Survivor

by Octavia E. Butler

  But since Alanna’s people had no such needs, Alanna could forget her learned respect for the blue whenever she wanted to. For instance, when she behaved foolishly and I beat her, she fought back. No Tehkohn would have done that—fought against me. And Alanna never seemed to learn that her fighting did no good. I always hurt her more than she hurt me. I told her that her punishment would be less if she stopped struggling against me, but she ignored me.

  She was stubborn beyond belief. For a time, her body was constantly marked with bruises that showed on her naked skin as they never would have on a Tehkohn. The day came when I thought I would have to either send her away from me or kill her. And there were moments when I was certain that it would be better to kill her.

  Our most serious confrontation came as we hunted jehruk, the largest flesh eaters of the mountains. I had already taught her much about the jehruk—how they invaded our territory, how they stalked and killed leaf eaters that should have been ours, how they hid in the vines, almost indistinguishable from the leaves around them, and leaped out on unwary people. They camouflaged themselves well, those great ones. Their natural coloring was like the deep judge blue-green. Judges refused to eat their flesh claiming that they and the jehruk shared a common ancestor. They saw the jehruk as their wild relative and they took pride in its ferocity. I saw the jehruk as a creature to test myself against. It grew to be at least my size and it fought me with every intention of smashing my head from my shoulders.

  On an earlier hunt, I had fought a fairly small one weaponless and killed it while Alanna watched. And when the fighting was done, she stood back looking at me strangely.

  Later when we were camped, she washed my few small wounds and rubbed healing ointment on them. As she worked, she shook her head from side to side and spoke in her own language.

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  She answered without hesitation. “That I lost you for a while as you fought that creature. I watched closely, but most of the time I couldn’t tell which was the animal.”

  I blazed white in spite of myself. Only Alanna would say such a thing seriously. She behaved like another Hao, this furless one. She thought she was blue. And though that made me angry sometimes, it also pleased me.

  I pulled her down and got her wet with the ointment she had been rubbing on me. We rolled together on the ground like animals until she made her “laughter” sounds, and on until she made other softer sounds of pleasure. Her body had grown accustomed to me as I had told her it would. We pleased each other very much now. Sometimes during our nights together, we forgave each other for the days. Sometimes, but not always.

  The jehruk hunt that forced me to decide what to do with her was a piece of foolishness that we took a long while to forgive each other for. Alanna would have been killed if I had not been with her. And perhaps I would have been killed if she had not done what she did. Perhaps. But at the time, I was in no mood to show gratitude.

  We were alone, tracking a huge jehruk—a creature that, by the size of its tracks, had to be half again as large as I was. Alanna had her knife and the weapons that she had had Choh make for her. These were a collection of sticks called a bow and arrows. My fighters had shown much white over them until Alanna began to bring in impressive kills almost as soon as I began teaching her to hunt.

  Now she carried her most powerful bow—the best that Choh had been able to make. More than once, I had rubbed the soreness from her arm after she practiced with it. Her arrows were straight and metal-tipped—also Choh’s best. Alanna had brought down large leaf eaters with them. Now she wanted a jehruk—and I wanted to see her go after one. The hunt was hers. I only followed and watched. She understood that it was a test.

  We had sought the jehruk for three days without luck. In fact, we had circled around and were nearing home when we came upon the tracks of Alanna’s jehruk. And then Alanna, who had been so watchful for the three days, let the creature see her before she saw it.

  It was on all fours and partly concealed by the tree? and vines growing near the small stream to which it had come for water. I saw it just before it saw Alanna. She was several paces closer to it than I was but she did not see it at all. Even as I called a warning to her, the jehruk charged.

  She was quick with her bow. It was an old weapon to her. She put one arrow into the jehruk’s chest just before the creature would have reached her. That slowed it, but did not stop it. I stopped it.

  I reached her the instant before the jehruk would have, and knocked her out of the way. Then I met the jehruk. It reared onto its hind legs to greet me with long claws and teeth ready—and it did look like a somewhat deformed Kohn. Its face was long and almost as flat as ours. But its jaws were larger and more powerful. Its teeth were long and sharp. Also, its body was too long and its limbs too short to be Kohnlike. And it had no hands. Only the long claws of its feet.

  The jehruk raked the air above my head as I hit its midsection hard, knocking it to the ground. Then, on the ground as we struggled, it raked my back. It brought up its hind feet to disembowel me but I twisted aside. All the while it screamed aloud and burned yellow from the pain of its wound. Once I had it by the throat, but it was too strong, too large, too much maddened by pain. On my own, I would never have chosen to fight it weaponless. Weapons were meant for animals as large as this. We rolled among the vines, biting and tearing at each other, hurting each other, but not enough. All I did, all I had time to do, was defend. I could not overpower the creature. I could not even free my hands for a moment to tear out its eyes. A moment’s laxity on my part and it would tear out my throat. It was trying.

  Then its yellow luminescence flared even brighter. It gave a scream of agony, twisted its body, screamed again, and sprawled limp across me. Over it stood Alanna, pulling her bloody knife out of its back. This time she had been able to distinguish the animal.

  She wiped her knife on the fur of the jehruk, then stepped away from it and from me. She looked to see that I was able to get up, but her glance was quick and guarded. She did not seem to need the words I had to say to her. But I was angry enough and in enough pain to say them anyway.

  “You are as blind as a corpse,” I raged as I came to stand over her. “You endanger yourself, you endanger me. How much time have I wasted trying to teach you to see?”

  She made no excuse, only stood with her head bowed. There was no excuse. She had already shown me how well she could see.

  My back in particular hurt me now and I reached around to feel what damage the jehruk had done. My hand came away bloody and half covered with bits of fur torn loose. I turned and walked away from Alanna, went to the stream. I waded in and let the cold water soothe my wounds and carry away the loose fur.

  When I came out of the water, I found Alanna cutting vines of the necessary lengths and thicknesses to help us drag home what we could of our kill. I had taught her how to do this. She seemed subdued. She worked silently, and did not look at me. Clearly, she was ashamed. I felt no sympathy for her. My camouflage ability would be marred for some time until my wounds healed and my fur grew again. It was always dangerous to be without full camouflage ability.

  “I have ointment,” she said finally. “It might help your back.”

  And I thought: Save it for your own back.

  “Diut?” She laid a hand on my arm exactly where the jehruk’s claws had raked. My fur hid most of that wound and no doubt she did not see it. But I felt it. That was enough.

  I turned, striking her across the face as I moved. She stumbled back, almost falling, then moved quickly to escape. I caught her arm and held her while I beat her. At first she struggled to break away. Then suddenly, she stepped in close to me and before I knew what she meant to do, she dug her fingers into a wound on my shoulder.

  My body flared in yellow agony. I would surely have killed her then had she not managed to break away.

  She ran to get her bow from where she had left it leaning against a tree. But even hurt, I was too fast t
o let her fit an arrow into it.

  She leaped back from me as I snatched away her bow. Then suddenly she was crouching, her knife in her hand. I stared at her.

  “Do you think I will let you kill me with that?”

  “Do you think you can stop me? I’m quick, and you’re hurt.”

  “And I have your bow and your arrows.”

  She looked at me for a long time, her face already bruised and swollen, her eyes narrowed, the knife steady in her hand. “Then use them to kill me,” she said. “I will not be beaten again.”

  Angrily, I threw the bow aside. A weapon. Did she truly believe I needed a weapon to finish her? Even with her knife and my wounds, she must have known she was no match for me. She might hurt me, but I could certainly kill her. And I would have to kill her if I went after her now. Kill her or give in to her.

  But slowly, as my initial rage subsided, I realized that I no longer wanted to kill her. I valued her. Valued even her unheard of disregard for the blue because it made our relationship different from any that I could have with a Tehkohn woman. A relationship of the kind Jeh and Cheah had where differences existed, but were ignored. Once I had had such a relationship with Tahneh when she was younger. Our differences had been hi age and experience. She could have been my mother, and yet there had been no barriers. We had loved well. But now Tahneh was old and I was alone again. My people stood in awe of me and obeyed me and looked to me when there was trouble. That was as it should have been, but still, it left me as much alone as Alanna’s strangeness left her. We could give comfort to each other, she and I.

  Yet there she stood with her stubbornness and her long knife.

  “Put the knife down, Alanna. Shall we kill each other like animals? This is foolishness.”

  “I will not be beaten again,” she repeated.

  I said nothing.

  “Why do you beat me?” she demanded. “What good does it do? Do you think I’ll learn faster out of fear of your beatings? I won’t. I can’t. Send me away from you if I displease you so.”

  “Alanna, the knife.”

  “No! Not until you decide. We’re not children squabbling in the inner corridors. You need not prove your strength or your coloring to me. We can talk to each other. Or we can go away from each other!”

  I drew a deep breath and let my body relax. “Put away the knife, Alanna.” I spoke quietly, gave her no promise. Not in words. That would have been too much. But she rose from her crouch and after a slight hesitation, sheathed her knife.

  I went to the pack she always carried when she hunted, and searched through it until I found the ointment in its small metal container. I gestured to her and she came to kneel beside me. We spread ointment on each other’s wounds and said little to each other. For days we would say little to each other—until the thing we had done to our liaison began to heal.

  I did not beat her again. Not once. And most of the time, she obeyed. When she did not, we talked—sometimes very loudly. But in spite of our disagreements, our nights together became good again. I lay with her contentedly and her knife remained in its sheath.

  To Alanna’s relief, Jules Verrick came out of his withdrawal two days after Diut’s visit. His physical condition was good—better than Alanna’s had been. He had not hurt himself as she had, had not gone through the violent convulsions that had wracked her. He was weak, hungry, thirsty, and tired, but that was all. Only five hours after his pain had ended, he was up and sitting in the cabin’s main room reading a book that Nathan had brought him—a book with a section on drug addiction. He looked up and smiled when Alanna came in. Her words erased his smile at once.

  “We’re about to lose our prisoners, Jules.” She had already given the room a quick check to be certain that it, like the rest of the house, was free of Garkohn listeners. Now she sat down.

  Jules closed his book. “You mean they’re plotting an escape? How did you find…?”

  “No. I mean their people are coming for them.”

  “Same question, Lanna. How did you find out?”

  “Diut told me. He came back secretly two days ago. He wanted us to know about the escape so that we wouldn’t interfere.”

  Jules grunted. “I must have made a pretty poor impression on him if he thinks I’ll stand for that!”

  Alanna said nothing. His words were meaningless. More “ritual lying.” She had no more time for it than Diut had had. She had some harsh truths for Jules—about the Tehkohn, about herself.

  He studied her, interpreted her silence his way. “You told him we’d go along with it, didn’t you!” he accused.

  “I did,” she said quietly. “We had a choice. We could give up the prisoners peacefully, as he commands, or we could fight to keep them and lose the help he would have given us. But he won’t help us while we hold his people captive.”

  “Not captive, Alanna, hostage! Image of God, the whole point of holding them here was to…”

  “Was to keep the Tehkohn from attacking. But your talk with Diut has already accomplished that. He won’t attack us, and he’ll help us break free. But those prisoners are the price we pay for his help.”

  “Unless he decides not to bother helping us once he has them.”

  “He’s given us his word.”

  “For what it’s worth.”

  She shrugged, wondering why he continued to argue. There was nothing for him to win. “Diut’s word is no small thing with him,” she said. “He’s testing us. If we can obey him, control the people in this matter, then he’ll be willing to trust us in other more important matters.”

  “We’re the ones who must prove ourselves.”

  “We’re in the inferior position. We need him. He doesn’t need us.”

  “That’s exactly what’s bothering me.”

  Alanna let her expression go flat and bland. “Could we stop him from taking the prisoners if he came here with a force of Tehkohn?”

  “Just possibly, now that we’ve been warned.” He sighed, leaned back wearily. “But of course, we won’t. Thanks to our ‘inferior position,’ we don’t dare. I know it.” He sat still for a moment, eyes closed. “All right, Alanna. Tell me about the Tehkohn escape. Just what is it we won’t be interfering with?”

  She watched him very carefully as he spoke, hoping that he was as convinced as he seemed to be. A foolish move now could destroy everything.

  “Tomorrow night,” she began, “Tehkohn hunters will replace the incoming Garkohn relief guards. They will have to do it near here to prevent Natahk from getting word of it too soon. There’s a slight chance that our gate guards might see something—a few luminescent flashes perhaps. If they do, they’re to ignore it, and they’re to let the Tehkohn hi as though they believe they’re admitting Garkohn. Diut has promised that the Tehkohn who take part in this will be disguised—camouflaged—well enough for us defective Missionaries to make an honest mistake. In fact, they’ll be disguised well enough for the Garkohn to make the same mistake until the Tehkohn are too close for it to matter.

  “They’re going to keep the fighting as brief and as quiet as possible, and as long as the Missionary guards stay out of the way, they won’t be hurt. That’s the most important part. Personally, I think the best thing for our people to do is look scared and confused and run for cover. It’s going to be pretty hard for them to tell Tehkohn from Garkohn in the dark, and that can be our excuse. We’ll need all the excuses we can invent, too, because there are bound to be Garkohn around that we don’t know about and they’re going to take everything they see back to Natahk.” She paused, thinking. “That’s all. All we have to do is avoid mixing in.”

  Jules shook his head. “And all we have to do after that is hope Natahk lets us survive long enough for Diut to keep his word. Natahk is going to know we aren’t completely innocent this time.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t suppose Diut had any suggestions as to how to handle that?”

  “No.”

  “He wouldn’t.”
<
br />   She turned her head a little, stared past him. “You know what to do.”

  “Oh yes.” He drew a deep breath. “I know. It’s become a habit. Fight, for the sake of appearance, then give in. Over and over and over, to Diut, to Natahk…”

  “For the people,” said Alanna. “For the Mission.”

  He said nothing. His face was set in lines of bitterness.

  “You give in,” said Alanna softly. She was talking more to herself than to Jules. “You give in until your position seems strong. Then you use your strength and others give in.” She paused, glanced at Jules. “The people need time to grow numerous and strong.”

  Jules made a wordless sound of disgust. “Do you think you have to tell me that? I know it, and it still galls me. And the people aren’t going to like it any better than I do when they understand it. I only hope I can get it across to them in a way they’ll accept before the Garkohn goad them into doing something desperate.”

  Alanna nodded. “You’ll have to teach them. I remember…it was a thing people learned quickly enough in the wilds back on Earth—when to fight and when to give way. The ones who survived learned.”

  “And this is the wilds all over again, isn’t it? With you better fitted than any of us to survive.”

  She shook her head. “You’ll buy my survival, Jules—mine and everyone else’s—by submitting, by playing all three of your roles. Leader, slave, ally… I don’t blame you for hating it, but I don’t doubt for a moment that you’ll do it.”