“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 have welcomed him, as the Missionaries said, like a brother.
“Alanna.”
I made my eyes focus on Cheah.
“What are you thinking? That you are alone now because the others are dead?”
I did not answer.
“You are,” she continued. “And being alone among a strange people is hard. But you are clean now, and we want you with us. Why should we be a strange people to you any longer. Learn. Become one of us.”
“Shall I grow fur then? Or turn green?” I was feeling just bitter enough to be foolish. I was thinking that in the end, I would have to make do with the bleak satisfaction of revenge after all. And even that offered less attraction than it once had. I found Cheah likable. She reminded me of Gehl.
“You will do whatever you can do,” she said quietly. “Were you lying when you told Jeh you would learn?”
“I…no.”
“Learn then. Don’t use your differences to isolate yourself. If we are not offended by them, why should you worry?”
She was right, of course. And though that didn’t stop me from worrying, it did help.
I regained my strength quickly and stayed with Jeh and Cheah for many days. I learned as much of the language as I could from both of them. Tehkohn and Garkohn were similar, derived from the same root language, and sometimes I mixed the two, strangely forgetting which was which. But I struggled to learn.
“Your Garkohn is offensive,” Jeh had told me. “We are your people now. You must learn to speak as we do.”
I did my best to obey. I was still learning when Jeh and Cheah suddenly turned me over to a pair of artisans.
“Learn from them,” Jeh said. “We have seen that you can learn, and that you will. The artisans will teach you more.”
“I’ll live with them?”
“Yes. And help them in their work.”
I looked away from him frowning, not wanting to leave. I knew it was a good sign that they were sending me to artisans. Artisans cared for the young children of the tribe. Jeh and Cheah had two sons who spent most of their time with their artisan second-parents. And I, in my ignorance of Tehkohn ways, was like a child. But still, I had grown secure with Jeh and Cheah. They were not like Jules and Neila at all except in their acceptance of me, but that was enough. Since I had to stay with the Tehkohn, I would have preferred to go on living with these two.
Yet I said nothing. I was being favored, trusted. Silence was best no matter what I felt. Jeh took me to the apartment of the artisan couple and left me there. The artisans were Gehnahteh, a slender golden-green woman, and her husband Choh, who had slightly more yellow in his coloring.
These two walked up to me without a word and began to undress me. I resisted without thinking at first as they seized my short, fur-lined tunic and my pants. Jeh had only recently taken me to another artisan to have the clothing made. That had been my first experience with being stripped by an artisan. But at least that artisan had had good reason for what she did. She had taken away the skin blanket that I had wrapped myself in and looked at me and measured me with knotted strips of hide and listened while I described the garments I needed. I hadn’t minded. But I did mind this sudden unnecessary stripping by Gehnahteh and Choh. After a moment, I stepped away from them and finished undressing myself so that they could satisfy their curiosity and leave me alone.
They did not touch me as I stood naked before them. They looked at me. They walked around me, staring at my body while I stared back angrily. I was used to Kohn curiosity, abruptness, and lack of privacy by then, and normally, it didn’t bother me. But this time Gehnahteh and Choh had taken me by surprise, and had unwittingly come into conflict with my own wildland habits. Wild humans who were seized unexpectedly, suddenly, by strangers fought for their lives. It was an automatic reaction. I had grabbed Choh and very nearly hit him before I caught myself. But with Gehnahteh’s first words, my anger began to die.
“Do the skins keep you warm enough?” she asked.
