The Crucible of Empire (5 page)

"And quite a number of those died at the hands of the Jao under their direction, before we freed ourselves from their bondage."

"That is a great tragedy," Wrot said, "but it was not our desire that caused their deaths, no more than a discharged laser wishes to kill its victim."

Ronz hesitated as the waves rolled in and in. The wind gusted, carrying the acrid scent of seaweed and rotting fish. "I think the signs point to the Lleix."

Wrot's mind whirled. Everyone down to the youngest Jao crecheling knew that name. It was the stuff of legend. The Lleix had been a powerful force in the history of the Jao. "
Them?
Are you sure?"

"Of course not." Ronz shrugged out of his black trousers and harness, dropping them to the sand, and stood, feet apart, letting the sea breeze buffet his scarred old body. "Why else would the Bond fund this expedition? Idle curiosity is the province of humans, not the Bond."

"But there is not the slightest possibility the Lleix would accept our advances," Wrot said. "They would in fact most likely do all in their power to destroy us. Our arrival would only sow panic because they undoubtedly would believe that we've come to complete their extermination."

"That is why, even though you will have
oudh
, the crew should contain a high percentage of humans," Ronz said. "Especially ones skilled at negotiating under difficult conditions like Caitlin Kralik and Gabe Tully."

"You set us an impossible task." The soothing hiss and roll of the waves was seductive. Wrot unbuckled his harness and dropped it on the sand, itching for a swim. "Even if the humans successfully approach them first, they will learn of our close association."

"We owe the Lleix a great deal," Ronz said. "They saw the potential for freedom in us, when we could not see it for ourselves. The Ekhat made certain that innovation was not part of our nature. If not for the Lleix, the Jao would never have conceived of fighting free of the Ekhat."

"At what point will we tell the rest of the crew your suspicions?" Wrot said.

"When you have reached the nebula, thoroughly evaluated the data coming in, and they are suspicions no more."

Secrets to keep, then. Wrot was good at that and the Preceptor knew it. Between them, the two had kept many secrets for a long time and worked at hidden purposes for the betterment of both Jao and humans. Now they would do it yet again.

As one, they waded into the cool dark waves, then dove into this world's wonderful wild water. Though Wrot had swum Earth's seas many times, he always found the foreign salts exotic, teasing at the senses, hinting at new discoveries yet to come.

The bay's current carried them out and they swam far into the night.

Goddamn high-handed Jao! Tully sat on a peeling vinyl-covered stool at the Foul Play, a retro bar decked out with stainless steel tables and godawful aqua chairs just outside the Pascagoula base. He stared moodily into his amber glass of locally brewed beer—execrable stuff, but effective. Any time he got to thinking maybe Jao weren't so bad, or maybe at least
some
of them weren't, they turned around and bit him on the behind—figuratively, at least.

The bar was crowded mostly with humans, but a few Jao were scattered throughout the dimly lit room. All around him, glasses clinked. Men and women laughed. Voices beside him murmured just on the edge of comprehension. Behind the bar, popcorn was popping, and some noxious new song, more screech than melody, was playing on the jukebox. He could see his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, red-eyed and haggard from lack of sleep, and it just pissed him off even more. "What are you looking at?" he muttered to the image.

"Thought I'd find you here," a voice said from behind, then Ed Kralik, still in his blue jinau uniform, slid onto the seat next to him.

Kralik's cool assurance never failed to irritate Tully. "I didn't think your wife let you out these days without a leash." Tully scowled and traced the glass's cool rim with a finger.

"Feeling sorry for yourself?" Kralik signaled the bartender, a former jinau who still wore his regimental service insignia on his sleeve, for a beer of his own.

"I don't see your name on that freaking crew roster," Tully said, in no mood for Kralik's usual air of superiority. So what if Kralik's rank was lieutenant general and he commanded thousands of jinau troops? That didn't make him one whit better than the lowliest Resistance fighter as far as Tully was concerned.

"I wish to God it was," Kralik said, as the glass was set before him. His face was drawn, his gray eyes bleak. "I'd trade with you in a heartbeat."

Tully took a long pull of beer and let it trickle down his throat. The frosty bite was soothing. "Well, as you heard this afternoon, they don't want you—they goddamn want me." The slightest hint of satisfaction at that thought seeped through him. Someone actually thought Gabriel Dorran Tully, Resistance camp brat and former spy, would be better at something than the highly regarded commander of the jinau.

"I want you to watch Caitlin's back," Kralik said, his gaze trained on Tully's face.

"Like I wouldn't unless you asked?" Tully drained the rest of his beer and set the glass back with a rap. "That's flattering as all hell."

"She's reckless sometimes," Kralik said, drumming his fingers on the gleaming black bar. His gray eyes seemed almost colorless in the dim light. "She always thinks she understands the Jao better than anyone and that gets her in trouble."

"No one understands the Jao," Tully said. "If I've learned nothing else in the last two years, I've learned that. I'm not even sure they really understand each other, and all that fancy dancing around they do just obscures things. From what I've seen, it's entirely possible for their words to say one thing and their bodies something else."

Mercifully, the song ended, but then someone dropped more change into the jukebox. Green and yellow lights flashed as the blasted machine lurched into another popular caterwaul. Tully winced. He was a blues man, himself. Some of the world's best blues musicians lived up in the Resistance camps he'd once called home.

Even though they were sitting beside each other, Kralik had to raise his voice to make himself heard. "This mission will be a minefield." His gaze followed the bartender as he moved up and down the counter. "You've got representatives from the Bond, a Narvo ship captain, members of Aille's service, Resistance fighters, and humans from half the nations on Earth, not to mention Jao from different kochan spread across the galaxy, all locked up in one big tin can."

"And whatever's out there waiting in that nebula," Tully said sourly. "Let's not forget that."

"Aren't you the least bit curious what's got Ronz so worked up? I mean, think about it. This is the Bond. They think in such long-range terms, they don't get excited about anything that takes less than twenty years to play out."

Now that Kralik mentioned it, there was just the slightest buzz of curiosity in the back of Tully's mind, a hint of interest despite his glumness at being forced to abandon his crucial Resistance negotiations for what seemed on the surface little more than a whim. Something intriguing waited out there in the heart of that nebula and they had a damn big ship in which to go look at it. If this whatever-it-was looked back at them even halfway cross-eyed, they'd just blast the hell out of it and go home.

Of course, the Ekhat had damn big ships too, the practical part of his brain pointed out, and they were barking crazy to boot.

Kralik was staring at him expectantly. Tully sighed. "Of course, I'll keep an eye on Caitlin. Though, as I recall, she's always been more than able to take care of herself."

"That she has," Kralik said, raising his beer. "Here's to self-sufficiency."

"And big freaking guns." Tully raised his own glass and they both chugged, never taking their eyes off one another.

Mallu rousted Jalta and Kaln out of their shared quarters at first-light. The two wanted to go down and explore the tantalizing native sea, glittering gray-green in the distance, but flow felt very insistent that it was time to inspect the new ship. Since it was an unfamiliar design, learning its strengths and weaknesses was of paramount importance if the Krants were to find a way to make themselves of any real use. They donned their worn harness, boots, and trousers, all the traditional maroon of their kochan, and headed out.

Kaln in the fore, as befit her lower rank, they walked across the sprawling base, past bizarre angular buildings that chopped up space into ugly squares and rectangles with no flow. Rain had fallen earlier and the temperature was pleasantly cool, though annoying native species of insects buzzed back and forth. Vehicles passed them, some mag-lev, but others on strange black wheels, bumping along and reeking of scorched hydrocarbons.

The sun was overbright so that they were soon all squinting against its fierceness. It would have been pleasant to swim again in untamed water, Mallu thought, as they trudged across the damp pavement. His eyes kept straying to the everpresent sea.

This inspection was pointless anyway. However splendid, this craft was not their ship and never would be. He and his crew would only be along for some inscrutable purpose of the Preceptor's, not true members of the ship's company. They probably would have been better off going to the ocean instead.

"We should have summoned a transport," Kaln said finally. Despite her recent erratic behavior, she had always been a consummate tech. Her able ear swiveled as another of the odd vehicles swerved around them. "I would have liked to see how the local technology works."

"We have been shipboard for a long time, and soon we will be in space again," Mallu said, though his ribs ached just a bit more with every step. A ship captain never admitted to weakness before subordinates. "I would rather get some exercise."

An immense building loomed in the distance, the one where the meeting with the Preceptor had taken place on the previous day. They had not explored its cavernous interior at the time, but now Mallu could make out actinic flashes inside as though small bolts of lightning were striking. Screeches and the clang of metal striking metal filled the air, and it was much bigger than he remembered, since they walked and walked and it seemed to grow very little closer.

Finally, a wheeled cart with three empty seats rolled out of the building, drove across the remaining stretch of pavement, and finally stopped beside them. A well-made female with exotic russet nap and a lovely
vai camiti
regarded them with
merry-anticipation
. "Captain Mallu krinnu ava Krant?" she said.

Mallu's angles dropped into a rough approximation of
acknowledgment
, not one of his best stances, but a ship's captain had far more important things to worry about than the subtleties of his postures.

"
Vaim
," she said, indicating
we see each other
, thereby declaring herself their equal in rank, a brash move. "I am Nath krinnu ava Terra." Mallu was stunned at her lack of manners, blithely forcing her name upon them. Either living on this forsaken planet had sapped her civility, or she'd come of a low kochan that taught its progeny no better.

Her eyes flickered. She knew exactly the effect she was having, Mallu thought crossly. The reckless presentation of her name was clearly intended to provoke. They were only Krant, after all. Why bother with courtesies to such?

"I am Floor-Supervisor here at the Refit Facility." She gestured at the empty seats. "I have come to take you to tour the Bond's prototype ship."

"Krinnu ava Terra?" Kaln said. Her good ear flattened in
distaste
. She massaged the damaged one distractedly. "Then you have joined the new taif?"

"I have that honor," she said as the three climbed in and wedged themselves into the inadequate seats.

"But it admits humans as well," Kaln said from one of the back seats. "I fail to understand how you—manage—such an arrangement? You do not actually—?" She broke off, her ear pitched forward in
unease
.

Nath glanced over her shoulder as she turned the vehicle back around and drove toward the building. "Mate? By the Beginning, what a strange notion!" The element of
merriness
in all her angles increased as she abandoned
anticipation
altogether.

"Then are there no marriage-groups?" Mallu asked, bracing his ribs as they careened over the bumpy pavement.

"Not containing humans!" Nath slowed as a particularly large hole wrung a grunt from Jalta in the back to his obvious chagrin. His pool-sib's body bruises were still particularly painful. Mallu clung to a support and endeavored to suffer in silence with his own healing injuries.

"Actually," she said, "we are two separate taifs, one human and one Jao. And the natives have peculiar ideas about mating. Half of them seem ready to engage in it at almost any moment with very little preparation or ritual, but only in pairs, rarely larger groups. The other half flee in the opposite direction if you do so much as make a polite inquiry about their practices."

"It does not matter how the new taifs handle such things," Mallu said,
sternness
pervading all his lines, though the effort wrung a deep stab of pain from his ribs. The discussion made him uncomfortable. The three of them had never been called back to the kochan to join a marriage-group, and after losing their ship, it was highly unlikely that they would ever be so honored.