The Course of Empire(13)

"Yes, sir." The Terran raised his hand to his brow in a sharp gesture that seemed freighted with enough meaning to be a minor posture. He then returned to his seat and reached for the vehicle's controls.



Aille cocked his head. "Wait," he said, putting a restraining hand on the vehicle's door. "Can you explain what 'pets' are?"



"That's a human custom," the Terran said. His eyes, a startling blue, looked away, as though he were ashamed. " 'Pets' are animals with which humans have a close emotional relationship. They are very common among us, as civilians. But standing orders say we are not to waste resources on them in the military."



"I see," Aille said. He lifted his hand. "Proceed."



"Thank you, sir. Have a pleasant evening!" A moment later, the vehicle turned back, then whirred off across the base.



"Let me look into the matter further," Yaut said. "I will see what I can find out."



Aille's eyes, black as volcanic obsidian, blinked. Not even a hint of telltale green glimmered in their depths. "I wish to be expert on the character of these Terrans." He set off walking, then turned to his fraghta. "Do you think they are as bad as Kaul krinnu ava Dano intimated? I had a different impression of them, after my studies."



Yaut shielded his eyes from the bright sunlight with one hand and grunted. "In my experience, deciphering reports is one thing, fieldwork something else altogether." He hesitated. "I have heard, however, that they are much like quarrelsome children, newly emerged, but never mature."



Aille set off. Once again, Yaut had to yield the lead, since the youth charged ahead. The two of them walked along an avenue of dreary box-shaped buildings, each sharp with corners and colored a dull, unrelenting green. The pavement radiated a pleasant heat beneath their boots and the air bore the imprint of the nearby sea. Aille turned down first one row, seemingly at random, then another, running splayed fingers over the local building materials, checking doors and windows, trim, and even what appeared to be actual stone wrested straight from the depths of the local earth.



"These are constructed, not poured like Jao structures," he said finally. "See the joints and fasteners? Very inefficient. You can already see evidence of deterioration."



"Wastes a lot of space, too," Yaut grunted.



"Yes. But, on the other hand, consider the advantages on a world as heavily populated as this one. This boxy configuration allows them to stack rooms one on top of the other. As many as a hundred rooms tall, in some instances, according to the reports I read. No Jao edifice I've ever heard of uses vertical space that extensively." He pondered for a moment. "There is a lesson here, Yaut. Perhaps we should not presume, so quickly, that what the natives do is simply capricious."



An answer did not seem to be required, so Yaut waited for him to walk on. Flow was slow for now, slipping past like a meandering stream. Nothing official was required of them at the moment. They could afford to take their time.



They rounded another corner just as the breeze shifted, bringing a chorus of excited Terran voices. Aille's ears twitched and his head turned to pinpoint the source.



"Come on, lucky eight!" someone out of sight was saying in the native language. "Come to Papa!"



Aille doubled back down the street and darted between two of the crude buildings. Yaut followed, muttering.



Three human males of varying sizes, all clad in dark-blue jinau uniforms, were kneeling in a half-circle formed by three smaller buildings, staring intently at a pair of diminutive white cubes on the pavement. Perhaps they were some sort of training device, Yaut thought, coming closer.



"Are you 'Papa'?" Aille asked the nearest male. He spoke in English, evidently determined to improve his grasp of the language.



The man looked up, then lurched backwards onto his rump. His mouth hung open and his eyes, dark brown with this one, widened. "Wha—?"



He recovered quickly. A moment later, he was on his feet, standing rigidly and making that peculiar motion of touching his forehead with his hand held rigid and flat.



Aille cocked his head, his gaze bright with curiosity. "If you are not 'Papa,' then which of you is, and why do you want eight? Eight of what?"



"There is no—Papa," another said, also now on his feet and making the same curious hand-to-forehead gesture. "It's just an expression, sir." This human was slighter than the other, topped with the reddish overgrown nap the locals called "hair." His skin was very pale and his bland unmarked face was shiny with moisture.