said Natahk. “Without her, they will become simple again. And you, remembering her, will become much more tractable.”
Neila came out of the bedroom where she had obviously been listening, and stood staring first at Natahk, then at Jules. Alanna watched them all as though nothing they said had anything to do with her. Jules was bluffing, feeling himself too valuable to be casually murdered. Natahk was bluffing. He might kill others, but he had no intention of killing Alanna. Not yet. Jules was trying to salvage pride, and Natahk was trying to intimidate. A game then. One miscalculation from either of them, and the people would be destroyed because of the outcome of a game.
“Jules…” said Neila softly.
Jules glanced at her.
“You can’t let him…” She went to stand beside Alanna, put an arm around her protectively.
“You won’t do it,” said Jules to Natahk. “You won’t kill my daughter and then expect me to co-operate with you.”
Natahk stood up, stepped toward Alanna, and Alanna deliberately entered the game on Natahk’s side. She stood quickly, as though frightened, and moved so that her chair was between herself and Natahk.
“Jules!” cried Neila once more.
“All right!” Jules was on his feet. “Stop!” For his daughter, for his pleading wife, he could do what he refused to do for himself.
Natahk stopped, looked at him.
“I’ll do as you say. Leave them alone.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll… I’ll try to guide my people in the way you want, help them to accept their new lives…and you.”
“You don’t believe what you’re saying,” said Natahk. “But your saying it is a beginning. You will say it again, and again. You will act as though it was true in order to deceive me. You will deceive yourself instead. Your lie will become truth. You and your people are mine, Verrick.”
Jules said nothing.
“In time,” said Natahk more softly, “you will realize that there is no shame in your submission. I don’t rule this valley through weakness. And all who live here submit to me in one way or another.”
Still, Jules was silent.
Watching him, Natahk whitened slowly, then just as slowly settled back to his normal green. “You are First Missionary then, Verrick. Go out to your people and see that no more of them throw their lives away. Take your wife with you. I want to speak privately with Alanna.”
Alanna had not thought anything could bring Jules’s resistance back so quickly.
“You want to… My God, Natahk, haven’t you done enough? Can’t you leave us any peace at all?”
“I want only to speak with her, Verrick. I won’t harm her as long as you obey me.”
Alanna spoke up quickly. “Jules, it’s all right. I’m not afraid.” She was, but her fear was for him. “Go, please. I’ll be all right.”
Jules stared at her with such a strange mixture of anger and concern that she was confused and silenced.
“My daughter?” he said to Natahk. “My house? You leave me no rights at all, do you, First Hunter?”
“The right to live your life with your family in peace, as long as you obey me. Go.”
Alanna spoke up again. “Please, Jules. Go.”
Jules looked from Natahk to Alanna, and finally to Neila. He gestured Neila to him, but she hesitated.
“Go,” said Alanna urgently. “Don’t let me be the cause of your getting hurt.”
Neila went to Jules and they left the house together. Alanna looked after them sadly. Then she heard Natahk sit down again and she turned to face him. “You are destroying him.”
“If he cannot change, he will be destroyed. He knows that.”
Alanna sighed and sat down. “What do you want of me, Natahk?”
“A narrative. Reasonably detailed, true.”
It was what she had expected—what he had promised her days before. She relaxed a little. “Where shall I begin?”
“With your capture.”
She obeyed, telling her story easily, altering only those facts that would indicate that her husband was some
thing more than a judge.
Natahk questioned her from time to time, but for the most part, he listened. She did not know how much he believed, did not care. She kept to the truth as much as she could because her story was so long. She wanted to be able to tell it over in the same way as many times as Natahk might wish without having to struggle to remember too many lies. But surprisingly, Natahk seemed content with one telling.
“Why are you still here?” he asked when she had finished. “You could have left with the prisoners—should have left with them.”
She looked at him, startled. “Should have?”
“If you intended to rejoin your husband. It was your last chance.”
She shrugged.
“You do not believe me. You still expect your Tehkohn friends to help you, even though you will be on your way south before noon.”
Alanna said nothing. Let him worry. She would have been busy praying herself—if she had been Missionary enough to pray.
“You ask for punishment,” said Natahk. “You challenge.”
“I have said nothing.”
“Yes.” Natahk yellowed slightly. “Even your silences challenge. Why did you stay, Alanna?”
“To help my people.”
“Which group?”
“The Missionaries. Do you think the Tehkohn need my help?”
“And what is it you want to help them do?”
“Live. In spite of your goading. In spite of their beliefs.”
“That is a fragment of truth. Now tell me the rest.”
“I…hoped to free them from the meklah.”
“Why? The meklah does no harm as long as it is eaten regularly.”
“And it does no good. Do you not withhold it to torture your captive Missionaries?”
“We withhold it until they obey—and they learn to obey very quickly. But are you less vulnerable to me because you are free of the meklah? Was your father?”
She did not answer.
“You planned for the Missionaries to leave the valley,” he accused. “It is the only answer. But where were they to go?”
The truth? No. But what lie was possible? “I don’t know.”
He stood and came to face her. “I have not wanted to beat you.”
Survivor Page 17
