Diut now made himself as unimpressive as he could. He muted his coloring so that his face and body seemed to be veiled in shadow. He had kept it that way—quietly unobtrusive—through most of the trip down from the mountains. His height, well over two meters, made him a giant among both Missionaries and Kohn. That he could not disguise. There were two or three Missionaries almost as tall, but so large a native, especially a Tehkohn, had to be startling and threatening to the colonists. Facing Jules now, Diut seemed to understand this. He sat down as soon as he could. He was not so much trying to avoid alarming Jules, Alanna knew, although his general “dimming” would have that effect. He was trying to see that attention would be focused on the subject at hand rather than on his rank and his—to Jules’s mind—unusual physical appearance. He did this with his judges when he needed opinions from them that were honest rather than “respectful.” Jules would not understand the sign, but he would respond to it in the way Diut wanted.
Seeing Diut take such care, Alanna relaxed slightly. She felt more confident now that she had done the right thing in urging this meeting.
They sat at the dining table, and Diut stared at the bowl of meklah fruit that Alanna had forgotten to remove. He had glanced briefly at Jules, then at Alanna. Neither glance was significant. It simply acknowledged their presence. Jules spoke to him in Garkohn to Alanna’s surprise. She realized that Jules must have learned the language during her absence. During that same period, she had taught Diut English, but there was no need for Jules to know that.
“My daughter has told me a little about you, Tehkohn Hao,” Jules said. “Not much. But enough with what I’ve just seen, to make me wonder why you’re here. What do you want?”
Diut raised his large head and gave Jules his attention. This was disconcerting in spite of the shadows he cast about himself. Diut was the only Kohn Alanna had seen who managed, in spite of the humanoid arrangement of his features, to seem frighteningly alien. No Missionary would see him as simply a caricature of the Sacred Image. Alanna saw Jules jump, saw him sit up straighter in his chair. But he continued to look at Diut.
“Perhaps only to find out whether you would be able to ask that question,” Diut said. His voice had depth without hollowness or harshness. It was clear, but somehow, not pleasing, not human. Like his appearance, it took getting used to. “To see whether the Garkohn would let you,” he continued, “and whether you would bother.”
It was an admission! Alanna stared down at the table, her expression carefully neutral. Just as she had guessed, Diut had come to see whether the Missionaries were worth the trouble it would cost him to let them live.
“I bothered,” said Jules, “because I want the hostilities between your people and mine to end now before there is more killing. As for the Garkohn, their authority is over their own people. They don’t give orders here at the Mission settlement.”
“So?” Diut watched Jules silently for a moment. “Do we not discuss matters too important to be obscured by ritual lying, Missionary?”
Jules looked startled. Then he leaned back and sighed. He seemed resigned rather than offended. “You’ve come to understand our situation here very quickly.”
“I’m still learning. Just before you sent for me, for instance, I learned that you rather than Natahk planned the raid in which I was captured.”
Pride burned for a moment in Jules’s eyes. “My people were going to be involved. I had none that I could afford to lose.”
“Neither had I,” said Diut. “Yet from your point of view, it was a highly successful raid.”
“As was yours two years ago. I hope, Tehkohn Hao, that we can make this the last such hostility between our peoples.”
“Peace, Verrick?” Diut reached out and took a meklah fruit from the bowl. He held it before him—between them. “And what of the Garkohn? What if we two sit here and decide not to fight each other again? How would you stop Natahk when he next decides to use your people?” As he spoke, he replaced the fruit in its bowl. During the instant that the bowl completely hid his hand from Jules, that hand was the same brown as Alanna’s own skin. Alanna understood the sign, realized that he knew of her readdiction. And did he condemn her, she wondered. She found herself examining his coloring for any trace of yellow disapproval. She found none. Perhaps he felt none. But he could hide his feelings when he wanted to.
Oblivious to the exchange, Jules answered Diut’s question. “Things are bad, Tehkohn Hao, but not as bad as that. We were not simply used by Natahk. We helped him willingly. I had been losing people steadily for two years and I was convinced that you were responsible.”
“And do you know now that I was not?”
Jules glanced at Alanna. “My daughter has told me that you were not. I believe that she reports the truth as she has been allowed to see it. But I find it hard to believe that she has not been deceived in some way.”
Diut said nothing for several seconds. Jules sat glaring at him, waiting impatiently for his defense. Finally, Diut spoke. “Do you understand the way we group ourselves, Verrick—our clans?”
“Clans? Yes, I understand, but what have they to do with—”
“Farmer, artisan, hunter, judge, and Hao. Five. The Garkohn are only three.”
“Yes?” Jules was frowning.
“The Garkohn Hao died years ago—I hope from the wounds given to him by my people. The Garkohn have twice as many people as the Tehkohn, but they have never had as much of the blue. The Garkohn Hao had been childless, and the Garkohn judges did not produce another Hao child. As it often happens when people have no Hao to unite them, the Garkohn fought among themselves. The hunters rebelled against the judges’ rule and killed the judges. Now the hunters rule themselves—badly. They had almost ceased to be a threat to us until Natahk gained power, and until your people arrived, Verrick.”
“But we haven’t helped the Garkohn until now,” protested Jules.
“You’ve helped them. Their artisans are even relearning the shaping of metal because of you.”
“But we haven’t shown them!”
Diut only looked at him.
After a while, Jules nodded. “I see. I knew they watched us, though I didn’t think that was the reason—or one of the reasons.”
“You help them in another way also.”
“How?”
“Your people know many things. Things that the ancestors of the Garkohn knew—things that the Tehkohn still know. And yet you are crippled. You cannot conceal yourselves. You cannot see what is in front of you. You fight badly…”
“We fought well enough against you to win!”
“You fought hardly at all, Verrick, and you know it.”
Jules glared at him angrily, but to Alanna’s surprise, he did not deny the charge.
“Natahk gave you information and you shaped it into a plan. Your part in that plan was to make noise, kill a few unwary farmers, and lure my fighters down from the upper levels of the dwelling to the floor of our valley where they could be killed more easily. You made your noise, and it was new and terrifying to my people. But when my fighters arrived, you had to be protected by Garkohn hunters.”
Jules was quietly furious. “We let them protect us so that we wouldn’t shoot them by accident, mistaking them for Tehkohn. Your people were not hurt nearly as badly as we could have hurt them—as we might still have to hurt them.”
“Threats, Verrick? Even as we talk of peace?”
With an effort, Jules controlled himself. “You are here to talk peace. Why do you talk of fighting instead?”
“Because you must understand what you are—why you are of value to Natahk. You can think, but you cannot fight. You are judges to whom hunters need not be subject. There are few traditions to protect you because you have no blue.”