The Course of Empire(182)

"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?"