wife lost… Nathan and Ruth James had been married for less than a year. What would Nathan’s reaction be to a Tehkohn idea, to an alliance with the Tehkohn, to information given by the Tehkohn Hao?
Full of misgivings, Alanna listened as Jules told Nathan of his meeting the night before with Diut. Nathan sat frowning as though he could not quite believe what he was hearing. Finally, Jules questioned him.
“Have you done any research at all on the meklah—found out anything that will help us?”
“Wait,” said Nathan. “First, are you assuming that everything that murdering Tehkohn said was true? Our people crossbreeding with… with…” His face was a twisted mask of revulsion. Alanna watched him with growing concern. Jules must have had some reason for trusting him. If that trust was misplaced, Nathan already had enough information to destroy the colony. All he had to do was give it away, deliberately or accidentally, to one of the more hotheaded Missionaries, or to any Garkohn.
“I was going to ask you for your opinion on the interbreeding too,” said Jules. “I wondered whether you thought it was possible…”
“I don’t!”
“But that’s secondary. We have to get out of this valley, away from the Garkohn and the Tehkohn if we’re to survive as a people. And to do that, at least some of us must break free of the meklah.”
“According to the Tehkohn Hao.”
“According to Diut,” Jules agreed. “And frankly, I believe him.”
“He must have been convincing.” Nathan did not bother to keep his sarcasm out of his voice.
Jules looked annoyed. “You haven’t answered my question, Nathan. The meklah.”
Nathan’s smugness faded. “I’ve done some experiments with my rabbits. I don’t know what they prove. Maybe nothing. Rabbits aren’t people.”
“Did you withdraw the rabbits?”
“I tried.”
“Well?”
Nathan shrugged. “It would have been simpler to slaughter them outright.”
“You lost them? None survived?”
“Of the ones I tried to help, none survived.” Nathan massaged his forehead. “I tried tapering them off the meklah slowly. They died. I tried sedating them with drugs that had already proved harmless to them while they were getting enough meklah. They died faster. By then, I knew what they were dying of and I immobilized some of them and began intravenous infusion. These died too.”
“Are you sure you knew what you were doing with that last?” asked Jules.
“Frankly, no. I think I did it right. I had books and diagrams to guide me but…” He shrugged again. Jules did not press him.
“You said you knew what the rabbits were dying of,” said Neila. “What was it?”
“Thirst,” murmured Alanna. “Dehydration.” The others looked at her.
“Yes,” said Nathan. “You would know something about it, wouldn’t you.”
“A little,” admitted Alanna.
“You should know quite a bit. You watched several Missionaries go through it.”
“I watched one Missionary go through it, Nathan. Me. And most of the time I didn’t even know what I was doing.”
He was silent for a moment, then he nodded. “Does it bother you to talk about it, Alanna? It’s awfully soon for you and I don’t want to…”
“It doesn’t bother me to do anything I have to do to help the people get free of that poison.”
He smiled briefly, then looked apologetic. “The others… do you know how long it took them… to die?”
“No. But the Tehkohn left us shut up together for what they told me was five days. By the end of that time, everyone else was dead.”
“Only five days?” said Jules.
“I don’t think it took me even that long to get through it. But five days is the traditional Tehkohn cleansing period.”
“But so little time…”
“You dry up,” said Alanna. “You lose water in every way you can and drinking doesn’t do any good because you can’t keep anything down until it’s over—or until you get more meklah. What you feel first though, before the thirst, is hunger, craving.” She let herself remember for a moment. “I know what it’s like to starve. Back on Earth, before I came to the colony, I got hungry enough to eat some things you’d probably think were pretty disgusting. But I think coming off the meklah is about the worst kind of hunger I’ve known.” She shuddered more with apprehension than from remembering. “But it’s the water loss that kills. The Tehkohn said they had seen some Garkohn die of it in only one day. Sometimes it hits them harder than it does us—hits them all at once.” She looked at Nathan. “The Tehkohn have made the same experiments you have—except for the intravenous feeding. They made them on volunteers from among their own people who had been addicted by the Garkohn. I would have told you about their results if you hadn’t already found out for yourself.”
Nathan’s calm vanished. “You saw Tehkohn animals making experiments?” he demanded. “You saw them using drugs to sedate each other?”
“No,” said Alanna. “I heard some of them talking about it and I went to a healer to see whether or not it was true. It turned out to have happened generations ago. The healer read it to me from her grandfather’s
