The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint

  "You're just going to kill me anyway. So why not go ahead and do it now?"

  Again, that tantalizing hint of secrets so important. And, again, that almost Jao-like directness in the face of death. Tully would gladly make himself of use to his species by dying to put his secrets forever out of reach. Impressive, looked at the right way. Aille found himself all the more determined to bend this one to his will and not allow him to escape, even through death.

  "He will come," he said to Yaut. "He will advise me on proper behavior toward the human guests and keep a respectful demeanor at all times, or you will take him outside and rip appendages off his body until he repents. The small ones from the feet, 'toes,' I believe they are called. Then the ears."

  "Good idea," Yaut said, his face crinkling into agreeable-mollification. "Those knobby ears are their ugliest feature."

  Tully's hands strayed toward his head and the mentioned ears, which had turned an unsettling bright red.

  "Do you understand, Tully?" Aille brushed a last bit of lint off the shoulder of the dark-blue jinau uniform. "At the first hint of insubordination or disrespect, you will leave with Yaut and then return after being disciplined."

  Tully nodded stiffly. After taking the locator from Aguilera, Yaut disabled the doorfield and the three of them set off toward the reception. They questioned a human servitor at the first opportunity and were directed from there through a series of convoluted corridors into a huge light-filled room dominated by no less than three pools. Many of the Jao attendees were already swimming and Aille felt immediately drawn to the water.

  The air bore the pleasant scent of seawater and wet rocks, with just the ozone hint of an approaching storm, well done, indeed, he thought. A number of humans, most of them jinau, were watching from the periphery, conversing with one another and sampling Jao tidbits, which had been arranged in traditional fashion on thin slabs of rock at various stations.

  Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo saw them from across the largest pool and motioned for them to approach. Aille fell back to allow Yaut and Tully to lead as he threaded through the crowd. Tully glanced around, as though to see if anyone were watching, then fell into place, thereby saving his toes and ears, just barely.

  Oppuk's service was thoroughly insinuated throughout the attendees. Many of them were Narvo themselves, by their distinctive vai camiti, similar to the Governor's, but Aille picked out a number of other familiar facial patterns too. Mostly those were of subordinate kochan, such as Sant, allied to Narvo as Yaut's Jithra had been long allied to Pluthrak. The matched pair of males who had escorted him from the landing field were there as well, conspicuously armed and waiting only a few steps away.

  Aille's ears swiveled in confusion. Did the Governor expect trouble even here in his own residence? Was this world held as loosely as that?

  The Governor was speaking to a sturdy human female, as Aille approached, and, though he had signaled to him a moment earlier, he did not acknowledge him until the female, looking up into Aille's level gaze, blushed and broke off herself.

  "Subcommandant," she said in heavily accented Jao, "welcome to Earth."

  She did not offer her name, a sign of her close acquaintance with Jao customs. "It is a most intriguing assignment thus far," he said, moving closer, holding his entire body safely shaped into appreciative-interest. "I am honored to serve the Governor."

  "Why has Pluthrak sent you here?" Narvo said, his body crying out rude-suspicion. "I must know before I can work out how to use you. Why would illustrious Pluthrak, who never attempts anything at which it might fail, send a well-regarded scion to this grubby ball of dirt and rock?"

  Aille could see Yaut and Tully off to the side, and to their credit, neither flinched or flicked so much as an ear or whisker. "To learn," Aille said. "Pluthrak and Narvo have stayed apart too much. It is perhaps time to pool our strengths and see where that might lead."

  Suspicion glimmered greenly in the Governor's eyes, bright as a circuit about to overload, then was mirrored in the lines of his arms. "To learn, yes, I had thought as much, to learn Narvo's weaknesses, to bring accusation before the Naukra Krith Ludh that we have not subdued this mangy, vermin-ridden world properly!"

  "Have you not?" Aille dug deeply into his memory and recalled his lessons with the Pluthrak movement-master, how to cock the head, splay the fingers, shift his weight, place the heartward leg just—so, until he had melted without apparent intent or effort into forthright-admiration, adding the difficult-to-hold angle of ears that specified longing. A tripartite posture, and a particularly ambitious one at that. "I thought quite otherwise, in my admittedly limited travels so far, but perhaps I was mistaken."

  A wave of excitement ran through the crowd. Even those Jao not close enough to overhear the conversation could read enough of their postures to glean a great deal. There were a few murmurs of admiration for Aille's obvious classical movement training. After all, just presenting postures to the young did not guarantee they would be learned, then used to proper advantage when the time came. Despite his youth, Aille had obviously learned, and, as they could see, quite, quite well.

  Narvo glared, but there was no arguing with Aille's stance and he finally backed down. "You might be of some use after all," he said grudgingly, "but being relegated to an assignment this lowly means they will never call you back to breed."

  Aille stared at him, fighting to hold onto at least the elements that comprised admiration, even if he lost the rest. Breeding was an intensely private matter, for the great kochan, rarely mentioned outside the kochan-house. He had never thought to hear it bruited about here, where even aliens were present, in such a casual fashion.

  "They have posted you to a dungheap of a world," Narvo said. "Would they have done that to a truly promising scion? You are obviously expendable, whatever your accomplishments. Whom did you manage to anger, despite your youth?"

  Aille knew that wasn't true—and so did Oppuk. Pluthrak valued him appropriately, considering his inexperience, and he would have an equal chance to breed when the time was right, along with the rest of his clutch. The insult was nothing more than a provocation, and for what purpose? Could a Narvo with Oppuk's experience truly be that rash? The great kochan did not insult each other lightly.

  But the Governor said nothing further. An instant later, he turned away and dove into the pool.

  * * *

  A moment later, a willowy human female with short dark-gold hair stepped forward, her shoulders and arms gracefully shaped into bemused-commiseration. She wore a sleek draping of silver fabric that swirled around her legs and obscured several of her lines, so that the posture was truncated. "Well," she said in flawless Jao, "that made an interesting beginning."

  Chapter 14

  From a few feet away, Caitlin had watched Governor Narvo interact with the newcomer, a tall Jao with a regal bearing and velvety nap the color of newly minted gold. The two Jao danced. No other word could describe it, however much Jao were mystified by the human notion of dancing, along with most other human forms of art and recreation. Black eyes flickering green with emotion riveted one another as their bodies flowed from one shape to the next; all carefully stylized, each finger, whisker, and ear placed just so.

  In human terms, she mused, watching the exchange, one might have labeled Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo a bully, trying to use his authority on this world to cow his new subordinate. And not succeeding, she thought. But these were not humans, and thinking one could understand them according to human interpretations inevitably led to trouble. That the Narvo did not like this new Pluthrak was apparent, though, and Caitlin was sure that the animosity went beyond simple kochan rivalry between Narvo and Pluthrak.

  When Oppuk turned away, she stepped forward, driven by a sudden impulse and spoke in Jao. "Well, that made an interesting beginning."

  The Subcommandant turned and favored her with his full attention. His vai camiti was the most striking and unusual she'd ever seen, a solid mask of black over his eyes, like the that
of a raccoon or a thief.

  "You speak Jao very well," he said in English, "better than any human I have encountered."

  "I have had the boon of a Jao bodyguard since I was very young," she said. "I grew up knowing Jao as well as English."

  He gestured at her arms. "Were you formally trained?"

  She realized she was still holding the shape of bemused-commiseration and shook her arms out, letting the form go. "No," she said, rubbing her shoulder, which ached with the effort of holding the position, "I just picked up a few postures here and there by keeping my eyes open."

  "Then you observe closely," the Jao said. "It would take a Jao youth many sessions to perform equally as well, although . . ." He stepped back and narrowed his eyes.

  "What?" The weight of that green gaze lay heavy upon her and she realized a number of people, human and Jao, were staring. "Did I do it wrong?"

  "It is the fingers," he said. "Humans have one too many for the strictest classical purity of the form, but you could de-emphasize the defect by holding two of them together." He reached for her hand and demonstrated, pressing her ring and little fingers together into the arch that indicated commiseration.

  His touch was cool, his palms corded steel beneath the velvety nap. She held the pose for several seconds, letting him study the effect, then dropped her hand self-consciously. "I see," she said. "Thank you for the instruction, Subcommandant. I shall endeavor to be worthy of the lesson."

  "Yes," he said. "We all strive to be worthy, every light and dark, every cycle. It is a constant struggle."

  He was still studying her when a stubby dark-russet Jao spoke quietly into his ear. Caitlin took advantage of the distraction to slip back into the crowd. Kralik, who had been standing nearby, came alongside her.

  "Not so fast," he said in a low voice, when she finally paused beside one of the rock ledges where a rainbow of food samples was displayed. "What was that all about?"

  "I'm not sure." Her cheeks were hot and she knew how flustered she appeared to the human eye. How unfair, she thought, that with her species, such signs were involuntary and all too obvious for anyone who happened to be looking. Jao were able to select which emotions they wished to present to the world. Humans were always at the mercy of theirs.

  "You did something, and said something. But I couldn't tell what because your voices were too low. And he was commenting on it, right? I understood that much."

  "What I did, I think, was make a fool of myself!" She selected a gray-pink bit of flesh, bit into it and tried to ignore the gamey taste. "I tried to imitate one of their formal postures, the ones they use when they talk among themselves, but I didn't do it very well and he was instructing me."

  "Formal postures?" Kralik looked baffled. "I know they use a lot of so-called body language—way more than we do, that's for sure—but I wasn't aware it had any formal structure to it. Subcommandant Pinb never told me very much, and Kaul even less."

  "Body language with the Jao is rigidly codified," she said, shaking her head. "Except that it's far more elaborate and taught by highly accomplished movement masters. No well brought up young Jao—not from a great kochan, for sure—is complete without his carefully acquired vocabulary of formal postures. And there are a multitude of them. It's a bit like trying to learn Chinese ideograms, except in body language."

  She gazed at Subcommandant Aille across the room where he was now in serious conversation with the Jao who had approached him. "I should have left well enough alone. It probably looked like a poodle trying to do a curtsy!"

  "Interesting," Kralik said. "I hadn't realized it was that codified. I've learned to interpret their mood through their body language, after a fashion. But I'm not always right, so I don't depend on it."

  "That's for the best," she said. "Some of their values and emotions have no analogs in human psychology and culture. You can never count on understanding what they mean."

  "What did this one want?" Kralik said.

  "I'm not sure," she said, "but I've a feeling I made myself look like an idiot."

  "Well," he said. "At least you got his attention. That was more than I've managed to do. I want to meet him, since he's my new commander, but they don't like it when you introduce yourself without invitation. And, so far, he's showing no signs of being interested in the matter himself."

  "From what I gather, Governor Oppuk was giving him a hard time," she said. "This is probably not the most auspicious moment."

  "Then I'll wait," he said, his expression hard. He gripped his hands behind his back. "I've become good at that."

  She made a face. "Haven't we all? What exactly does his rank signify, by the way? I'm familiar—to an extent—with Jao social customs, but not the way that translates into official military position."

  "Well . . . It's more fluid, among the Jao, than it would be for us. Kaul krinnu ava Dano, as the Commandant, is theoretically in charge of all military forces in the Terran solar system. He'll have two Subcommandants, one in charge of space forces and one—that'll be the new Pluthrak—in charge of ground forces."

  Kralik's lips quirked again into that not-quite-a-smile. "That's the theory. In practice, leaving aside the fact that they don't make the same distinctions we do—used to do, I should say—between the army and the navy, it's a lot fuzzier. They also don't make the same distinctions we do between civilians and military personnel as such. I've heard there was already a minor clash between the Subcommandant and the production director in the big refit facility at Pascagoula, in which the director got slapped down quick and hard. And if I'm reading the tea leaves properly, I think there's something of a tug-of-war going on between Kaul and Aille over whether his authority extends to all ground forces or just the jinau troops."

  The crowd parted and Banle appeared, nap still dripping from her swim, uniform over her arm, eyes dark and expressionless.

  Caitlin glanced at Kralik, then smiled. "This is Major General Ed Kralik, Banle. He will report to the new Subcommandant."

  Banle's ears flashed irritation. She knew that Caitlin was needling her subtly, proffering such an unwanted and un-Jao-like introduction. "Indeed? I thought I saw you conversing with the Pluthrak Subcommandant." Question was implicit in the narrowing of her eyes, the tilt of her head.

  Yes, of course, Banle would want to know what the two of them had said. It was part of her function as jailor/spy. The Jao had been derelict in her duties, allowing herself to be lured by the magnificent pools and leaving Caitlin to run about unsupervised.

  Caitlin gazed out over the sea of heads, both human and Jao, and spotted the Subcommandant, now standing beside the largest pool and watching Narvo swim. "Yes, we spoke," she said. "He is a fascinating individual, most observant. He wanted to know where I had received my education in formal movement. I told him you had been most instructive."

  Banle's whole body reacted, framing a posture Caitlin did not recognize. "I have never given you instruction!"

  "But you have, Banle," Caitlin said with all the innocence she could muster. At her side, she could feel Kralik growing tense. Struggling to contain his humor, too, she thought. Caitlin was playing a dangerous game, here, but she couldn't resist the chance to jab at the overbearing Banle. "Every day, every hour, since I was too small to remember, I have had your shining example before me. How could I do other than learn?"

  Banle did not answer, merely struggled back into her harness with short, sharp motions, then the trousers, and then took up her customary glowering post behind Caitlin's shoulder, forcing the human to take the lesser place. Caitlin sighed. What little freedom she could expect from the evening was now over. She might as well locate Professor Kinsey and make sure he stayed out of trouble.

  * * *

  Aille realized he did not know the human female's designation. Jao-like, she had not presented it before Yaut had interrupted him with a few sharp observations on certain of the kochan represented here. Then, when he'd turned back to the puzzling woman, she had disappeared into the crow
d.

  She'd said she knew Jao as well as English. By her fluency of speech and almost complete lack of accent, he felt certain that was indeed no idle boast. And she was the first human he'd encountered who had acquired even a minimum of the Jao movement vocabulary. He was highly intrigued. Despite Yaut's warning, what an addition to his personal service that one would be! If he could arrange it, though, he cautioned himself. With her unique qualifications, she was most likely already assigned elsewhere, perhaps even to Oppuk's own service.

  Tully was gazing after her with an unreadable expression, his hands and arms rigid at his sides.

  "I heard what the Governor said." Yaut was holding himself to the strictest of neutral postures. "Shocking, to display the antagonism of one kochan against another for all to hear and comment upon."

  "I did not interpret his words that way," Aille said. "I heard insecurity and worry, lack of faith and fear of incohesion. Narvo seems much in need of highly placed associations."

  "Do not make the mistake of thinking you will be the source!" Yaut bristled with admonition, then remembered where he was and resumed his neutral stance. "If you can refrain from giving actionable offense here, that is as much as anyone has a right to expect."

  Most of the Jao were either swimming, or had just finished. Aille began to shed his harness, including the halfcape. It would be an insult not to sample Narvo's hospitality, and Aille would counter Narvo ill-grace with Pluthrak courtesy. Yaut accepted each article as Aille pulled it off with an air of long suffering.