Diut left Alanna’s side and limped over to the fallen Garkohn. Alanna knew what was about to happen, but Jules and Neila did not. She glanced at them uncertainly.
“What’s he doing?” Neila asked Jules.
Jules said nothing.
The Garkohn forced his coloring to its normal dark green, over-I coming both fear and pain. He looked at the leg that Diut was favor-j ing and even managed to whiten a little. “We did hurt you then, Tehkohn Hao.”
“So,” Diut admitted.
“For hunters fighting against a Hao, even that is no small thing.” The man wrenched himself around to face Diut directly. “Let me die as a fighter.”
In a swift flow of movement, Diut dropped to one knee, seized the hunter by the fur of his head, jerked the head down, and broke the man’s neck with a single blow. The Garkohn’s hands were just reaching Diut’s arm as the blow landed. He had died as he wished to die-as a fighter was supposed to die. It was Kohn custom that a fighter who had fought well and lost had his neck broken—even if he had actually been killed in some other way. Other Kohn read contempt or respect in the way an enemy’s body was left.
“So,” Diut repeated, this time in agreement with the dead Garkohn’s request.
Alanna looked at her parents, saw that they were watching grim-faced. “There’ll be a lot more of that if the fighting spills into the settlement,” she warned softly. “The Tehkohn don’t carry off injured enemies and they won’t leave them here alive to heal and fight again.”
Neila shook her head in weary disgust. “Savages,” she muttered.
Alanna shrugged.
“Are you really one of them, Lanna? Can you really accept them as your people even now that you’ve gotten used to the way he… the way they look?”
“Yes,” said Alanna.
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head again. “After all we tried to teach you. And you’re bright. You learned so much. You accepted God and the Mission…”
“I accepted you and Jules. You used to know that.”
“But…”
“You saved my life. I was grateful, and in time, I came to love you. But you know I was never a true Missionary.”
“What else can you be? You’re here on an alien world among creatures of another species…”
“I’m a wild human,” said Alanna quietly. “That’s what I’ve always been.” She glanced at Jules. “I haven’t lost myself. Not to anyone.” And again to Neila. “In time, I’ll also be a Tehkohn judge. I want to be. And I’m Diut’s wife and your daughter. If… you can still accept me as your daughter.”
Neila gazed downward, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “Wild human,” she murmured. “I think that in spite of all your time with us, we never really knew what that meant.”
Alanna did not know whether Neila was rejecting her or accepting her in spite of her differences—her sins. She stepped closer, her expression questioning. Then, somehow, she had gone as far as she could in asking the woman’s acceptance. She stood still waiting.
-Neila looked up at her, held her gaze for a long moment, then abruptly caught her in a hard silent hug that reminded Alanna oddly of Tahneh, the female Tehkohn Hao. “You are what you are,” Neila said softly. “I don’t understand, but…” She shrugged, looked at Alanna sadly for a moment, then turned to go into the house.
And Jules?
Alanna looked at him. He looked at her, then at Diut, who stood a few feet away waiting. Finally, Jules turned his back on them both and followed Neila into the house. Without saying a word, he had managed to reject both of them, or at least, to reject their union. He probably understood what Alanna had said and what she had done better than Neila did, but understanding did not equal acceptance. Alanna had broken what was to him a very basic, very old taboo. A taboo that was part of the foundation of his life.
Diut came to her, spoke quietly. “I am going outside.”
Her concern with her parents shifted instantly to him. Already, the Garkohn had cornered him, come near killing him. Now he was going to give them another chance. But she made no protest. She knew that he was going out after Natahk. She touched his throat lightly and he turned and loped off into the shadows between the houses. She noticed that his leg seemed to bother him less now. That was good since he would have to camouflage himself and go over the wall. Opening the gate and walking out would make him the target of any number of possibly vengeful Garkohn.
She went back to the house to sit and wait. The helplessness she felt was galling. It was made worse by the almost tangible weight of resentment that Jules seemed to spread over the house. Finally, he went out to help check on the people’s preparations. It pained Alanna that she felt relief at his going.
She had always felt closer to him than to Neila—felt more able to talk with him, more able to be honest with him. She wondered what would have happened had she told him sooner, before the Tehkohn escape. She shook her head thinking about it.
“Was there… a ceremony of some kind?” Neila asked timidly.
Alanna jumped, startled out of her thoughts, then realized what Neila had asked.
“You mean a marriage ceremony?”
Neila nodded.
“No. But there was a ceremony for Tien when she was born. It amounts to the same thing.”
