"I—do not understand." In her confusion, she had abandoned any attempt at more sophisticated postures and fell into the arms-akimbo childishness of open-bafflement.
Turning the board around, he held it up. The small screen displayed the notation that her file had been transferred to Aille's direct command. She turned to the other female. "I have been reassigned," she said. "Just like that!"
"Oh, not 'just like that,' " he said testily. "You had to work at it. Most guards would just have admitted me, after ascertaining my identity. You had to go out of your way to bring yourself so thoroughly to my notice. Now vithrik forbids that I should leave the rest of the base prey to your ineptness."
Her ears sagged. "You cannot mean this! You have not even asked for my qualifications."
"Beyond being an idiot in need of reeducation?" He snorted. "I am doing this facility a kindness. With you at the gate, humans will overrun us in no time!"
She looked as though she would continue protesting, then lowered her head and subsided. He let his body settle into the lines of gruff-approval. This one would not require as much training as the dull-witted Tully. And Yaut had sensed some potential in her, beneath the coarse exterior.
"Precede me," he said, as the gate slid open.
* * *
The artillery was much more impressive than Aille had anticipated. Kinetic missile weapons were normally the most primitive of tech. Nath showed him row after row waiting out on the refit floor, pieces with bafflingly intricate designations: "howitzer" was the only one he remembered. For creatures who had been formed by haphazard evolution, rather than by the deliberate craft of a more advanced species, humans had certainly invested a great deal of ingenuity on their weaponry.
That, along with their vast population, had been a potent factor in their able defense of Terra. Humans reproduced at an amazing rate. They had, in fact, overbred this world, forcing many of their fellows to extend their habitat into marginally habitable areas. In a few hundred more orbital cycles, they might well have poisoned their environment irrevocably. It was actually fortunate for them, as Nath had remarked earlier, that the Jao had arrived when they did. This species needed a firm hand in curbing its excesses.
A certain percentage of the artillery had already been refitted as Jao lasers. Aille wondered if these workers felt as strongly about Terran tech as had those converting the tanks.
Ears down, he turned to Nath. "Summon the human called Rafe Aguilera to my office to wait for my return."
Her stance altered to the rigid bow of reluctant-aquiescence. "If you have changed your mind and wish him punished, I can see to it immediately and save you the bother."
"For disagreeing with policy?" Aille's whiskers twitched as he glanced out over industrious humans busily removing barrels and electronics from their defeated artillery. Several, who had been surreptitiously watching the two of them, hastily ducked down and reapplied themselves to their jobs. "If that has become a crime, then are we not all guilty of it from time to time? Shall we punish ourselves at the first hint of divergent thought?"
Her body was difficult to read. Aille thought she was both uncertain and . . . trying to conceal something.
"Whatever you wish, Subcommandant," she said.
"Forget I am Pluthrak, for the moment." He saw blatant, unalloyed incredulity overtake her. "I am Jao first, and Jao want only what is best for the coming battles. If we keep an open mind when these Terrans have ideas, we might gain an edge. As far as we know, the Ekhat have no Terrans under their control."
"They have more than a thousand other races, including some isolated pockets of Jao," Nath pointed out. "I find it hard to believe Terrans could change the balance in our favor."
His gaze turned inward. He saw again the visual records of the Terran Conquest, the casualty lists longer than any in Jao history except when battling the Ekhat themselves. "They fought long past the point of reason," he said softly. "When you examine the history of our engagements, these creatures were cunning, utterly undaunted. They sacrificed their own people, their own lands, to gain the least advantage. It took so much more to make them surrender than we had ever anticipated. We can use those same qualities to our advantage, if we are wise enough to understand them."
"All that may just indicate how foolish they were. So says Governor Oppuk. I have heard him point out myself that those inhabiting this political moiety lost huge amounts of breeding stock and arable land through their stubborn resistance. A more intelligent race, he says, would have understood they were defeated long before and preserved what still remained to them."