The Course of Empire(16)

Troubling, Aille thought. The penalty, more than the incident itself. Jao officers should be smarter than that. Why put down so many? Clashes between Jao occupying troops and natives were common enough, after all. They had happened on many planets. If extreme penalties were needed, singling out one who had been prominent in the fracas—two, at the most—would surely have been sufficient to restore discipline. Dead natives produced nothing of value, nor fought off any Ekhat. And Aille had learned enough from his studies to know that humans in particular were quick to resent punishment, even when it was properly authorized.



Another vehicle pulled up and disgorged a company of soldiers burdened with full loads of unfamiliar equipment. "I am going down to the shore and observe the training," he said.



Yaut keyed the doorfield on, then edged into the lead as any good fraghta would, given the opportunity.





Chapter 4




Gabe Tully slipped through the hot, sticky Mississippi night, trailing the new Subcommandant as he left his quarters. This one was a conundrum. Jao just didn't mix with natives or ask about local customs. Above all, they didn't go for unattended, seemingly purposeless strolls. Leisure was not a part of their psychological vocabulary. Unless he was going for a swim, something was definitely up.



He'd bet a hundred new-bucks that encounter earlier today wasn't a fluke either. The Jao had probably set it up, perhaps even suspected Tully had Resistance ties. For his part, the craps game had been all about gathering intel. Soldiers were much more likely to spill interesting information when their minds were otherwise occupied, and now his own mind was buzzing with what he'd learned since about this particular Jao.



To begin with, Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak was young, far more so than most Jao officers assigned to the base. And he'd been assigned a plush, high ranking job, even though he'd apparently just completed his training. The "ava" prefix in his name indicated he was a member of the inner circles of one of the root clans, as Tully understood Jao customs. Root clans were serious business in some way the Resistance hadn't quite managed to work out. At any rate, local Jao management had fallen all over themselves, trying to see that everything was perfect: his quarters, his driver, even his first meal. Very strange, since they liked to pretend they were egalitarian, that one Jao was much the same as another and cooperation was their byword.



That must be why Commandant Kaul had come down so hard after the mess room fracas this afternoon—nervousness about this new Subcommandant. Five men executed for nothing more than a brawl! A bad brawl, sure, but no human commander would have meted out such instant and savage punishment. Even for the Jao, it was extreme.



Tully hesitated, his back flattened to the wall. Footsteps scraped on the concrete, then several Jao officers walked past just around the corner, neither of them this Pluthrak. He held his breath. Jao had ears like cats, though there was certainly nothing else catlike about them.



When he dared look again, Pluthrak had disappeared. He decided to keep looking and see if he could pick up the trail. Much as he would have liked to rearrange the Dano's face, doing so would ensure an even higher human death toll in the coming days. Jao discipline was invariably swift, often fatal, and not at all above falling upon civilians, when they couldn't find a guilty party easily at hand. Jao psychology made little provision for anyone learning from his or her mistakes. Their attitude was simple and brutal: kill the one who made the mistake, and let everyone else learn the lesson.



Tully's mind wandered into speculation. If a Jao had a fatal accident, however, one that couldn't be traced back to a human hand . . . Kaul was too smart to put himself at risk, but this new Subcommandant was apparently not so cautious. Once Tully caught up with him, something fatal might be arranged. It'd be tricky, of course. For a human to use physical force against a Jao—especially a Jao as big and young and obviously in superb condition as this new one—was a lot easier said than done.



Tully considered the thought for a moment longer, then shook it off. Leaving aside the difficulties involved, he'd been sent here to gather intelligence, not to risk himself by trying to carry out the assassination of a single Jao officer. He'd had some success in his assignment, and needed to continue before deserting and making his way back to the mountains with his report. The level of anger among human workers and soldiers on this particular Jao base was high, because of the harshness of the local commanders. They were more willing to cooperate with the Resistance than sepoy troops or workers on Jao military projects usually were.



The Resistance needed that cooperation, as reluctant as many of its members were to work with collaborators. Twenty years after the conquest, Tully knew the situation was grim. The Resistance needed to deepen its roots in the population here in the occupied territories, while people still remembered what it was like to be their own masters. With every passing year, that memory was fading. If they didn't turn the situation around before many more years had passed, their conquerors would be too firmly entrenched and humanity would never take back its own world.