Banle closed up the distance between them. "Were you in danger?" Her body was angled in perception-of-threat.
"No," Caitlin said hastily. "We just had a minor disagreement."
"Your parents are too permissive. You should be educated in your own kochanata where your elders can impart the important values," Banle said, "not here among strangers."
"Leaving home to go to a university is the human way," Caitlin said. "I want to be here."
Banle only wrinkled her snout in disapproval.
* * *
Rafe Aguilera was waiting when Aille returned to his office, Tully in tow. Big for a human, though still smaller than a Jao, Aguilera was pacing the corridor with his limping gait, plainly nervous.
Aille keyed off the doorfield and went inside. Tully followed, edging toward a corner once they got into the room, his green eyes fixed on the two of them like a caged animal.
"You are not here for punishment," Aille said to Aguilera in Jao. "Although most would say you deserve it." He met the human's strange dark-brown eyes in their eerie nests of white. "You do understand that?"
Aguilera glanced at Tully, then lowered his gaze. His jaw muscles were tight. "I let myself get carried away," he said finally. "But I didn't mean any disrespect. I just wanted to do the job right, to be of use. Isn't that what you Jao want, for us to be of use?"
" 'The ripples of being of use spread ever outward,' " Aille said, quoting one of his earliest lessons. " 'One who is not of use might as well be dead.' "
"So I've heard." Aguilera threw back his bony shoulders, articulated differently in some way from Jao anatomy so that what might have been forthright-acceptance was distorted into meaninglessness.
"I wish to know more about your ideas concerning these Terran tanks," Aille said, sinking into his chair. He leaned back. "I think your ideas may have merit. So does Supervisor Nath."
The thin lines of hair over Aguilera's eyes raised. "Nath? She never—" He bit off whatever he had intended to say.
"She has been properly reticent about expressing her opinions, in the past time. But now that I have taken her into my service, she is freed of other obligations and—" It was his turn to bite off the end of the phrase. And worries, he'd been about to say. But there was no reason—indeed, it would be quite improper—to indicate such concerns to a human.
Aguilera's body relaxed. The rangy human rubbed his hands together. "You don't have to take my word for it. A number of the men down on the refit floor fought at Chicago, like I did. Why not ask them how they coped with Jao weapons?"
"Very well," Aille said. "Arrange a meeting." He paused, his body automatically falling into the shape of absorbed-reflection.
Aguilera stared out through the door to the glass wall in the corridor that overlooked the refit floor, his eyes on the work below. "Is it really true there's another race out there, even stronger than the Jao?" he said. "One ready to kill us all?"
"You mean the Ekhat," Aille said. "Yes, they are 'out there,' as you put it. The reason they have not swept Terra and its inhabitants aside like so much refuse before now is that this world is not near any of their framepoints currently in use, and so has not come to their notice."
Aguilera turned to him. "But what do they want?"
"No one has ever been able to establish that, no matter how carefully they study past encounters," Aille said. "As nearly as we Jao can tell, the Ekhat simply want to be alone in the universe with their own perfection."
The human seemed to ponder that statement. "Then how have the Jao survived?" he said finally. "Did you chase them off your homeworld?"
Aille was puzzled. "How could a human—especially one with responsibilities such as yours which bring you into close contact with Jao—still be ignorant of such basic facts, so long after the conquest?"
Aguilera's shoulders made a lifting-and-falling motion which, if Aille remembered correctly, was roughly the human equivalent of puzzled-uncertainty. "You Jao never tell us anything about yourselves."
Now, Aille was more puzzled than ever. The methods of forging association with conquered species were well known, tried and tested. It was much like raising crechelings. Of course, one maintained authority and, when necessary, punished disobedience or disrespect. But one never lied or dissembled to them, either, any more than kochan parents were untruthful to the crechelings in their charge. Association required trust, and trust required forthrightness.