one quickly, hating it with her mind as her body welcomed it. Her sick hunger began to dissipate. She ate the second fruit more slowly. When she turned to face Jules and Neila, both were staring at her. Neila spoke first.
“Did they have meklah in the mountains where you were?”
“No,” said Alanna softly.
“You went without them for two years? You had none at all?”
“None.” Alanna looked from her to Jules. At the time of Alanna’s abduction, no one in the colony had realized that the meklah was addictive. But now, “You know about it.”
“That we’re slaves to it,” said Jules bitterly.
“I tried to stop eating it once,” said Neila. “I thought I was dying.”
“You might have,” said Alanna.
“But you didn’t.”
“The others did. All of them, Garkohn and Missionary.”
“They locked you up,” accused Jules. “Then watched you suffer.”
Alanna looked at him in surprise. “They closed us all in a room together, but they didn’t watch. Who told you…?”
“Natahk. After you… and the others were taken, I asked him what would happen to you. He told me. That’s when we found out we were addicted. Deliberately addicted. The Garkohn knew what they were feeding us.”
“Of course,” said Alanna.
Jules frowned at her as she put the last of her second meklah fruit into her mouth. “Alanna, if you managed to survive without those things for two years, why did you go back to them. After what you went through, I’d think…”
“That Natahk would let me stay free, like a Tehkohn?”
“Natahk…?”
“The meklah is almost a sacred thing to the Garkohn, Jules. Friends eat it. Enemies don’t.”
Jules rose slowly, stood glaring at Alanna. He was one of the few men in the settlement who could glare at her without looking up. “You mean that’s what he wanted to see you about? To feed you that poison?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing to me about it?”
She laid a hand on his arm. “Here we are on his world, in his valley, trapped. What could you have done, Jules?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then he shook off her hand and turned away. “It didn’t take you long to size up the situation here. I was afraid we’d have to explain it to you.”
Confused, Alanna glanced at Neila. But Neila sank down into her own chair and sat staring into the fire in the fireplace.
“We had better explain to each other,” said Alanna softly. “I can see that you don’t consider the Garkohn the friends they seemed to be two years ago.”
“Clayark friends!” muttered Jules. Alanna had almost forgotten that bitter old epithet—the friend who caught the plague and managed to conceal it. The friend whose touch brought disease and possible death. The betrayer, the Judas.
Alanna smiled to herself. In her absence, Natahk had done her work for her. He had become more heavy- handed, had prepared Jules to change his loyalties. “What was Natahk’s betrayal?” she asked.
“Aside from addicting us all, and readdicting you to the meklah?”
“Aside from that.” Alanna sat down on the floor, made herself comfortable.
“A chair, Alanna,” murmured Neila from years-old habit.
Alanna ignored her. “What has he done, Jules?”
“Nothing overt, I guess.” Jules sat down again. “Most of our people don’t even realize there’s anything wrong. But in more and more ways, he treats us as though we were just another branch of his tribe—like that farming town of his in the south. He seems to think he’s as free to exercise authority over us as he is over them.”
“His hunters spy on us,” said Neila. “They camouflage themselves here in the settlement and watch and listen to us. I’ve caught a couple of them at it the way you caught Gehl today.”
“Gehl was here?” asked Jules.
“She came to see me,” said Alanna. “But she came hidden, and she needn’t have.”
“How did you happen to spot her?”
“She was careless. Her camouflage was bad.”
“I didn’t see her,” said Neila. “Not until you spoke.”
Alanna shrugged. “Maybe my eyes are sharper.”
“At your age, they should be,” said Jules. “But still… you said Gehl was careless. What if she had really been making an effort not to be seen. Do you think you could have spotted her?”
“A huntress? I think so. From now on, I’ll be watching.”
