The Course of Empire(191)
To Yaut's even greater surprise, he saw that the Jao who had spoken was Wrot. The old bauta had left Pascagoula several solar cycles earlier, excusing himself from Aille's service temporarily in order to attend to what he called, vaguely, "my kochan's affairs."
Wrot bestowed a quick bow at Aille. "I am one of the young Pluthrak's personal service, as it happens. But I am speaking for my kochan here. I have been selected as their representative at the Naukra."
He turned back to Oppuk, and any pretense of politeness vanished. Blunt as always, to the point of coarseness, the old Hemm's posture was angry-contempt.
"Answer the question, Oppuk!" he commanded. "Where is your service?"
Oppuk seemed frozen, for a moment. When he spoke, his words came awkwardly. "My . . . fraghta left long ago. Too old and weary to serve any longer, she said."
Yaut saw the Narvo elders standing behind Oppuk shift their stance, uneasily. Clearly enough, Oppuk was not telling the truth—not all of it, at least.
Wrot was unrelenting. "I am not concerned about 'long ago.' You had a Jao in your personal service very recently. Ullwa is her name. Or rather—was her name."
The bowlegged old bauta advanced upon the much larger Oppuk, his ears flat, his whole body now shrieking furious-determination.
"Answer the question, you Narvo whelp! You—who boast of your Jao-ness. Where is Ullwa?"
Oppuk, involuntarily, stepped back a pace. "She—she is dead."
The stance of the Narvo elders now shifted again. Their unease was no longer disguised at all. Indeed, the eyes of the old female who led them—Nikau was her name—were shining green with suspicion.
Nikau now stepped forward. "Dead? How?"
Oppuk glanced back at her, then looked away. His stance shifted, exuding what he obviously meant to be firm-determination but was much closer to childish petulant-stubbornness. "She was hopelessly incompetent at her duties. I put her down."
A vast sigh swept through the Naukra assembly. Nikau, on the other hand, seemed frozen in place.
Wrot spoke again, quickly. "So. Now everyone knows. This is the truth of Oppuk's self-named 'firm rule.' He is a beast, nothing more—and treats his own Jao service as brutally as he has the humans placed under his charge."
The bauta pivoted, gracefully for his age, and pointed toward Aille's service. "Now I will show you, in contrast, how well Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak has trained his human service. Caitlin Stockwell, step forth."
Yaut glanced at Aille, wondering. But some subtlety in the youngster's stance made clear that he had not planned this with Wrot ahead of time. Aille, clearly enough, was as surprised as Yaut by Wrot's intervention.
Brilliant intervention, as it happened. The old bauta had skewered Oppuk—and now, Yaut was sure, would skewer him again.
Hopefully, Stockwell would survive.
* * *
Caitlin lowered her head and slipped off the blue fabric sling that supported her broken arm.
"Wait a minute," Kralik said urgently. "You're not anywhere near healed yet."
"I need both arms for this," she said, cradling her elbow with her good hand.
"I'm going with you," Kralik said.
"She must enter the circle alone," Yaut said, "if she is to speak."
Caitlin stepped forward, then stopped and pulled off the heeled shoes and dropped them. Behind her, she heard Ed's low chuckle, full of humor despite the strain of the moment.
She forced a smile from her own face, since the Jao new to Terra would misunderstand the expression. It wasn't easy. Like Ed, for reasons impossible to explain, pitching those shoes seemed like a transition; the end of one order, the beginning of something else entirely new.
* * *
The wind sang through Aille's whiskers as he waited. The air was rich with brine and spray, and hai tau, life-in-motion. Avians wheeled overhead, soaring low enough for him to pick out the elongated shape of their heads and the whiteness of their body coverings. This world was fascinating. He wanted to go back to the sea and follow another whale, perhaps even swim with it this time.
But duty lay elsewhere. Flow, which had been almost stagnant a moment before, suddenly surged. As he had gauged himself—obviously, Wrot had reached the same conclusion—Caitlin's appearance would prove decisive.
Caitlin strode past him into the center of the black stones. Her body expressed request-for-attention, the form so well executed, no well brought up Jao could have done any better. Even her broken arm was held properly, though, at that angle, she must be feeling considerable discomfort.
The Bond Preceptor shifted his notice so subtly that even Aille could not have said when Caitlin became his focus, instead of him. "You wish to speak?"