The dead Missionaries were brothers, Kyle and Lee Everett. Alanna had known them. One of her few friends among the Missionaries had been their sister, Tate, who had been taken by the Garkohn over a year before. It occurred to Alanna that the memory of their sister might have been what spurred the two men to run so recklessly into danger. They would have been infuriated at seeing the Tehkohn escaping since, like most Missionaries, they had still believed that the Tehkohn were responsible for all the abductions. Jules had not dared to risk the chaos that might follow a general announcement of the truth.
And, Alanna thought unhappily, Jules had been right. Just as she had been right not to try to convince the prisoners that the Missionaries were not their enemies, and thus should be handled gently. The prisoners would not have believed her and more important, the Garkohn might have overheard. Her fear of the Garkohn and Jules’s fear of the temper of his people—their temper and their guns—had killed Kyle and Lee, but had doubtless saved many others.
Most Missionaries did not realize that anything had happened until early the next morning when Natahk arrived with an army of hunters. The First Hunter was as angry as Alanna had expected him to be. He and Gehl came straight to the Verrick house. Natahk was luminescent yellow in his fury. He stood looking from one to another of the three Verricks until his eyes came to rest on Jules. “I have heard that you were sick, Verrick, confined to your bed for days.”
He stopped, clearly waiting to trample any defense Jules made. Jules said nothing.
“Was it your sickness that prevented you from hearing the Tehkohn who came raiding last night? Were you asleep in your bed while they slaughtered my hunters and freed the prisoners?”
“I heard them,” said Jules. And his tone caused Alanna to turn and look at him with apprehension. He sounded the way he had the night before when he stood over the bodies of the Everett brothers—the way he had when he stopped blaming himself and began blaming the natives. All the natives.
“You heard?” Natahk feigned surprise. “And you did nothing? Called none of your people to the aid of my outnumbered hunters?”
“To what purpose?” demanded Jules. “So that the Tehkohn could be diverted to killing Missionaries while your hunters escaped?”
Natahk’s luminescence seemed to intensify, probably because Jules had guessed exactly right.
“Would you like to see the bodies of the two men who did try to help your hunters?” asked Jules.
Natahk struck him openhanded across the face.
Jules reeled back against the wall and fell, upsetting a small chest that contained Neila’s cooking utensils. The chest spilled its contents over the floor as Natahk spoke.
“What do I care for your two men—two fools who gave their necks to the Tehkohn—when I have lost twelve hunters!” He went to the dining table where a bowl of meklah fruit still sat—for Neila and for guests. He took a piece of fruit, turned, and threw it hard so that it half smashed against Jules’s chest. “Eat, Verrick.”
Alanna saw Jules’s hand move to where Neila’s large butcher knife had fallen out of the chest. He grasped the knife, his body hiding the action from Natahk. Then in a single motion, he rose to his feet and lunged at the Garkohn.
Alanna had quietly placed herself between Jules and Natahk, off to one side. Now she moved as Jules did, hit him with her full weight before he could reach Natahk. She caught his right wrist with both her hands and twisted it as they fell. He released the knife and it went skittering across the floor to the wall.
Jules jerked free of Alanna and thrust her away from him. She got up, looked at Natahk, who had not moved, then looked at Jules, who glared back at her. Neila, frightened and confused by the brief incident, now started to Jules’s side. But she stopped when she saw his expression. Alanna offered him her hand.
He got up, ignoring the hand, and faced Natahk. There was no change in the Garkohn’s seemingly placid face, but his coloring was still bright yellow.
“You will eat,” he said softly.
Jules must have known the threat behind the gentled voice. Containing his humiliation somehow, he went to the table, took a meklah fruit, ate it. Behind him, Neila began to cry.
Natahk went to where the knife had finally come to rest and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands for a moment, then spoke to his second-in-command. “Do we not have hunters with us who know the locations of all the Missionary weapons?”
Gehl flashed white in a luminescent Kohn nod.
“Tell them to collect the weapons.”
“Oh, God, no!” Jules spoke more to himself than to the Garkohn. Then, “No, Natahk! There will be killing!”
The Garkohn leader glanced at him and Gehl stopped to see if there would be a change in her orders.
“Natahk, my people will fight to keep their weapons. There will be pointless carnage.” He seemed to have to force the next words out. “Take my weapons if you wish. I’m the one who threatened you. But leave my people alone.”
Natahk hefted the knife again and smiled humanly. He spoke to Gehl. “Tell them not to worry about these.” He indicated the knife. “An adult hunter who cannot overcome a Missionary armed with this deserves to die. But see that they collect the others. The strange ones.” He meant the guns.
Gehl flashed assent again and went out.
Neila approached Jules again and the two exchanged looks of apprehension. Jules started toward the door, then stopped, and in what must have been a painful gesture, looked at Natahk.
No longer smiling, the Garkohn flashed a nod—a dismissal.
Jules and Neila hurried out, doubtless intent on doing what they could to hold down the carnage.
Alanna stared after them, then looked at Natahk and found him watching her.
“Why did you save him?” he asked.
“He is my father!” she said hotly. Then, watching him, she cooled, performed the mental gymnastics necessary to keep her calm and safe from the rage that had almost destroyed Jules. “Why did you spare him?” she countered.
Natahk made a sound of derision. “He has his uses. And sometimes I pity him. He always fights, yet he must always lose.”
She looked at him with surprise, wondering whether he meant it, whether he was capable of even such a condescending sympathetic emotion as pity. “Will your hunters kill?” she asked, glancing toward the door.
“If they must. Verrick will do what he can to make it unnecessary, and you will do what you can. But if they fight us, some of them will die.”
“You want me to help?”
“Of course. I expect you to be very useful in helping me control your people.”
She stood still, saying nothing. Was this why he had kept her secret and let her remain unaddicted? Because she too had her uses? If that was it, then he must have finally believed her claim that she preferred death to the meklah. Perhaps he feared that she would kill herself in a third withdrawal. But he was not finished.
“I demand little of you really. You would try to keep them out of danger on your own as you just did with Verrick. You do care for them to a surprising extent—surprising considering where your true loyalties lie.”
“I care for them.”
“Show your usefulness then. And perhaps I will begin to forget what you were. Except in one way.” He paused. “Your husband was teaching you to fight.”
“Yes.”
“You move well, and quickly. I will see that your training is continued.”
She ignored this.
“Our Missionaries in the south are also being trained. Most have little strength, but it is surprising what they can be motivated to do.”
Imagining the “motivations,” Alanna felt sick and angry. She moved away from him toward the door. She was about to go out when something occurred to her. “Will you tell Tate Everett that her brothers are dead?”