Natahk."
"Have not your own beliefs changed as we have talked?"
"Not enough to make me willing to become Garkohn." He looked hard at Diut. "You may not understand me, Tehkohn Hao, but my people gave up their homework! for their beliefs. If now they had to give up those beliefs as well, they would have nothing left. They would be destroyed."
Diut flashed white approval. "That is what I thought you might say. But I had to hear it. I had to see that you were not already too much absorbed into the Garkohn to have the will to save yourselves." He leaned back in his chair and relaxed. His coloring returned to its normal blue without concealing shadows. Jules stared into the blue as though seeing Diut for the first time. Diut's shadows lulled people as they were intended to. Even his quick conversational color changes did not disturb the relaxed mood the shadows encouraged. He wove a spell of normalcy, and then shattered that spell simply by relaxing and permitting his body to emphasize his lack of normalcy. Diut spoke quietly.
"I don't envy you your work, Verrick. I hope you know your people. I hope their beliefs are as strong as you say they are. Because there is a price on the freedom you want."
"What price?"
"The only way for your people to escape Natahk is to do what he would not risk doing for any long period. They must leave the valley."
Jules nodded. "That's exactly what I want them to do. We would already have done it if we had thought we had any chance of escaping Natahk."
"Natahk will let you go as soon as he is busy enough with other matters. He is not your problem. Your problem is the meklah."
"But… surely there are other places where the meklah grows."
"So. It grows beyond the eastern mountains in the jungle. With it there are savage animals, diseases, and people far more deadly than the Garkohn. You would be better here. You would be better dead."
"Nowhere else?"
Diut laid his hands flat on the table. "Not enough. To the south, beyond the Garkohn farming town and beyond the mountains, there is water. A lake as wide and twice as long as this valley. To the west, beyond our mountains, there is a desert and the sea. I have been to that country myself and seen that even the people who live there have difficulty surviving. The only direction open to you is north. Once you cross the mountains, the land is as flat as this valley, but it is higher. Meklah trees grow only sparsely there. They keep low to the ground and bear little fruit."
"But we can use the leaves," said Jules, "and the new roots."
"You can. But to put yourselves beyond the reach of the Garkohn, you must go as far north as you can before you settle. The farther north you go, the less meklah there is. The country is good. There is game and other safer edible plants, and perhaps your own crops will grow. Only the meklah is missing."
"And without it, we'll die. I don't think we can afford to go as far north as you believe we should, Tehkohn Hao."
"Your daughter lived for two years without the meklah."
"While how many others of my people died?"
"All those that the Garkohn could influence."
"What?"
Diut turned toward Alanna. "Tell him."
Alanna had deliberately said almost nothing. Knowing, as she did, that Diut would not hurt Jules, she had kept safely silent. She had depended on Jules's reasonableness to win him over when he understood the threat. But now Diut wanted her co-operation and she had to give it—however carefully. She spoke to Jules in her unpracticed Garkohn so that Jules would expect Diut to understand her.
"The Garkohn prepared us all to die," she said bitterly. "When we arrived at the Tehkohn dwelling two years ago, we were all, Garkohn and Missionary, shut in one large room together without meklah. We were given food and water, and we were left alone. At once, the least blue of the Garkohn asked to die. We Missionaries were told that it was their right to demand a quick, relatively painless death at the hands of those
"Have not your own beliefs changed as we have talked?"
"Not enough to make me willing to become Garkohn." He looked hard at Diut. "You may not understand me, Tehkohn Hao, but my people gave up their homework! for their beliefs. If now they had to give up those beliefs as well, they would have nothing left. They would be destroyed."
Diut flashed white approval. "That is what I thought you might say. But I had to hear it. I had to see that you were not already too much absorbed into the Garkohn to have the will to save yourselves." He leaned back in his chair and relaxed. His coloring returned to its normal blue without concealing shadows. Jules stared into the blue as though seeing Diut for the first time. Diut's shadows lulled people as they were intended to. Even his quick conversational color changes did not disturb the relaxed mood the shadows encouraged. He wove a spell of normalcy, and then shattered that spell simply by relaxing and permitting his body to emphasize his lack of normalcy. Diut spoke quietly.
"I don't envy you your work, Verrick. I hope you know your people. I hope their beliefs are as strong as you say they are. Because there is a price on the freedom you want."
"What price?"
"The only way for your people to escape Natahk is to do what he would not risk doing for any long period. They must leave the valley."
Jules nodded. "That's exactly what I want them to do. We would already have done it if we had thought we had any chance of escaping Natahk."
"Natahk will let you go as soon as he is busy enough with other matters. He is not your problem. Your problem is the meklah."
"But… surely there are other places where the meklah grows."
"So. It grows beyond the eastern mountains in the jungle. With it there are savage animals, diseases, and people far more deadly than the Garkohn. You would be better here. You would be better dead."
"Nowhere else?"
Diut laid his hands flat on the table. "Not enough. To the south, beyond the Garkohn farming town and beyond the mountains, there is water. A lake as wide and twice as long as this valley. To the west, beyond our mountains, there is a desert and the sea. I have been to that country myself and seen that even the people who live there have difficulty surviving. The only direction open to you is north. Once you cross the mountains, the land is as flat as this valley, but it is higher. Meklah trees grow only sparsely there. They keep low to the ground and bear little fruit."
"But we can use the leaves," said Jules, "and the new roots."
"You can. But to put yourselves beyond the reach of the Garkohn, you must go as far north as you can before you settle. The farther north you go, the less meklah there is. The country is good. There is game and other safer edible plants, and perhaps your own crops will grow. Only the meklah is missing."
"And without it, we'll die. I don't think we can afford to go as far north as you believe we should, Tehkohn Hao."
"Your daughter lived for two years without the meklah."
"While how many others of my people died?"
"All those that the Garkohn could influence."
"What?"
Diut turned toward Alanna. "Tell him."
Alanna had deliberately said almost nothing. Knowing, as she did, that Diut would not hurt Jules, she had kept safely silent. She had depended on Jules's reasonableness to win him over when he understood the threat. But now Diut wanted her co-operation and she had to give it—however carefully. She spoke to Jules in her unpracticed Garkohn so that Jules would expect Diut to understand her.
"The Garkohn prepared us all to die," she said bitterly. "When we arrived at the Tehkohn dwelling two years ago, we were all, Garkohn and Missionary, shut in one large room together without meklah. We were given food and water, and we were left alone. At once, the least blue of the Garkohn asked to die. We Missionaries were told that it was their right to demand a quick, relatively painless death at the hands of those
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