The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint

  There was something . . .

  Could it be that this was not simply sullenness and disrespect?

  He looked at Aguilera. The older human was stalwart, he thought, and not given to pointless resentments. "Is this true, what he says?

  Aguilera glanced at Tully, his lips twisted in what Aille thought was a human way of indicating sourness. But, after a moment, he nodded.

  "Pretty much, sir. Tully's exaggerating, like he always does. Nath's always been straight with us. A couple of the other supervisors. Chul krinnu ava Monat. A number of the guards on the base in Pascagoula, too. But . . . yes. That's usually how it is. When a human deals with most Jao, it's always risky to tell them what they don't want to hear."

  Aille and Yaut stared at each other. The fraghta's ears were now flat with indignation-at-others, rather than direct-anger.

  "Sixty seconds until we lift," came a male voice over the intercom. A warning rumble of engines vibrated through the walls. "Please be sure seat harnesses are locked and all personal items have been stowed for the duration of the flight."

  Aille and Yaut took their seats, in front of Tully and Aguilera. The Subcommandant stared out the window.

  "You were right."

  Yaut grunted. "Not right enough. This is much worse than I thought. The humans even have an expression for it, like they do for so many madnesses. They call it 'killing the messenger.' "

  Aille swiveled his head to look at him. "Explain."

  "It means exactly what it says. Apparently it is human custom—often enough, at least—to punish the one who conveys unpleasant information. Sometimes even put them down for it."

  The transport began lifting from the ground. Gazing down at the land, as it receded, Aille could think of nothing but a vast, pustulent disease. Even the few traces of water seemed like nothing more than open sores.

  "Narvo has gone native here," Yaut said softly. "I could see it in many of the lowest, but now I see it in the highest also."

  Aille began to nod, until he realized what he was about to do. Adopting a human custom as well, going native himself.

  But then, after considering the matter, he allowed the nod to proceed. And, to his great relief—and satisfaction—saw Yaut return it with one of his own.

  For this, a fraghta could always be trusted. Aille was not violating custom, but following it. So spoke the wisdom of Pluthrak. Association was never to be feared, so long as it was done well and properly.

  Narvo had not done so. Narvo had failed in its duty—as miserably, Aille now thought, as any kochan ever had. And, worse yet, had compounded the error by trying to conceal it, leaving error to fester unseen.

  The result was inevitable. Association was happening, naturally, as it always did. But it was a disease, here, not a source of strength. Human failings, adopted by their conquerors while they thrust aside everything else. Like shoots, springing up everywhere. The revenge of a race that had been beaten—beaten and beaten again—but never conquered.

  How could they be? Association was the only true conquest. That, too, had been one of the earliest lessons Aille could remember. He could still remember the expression on Brem's face when he first spoke that truth to the attentive crechelings.

  It had immediately been so blindingly obvious to Aille, even as a crecheling. Had he not already, by then, risen to preeminence among his clutch-kin? By exceeding them, to be sure—but never by pushing them aside, much less driving them under. He rose with them, never against them. Helping them up, as he rose, so that they would support him.

  How could it have happened? he wondered.

  * * *

  By the end of the flight, he thought he knew. Narvo was a blessing to the Jao, in so many ways. The mightiest of the kochan, always the fiercest in battle, always the strongest in victory, always the most stalwart in defeat.

  Pluthrak appreciated that, and was regretful that Narvo had always refused their many approaches. But Pluthrak was Pluthrak because it never forgot that strength had its own dangers.

  When the aircraft landed, Aille arose. "Subtle as a Pluthrak," he murmured, as much to himself as Yaut.

  "Yes," said the fraghta. "There will be no association until Narvo is brought down here. That is now clear. The battle must be joined."

  * * *

  Aille began the battle, in the small way immediately available.

  He stopped Tully and Aguilera with a gesture, as they rose to precede him.

  "I will punish you for disrespect, dishonor, or disloyalty. For speaking truth as you see it, never."

  The humans stared at him. Aguilera nodded at once. Tully, after a moment, looked aside.

  Two victories, then. Small ones, to be sure. Victories, still.

  Chapter 19

  Caitlin found the Oregon coast refreshing after the stultifying heat of Oklahoma in August. She stood on the edge of a cliff and gazed down at the white-capped waves whipping themselves to froth on the black rocks below. At her feet, a rickety wooden stairway zigzagged down to the postage-stamp of a beach. The wind battered her face with cool spray and tousled her cropped hair.

  She'd been told, upon landing, this was near the Makah Indian Reservation, which was home to humans who had trod this land long before anyone had known aliens inhabited the stars. Perhaps the Indians had conceived of gods and demons, or some other sort of beings who came from somewhere else and imposed their own goals and desires on men. That was close enough to the reality humanity lived with these days.

  Upon request, the Makah had already provided several hunting guides who had advised that this was not the best time of the year for whale hunting. They should all come back in the fall when the magnificent gray whales were migrating. The meat and blubber would be tender then, they had said. The Makah would be glad to lead the hunt and then later share their best recipes.

  Of course, Oppuk would not wait two or three months. The hunt would go on as scheduled, even if the Jao had to send another ship to drive whales into the bay. She shuddered. It was barbaric, as though the Jao were determined to nourish the worst in her species, not its best.

  But there was nothing she could do. At this point, any effort she made to stop the hunt would only make the situation worse. Since Oppuk had insisted she come, she must play the game; look attentive, but bored, and hope the hunt would at least be mercifully short.

  A temporary building, called a hant, was going up in the background. It was a sort of a field tent, if you could compare something as big as a small villa to a tent. Jao-fashion, it was being poured from materials preconfigured to shape themselves to this pattern, rather than constructed, and would house the Governor and his guests until the whale hunt was over.

  Most likely it wouldn't have a pool, but she supposed the Jao would be able to make do with the Pacific Ocean as their playground. The water looked almost green today, choppy and white-topped out under the growing cloud cover. That wouldn't bother them, she thought sourly. Less sun was always welcome among Jao.

  "You are wanted," Banle said from just behind her shoulder. As always, Banle avoided Caitlin's name, as though using it would elevate her above the status of a performing monkey.

  She turned and looked up into the striped face. "Yes?"

  "The Governor summons you." There was a muted air of disapproval about the Jao's shoulders and in the line of her spine.

  "Then I suppose I should go," Caitlin said, irritated at losing her freedom so soon.

  The Jao's hand flashed out and cuffed her cheek, making her stagger back dangerously near the cliff's edge. She clapped a hand to her face, aching, but not surprised. Her words—her stance even more so—had not been properly respectful. Banle had lived with Caitlin enough years to interpret the subtleties.

  "You have come to his notice," the Jao said, a fierce edge to her voice. "There are many who would be grateful!"

  Like you, Caitlin thought. Her cheek throbbed and she knew she would have a bruise.

  Curtly, Banle motioned her ahead. "Be quick.
"

  The hant, as they approached, was nearly complete, all curves and sleek lines. It probably had a great deal of "flow," Caitlin thought, if you were a Jao. Try as she might, she had never been able to perceive the elusive quality herself. Sometimes she suspected Earth's conquerors just made it up to baffle humans.

  She presented herself at the entrance, was scanned by a pair of matched guards, then allowed through the doorfield, which was set at a level that rattled her teeth. Inside, she found herself in a broad open space surrounded by corridors. The air was filled with the acrid scent of smoldering tak, which, to the human nose, had all the charm of burning tires.

  "Miss Stockwell." Drinn, a principal member of the Governor's service, motioned to her through the haze. "The Governor wishes to speak with you."

  Following his direction, she threaded a maze of fabric corridors to a back room, even larger than the reception area. Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo looked up from a holo of a Terran ship sailing on an ocean somewhere. "Move for me," he said without preamble.

  Startled, she stopped. "What?"

  "I saw you at the reception," he said. "You have mastered formal movement, at least at a rudimentary level. Move for me. I wish to see how proficient you truly are."

  Heart pounding, she found modest-surprise shaping her hands, her arms, setting the cant of her head. The ears were supposed to be involved in this posture, so it wasn't an optimal choice, she suddenly realized. But Jao ears figured into so many postures, one couldn't avoid movements that required them, or you would have no vocabulary at all.

  "Interesting," Oppuk said, gazing at her as if she were a prize heifer. "Let me see something more difficult, bemused-reverence, perhaps, or benign-indifference."

  Her cheeks heated. "Might I ask what this is all about, Governor?"

  "No." His red-gold face was quite bland. "If I ask you to show off your movement skills, then you will do so."

  Remember Brent, she told herself. Then, as now, the Governor didn't need a good reason for the things he did. The Jao had absolute power here and Oppuk was the embodiment of that power. If he said "move," then she would indeed move and hope it was good enough.

  She performed bemused-reverence, as he had demanded, then benign-indifference, awed-respect, eagerness-to-be-instructed, changing every thirty seconds, then every twenty, every ten, her heart hammering, her body drenched in perspiration. As soon as she settled into one posture, she was considering the next, how best to make a graceful transition, how to economize, so that the curved fingers of one posture could move but slightly into the cupped hands of the next. Change and change and change. She was no longer thinking, just becoming, over and over again. For poor lost Brent, she thought. For her family. For all of Earth. She would be good enough. She would not fail—

  "Enough!"

  Startled, she looked up and met Oppuk's glittering green-black eyes.

  "Who instructed you?"

  "No one—formally," she said, out of breath, muscles jumping from the strain. "I watched Banle and the other Jao who came and went in our household."

  "You do mirror the Narvo style," the Governor said, "though crudely." He stared over her head, seeming to see something that wasn't there. "It will not do. If you must move like a Narvo, then you will learn properly and do us credit."

  She waited, not knowing what was required of her.

  "From now on, you are attached to my household. I will acquire a movement master for your instruction. There must be one or two on this benighted planet." He glared at her. "You will learn and learn well, so that in the end you may be of the most use."

  "In the end?" she echoed hopelessly, knowing a Jao would never deign to explain himself.

  "I have plans," Oppuk said. "You will learn how you fit into them when the flow is right for you to be of use. Until then—" He glared at her, fierce-warning written into every line of his massive frame. "You will apply yourself diligently!"

  Or it would be Brent all over again. She understood perfectly. She would refine her skills until she could serve the Governor's plans.

  Either that, or she would die.

  * * *

  But for the color of the sky, blue instead of ice-green, and the brightness of the sun, Aille might have thought himself back on Marit An. The briny scent of the sea here was very close to that of his homeworld, the sound of waves breaking on the rocks so reminiscent of those below his natal compound, he could close his eyes and see every detail again in his mind.

  If he had been Governor, this was where he would have made his palace, not on that dusty, landlocked patch of ground in the center of the continent. Why had Oppuk felt it necessary to deny himself the sensual pleasures of such a coastline?

  Yaut wandered up beside him, then gazed out over the restless white-topped sea. "Enticing," was all he said, but the twitch of his ears, the dance of his whiskers expressed longing much more clearly than mere words.

  "Indeed," Aille said. His own body was eager to experience that wild surf, but he didn't delude himself that Oppuk had brought them all this way merely to enjoy themselves. Though this trip was supposedly in his honor, they had come to prove something—to him, perhaps, to the rest of the Jao stationed on Terra, highly likely, and to the indigenous population, most certainly.

  The Governor was under great stress and his increasingly unsane reactions made the stress worse. It was now obvious that Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo felt trapped, here on Terra. And well he might, Aille thought, at this stage of life when he might reasonably have expected to be called home. For a scion of his age and status to remain unmated, far from his kochan's marriage-groups—such would be hurtful to any, much less one who had once been the namth camiti of great Narvo.

  The vessel that would take them out on the whale hunt would not be here until next-light, Aille had already been told by a member of Oppuk's service. With experienced eyes, he examined the horizon now, seeing dark-blue clouds lying low and faraway, then gauging the height of the waves assaulting the jagged black rocks below. His nose wrinkled, sampling the wind. "Storm," he said to Yaut. "We may not be going out tomorrow, even if the vessel does arrive."

  "Indeed," Yaut said, raising his own nose into the wind-borne spray. "It would be wise, however, to allow some other voice to convey that probability. 'Killing the messenger' is an unsanity which seeps down from above."

  It certainly didn't take the wiliness of an old fraghta to see that, Aille told himself. Everything about him irritated Oppuk. "Pluthrak and Narvo have no history of association," he said. "I begin to understand why."

  "Remove yourself from his notice at the first opportunity," Yaut said. "I do not think he will summon you again. You can use that time in the darkness, to shape the battle."

  "Why does Narvo oppose Pluthrak so vehemently?" Aille turned to meet Yaut's eyes, which were pulsing bright green in an unreadable mood. "I have never heard an explanation."

  "Some of it, of course, is the clash of kochan style. But much of it is ancient, going back to the Before Time. A disagreement about which genetic line was first to fight free of Ekhat control. We believe it was Pluthrak, which most Jao believe also, but Narvo has always insisted they were first. They could be right. It is not an issue that means as much to Pluthrak as it does to Narvo. There is even a possibility it was neither kochan, but some other; one which did not survive and so has no voice left to speak their name. There is no way to prove either the positive or negative, and neither kochan will relinquish its claim."

  "How can it matter?" Aille asked. His ears flicked restlessly and his body suddenly ached for the freedom of the foaming waves below. "It was all long ago and the struggle against the Ekhat grows always more savage. We have more important concerns that should bind us together, not drive us apart."

  "True," Yaut said, "but Oppuk no longer sees beyond this world. He has lost all sense of flow."

  Aille stiffened. "Are you sure?"

  "Look at that dreadful habitation he built, half-Jao without, half-human within, and,
even worse, where he built it," Yaut said. "Consider the quality of his personal service, his manners, even the way he moves. Everything is stilted and hybrid, not wholly one thing or the other. He cultivates useless ornamental vegetation and opens the interior of his dwelling to this star's overblown radiation. He is lost, infected by this world's culture because he refused to acknowledge it, unable to find his way. Such is always the price the victor pays, if he does not restrain fury and hatred when the flow of time requires it. Conquest is not battle."

  To lose flow was to never know where you were in time, or when approaching events would take place. Everything one did would be out of step. Aille considered as the wind strengthened, carrying the scent of rain.

  That would make it easier to defeat Oppuk, of course. But Aille allowed himself a moment to grieve for the once-great scion. No Jao, not the lowest, should suffer that fate.

  * * *

  "I am going down to swim," he said. "Will you come?"

  Yaut turned toward the cliff, considered, then stepped back, his body taut with resignation. "I left Tully, along with Aguilera and Tamt, back at the hant to help Oppuk's people pour the last few forms. I am confident in Aguilera, but there is still no telling what Tully will do, if not supervised properly. As we have brought him along, we are responsible."

  Yaut lowered his head and turned his back to the wind, heading toward the gleaming black hant. Then in the distance, Aille saw a ramshackle group of vehicles pull up and humans pile out. They seemed to be waving their arms and shouting, though the wind swept their voices inland.

  This had the shape of wrongness, Aille thought. Regretfully, he gave up the thought of swimming, and followed the fraghta.

  * * *

  Tully heard the shouts before he saw the cars. He and the rest of the conscripted work crew had just poured the last form. His back ached with the effort of keeping the applicator in place so the preprogrammed building slurry poured out at the proper angle.

  He straightened, put one hand to his head and squinted over the gleaming black surface, which was already half-set. Much as he detested the Jao, he had to admit that this way of erecting a dwelling was a lot faster and smoother than the human way.