Free Survivor by Octavia E. Butler

water—not enough. Someone lifted me and carried me to a place that was warm.
    Someone tore my filthy ragged clothing from my body and washed me. I felt as though I was again under the care of the Verricks and the Mission doctor—as though I was reliving my first hours with the Missionaries. I kept listening for Jules's voice or the voice of Dr. Bartholomew. But the voices I heard were strange to me. They spoke in a language I could not quite understand. Then I remembered that I had been captured, that the speakers must be Tehkohn. I couldn't see. My eyes were swollen shut. I was able to take a little more water though, and something that must have been a kind of soup. Finally, I fell asleep under the care of my captors.
    When I had slept for a time—I had no idea how long—I was awakened by people talking near me. I tried to open my eyes, found that I could, a little. The swelling was going down. Through the blurred screen of my own eyelashes, I could see two Tehkohn. Cold dim light came from patches of luminescence scattered on the wall behind them and the Tehkohn themselves radiated some light—glowed softly. One was blue-green and about my size, and the other was blue. Deep blue all over and huge—larger than any native I had ever seen, and perhaps larger than any of the Missionaries. He had the powerful stocky build of a hunter, but no hunter could have been as tall. And there was something different about the way the native looked. I couldn't see him clearly enough to know just what, but something besides his size was bothering me, frightening me. I moved a little, trying to see him better. My movement attracted his attention and he came over to me.
    He knelt beside me and I tried to see his face clearly. But he had ceased to radiate light now and his deep blue was swallowed in the shadows of the room. He seemed only a shadow himself there beside me, and in spite of my fear, I reached out to touch him—to find out for certain whether or not I was dreaming.
    The blue-green man in the background spoke to me sharply in Garkohn, but the blue one silenced him with a gesture. Then he held out a dark shadowy arm to me. I felt the thick soft fur and the hard hand with its thick clawlike nails. The huge Tehkohn was real. And he was clearly a person of authority. He was probably deciding now what was to be done with me.
    And what might he decide? What else would I have to face now that I had survived meklah withdrawal? I lay still, feeling even more frightened and helpless than I had during my first hours among the Missionaries. But I was too weak to sustain even fear for long. I drifted off to sleep.
    When I awoke again, I was stronger. I could see better though the room was only a little brighter than it had been. There were no windows. The irregular wall patches still gave off their dim light and now there was also light from a low fire in a large fireplace. The fireplace was rounded and deep, protruding farther into the room than it would have in a Missionary house. I lay on the floor near it, wrapped in furs. Not far from me lay a Tehkohn man and woman quietly making love.
    I slept again, awoke, and finally got a good look at two of my captors. I recognized them. There was a huntress, unusually small, very quick, her coloring a deeper green than I had seen among the Garkohn. With her was her husband or temporary mate, the blue-green man. The man was the same one who had captured me at the Mission colony. I remembered that now—his coloring, his height. I would have killed him if I could have. As it was, I had nearly blinded him. But he had won. And later, during my withdrawal, he won again, he and the huntress. I had searched for hours—at least for hours—to find a way out of the prison room away from the sickness and the dying. Away from people who could think of nothing better to do than wait to die.
    Finally, I found the hidden door and got out. Then this man and woman found me. I was not strong enough to fight