by Eric Flint
"There is always trouble between our kochan," Aille said softly, just before he plunged into the inviting green water. "But this Narvo apparently feels matters have gone too far to be amended. As his subordinate, it is my duty to restore possibility."
"And if you cannot?" Yaut stood aside as Aille dove straight and clean into the choppy pool.
Aille considered as the water, cool and delicious, closed over him. If he could not bring about change, then he would fail and bring shame to Pluthrak. Therefore, he could not fail. He must succeed, whatever the cost.
He swam with long, joyous strokes, feeling the water cleanse his body and invigorate his nerves. The alien ocean at Pascagoula had been acceptable, but these salts had been specially formulated to soothe Jao sensibilities. Narvo was clever, indeed, to fabricate such a marvel to entice and impress his guests.
Finally, he surfaced and shook the water from his eyes. Yaut was still waiting where he had left him, more or less patiently, with Tully nearby. But he saw the human female watching him too, from over by the wall, along with the man who had accompanied her. Aille headed for the simulated shore with powerful strokes.
* * *
Jao everywhere, so many, it made Gabe Tully's teeth ache. He wanted to leave the noisy, crowded reception hall with its ostentatious pools, but Yaut had a constant eye upon him, even though the Subcommandant was busy attending to whatever social amenities Jao recognized and thought necessary.
The woman who had approached Aille, though, had looked familiar, the cropped blond hair, the large blue-gray eyes. She wore a long, shimmering silver dress that must have cost a bundle. He sorted through his memory, seeking until he had it. She was Caitlin Stockwell, daughter of the ultimate collaborator, so-called "President" Stockwell!
Ice flooded through him. She was allowed access to this kind of luxury, while, outside, America deteriorated just that much more every day. Only the Jao and those who played ball with them were allowed to be civilized now. The rest of America could go to hell for the crime of having fought the hardest for their freedom.
Over in the pool, the Subcommandant broke the surface, gazed about, then made eye contact with him. He stepped back, unnerved, feeling almost as though Aille could read his thoughts. As surreptitiously as he could manage, he eased back into the tapestry of milling bodies, gold, brown, and russet naps of the Jao threaded with the more flamboyant colors of human clothing. He couldn't get far, he knew, not with the damned locator on his wrist, but he needed a bit of privacy to collect his thoughts.
Why had Caitlin Stockwell sought out the Subcommandant? Was she looking for some way to betray her country even more thoroughly than her family already had? He thought of the children back in the refugee camps in the Rockies, the shabby blankets, the few stained books available for their education, and their wide eyes at night when one of the older men or women would tell stories of the glory America had once been—before the conquest.
What did prissy Miss Caitlin Stockwell, with her silver dress, clean hair, and manicured nails know about any of that? His hands clenched.
"Here I am," a low voice said in his ear.
He jerked around and met the Subcommandant's green-black eyes.
"I did not mean to avoid your notice," the Jao said, looming over him so that he was inundated in the wet-carpet smell of the other's nap. "Eagerness simply overcame me and I slipped into the water when your attention was elsewhere."
Yaut thrust the Subcommandant's harness, trousers, and cape into Tully's arms. Numbly, he shook out the dark-blue trousers as though he performed duties of batman every day. The Subcommandant accepted them matter-of-factly and put them on.
He would never get used to casual Jao attitudes about nudity, Tully thought. The situation was all the more grotesque because Jao sexual organs were not much different from human. When clothed, the females were hard to distinguish from the males, because of the absence of breasts and the fact they were just as large and muscular. Naked, however, the difference between the two Jao sexes was obvious. But the Jao seemed completely oblivious to the matter.
He glanced at Stockwell again, who was now talking to a man in a jinau uniform. He was in early middle-age, not particularly tall, but had a powerful-looking physique.
Aille followed his line of sight. "Are you acquainted with that female?"
His eyes turned back to the Jao, widening a little. "Everyone in America knows who she is."
"Then enlighten me," Aille said, forcing a wet leg into his trousers.
"That's Caitlin Stockwell, the only child of Ben Stockwell." Forcing himself to be honest, he added: "The only surviving child, I should say. Her older brother was killed fighting Jao during the conquest. Nobody quite knows what happened to the other one, but he's dead too."
That still didn't seem to register on the Subcommandant. Tully added: "Ben Stockwell was the former Vice-President of the United States, before the conquest. He's now the appointed President of your puppet—uh, your native government of this continent." He watched the girl tuck dark-gold hair behind her ears then and smile, a solemn Jao bodyguard keeping watch at her shoulder. The gray-haired man linked arms with her, and the two moved off, speaking to a number of the humans present as they walked.
"The scion of a prestigious kochan, then," Aille said, settling his halfcape back into place across one shoulder.
Tully started to protest that humans didn't have kochan, then stopped. He didn't precisely know what the Jao term "kochan" meant, but it seemed to approximate the human notion of "clan." Now that Tully thought about it, the Stockwells were probably as close to a true kochan as you could find in North America. Old Eastern money, on the father's side, with a long tradition of public service.
"Yes," he said, a bit sourly. "Very prestigious."
The ornate halfcape with its green and gold insignia was crooked in the back. Tully's fingers straightened it before he thought, then he saw Yaut blink at him with surprised approval.
Play the part, he told himself. Sooner or later, they'll make a mistake, then you can either escape or die trying and none of this will matter.
Aille moved off into the crowd, regal in his bearing compared to most of the Jao present. Even Tully could tell that much. If Aille had been human, he would have been like a well-brought-up young prince at a provincial reception. Behaving graciously, to be sure—but still a prince, and exuding that fact with his every word and movement.
Yaut glided easily before him. How did the fraghta do that, Tully wondered, hurrying to keep up. It was as though he knew where the Subcommandant was going before he knew himself. Did those two have some sort of mental contact which allowed him to actually predict the other's wishes? He rubbed the gleaming black locator band beneath his sleeve and tried not to brush against any of Earth's alien conquerors as they crossed the floor.
* * *
Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo practiced the subtle art of watching without being obvious as the new Subcommandant prowled the reception, speaking here and there, spreading his influence like oil over water. Why had Pluthrak sent him this burden? The question burned through him, but he was no nearer to answering it now than when he had first learned of the assignment.
Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak was too young to be a real threat to his authority, too inexperienced to be of any genuine use, and yet far too appealing for comfort. The Jao in the crowd seemed invariably drawn to the youthful officer. Oppuk needed to keep him close, so he would know the instant he was up to something, and yet bury him under inconsequential duties so he would never accomplish anything of worth or attract favorable notice. How to achieve these contradictory aims was a puzzle, and unfortunately Oppuk had never been good at solving puzzles. His talents lay in other directions, and his normal method with puzzles was to smash them.
His nose wrinkled in a sour grimace and his two identical guards, born of allied Sant, a kochan long dedicated to service to Narvo, trained their enigmatic gaze upon him.
"Can we be of use, Governor?" th
ey said, in that unnerving unison they often achieved.
He could not tell them apart, which bothered him. His fraghta long ago had come across the pair when they first emerged from the creche-pool and had them trained especially for his personal service. They were a novelty. Genetic duplicates were much more rare among the Jao than among the humans. He'd heard it said that humans often whelped their get in pairs and occasionally even in threes and fours.
"No," he said, "I do not need you at present. Remain on guard."
He noticed the jinau officer, Kralik, monitoring the Subcommandant, as a subordinate should, quietly, without putting himself forward or interfering. A rare moment of approval washed through Oppuk. Humans so rarely knew their place without a great deal of instruction and reinforcement. It was good to see one who could control himself in the absence of external cues.
"Governor?" a human voice said from his side.
He looked down. A short man with a disgusting bare patch on his crown gazed up at him, looking vaguely familiar. Oppuk had seen many male humans so afflicted since he arrived on this world, long ago. At first, he had assumed such hair loss was a sign of disease, until he learned it was just a common degenerative process associated with aging. He almost shuddered. For a Jao, that would have been a major affliction.
Two dark-haired human females flanked him, both clad in long clumsy garments of heavily brocaded fabric that impeded their steps. Wary, his personal guards moved in, but Oppuk waved them back. "You wish my attention?" he said.
"I am Ambassador Matasu," the man said, bowing from the waist until Oppuk could not see his eyes. The two women bowed as well. "From the land of the rising sun, your most loyal province, Japan."
"Yes." Oppuk gazed down at the creature in disgust. Not only had it forced its barbaric name upon him, it smelled of floral aromatics, which the denizens of this world often applied to themselves in the mistaken belief that the natural scents of their bodies were noisome, while blatant artificial odors were somehow more acceptable. Their preoccupation with such matters was almost as intense as the classical study of movement was for his own species.
Nevertheless, despite the creature's reek, he preferred not to give offense here. Japan provided many manufactured goods to the Occupation, since its resistance had been sensibly short-lived and the Jao had not been motivated to lay waste to it as they had North America and parts of Europe and the Asian mainland. Japan's infrastructure was thus in good shape and their people had prospered under Jao rule, paying their taxes and providing much in the way of material support, sometimes even more than the required levy.
They produced few jinau, on the other hand. Most of the human troops came from North America and those parts of Europe and Asia which had seen the most fighting. That was not unusual, of course. In fact, it was one of the few ways in which humans were like most conquered species. Those moieties that had a martial spirit naturally produced most of the jinau after their conquest.
"There is rumor of an entertainment being planned," Matasu said, dark eyes gleaming like bits of bright glass in his wrinkled face. The creature was very old, Oppuk realized. "In honor of the new Subcommandant."
Oppuk had not scheduled any such "entertainment," as the human meant the term. Activity merely for diversion was not a Jao practice. In addition, he was quite put out already at being forced to officially receive a Pluthrak scion on this level. But the Terran creature was right. His staff should have arranged some sort of expedition or tour, he now realized belatedly, and it irritated him that a human should be aware of his duties better than his own service.
He felt his ears descending into chagrin and took hold of himself, lest he betray his innermost thoughts. "My staff has considered many venues," he said, schooling his posture to mere mild-interest, "but has not yet decided upon which would be most suitable."
"I was hoping for one of North America's famous hunts," the Terran said, his eyes turning in the direction of Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak and then back. "Wildcats in your Calvada area, or perhaps eagles nesting on the shore of one of the Great Lakes, or even—" He licked his lips and moved closer. "A whale hunt along your northwest coast."
"A whale hunt?" Oppuk was perplexed. He did not recognize the name of that particular beast. "What exactly is a 'whale'?"
"It is a marine animal, quite large, which lives all its life in the sea." Matasu's eyes blinked, so dark-brown they almost seemed black. "Of course, Earth has many species of whales, but the natives of that coast used to have a ritual for hunting one particular variety that was quite beautiful."
Oppuk snorted. "Jao are not interested in frivolous human 'rituals.' "
"Of course not!" Matasu fluttered his fingers. "I quite understand. In this instance, however, I believe you will find the whale is making itself of use, which is of course what we all strive for."
Drinn, his castellan, stepped forward. Concern was written in the lines of his body that this Terran was dominating the Governor's attention. Oppuk ignored him. "And how exactly does a nonsentient animal make itself of use to anyone?"
"By requiring expertise to be brought down so skills can be practiced." Matasu's face stretched into that nauseating native expression meant to denote pleasure. "And by being eaten. Their flesh is most delectable."
"It does sound intriguing," Oppuk said. He motioned Drinn closer. "Furnish the pertinent information to my service and—"
"Governor, please!" Caitlin Stockwell slid to the front through the murmuring crowd. Evidently she'd been listening. Her face was rather pinker than before, an unhealthy and unappealing shade. "Many whales are still endangered species. If you authorize a hunt even this once, then it will become the fashion all over the world. At the very least, there may be trouble with environmentalists."
Oppuk looked at her coldly. The young female was getting above herself, a trait her father had all too often displayed. "I think I shall attend this so-called whale hunt," he said, "as will Subcommandant Aille, since it is to be conducted in his honor." He motioned to Drinn. "See that it is set up," he said, "and soon."
Chapter 15
Her father would be horrified. That thought kept rattling around inside Caitlin's head. Benjamin Wilson Stockwell would hear of this travesty, even before she could tell him herself. Although he would disapprove, he would be powerless to prevent it. And all the while, he and everyone else would know she had opened her big fat mouth at a delicate moment and made things worse. Caitlin was so tense—anger and frustration that had been building for so many years—that she'd been taken completely off-balance and blundered badly.
If she'd just kept quiet, Oppuk perhaps would not have been interested in such a purely human pursuit or forgotten about the whole affair before it could be organized, but now—
She stared dumbly at the Governor's twitching nose until Kralik took her arm and tactfully guided her away. "A whale hunt!" he said, grimacing. "I don't think there's been one for years."
She felt cold, even though the room was stifling.
"Be practical, Caitlin," he said in a low voice. "It's no worse than most of what goes on under Jao rule, and not nearly as irreversible as when the mountain climbers provoked them into plastering Everest. It's only one whale. The ecology will survive that."
She nodded, managing to keep walking until they reached a bench next to a rushing artificial waterfall that fed into the main pool. Kralik settled her where she was bathed in the music of water flowing over rock. Kinsey joined them there. After Caitlin introduced him to Kralik, the professor disappeared back into the murmuring crowd in search of "punch," though she well knew he would find no such thing at a Jao function.
"Tell me of these 'whales,' " a deep Jao voice said.
She glanced up from clenched hands into the distinctive vai camiti of the guest of honor. "I—" Her voice failed her.
"That is a posture of distress, is it not?" Aille indicated her hands. "I have sometimes noted it among those in my service, as well as a number of the human workers eng
aged in the refit operation. Why does this 'whale hunt' distress you?"
Caitlin took a deep breath. "It does not matter," she said shakily. "The Governor requires a whale hunt, so one will take place."
He was big and broad, the nap on his skin a rich gold and still dark with damp from his swim. Inside the broad stripe on his face, his eyes crawled with iridescent green like lightning playing across some distant alien sky. Even to human eyes, he was a handsome figure.
Two members of his personal service stood before him, as was proper. One was Jao, short but powerful-looking. The other, strangely enough, was human. Like Caitlin herself, he was blond, but his hair was straw-colored rather than dark-gold. And though his body was whip-thin, he looked very fit. She tried to catch the man's eye, but he quite pointedly would not look at her.
"Tell me of your Pluthrak homeworld," she said, in an effort to change the subject. "I don't recall a member of your kochan being assigned to Earth before."
"There is no one homeworld for us. Pluthrak is spread across twenty-nine planets," Aille said. The lines of his body flowed from polite-inquisition into what she thought was wistful-remembrance, without the slightest awkwardness or any indication of conscious attention. "The kochan-house that spawned my birth-group was located on Marit An, a green and gold world whose oceans possess almost the same fragrance as this room."
Personally, she thought the room reeked of decaying seaweed and fermented fish, but kept the observation to herself. "Twenty-nine worlds," she said. "Isn't that a lot, even for a great kochan?"
"It must seem so to a species that has never possessed more than this one world," he said, his ears dancing through a multitude of expressions too rapidly for her to decipher any of them, "but we do not maintain a high population on any one world, which would make it an attractive target for the Ekhat. Jao breed for ability rather than numbers, in any event."
Unlike humans, Caitlin thought—who according to Jao opinion, bred like rabbits, yielding to sentiment and lust where practicality should have been employed.