The Course of Empire(195)

Silence fell over the assemblage as she straightened, desperately trying to push aside the dazed feeling. She was still too fuzzy-headed to be able to develop any elaborate logical preface, she realized. That would have been hard, in any event, since she was more-or-less thinking on her feet to begin with.



Best to just come to the point.



She closed her eyes, swayed, then forced them open again. "I ask you not to grant oudh status on this world to either Narvo or Pluthrak."



She turned first to Narvo, and managed a reasonable rendition of honorable-recognition. "Narvo because, through no fault of its own, that kochan has come to be indelibly associated among humans—at least for the moment—with Oppuk's unsane rule. They would simply be faced with suppressing endless rebellions on Terra, which would be of no use to anyone."



The elderly female who led the Narvo delegation stared back at her; for a Jao, wide-eyed. Then, almost but not quite managing to conceal her surprise, returned the posture with the same.



Caitlin's head was starting to clear, thankfully. She'd spoken those words from sheer instinct, but they'd been the right ones. Even though, judging by the angry tension in his stance, Ed thought she was letting the Narvo bastards off the hook.



Which she was, of course. That had to done, if anything else was to happen. Whether the Narvo deserved to be suspended on a meathook or not was a trivial issue. Narvo kochan was simply too powerful, too necessary to the Jao—and humans, for that matter—in the life-and-death struggle against the Ekhat to be openly humiliated. It was going to be difficult enough for Caitlin to persuade the Naukra to implement the proposal she was about to advance. Impossible, if Narvo was openly opposed.



Besides, Caitlin's words—the Narvo elder's almost immediate acceptance made this quite clear—had, ironically, now made Narvo something of a human . . .



Not "ally," certainly. But, if nothing else, they'd be the last, in the future, to criticize Aille for taking humans into his service.



Caitlin had to choke down an hysterical little laugh. Since it was a human member of his service who salvaged their precious honor from near-disaster.



She turned, moving more easily, and bestowed the same posture of honorable-recognition upon Dau krinnu ava Pluthrak.



"Nor do I think Pluthrak should be given oudh here, though that would certainly meet the approval of most humans. In the short time since he had been here, Subcommandant Aille has done as much to repair the Jao reputation as Governor Oppuk did to damage it in twenty years."



There was a little stir in the Naukra, at that. Caitlin wasn't surprised. The Jao were not accustomed to caring, one way or the other, what might or might not be "popular" with their conquered species. Conquerors were conquerors, subjects were subjects, and there's an end to it.



But, although she'd been too dazed to see much of it, Caitlin had only to glance at Oppuk's corpse and his human executioner, still standing beside it, to know that even the most crusty-minded Jao in the assembly understood now that humans had to be dealt with . . .



Gingerly.



Leaving Tully aside, by now I'm sure they've all heard the story of the Narvo veterans' defiance of their own elders. Probably heard the same from their own veterans, for that matter, if they've been listening at all since they got here.



"What is the problem, then?" asked the Preceptor. "Pluthrak would seem the obvious choice."



"Too obvious, that is the problem. As popular as the choice might be, for humans, too many Jao kochan would be suspicious that this crisis was created by Pluthrak in the first place in order to displace Narvo here."



There was another stir in the crowd, and not a little one. Caitlin had just stated, aloud, what many of them suspected to be the truth.



That was not surprising either, of course—since it was the truth. Close enough, anyway. Caitlin was sure of that much. She was also sure that Aille had been an innocent party to the affair—the "dupe," insofar as that word could possibly be applied to his very-effective self. And she was pretty sure, though not positive, that Pluthrak's ambitions had actually been more subtle. Not so much focused on gaining oudh over Terra, in itself, but forcing Narvo to make concessions elsewhere. That was the subtle and indirect way that Pluthrak operated, she'd come to understand.



But, from the viewpoint of the Naukra crowd, the distinction hardly mattered. It was just as essential, for Caitlin's purpose, to remove Pluthrak from becoming, in a different way than Narvo, another obstacle to proper association.



Fortunately, the Pluthrak elder representing his kochan at the Naukra was quick-thinking and as subtle as Pluthrak's reputation. Without even the moment's hesitation of Narvo, he was returning her posture of honorable-recognition.