Though it had once been his refuge, Oppuk now found the palace in Oklahoma City oppressive. Since recovering from the minor injuries suffered when his subordinates had seized him at the Bond's orders, he had spent most of time there. Swimming in the pools of what his human servitors had called "The Great Hall."
Back when he'd had human servitors. He had none any longer, and would not have tolerated any even if the Bond gave permission.
Which, they certainly wouldn't. The only servitors they now allowed him were a handful of Bond members, who obeyed Oppuk's orders but showed him little else in the way of respect. Very junior members, all of them, to make the insult worse.
One of them, Bori, was fortunately somewhat skilled. She was now adjusting the salinity of his favorite pool in response to his complaints, adding off-world salts, imported especially from Pratus, testing, then adding more. Already, the scent had improved to the point of being soothing again.
It was infuriating just being back on this world. At the very least, he needed his comforts fully restored. Even though Bori had not finished, Oppuk slipped back into the pool and settled on the rock-covered bottom, letting the cool simulated waves rock him as he tried to think.
It was difficult, because his anger continued to roil, as it had for what now seemed a near-eternity. Finally, giving up the effort, he surfaced and gazed about the vast room. Light blazed down from the holes in the ceiling, dividing the floor into a series of golden squares. Bori crouched silently by the far wall, polishing Oppuk's harness, the very essence of neutral readiness. Tactful enough, to be sure, but hardly the exhibition of respect Oppuk deserved.
His fists clenched, as though he wished to strike someone, anyone, in fact. He glanced around the cavernous room, but there no human servitors or Jao menials conveniently to hand. There were none left, in the palace, besides Oppuk himself and the Bond servitors. Not even in his current rage was Oppuk unsane enough to visit violence upon a Bond member. They were "servitors" in name only.
The female rose and departed, unseemly haste implicit in all her lines. Another subtle insult.
Oppuk floated on his back, watching reflected light waver across the ceiling. He had constructed this residence to impress the locals, incorporating elements of human design in order to make it grand in their eyes. Perhaps that had been a mistake, giving them an exaggerated concept of their own importance. He decided to have the building razed in the near future, once the flow of the moment had completed itself, and then have a new Jao quantum crystal palace poured.
Elsewhere, on one of the coasts. Perhaps he would have Oklahoma City destroyed by a bolide, to remove the vile memories.
As soon as oudh was returned to him, he would start.
Oppuk was not relieved when a Narvo elder presented himself at the palace, the next day, ending at last the dreary solitude of his palace-become-prison. How predictable. After endless orbital cycles of disregard and silence, this sordid mess had finally commanded their unwilling notice.
The doorfield faded, revealing an older male. Oppuk had known this one but slightly in his youth and now did not even recall his name, though he did seem to remember they had never regarded one another with favor.
"Long have you have shamed us," the male said. "Will it never stop?" Even at his age, he had that muscular vigor Narvo always prized, classic ears, a plush brown nap. As befit his station, his harness was very fine, the trousers the green of the finest cloth, the cut supremely flattering.
The elder had not offered his name, which meant this was not to be discourse between equals.
"I have shamed no one," Oppuk said angrily, his ears pinned back. "I have made myself of use, taming this vile world, as I was bid."
He lurched out of the pool, feeling desiccated the moment he left the water. "It is not my fault these creatures are so intractable. I have never shirked this noisome duty to which you bound me all those cycles ago."
The elder's eyes flashed a fierce, unforgiving green. "Is that what Shia krinnu ava Narvo would say?"
His old fraghta. Oppuk fought not to flinch. "Shia chose to leave, I did not send her away."
"You were kept here, safely out of the way—we thought!—precisely because she did leave." The male's whiskers twitched with distaste. "After such reckless behavior on your part, ignoring your own fraghta to the point of driving her off, we would have been fools to trust you with a more civilized assignment!"
Oppuk tried to protest, but could not. The old harridan had been irritating beyond belief and he had most certainly desired her departure.
"I am rightful governor here," Oppuk said, trying to shift the discussion to ground he felt he could properly defend. "Will Narvo back my authority, or will you permit this barely emerged Pluthrak upstart to go on discrediting me?"
"We will do what we can," the male said, "but your neglect of duty is obvious for all to see. If you do not take adequate care of the natives put in your charge, then it is only right they should be given over to the authority of someone else."
He gazed around the empty room. "What were you thinking, when you constructed this muddle for your principal residence? How could a true Jao ever be comfortable in such surroundings?"
He did not wait for an answer. "Come," the elder said. "We have received permission from the Bond to remove you from their custody. You are to come to our command ship. Make haste. All the kochan representatives have now arrived. The Naukra will be assembling very soon."
Though this was exactly what he had been waiting for, Oppuk was alarmed by his kinsman's stance. Whatever awaited him on the Narvo ship up in orbit, he dreaded to learn its name.
The name, he discovered, was Nikau krinnu ava Narvo, and his foreboding was not mistaken. One of his pool-parents, she had been, and it was a particularly unpleasant surprise to see her. As aged as she was, Oppuk had been certain she was long since deceased.
Her first words were as unpleasant as he remembered her.
"You fool!" She regarded him with angry angles and a jumble of displeased lines.
"Have I not already been abused enough?" Oppuk's posture was one of crude and undisguised outraged-anger. "First, you maroon me on that dreadful, primitive world, and then, when I defend it against Pluthrak and Ekhat both, you join Pluthrak in accusing me of incompetence!"
Her eyes went a preternatural green, so bright, they might have been lit from inside. He had seen them so during her infamous furies, only twice in his long ago youth. "Do not assume that posture with me, crecheling!"
Startled, he stepped back. Even now, the old female possessed the power to intimidate him.
"What more can you do to me?" he said, ears lowered. "Do you wish me to offer the Pluthrak my life?"
With a visible effort, she restrained her fury. "You will stand before the Naukra and tell of your most earnest efforts to subdue this recalcitrant world," Nikau said. Darkly: "I do not care in the least whether they believe you, providing you shame Narvo no further." Her posture was one of threatened-imminent regret.
He gazed at the new harness and fresh pale-green trousers laid out on a bench for him to don. "The natives are demented, that is all which can be said of them. I have done the best anyone could. This young Pluthrak is much smitten with these creatures. They flatter him with lies, and, because he is foolish, he listens. Leave him in place an orbital cycle or two and they will fight him as hard as they ever fought me. Almost, I would like to see it."
"Then that is what you must say." Nikau picked up the trousers and threw them at his feet. "I will speak the truth, arrogant crecheling. So long as our honor is not further sullied, I will be perfectly willing—delighted—to see another kochan given oudh over this planet. These wretched Terrans have drained Narvo's resources enough. Let some other kochan have the misery of dealing with them."
He began to remove his clothing. "Even Pluthrak?" he demanded, with as much visible outrage as he dared.
Her posture shifted to sour-regret. "No, not them, much as it would be pleasurable to see them founder in this swamp. But that would be too great an insult. As it is, Narvo's status has slipped greatly with respect to theirs, thanks to your misconduct."
A cold shiver ran through his body, and, for a moment, he wished he had perished in the Ekhat attack. He could see now that he would be blamed for this crisis by everyone, even his own, despite the true cause being Aille's treachery.
Fury came, to drive away the moment's despair, though he kept it from his posture. His only crime was having failed to make the natives fear him enough, while Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak wished Terrans to believe that he was their fraghta. In that, Oppuk knew, the youth was doomed to failure. Terrans respected no one and nothing, not even each other.
He finished donning the trousers, his self-confidence returning with the anger, then shrugged into the stiff new harness. He had nothing for which to make excuses. He had done only what he had been sent here to do, and had done it well, until the Pluthrak had arrived. He would make the Naukra see that. Narvo should still be oudh here. They would listen. Would even, he found himself certain, chasten the Bond for their hasty actions.
"Fool," he heard Nikau repeat. But the word did not really register. The female was old, her fury nothing more than a decrepit spasm. He was as sure of that as he was of anything.
Aille went out to the landing field early in the next solar cycle, when the Bond representatives descended to Pascagoula. Once their diplomatic ships committed themselves to landing, a bevy of smaller ships also converged on the same spot with that unerring timing that baffled humans so.
Aguilera, Tully, and Kralik stood before Aille, now automatically giving him status without being directed. The sun beat down, bright and brash. A breeze gusted inland from the sea, bearing the steamy fragrance of brine-soaked seaweed.
"How do they know?" Kralik said, without looking back over his shoulder at Aille. "I have worked with Jao now for years and still I have no idea how your kind manages to know when it's time to do anything without clocks." He gestured at the expanse of tarmac beside the ocean, now bristling with ships. "It's amazing. They're like a flock of birds or a school of fish, all turning at the same instant without hesitation. There must be hundreds of Jao here and every one of them arrived within a half hour of each other."
Aille experienced a brief dissonance at the thought of always having to depend upon mechanical devices, which must be calibrated and maintained, in order to know when to act. His fingers traced the carvings on his bau. "They came when flow completed itself."
"But how do they know?"
"They felt it," Aille said, "as you feel hunger or weariness or joy." He could see by their expressions his explanation was inadequate, but he knew no other way to explain.
A contingent of Jao separated from the crowd already congregated on the landing field and drifted toward Aille. The elder Dau krinnu ava Pluthrak waited over to one side, silent, his posture unreadable. Aille willed calm into his own limbs, the lay of his ears, the droop of his whiskers. He had been unorthodox, yes, but had done nothing wrong. Vithrik had bade him save this world from the Ekhat, using the resources at hand, and that he had done. Just as the same vithrik, once the nature of Oppuk's misrule had become clear, bade him remove Oppuk from control over the planet. No matter what it cost now, he did not see how he could possibly have acted otherwise.
Nine Jao, all robed and well fed, their naps sleek with frequent swimming, stopped and gazed past his human service, regarding Aille with serenely black eyes. They were Bond Harriers, severed at some point in their lives from their birth-kochan for various reasons, and subsequently sworn to the military arm of the Naukra Krith Ludh. They owed allegiance to the Jao as a whole and to no kochan in particular. They even changed their names upon joining the Bond.
From Aille, the eyes of the Harriers moved to his human personal service. They spent most of their time studying the bau which Kralik, at Aille's insistence, held in his hand. The carvings on that bau were no longer simple. Not with Kralik's deeds at Salem and Sol recorded on it. Aguilera and Tully shifted uneasily under their scrutiny, but Kralik remained still and calm.
"Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak," the foremost said, "you are summoned before the Naukra to explain your actions." He was very short, for a Jao, wide of frame, short of ear. His vai camiti was intriguing, hinting at a Dano origin with its strong diagonal striping. A similar diagonal stripe on his robe indicated that he was a Bond Preceptor, one of the members of their Strategy Circle.
"We propose to judge the matter here, since too many kochan have come to be fitted easily into a ship or edifice," the Harrier said. "Do you have any objection?"
"No," Aille said. "This world remains on the edge of rebellion. I cannot afford to leave the surface now. My absence would most likely encourage one or more of the insurgent factions to act."
The Preceptor's eyes remained black and his posture elegantly neutral. He seemed to consider as the waves rolled in and the wind picked up. Avians flew in formation overhead, a curious double line joined at one end. "Your husbandry does you credit," he said at length. "It is obvious these primitives have been neglected under the deposed Governor."
"They are not primitives of any kind," Aille countered immediately, maintaining perfect calm-assurance. "That was the beginning of our error here, which I suspect was made out of anger because of their effectiveness in resisting the conquest."
The Preceptor did not seem offended. Indeed, his posture shifted slightly, inviting Aille to continue.
"Although their thought patterns do not closely mirror our own," Aille said, "they are highly intelligent. Highly civilized, also. More so than we are, I have come to suspect, in many regards. It is just a different kind of intelligence, a different shape to civilization. Disregard of that has led us into these difficulties in which we are now mired. We must adjust our views on this species if they are ever to be of use against the Ekhat. Form association with them in a different manner than we have with any other conquered species."
"You have been here but a short time," the Preceptor said. His body was almost frighteningly without affect, now not even composed for formal neutrality. Aille found it rather disconcerting—which, he suspected, was the point. "Do you really think you know these creatures better than your elders, such as Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo, who has dealt with them since the initial conquest? And even if they are all that you say, are they worth forsaking your kochan and its ties forever?"
It was a formal question, a sant jin. Aille closed his eyes and considered, as his pool-parents had long ago taught him. A formally phrased question required a well thought-out answer. Could he truly know the natives of this small green-and-blue world better than the elders who conquered it and held it for so long?
He thought of Caitlin, clever and Jao-like in her graceful postures and speech; Tully, who, despite his defiance, had demonstrated the unfailing courage and sense of duty of a Jao, over and over again; Kralik, who never faltered when the opportunity came to be of use; and Aguilera, who held to the truth even when he knew he would be punished. Were they not each one as worthy as Jao?
"Yes," he said at last, opening his eyes, knowing by the sense of peace running through him that his own must be as serenely black at this moment as the Preceptors. "I have lived with them in my quarters, watched as they strung startling new ideas together one after the other like jewels on a chain, fought at their side, and watched them die. They are unique and often difficult, but the same could be said of any promising crecheling."
The Preceptor regarded him without any visible reaction. Did he believe Aille, or did he just consider him enormously mistaken? His interrogator's whiskers twitched and then were still. "Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo is elsewhere," he said. "I shall have him brought here, at which time we will resume."
He turned and walked away, the other eight Harriers falling in behind him.
Aguilera watched, his big hands knotted behind him. "How long will it take for the Governor to arrive?" he said. "This mess has barely even started and already it's driving me crazy."
Aille knew in his bones exactly how long it would take Oppuk to be conveyed to the wind and sand and heat of this shore. He felt it, inside, like the length of a cord precisely measured, knowing as well how long he had to work before he must come back and meet his obligations. What he did not know, and most likely never would, was how to explain it to his human staff.
"He will be here when it is time," he said at last, as a small white avian skimmed overhead.
Then he turned to Kralik. "Summon Caitlin from St. Louis. She must be present."
The jinau officer stared at him. Normally impeccable in his conduct, Kralik suddenly spoke bluntly: "Why?"
Kralik and Stockwell were now bonded in preparation for marriage, Aille knew, which explained his unusual behavior. So, he explained, rather than simply commanding.
"Nothing changes now, General, on one level. This is still, whatever else, a matter between Pluthrak and Narvo. I have succeeded so far with advance-by-oscillation and I intend to continue. Nothing enrages Oppuk so much as Caitlin, because she stands as the clearest proof that his claims are false. That unsane fury, I think, will finally bring him down."
Kralik nodded, slowly, understanding the logic. Still, he was reluctant.
"It might be dangerous for her," he pointed out.
This called for a human gesture. Aille shook his head, firmly.
"No, General Kralik. It will be dangerous for her."