“No.”
“You cannot say…”
“Now you ask to be commanded. You will wait outside until I have spoken with the Missionaries,” Diut’s blue became luminescent. “Obey!”
For a long moment, the huntress faced him, not quite challenging, not quite giving way. She gazed into his blue and Alanna knew she was at war with her own instincts. This was only a small thing that Diut wanted. It would be so easy to obey. And what harm could it do? The house was surrounded by Garkohn. Finally, her instincts won. She turned and left.
Relief flooded Alanna. She knew, though Jules did not, how easily the confrontation might have ended in Gehl’s death and immediate trouble with the Garkohn. But it was over.
Diut now made himself as unimpressive as he could. He muted his coloring so that his face and body seemed to be veiled in shadow. He had kept it that way—quietly unobtrusive—through most of the trip down from the mountains. His height, well over two meters, made him a giant among both Missionaries and Kohn. That he could not disguise. There were two or three Missionaries almost as tall, but so large a native, especially a Tehkohn, had to be startling and threatening to the colonists. Facing Jules now, Diut seemed to understand this. He sat down as soon as he could. He was not so much trying to avoid alarming Jules, Alanna knew, although his general “dimming” would have that effect. He was trying to see that attention would be focused on the subject at hand rather than on his rank and his—to Jules’s mind—unusual physical appearance. He did this with his judges when he needed opinions from them that were honest rather than “respectful.” Jules would not understand the sign, but he would respond to it in the way Diut wanted.
Seeing Diut take such care, Alanna relaxed slightly. She felt more confident now that she had done the right thing in urging this meeting.
They sat at the dining table, and Diut stared at the bowl of meklah fruit that Alanna had forgotten to remove. He had glanced briefly at Jules, then at Alanna. Neither glance was significant. It simply acknowledged their presence. Jules spoke to him in Garkohn to Alanna’s surprise. She realized that Jules must have learned the language during her absence. During that same period, she had taught Diut English, but there was no need for Jules to know that.
“My daughter has told me a little about you, Tehkohn Hao,” Jules said. “Not much. But enough with what I’ve just seen, to make me wonder why you’re here. What do you want?”
Diut raised his large head and gave Jules his attention. This was disconcerting in spite of the shadows he cast about himself. Diut was the only Kohn Alanna had seen who managed, in spite of the humanoid arrangement of his features, to seem frighteningly alien. No Missionary would see him as simply a caricature of the Sacred Image. Alanna saw Jules jump, saw him sit up straighter in his chair. But he continued to look at Diut.
“Perhaps only to find out whether you would be able to ask that question,” Diut said. His voice had depth without hollowness or harshness. It was clear, but somehow, not pleasing, not human. Like his appearance, it took getting used to. “To see whether the Garkohn would let you,” he continued, “and whether you would bother.”
It was an admission! Alanna stared down at the table, her expression carefully neutral. Just as she had guessed, Diut had come to see whether the Missionaries were worth the trouble it would cost him to let them live.
“I bothered,” said Jules, “because I want the hostilities between your people and mine to end now before there is more killing. As for the Garkohn, their authority is over their own people. They don’t give orders here at the Mission settlement.”
“So?” Diut watched Jules silently for a moment. “Do we not discuss matters too important to be obscured by ritual lying, Missionary?”
Jules looked startled. Then he leaned back and sighed. He seemed resigned rather than offended. “You’ve come to understand our situation here very quickly.”
“I’m still learning. Just before you sent for me, for instance, I learned that you rather than Natahk planned the raid in which I was captured.”
Pride burned for a moment in Jules’s eyes. “My people were going to be involved. I had none that I could afford to lose.”
“Neither had I,” said Diut. “Yet from your point of view, it was a highly successful raid.”
“As was yours two years ago. I hope, Tehkohn Hao, that we can make this the last such hostility between our peoples.”
“Peace, Verrick?” Diut reached out and took a meklah fruit from the bowl. He held it before him—between them. “And what of the Garkohn? What if we two sit here and decide not to fight each other again? How would you stop Natahk when he next decides to use your people?” As he spoke, he replaced the fruit in its bowl. During the instant that the bowl completely hid his hand from Jules, that hand was the same brown as Alanna’s own skin. Alanna understood the sign, realized that he knew of her readdiction. And did he condemn her, she wondered. She found herself examining his coloring for any trace of yellow disapproval. She found none. Perhaps he felt none. But he could hide his feelings when he wanted to.
Oblivious to the exchange, Jules answered Diut’s question. “Things are bad, Tehkohn Hao, but not as bad as that. We were not simply used by Natahk. We helped him willingly. I had been losing people steadily for two years and I was convinced that you were responsible.”
“And do you know now that I was not?”
Jules glanced at Alanna. “My daughter has told me that you were not. I believe that she reports the truth as she has been allowed to see it. But I find it hard to believe that she has not been deceived in some way.”
Diut said nothing for several seconds. Jules sat glaring at him, waiting impatiently for his defense. Finally, Diut spoke. “Do you understand the way we group ourselves, Verrick—our clans?”
“Clans? Yes, I understand, but what have they to do with—”
“Farmer, artisan, hunter, judge, and Hao. Five. The Garkohn are only three.”
“Yes?” Jules was frowning.
“The Garkohn Hao died years ago—I hope from the wounds given to him by my people. The Garkohn have twice
