The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint

  "Tully?" someone was saying. "Get up before—"

  The by now familiar shock convulsed his body. He curled around it, as though he could contain it somehow, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad as the last time.

  "Tully, goddamit, get up!" Someone pounded back up the steps, then a hand grasped his arm, yanked him to his feet.

  He blinked hard and thought he could make out Aguilera's lined dark face somewhere in the middle of all that static. Fingers bit into his flesh. "Do you want your brain fried? Move it!"

  His feet didn't seem to be working though, as lightning ricocheted through bone and marrow, neuron and skull. He seemed to become part of it, as though the lightning could transform him so that he might finally understand some essential truth which had always eluded him before.

  "Turn it off!" Aguilera called down over the railing, then hastily threw Tully over a sweaty shoulder and thundered down the metal steps. Each step made the pain worse, as though nails were being driven into his skull. He could feel how his would-be rescuer shared the shocks, wherever their damp flesh met, could feel him stagger with each new bolt of pain. "Turn it off before you fry his goddamned brain!"

  Time fritzed out so that he was aware of nothing but the white agony throbbing along every nerve. Then somehow he was on his back, the sun beating down on his face. He tried to pull an arm up to shield his eyes and couldn't. "He's no good to you dead!"

  "It is not your concern," Yaut's stiff voice answered. "The man is in Pluthrak service, and must accept proper training."

  "Damn your training," Tully heard Aguilera say. He was vaguely surprised to hear the collaborator speak so sharply to the fraghta. "This is wrong, treating a man like a caged beast. Kill him, if you must, but don't torture him. The Jao are better than that."

  "Are we?" Yaut said, and Tully thought he heard something deadly in those words, like an adder about to strike, unexpected, out of innocent looking shade.

  "Shut—up," he said weakly and flailed at Aguilera without finding a target. "When I want someone to—to plead for me, I'll—" His vision grayed out again and he was alone with the pain. "I'll damn well do it myself. Which I won't. Not to these bastards."

  The lightning ebbed, though he could feel echoes of it all through his body, as though it had blazed a trail that remained after it had gone. His arms and legs trembled and jerked and his mouth tasted of blood. He'd bitten his tongue at some point.

  "It never learns," Yaut said in Jao. "Indeed, I believe it is not capable of learning. It is mired in its early experiences and cannot be retrained to any other purpose."

  "I am not interested so much in training," Aille answered, "as in why it makes the choices it does. If I can learn to understand it, then I may understand them all."

  Tully laughed weakly, rolling his head in the dirt.

  "Why is he doing that?" demanded Yaut.

  "He doesn't know what he's doing," Aguilera said. "He's only half-conscious."

  I know exactly what I'm doing, Tully wanted to say. I'm laughing because it's all so damned funny, you, a collaborator, of all people, trying to stand between me and these furballs.

  But his mouth wouldn't work and his bitten tongue, swollen now, was no better. His eyelids fluttered and then he was falling into somewhere else, dark and cool and quiet.

  * * *

  "I had no idea they could get ill so quickly," Aille told Yaut later, when they had returned to their quarters with the unconscious Tully.

  "Neither did I. But they're sturdier than they look, in other ways—or, at least, this one is. A Jao who had been jolted that thoroughly by a locator would barely be alive."

  Aguilera had come with them. Aille and Yaut watched him tending the injured man with a devotion neither Jao could understand.

  "Is he of your kochan?" Aille asked, as Aguilera bathed Tully's face with cool water. "Is that why you are caring for him?"

  "Kochan—that means clan, doesn't it?" Aguilera rinsed the cloth in a basin of water he had filled and looked up. The centers of his eyes were a shade of brown so dark that, in the room's dimness, they seemed almost as black as a Jao's.

  "Something like your word 'clan,' " Aille said, "as I understand the concept."

  "Most humans in this country aren't part of a clan," Aguilera said. "Americans did have what we called 'extended families' who often lived far apart, but after the conquest, when our infrastructure was destroyed and transport systems were mostly down, contact between separated family members mostly fell apart." He put the cloth down and rose. "I have no idea what happened to any of my cousins or aunts and uncles after the fall of Chicago."

  "Then, if he is not of your kochan," Yaut said, "why do you care whether he lives or dies?"

  The muscles in Aguilera's face tightened and he sat back staring at his clenched hands. "I can't explain that," he said. "I don't think Jao brains are wired for the concepts."

  Aille moved closer, the velvet nap on the back of his head prickling. "Try," he said. "I wish to understand."

  Aguilera's eyes narrowed and he looked up at the ceiling, as though seeking to perceive something just out of sight. "It's like all humans are of the same clan—you would say the same kochan—like we are all related and have to look out for each other, even when we don't like each other or agree with what the other is doing. We have to preserve life wherever we can. Not to do so would make us immoral."

  "I do not know this word 'immoral,' " Aille said.

  Aguilera dipped the cloth back into the water and then wrung it out. "I don't think there is any way to translate it that would make sense to a Jao."

  "Continue!" Aille felt his body shift into the planes of determined-seeking. "You will keep trying until I understand."

  Tully stirred on his pallet on the floor, mumbled something, then was still again. Aguilera dragged a hand back over his gray-threaded hair, suddenly radiating weariness. "Perhaps it's best if I just go now, sir," he said and stood.

  "No," Aille said. "Explain this word 'immoral'!"

  Aguilera stood, his body ramrod straight, staring off into the distance. "It comes from the root word 'morality,' which means right conduct. Immoral means something wrong, something no one who is decent would ever do. Humans think it is immoral to kill unless defending one's self, family, or country. It doesn't mean some individuals don't do it, but they are considered criminals. As a people we abhor it. We therefore also consider it our duty to aid those in distress. I don't much like Tully, to be honest, with his damn self-righteous attitudes, but he is human and therefore my responsibility; my brother, as it were."

  He saluted. "With your permission, I will go home now. I haven't seen much of my family, this past week."

  "Yes," Aille said. "You have given me much to think about."

  Yaut watched the human leave, then turned to Aille with a scowl, his ears tight with aggravation. "So," he said, "now you know. They believe in an association which cannot exist, and confuse honor between kochan with this vapor they call 'morality.' Everything is turned inside out. By our standards, they are all quite insane."

  "So it would seem," Aille said.

  "Do you really think you can form association with such?"

  "I do not know. But I can try."

  * * *

  Aille decided to say no more, at the moment. What was finally coming into focus for him was still too blurred. For all his skills, Yaut was a fraghta, not inclined or trained to welcome new concepts. It was important that Aille not push him too quickly, not force a clash.

  Because Yaut was wrong. Or, at least, only half-right. True, by Jao reckoning humans were indeed insane. But what Yaut never considered was that other standards might exist—and that what mattered, in the end, was simply that there were standards. Of any kind.

  Aille, looking back from the discussion just now completed with Aguilera, understood more fully the association he had felt with the human veterans earlier. Even Tully had been affected by that association, he thought. True, Tully had spent most of his ti
me glaring at the other humans. Apparently, he considered them all to be exhibiting that form of improper behavior he called "collaboration."

  But that, too, was significant. As significant, in its own way, as Aguilera's compulsion to give aid and comfort to Tully when there was no logical reason he should.

  Yaut would have been simply outraged, if Aille tried to explain it now. The time for that was not yet here. To think of association as a form of improper behavior was tantamount to thinking as an outlaw for a Jao. Anathema for a fraghta. But for humans . . .

  It was more complicated. Aille did not think for a moment that he understood it clearly yet. Perhaps he never would, not fully. But one thing was now plain to him. Much had divided Tully and the other humans in that room; much divided Aguilera and Tully in this one. Such divisions were inevitable, he supposed, for any species that thought in straight lines. Yet all of them, according to their own angle of approach, were behaving according to honor.

  That was the beginning, always. The lesson had been drummed into him by the kochanata instructors from his earliest memories. Honor is the base upon which association is poured. Without it, there can be no edifice at all. Everything will spill askew.

  He was on a world full of honor, then. Alien honor, yes; so spiny and angular to a Jao that it seemed a haphazard pile of sticks. But that was a problem to be solved, not a jumble to be declared meaningless.

  Where there was honor, Aille could pour an edifice.

  * * *

  The next solar cycle, however, Aille discovered that he would have to postpone his further efforts with the humans.

  Governor Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo had scheduled a reception for the recently arrived scion of Pluthrak, to be held at the Governor's palace in the capital. Oklahoma City, it was called.

  That was a great honor, of course. It also ushered in a time of peril. Like a great sea beast rising from the deep, showing its spine before its maw, kochan rivalry was coming to the surface.

  PART II:

  Honors

  When the Bond of Ebezon's most important agent on Terra received word of the Governor's reception for Aille, he felt a moment's deep regret. He would have liked to be present at the occasion. "Like a fly on the wall," as humans put it, in one of their charming little saws.

  But, it was impossible. First, because he had not been invited, and would not be. Second, because it was not yet time for him to move toward the center of the flow.

  An observer he had been, simply advising the Strategy Circle; an observer he would remain. For a time, at least.

  Still, it was a pity. The agent was sure he would have much enjoyed himself. The first reports coming to him from Pascagoula were very promising. The agent had, among other things, carefully studied Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo for twenty years. Long ago, that study had led him to despise the Governor. Finally, after twenty years, he thought Oppuk was about to find himself . . .

  Challenged? That was not strong enough.

  The agent searched his mind for a suitable human expression.

  Yes, of course. Catch a tiger by the tail.

  Chapter 11

  Caitlin Stockwell alighted from the Jao transport and stood on the sweltering tarmac, gazing west at the Oklahoma horizon that stretched out in the dusty distance beyond the airfield. The "invitation" had come two days ago. Although her parents were apprehensive, she had been commanded to attend and they had not. With any luck, she could keep her head down at the reception for the Pluthrak and return to college none the worse tomorrow. If she were very careful, Oppuk might not even notice she was here.

  Professor Kinsey had been "invited" to accompany her also. Caitlin wasn't sure why. Kinsey himself swore to her that he had made no request for it—not that he wasn't practically hopping up and down with eagerness to go—and she believed him.

  She suspected that was Banle's doing. Her Jao bodyguard seemed to have gotten it into her head that Kinsey was the equivalent of a fraghta for the young woman—a particularly incapable fraghta, to be sure, but the best humans could come up with.

  For all their smugness regarding Jao "straightforwardness" in contrast to human "dissimilitude," the Jao were just as capable as any Borgia or Machiavelli of maneuvering under false colors. The coming reception for the new Pluthrak was anything but straightforward. A great honor on the surface, it was actually an arena for clan conflict.

  Unfortunately, Governor Oppuk had decided that Caitlin would make a nice decoration for the arena. Even more unfortunately, he'd decided to add Kinsey for an extra little bit of bunting. This was going to be dangerous enough for her, without Kinsey. With him . . .

  Caitlin practically cringed. Kinsey was a kindly and well-meaning man, to be sure, as well as a good historian. He was also famous, even among his own human academic colleagues, for being a social bumbler. The sort of person—this was a true story, apparently—who would attend a funeral for a colleague's wife, and then ask him after the conclusion of the service how his research was going.

  * * *

  The land here was as flat as she remembered, from her few visits, as well as hot. The late August air was humid, almost too thick to breathe, after the comparative coolness of Michigan.

  Oklahoma City was not the site humans would have selected when deciding upon a new capital for what had once been the United States. Neither would Jao, Caitlin would have thought, with their love of the ocean. But perhaps the Narvo Governor had been motivated by uncomplicated power considerations. The capital was about as centrally located as possible, in North America.

  She turned back to Dr. Kinsey. His dark eyes sparkled as he looked over the scene. He'd had no misgivings about accepting this invitation. He was acting like a kid on the eve of Christmas.

  Her guard Banle emerged behind them, preceded by a human steward portering their luggage. The sturdy Jao, in her dark-blue harness and trousers, looked characteristically unruffled despite the heat. Her facial markings were distinctive. Dark bands striped both cheeks, but left clear the simmering green-black eyes in that golden face. In an unguarded moment, Banle had once revealed that many of her kochan were so marked. It was the most in twenty years the Jao had ever let slip about her origins.

  "Transport to the Governor's palace should be waiting," she said, her body carefully devoid of expression.

  Caitlin had learned to read many formal postures, so the big bodyguard had grown adept at concealing her emotions. It was a constant struggle between them, almost as old as she was.

  With Banle following, the small party proceeded into the bustling terminal. Caitlin ignored the staring locals who were clearly startled to see humans accompanied by a Jao. That Banle was more than a mere bodyguard should have been apparent to anyone with half a brain, since high status Jao always claimed the rear of any procession as the place of respect. Banle had always made a point of not allowing Caitlin to do so.

  The transport was indeed waiting, a black groundcar with maglev fittings that would render the sure-to-be dreadful roads moot. She settled inside, sliding to the middle of the leather seat, and noted gratefully that it was outfitted with air conditioning against the late summer heat. So, she told herself, they were treating her more as guest than hostage this time around. Perhaps the reception was not going to be as tense as she'd feared.

  Their driver was human, but locked away on the other side of a thick panel of opaque glass. She leaned back against the upholstery and watched the city slip past. The section near the airport was fairly prosperous, small shops mingled with single family dwellings. Most of those were in good repair, but farther out they encountered a section littered with rusted automobiles and prowled by feral looking potbellied children with arms and legs like match sticks.

  The children played listlessly in the dust, looking up as the massive black vehicle swept silently by. One of them picked up a chunk of displaced concrete, but didn't throw it, though Caitlin could see how tightly his fingers curled around the jagged shape.

  Did they go to scho
ol? Caitlin wondered. Did their parents have any kind of employment beyond scratching in the ground to make the defeated-looking kitchen gardens she saw in almost every yard? Was any kind of medical care available? What would become of them? Her father tried to negotiate services for such as these, but the Jao had no concern for what they termed the "useless" of humanity. Anyone, or anything, that could make itself of solid, practical use was good. Anything that could not, such as those pathetic starving children back there, was beneath their notice.

  Most bridges were still out in this part of the city, as well as highway overpasses, which lay in huge fallen sections like the bones of some extinct animal. She'd seen video records of life before the Jao, the cars, the entertainment options, the bookstores and movie houses, the amazing variety of sports and electronic games.

  "—conduct a series of interviews," Professor Kinsey was saying. She realized, with a start, that he had been talking for some time without her really listening. She wrenched her attention away from the devastation outside.

  "Do you think the Jao officials at the reception will speak freely about themselves?" she asked.

  "If I frame my request properly." His brown eyes blinked and he pulled off his glasses to clean them. "I must make them see the end results will be useful to the Jao, as well as us. They love practicality."

  "They will not prattle idly about themselves and events that happened so long ago," Banle said suddenly. The sleek golden head turned to regard them. "What is happening now is of interest. What happened in that struggle so long ago is not. We came to make Terra of use in the coming fight and that is all anyone needs to know."

  The tiny fine hairs prickled on the back of Caitlin's neck. "You mean the fight against the Ekhat."

  Kinsey leaned forward eagerly. "What can you tell us about them? There's so little information available in the open records."

  "Such as you will never see an Ekhat," Banle said. "When they come, as they surely will, the battle will be fought in space. You will most likely be dead before it is over, along with most humans on this planet. It is not necessary to concern yourself with their appearance."