“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?”