The Course of Empire

by Eric Flint

  What could Tully know—or think he knew—that was so valuable he would risk death or a beating to conceal it? Aille found himself wondering. He could see no other explanation for Tully's attempt to escape from service. And how could he be so certain Aille would get it out of him, if he did not escape? Perhaps he would learn all the answers eventually, if the creature survived.

  Yaut was employing wrem-fa, body-learning, where physical responses were used to instruct rather than verbal explanations. The ancient method was quite effective with Jao, but it might not be with Terrans, he realized. Tully at any rate certainly did not seem to be responding well so far.

  Ahead, a pungent, not unpleasant, smell filled the air. It was an oddly familiar smell, too, though still distinctive. Nath saw his nostrils twitching and said, "Yes, that's the odor of fresh cut wood for the cradles. Native varieties, of course. It's a primitive material, but effective and easily to hand. Humans use wood in their construction far more extensively than we ever do."

  "I see." Aille walked past presses and saws, cranes and winches, drills and bank after bank of diagnostic equipment, some of which he recognized from his just completed training. He would not be required to operate any of it, of course, but he'd had it drilled into him that a good officer understands what his staff are doing at all times. To be ignorant of such matters was to court sloth and inefficiency.

  Up close, the ships were impressive. The black hulls swept overhead, much bigger than they looked at a distance. They had a massive appearance, even more so than Narvo ships. He could see what appeared to be weapon ports, now closed, on some of the vessels.

  He turned to their guide. "What are the workers trying to accomplish, Supervisor Nath?"

  "These Terran ships, originally constructed to travel underwater, will make very suitable hulls for spacecraft once their technology is updated," she said. "So we're currently installing Jao drives and sensing systems, as well as replacing all controls pertaining to operation in a liquid environment, rather than the vacuum of space. Later we will refit the weaponry."

  He reached out and rubbed the metal with his fingertips. It was surprisingly warm to the touch.

  "I will show you the interior," Nath said.

  Aille and his little entourage followed the supervisor. Drill bits squealed as they passed. Welding arcs flashed. Cables snaked across the concrete floor and up into the sleek ships as the race to refit Earth's fleet of submarines went on.

  * * *

  Following Supervisor Nath, Aille climbed the scaffolding that bracketed one of the curiously oblong ships and descended a ladder into its interior. It was much closer inside than anything a Jao would have designed. Not only were these Terrans smaller in frame, but they must also must be relentlessly social, he reflected, to be able to live on top of one another for extended periods of time. He couldn't even imagine a marriage-group being able to take these conditions for more than a few solar cycles at a time without losing cohesion, much less a gathering of unrelated individuals who lacked the common bond of kochan or taif.

  Nath, showing the quick mind he had already suspected she possessed, seemed to have divined his thoughts.

  "The plan is for jinau troops to staff the vessels, after the refit, with only a few Jao in command. There should be enough room for the Jao officers, after the unnecessary equipment for operating underwater is removed and replaced with our own spacegoing systems. As a rule—though not always—Jao technology is more compact than human."

  She continued to explain as they moved through the cramped ship. Very quickly, Aille came to realize that the reports he'd read had drastically understated the sophistication of human technology. Where the reports tended to use terms like "convoluted" and "excessively intricate"—often enough, "bizarre"—Nath's explanations showed an appreciation for the subtlety involved. Many areas on the submarine served double and triple duty, depending on what was needed at any particular moment. He was particularly intrigued by a table in the "wardroom" used as a surgical bay in times of need.

  Tully had waited topside with Yaut, who wasn't about to let the human out of his sight, but he wished Yaut were here so he could see what the wily old fraghta would have made of all this. He turned to Supervisor Nath. "Have you ever ridden in one of these under the water?"

  She grimaced. "Once. It was a dreadful experience, being closed in with that many humans. These ships can dive quite deep, much deeper than any Jao could possibly swim."

  "I wonder why they expended so much ingenuity and resources on such travel?" He ran a hand over the gleaming fittings. "Have they constructed cities beneath their seas, or discovered resources that can only be extracted this way?"

  "They did utilize some underwater resources," she said, "and humans seem to set great store on the concept of 'exploration.' They're like crechelings, that way, always wanting to climb and dig and wedge themselves into the most inaccessible places. They think nothing of scampering up cliffs and mountains, and even crawling through caves. In fact, it is impossible to keep them from it, even when they are quite likely to die in the attempt. But these particular vessels were warships, not exploratory ones."

  Aille was surprised. "Why would they fight each other under the water? They can't live there."

  Nath fell into a quite elegant rendition of rueful-puzzlement. "Hard to say. I get along with them rather well, but they still sometimes seem like lunatics to me."

  "How large a crew did this one carry?" He ducked his head, but still grazed his ears as he stepped through another hatch into a forward chamber filled with equipment.

  "Over a hundred," she said. "I gather the number varied, according to the type of submersible and the nature of the mission. Records are spotty. They destroyed much of their armaments, once defeat became inevitable. A number of these ships were taken out into the ocean and 'scuttled,' as they term it. Deliberately sunk."

  He turned and met her eyes. "And their crews?"

  "Most of them left the ships beforehand, leaving a few officers to do the 'scuttling.' Those officers mostly died. Humans are unfathomable, in some ways. Courage is of course admirable, and a virtue for any sentient species. But they seem to think nothing of throwing away their lives for the most trivial reasons. We had already defeated them, so what was the point of destroying the ships?"

  He rubbed his head with one hand, thinking. Such a strange species. He wasn't sure he was ever going to get his mind around their alien way of thinking.

  Nath led him then to the rear of the ship, where the propellant system was being replaced with a Jao drive appropriate for space. Only Jao techs worked back here. Such advanced knowledge was forbidden to humans.

  The techs, all female and all bred from hearty if not high-status stock, were pleased to have their work admired. In fact, they expended far more time explaining it to him than he had intended. Clearly, they were deeply impressed to be visited personally by a scion of Pluthrak.

  It was all very bewildering to Aille. Jao technology was being spliced into Terran, often, it seemed, with uneasy results. When, at length, he was able to free himself, he'd had enough of technical details for the moment.

  "I'll take you to your office then," said Nath.

  "What is an 'office'?"

  Nath looked momentarily abashed. "Sorry, I meant your personal work area. 'Office' is the Terran term for it—English term, I should say. Like a lot of Jao who have been here for a while, I have picked up some native expressions. That one is particularly handy."

  He returned topside to Yaut and Tully. The supervisor conducted them to the second floor and promised to return later to take him through the ground assault vehicles.

  The room was cool and quiet, though composed of those ubiquitous Terran straight lines and angles. Conditioned air was being pumped in through vents at a steady rate. Aille sank into a black chair upholstered with what the supervisor had told him was Terran "leather," a local product evidently very durable. It was soft and supple, yielding to his weight. Very pleasing i
n a tactile way, he decided.

  Was the substance rare? Nath did not seem to think it was. If so, it was odd that this "leather" had not already become an item for export. Like the many signs of ruin and decay he'd seen in the short time since his arrival, Aille found that disturbing. What was the Narvo Governor doing with this planet?

  Yaut took up a post in the corner of the office, consulting his comboard, while keeping an eye on his new human trainee. Tully remained standing. His restless green eyes roved the walls, the doors, and Aille could almost see his escape plans forming.

  But that was a minor problem, which he had already arranged to forestall. He'd had a brief, quiet discussion with Nath, in which the supervisor had proved as efficient and helpful as she had with everything else.

  A knock sounded on the door. Yaut keyed the security field off. A human stood there, wearing civilian clothing instead of a uniform. He held up a gleaming black band. "You requested a locator, sir?"

  "That is correct," Yaut said.

  "Come forward," Aille said, motioning at the man.

  The human, gray-haired, shorter and more squat than Tully, came into the room. Yaut took the locator and turned it over to key in Aille's personal code.

  Aille leaned back in the chair. "Your name is Willard Belk, yes?"

  The human nodded.

  "Supervisor Nath recommended you to me," Aille said. "You are now attached to my personal service. Henceforth, you will report only to me. Your other duties are secondary."

  "Yes, sir. Will you require a locator for me as well?"

  Aille stared at him, nonplussed for an instant. "No, of course not. Why? You have done nothing to require it."

  Tully's head jerked up. He glanced sharply at the black band and Aille could see understanding dawn in his eyes. The human lurched to his feet, his gaze riveted to the device in Yaut's hand.

  "You should see which hand he prefers before you place it, sir," Belk said. "He has less chance of tampering if you place it on his more dextrous hand."

  Tully whirled upon him. "Collaborator!" His heartward hand curled into a fist. For a moment, Aille thought he intended to launch himself across the room and strike the other Terran.

  Whether he would or not immediately became a moot point, as Yaut pinned him easily to the wall with one hand while holding up the locator with the other.

  "Preferred hand?" Yaut was clearly mystified. "Humans have affection for one limb over another?"

  Belk eyed Tully's still-clenched fist. "I'd say he's right-handed, sir. Most humans are."

  "I do not understand," Yaut said.

  "This one." Belk stepped forward to point at the Terran's heartward hand—the one he had made into a fist. "Put it on this one."

  With a heave of his powerful shoulders, Yaut grappled Tully and held him still, then clicked the black locator band around his heartward wrist. As the contacts closed, a bank of tiny amber lights sprang into life. When he was released, Tully sagged back against the wall, staring wildly at his wrist, his gaze that of a cornered animal.

  His eyes fell on Belk and grew narrow. "Stinking bootlicker," he hissed.

  Belk's eyes were equally slitted. He rattled off a number of words in his own language, too quickly for Aille to follow all of it.

  "—uck you too, weasel. Tell it to my wife and kids. The ones you murdered twenty years ago, you—" Incomprehensible terms followed, which Aille suspected were pure invective. "—ance on your grave, weasel, and any weasel I find."

  Aille was puzzled by the exchange. Tully seemed much too young to have slain anyone twenty orbital cycles before. He suspected what was involved here was a human clan quarrel of some kind, rather than a personal one.

  By then, Belk had regained his composure. He turned away from Tully and faced Aille, shaking his head. "What do you require from me now, sir?"

  "Inform your supervisor that you have been taken into my personal service."

  "Yes, sir!" A moment later, the man was gone.

  Chapter 6

  Tully pried surreptitiously at the sleek black band around his right wrist. But, even as his fingers pulled and wrenched, he knew it was pointless. The device wasn't going to come off. He'd seen these before—on corpses. Fueled by the electrical energy of his own body, it would never come off until it lost power, and that wouldn't happen until he died.

  And, until then, the Jao would always know where he was. His days as an effective spy were over, unless he could figure out a way to get rid of it, and now even escape would be impossible. He glared at Aille, who was staring into the console built into the desktop, one hand propped under his broad chin in a curiously human gesture.

  Tully's head suddenly rocked back and hit the wall. A moment later, dazed, he slid to the floor. He blinked up through a red fog and realized Yaut had cuffed him with the back of one hand.

  "You are in his service," the fraghta said roughly. "All who see you will know this, therefore you can no longer behave without manners. All you do reflects on Pluthrak!"

  "Why?" he said in Jao around a split lip. "What possible use could I be to the likes of him?"

  Aille turned to look down at him with an expression Tully could not name. Green patterns glittered in those black eyes, changing from second to second like a kaleidoscope. "You will make yourself of use by telling me your secrets," he said.

  "I don't have any secrets." Tully tried to rise, but his legs buckled and he sagged back against the wall. The room seemed to swell and shrink, as though it were breathing. "None of us do. You stripped away all of Earth's secrets twenty years ago."

  "Not all." Aille turned back to his console. His ears were relaxed, unconcerned. "Yaut has been checking your background and the results are interesting. You never stay anywhere very long and your records are for a younger individual than your appearance indicates. Very scanty records, too. I think you have still a few secrets and, soon enough, I will know them all."

  * * *

  In the afternoon, after familiarizing himself with the electronic data retrieval systems in his work area, Aille again sallied forth into his new realm, this time to inspect the ground assault vehicles undergoing refit with Jao technology in an adjacent series of buildings. There was an astonishing variety of forms filling bay after bay, tools and parts scattered everywhere in what could only be called controlled confusion.

  Most of the vehicles were painted the same bewildering patterns of light green and tan splotches on a background of darker green. Did this color scheme have some cultural significance? he wondered. He had read that Terrans were very superstitious. Perhaps these colors were intended to appease their gods.

  There wasn't as much refitting to do here, since these vehicles were already meant for surface travel. But their primitive mechanical propulsion systems were all now being changed out with Jao maglev components able to handle any terrain.

  One entire section of the refitting floor was devoted to replacing kinetic energy weapons with Jao lasers. Tully gazed at them with what seemed to be a mixture of glumness and disapproval, but was otherwise docile enough.

  Aille stopped beside a massive vehicle topped with a rotating gun turret. "Did they develop all these vehicles for their struggle against the Jao?" he said, raising his voice to carry over the omnipresent screech of power tools.

  Nath snorted. "I think you will find these creatures the most quarrelsome beings ever evolved! From their earliest recorded history, they have fought one another as vigorously as they ever resisted us. All of these armored vehicles and mobile assault weapons were in service long before we made landfall on this world."

  "Interesting." Aille walked around the large vehicle, noting the thick armor plating, the open hatch above and the bristling array of communications antennae. The metal was cool and grainy beneath his hand. "Perhaps that was why they were so effective in their initial resistance—they had a great deal of practice."

  "Perhaps." Nath sounded unconvinced. "It boggles the mind, though, to think of kochan fighting kochan,
pitting strength against strength, rather than creating associations and binding assets in a common cause. Think of what they might have accomplished, had they molded themselves into one massive unified power, rather than a squabbling cluster of minor political states. It would have taken us twice as long to conquer them, if we could have done it at all without obliterating life from the planet."

  She stepped aside as a pair of human techs wheeled a Jao laser generator on a cart toward a gutted vehicle. "In the long view, our conquest benefits them as well. They might have annihilated themselves altogether before very much longer and the Ekhat would have encountered no resistance at all in this sector. Now, perhaps they will have time to mature as a species and create a new cooperative social order."

  Voices rose suddenly above the clamor of metal against metal and the whir of saws. Aille rotated until he located their source, then threaded his way through techs and machinery, finally emerging near the end of the refit bays where a grizzled dark-haired human male was facing off with a larger Jao official.

  "You can't just slag these guns!" the human was saying. "In fact, it's stupid to replace them with lasers in the first place!" His face was reddening, a hue which Aille was coming to associate with overstimulation in humans. He cocked his head, trying to read the creature's posture. Was that fear? Anger? Greed?

  A handful of humans crowded around, their faces showing a similar response. Two Jao guards pushed them back, then exhorted them in low voices to return to their stations.

  "I fought at the battle of Chicago," the man continued in an insistent tone of voice, ignoring the guards. "We took your tanks out right and left. If you Jao hadn't had air supremacy, things would have turned out very different. Don't think they wouldn't."