Free Survivor by Octavia E. Butler Page A

them. They simply lifted me and threw me back into the room. I swore to myself then that I would kill them. Of all the Tehkohn I had seen, I could think of none who deserved death more.
    And yet here I was alone with them in their apartment, weak as a child, and totally at their mercy. I lay watching them and wondering what they would do to me.
    The huntress came over and knelt beside me. She spoke in Garkohn. "Can you understand me?"
    "Yes," I said. I was still hoarse, but my voice was returning.
    "Ah. Good. Do you have pain?"
    "When I move."
    "Pain in your muscles, yes. That goes away easily. I have ointment. No pain here?" She laid a hand on my stomach.
    "No."
    "Good. You're, healing." She rubbed my body with a pungent-smelling ointment that felt cold at first, and then very warm. Almost at once, I began to feel better. And I became less apprehensive. Clearly, these people wanted me healthy. I wondered why.
    I managed to sit up and the blue-green man brought me a wooden bowl filled with a kind of stew that I had never tasted—stew thick with tender chunks of meat. I ate slowly, savoring it.
    "What are you called?" the man asked.
    "Alanna."
    He repeated my name courteously, then added, "I am Jeh."
    "And I'm Cheah," said the huntress.
    I repeated both names.
    "We are husband and wife," said Jeh. "You will stay with us for a while. We will teach you Tehkohn ways."
    I closed my eyes and drew a deep breath in relief. It would be only the Missionary experience again then. In exchange for food, shelter, and safety, I would learn to say the right words and observe the right customs—change my cultural "coloring" again and fade into Tehkohn society as much as I could. If I could. If I couldn't, at least I would be able to bide my time until I was strong again. Strong enough to try to find my way back to the valley—or at least to take my revenge.
    "I will learn," I told Jeh quietly.
    He whitened, pleased. Then he said something in Tehkohn to Cheah and turned and left the apartment.
    "Is he a hunter?" I asked Cheah when he was gone.
    She flashed white and I thought she was telling me yes, that Jeh was a hunter. But she was laughing. "He is a judge, Alanna. You should have said that when he was here."
    I was glad I hadn't. There would be time enough for me to make insulting errors. "Judges are higher than hunters then?" I asked.
    "Higher, yes. From the judges come the Hao."
    "Hao?"
    "You saw Diut last night—one of our Tehkohn Hao."
    "The blue man?"
    "So. We have one other, Tahneh, but she is old."
    "And these are your leaders, Diut and Tahneh?"
    "More than leaders. Judges can lead, or hunters. But when they do, there is dissension, sometimes fighting. It happened that way with the Garkohn because their Hao died childless and no judges had produced a new Hao from the air."
    "From the…"
    "The Hao come either from other Hao, or from nowhere into the families of judges. Never from hunters or nonfighters. The Garkohn have thrown away their only source of the blue. Now, without unity or honor or power, they will die slowly."
    The mention of dying sent my thoughts off in another direction. "Cheah?"
    She looked at me in a way that seemed friendly.
    "The Garkohn here, and the other Missionaries—are any of them still alive?"
    "None," she said quietly. "Only you."
    I lowered my head, realizing that this was the answer that I had expected. I could remember now crawling from corpse to corpse near the end of my withdrawal, groping blindly, hoping to find someone alive. But I had been alone even then. Now I looked up at Cheah's furry face and knew that I was still alone. Flexible as I was, how could I hope to blend in among these people. At least among the Missionaries, there had been others who looked almost like me. But here…
    I found myself suddenly longing to see another furless Earth-human face,. I hadn't even liked any of the Missionaries who had been captured with me but if one of them had been brought in to me now, alive, I would