The Crucible of Empire (4 page)

Tully knew that Jao generally found it difficult to develop tech improvements on their own. They called innovation of any sort
ollnat
, which literally meant "the ability to make things-that-were-not," and regarded its practice as no more than the foolish occupation of the very young. Whether that Jao aversion to innovation was something genetically bred in them by the Ekhat or simply a cultural feature produced by the Jao's very conservative clan structure was not yet clear to Tully. But, either way, it was a characteristic that sharply delineated the difference between human intellect and Jao, and one of the reasons many Jao still classed humans as overly clever savages.

The Preceptor held up a tiny blue memory chip, then inserted it into Aille's reader. The image of a ship sprang into focus just above the broad oak desk, heavy and rounded, black with eight evenly spaced keels. It was hard to tell exactly how big it was, but Tully got the impression it was truly massive. Was
that
what they'd been building for the last year in the vast cordoned off area outside the refit facility? He'd glimpsed the rounded shape above the barriers and wondered from time to time what all the fuss over that particular ship was about.

"The design has been adapted from Earth vessels originally intended to function beneath water," the Preceptor said as the roomful of Jao and humans crowded around the desk to examine the rotating 3-D representation. "It is more heavily armored than a typical Jao warship, as well as more radiation resistant. This mission will involve travel into a nebula possessing harsh radiation and thick gases. Such qualities may indeed prove useful."

The dark-colored Jao turned away. He moved with an odd abruptness that his two fellows shared, not the exquisite, carefully cultivated grace sought after by most Jao. It was his body language, Tully thought with a flash of insight. It wasn't, well, accomplished. None of these three seemed to be continually dancing the way most Jao did. Maybe they were the Jao equivalent of hicks, from some backwater of Jao society where such niceties weren't followed or didn't matter.

"I will arrange for all of you to tour the new ship over the next few solar periods," Preceptor Ronz said. "Terra-Captain Dannet, who originally came to us from Narvo—" He gestured at a female, standing in the back, sporting a startling Narvo
vai camiti
. "—has been making herself of use all during the construction phase and is highly qualified to head the new ship's first mission. Her input has been invaluable. The rest of you should hasten to familiarize yourselves with its features before your mission leaves."

Tully cleared his throat. His back was ramrod-straight. "And when will that be, Preceptor?"

The Preceptor's eyes flickered again with enigmatic green fire. "When flow has completed itself," the old Jao said as he turned away. "You should understand that as well as anyone here by now."

Ed Kralik managed to keep a lid on his temper until he and Caitlin were well away from Aille's office. He took her arm possessively as they clattered down the steps, then plunged outside into the golden Mississippi fall sunshine. His chest heaved. "I don't care—!"

"Yes, you do care," she said, putting her hand over his and squeezing. "We all care. They wouldn't send a ship if it wasn't important, especially not this particular ship."

"But they're hiding something," Ed said. He headed toward their Jeep, his steps so long, he felt her hustle across the pavement to keep up. "That devil Ronz always does this. He manipulates everyone and never tells the whole truth!"

"But," she said, "he's always had Terra's best interests at heart."

"Jao don't have hearts!" He opened the passenger door and gestured for her to slide in, then slammed the door. Startled pigeons took flight a few feet away.

"Not in the same sense that we do," she called after him through the open window, "but they do invest emotional energy in their projects. They take pride in succeeding and in seeing us do well."

Her gray-blue eyes were thoughtful as he jerked open the driver's door and entered on his side. He knew that look. Goddammit, she was intrigued. She
wanted
to go. "They don't care if you die," he said, his hands clasped so hard on the steering wheel, he could feel his blood pounding, "just as long as you make yourself—and your death—of use."

"Death doesn't mean the same to them." She turned to face him and touched his cheek. "But they were right about the Ekhat, and they are most likely right that we should go and take a look at this—whatever or whoever it is. Another species! It's possible we could even make them our allies against the Ekhat. Ronz will tell us more in his own time."

" 'When flow is completed,' " Ed said bitterly. "How I hate that goddammed timesense of theirs!"

"We are fumbling in the dark that way, compared to them," she said, "but I wouldn't have a Jao mind even if I could trade." She settled back against the upholstery. A car full of Jao pulled around them and drove away, headed for the beach. "They don't have imaginations, Ed. Think how dull that must be."

He hesitated, struck by that. They didn't have imaginations,
ollnat
, as they termed it, but they thought something important was out there, concealed at the heart of that nebula.

So it most likely was.

"You're going, aren't you?" He stared at his clenched hands on the steering wheel.

"And you'll stay here and do your job," she said softly. "For the first time since the conquest, humans and Jao are almost in a state of complete association. That's sacred to them. We can't blow it."

He felt like he couldn't breathe. Memories of his mother dying in an epidemic after the conquest, then father and brother slaughtered by so-called "Resistance" bandits, resurfaced. He had no one in the entire world but her. "What if you die?" he said in a strangled voice.

She touched his face again with outstretched fingers. "How about if I promise I won't?"

"Oh,
that's
comforting," he said with a rueful shake of his head, then gathered her into his embrace. She was warm and soft and smelled of blackberry-vanilla, her current favorite soap. He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent, the weight of her in his arms, trying to imprint them on his memory. There was no home for him, no comfort, no center, except where she was. His throat constricted. "I'm damn well going to hold you to it."

They remained that way, her head on his shoulder, his arms tight around her, the Mississippi afternoon sun slanting in through the windshield and warming their faces, for a long, long time.

Mallu checked on the rest of his crew again after the unsettling meeting at the refit facility. The Krant survivors had been housed in what humans called a "barracks," which was a distressingly angular structure without flow, but had access to a common pool. Most of the injured had recovered enough to swim at this point and morale was slowly improving. Still, to the last individual, they all wanted only to go home to Krant and make themselves of use there. No one wanted to sit here on this out of the way world with its skulking, flat-faced natives, brooding about their shameful failure at NGC 7293.

Then he went back to Jalta and Kaln at the somewhat better quarters to which their ranks entitled them on this sprawling installation. They had been assigned a section of blue and gold quantum crystal building, well poured, suitably dim inside and equipped with soft
dehabia
heaped along one wall, a supply of woody
tak
for scenting the room, and, best of all, a small, but deep pool with its salts perfectly balanced.

Jalta was swimming with the enthusiasm of one long denied. The transport that brought them to this world had been equipped with a pool, but the three of them had rarely used it, intimidated by the presence of so many born of higher ranked Dano. Kaln, still dripping, eyes wildly green, crouched at the pool's edge, evidently just emerged from the water.

Mallu eased onto a pile of gray patterned
dehabia
. His injured ribs protested with a stab of white-hot pain as he twisted to unbuckle his harness and he braced them with one hand. The memory of that battle in the nebula assaulted him again, the frantic maneuvering, the terrible energy beams crackling over his ship as circuit after circuit fried so that even when the enemy Ekhat vessel imploded, it was all they could do to limp back to the nearest Jao base with half his crew dead and most of the rest injured. They had survived, but at such a cost!

"So we will return," he said, not meeting his officers' eyes.

"Evidently," Jalta said. He ducked beneath the roiling water and swam more vigorously as though he could wash the memory away.

Kaln's angles went to unmitigated
distress
. One of her ears had been damaged and now dangled at a permanent angle. She was sensitive about the disfigurement and had not seemed her formerly sensible self since the battle. "What is the point?" she said, her eyes flickering angrily. "Unless they do not believe us."

"I think they most definitely do believe us." With a metallic clink of the buckles, Mallu deposited his harness to one side on the gold quantum crystal floor. He would have to requisition some polish. The straps were looking positively shabby. "Else why would they want us to go back?"

"There may be more Ekhat waiting," Kaln said. She shook herself and drops of water flew through the air.

"Perhaps," Mallu said. "But even if we do come under fire again, it is still an opportunity for Krant to make itself of use to the Bond." He stared into her dark face, seeing the faint outline of her
vai camiti
, which was quite attractive, once you took the trouble to make it out. "Think of it—no one else was there, seeing what we saw, doing what we did. Not Narvo, or Binnat, not even great Pluthrak itself. Though we are small and little regarded, still it was Krant who sacrificed ships and crews, killed the confounded Ekhat, and then brought back whatever information the Preceptor sees in that data."

"Krant who lost all its ships and most of its personnel!" Kaln said with a furious flip of her single able ear.

Jalta's dark head popped out of the water. His whiskers bristled. "But what in the name of all the seas does the Preceptor see? I have examined the readings repeatedly and can find nothing more than a few unfamiliar weapon signatures. If there was another participant in that fight, they did not make themselves apparent to us—and we were there!"

"When the flow is right, Preceptor Ronz will tell us." Mallu stared moodily into the roiling water. They would go back and face their failure, even if cost their lives. That was the nature of
vithrik
, making oneself of highest use, and perhaps in the end they could at least improve Krant's ranking among the kochan.

He slipped into the pool and dove to the bottom, letting the cool liquid support him. Gradually, the ache in his ribs eased. Really, the mix of salts was quite good. One might almost think oneself landed on an altogether civilized world.

As prearranged, Wrot krinnu ava Terra met with the Preceptor down by the shore in the early-dark, early evening, as a human would have termed it. Waves lapped at the beach and starlight played across the restless water. A few white gulls landed on the sand a short distance away and watched them dispassionately with gleaming black eyes.

"So . . . " Preceptor Ronz was gazing at the waves as they rolled in. The tide was rising, each wave surging just a bit higher on the sand than its predecessor. "How goes the new taif? Your perspective must be far more telling than mine."

That was because Wrot had been among the first to apply for membership in the unique mixed human-Jao organization and was now an official elder. Wrot scratched his ears. "Two steps forward, one back," he said in English. His stance was
rueful-acknowledgement
. "Humans are the most astonishingly quarrelsome creatures. Many of them would argue even if you said they were always right."

"If they were not so divisive, we would never have conquered them in the first place," Ronz said. "They have been as much their own enemy as ever the Ekhat will be."

"But their minds—" Wrot shook his head, a useful scrap of human body language he had adopted long ago. "They are endlessly inventive, never at a loss for ideas, even about the most inconsequential of matters. Our new association house in Portland is simply amazing with a unique synthesis of Jao and human comforts and styles. You will have to visit it, once events are more settled."

"Yes, 'events,' as you put it." The Preceptor sighed. His ears, normally exquisitely noncommittal after the fashion of the Bond, slipped into faint
wariness.
"I called you out here where we can be utterly alone to tell you what I would not say before the others."

Wrot waited as flow brought them both to the moment of revelation. The nearby gulls screeched, then flapped away. Something out in the water jumped, scattering the starlit spray.

"I believe the data recordings from the battle indicate life on one of the worlds concealed inside the nebula," Ronz said. "Sapient life, most likely a civilization we have long thought extinct."

"Many species have been exterminated by the Ekhat," Wrot said. "They wish to be alone in the universe with their own perfection."