She settled on a pile of worn dehabia beside him, lightly, as though she weighed no more than a crecheling. Ignoring murmurs and stares of others in the hall, she took the oblique angle of regretful-revelation. "The officer you argued with today was the new Subcommandant, Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak."
His whiskers went numb and he struggled upright in the pile of blankets. "Pluthrak?"
"None other." Her eyes gazed at him impassively, green blooming here and there, and her posture betraying nothing. He could see her classical training in the least flick of an ear. It took the exquisite training only given to those associated with a great kochan to move with such unconscious grace.
"As you recall," she said, "I requested that you accompany me outside so I could tell you."
Vamre felt ill, a sensation which deepened as Nath continued. "I am told this one is of the clearest water, namth camiti, the highest ranked youth of his generation. I was greatly honored a short time ago when he took me into his personal service."
Then, obviously having satisfied vithrik, she abandoned him to his dark nook, while all around him others talked on and a stick of aromatic imported tak smoldered in a nearby brazier.
Took her into his personal service? It was all Vamre could do not to groan aloud. He and Nath had never gotten along well under the best of circumstances. Now, she would be impossible to control. With the prestige of Pluthrak swelling behind her, for all practical purposes it would henceforth be she and not he who dominated the situation in the facility.
But Vamre had far more pressing worries than his relationship with Nath. He tried to remember what he'd said out on the refit floor, and how the young Pluthrak had responded. Though he had no service bars incised on his cheek, his vai camiti had indeed been distinctive—why hadn't he recognized it? And there had been a fraghta in the background, too, he realized, quite stiff and proper with duty. That alone should have been a clue that all was not what it seemed. No new officer from a minor kochan, much less a taif, would have a fraghta accompanying him. How could Vamre have been so stupid?
It was clear he must apologize, if it weren't already too late. Vallt, his own kochan, was meager, its proffered links to other kochan seldom even acknowledged, much less accepted. Kannu, his root clan, was hardly any more recognized. Through his heedlessness, he had put his entire generation of crechekin at a disadvantage, both now and in the future. Whenever their name came up, this particular Pluthrak would think only of him, and his advice no doubt would inevitably be to turn aside. Nor would it be simply this one Pluthrak. The same would be true for all others with whom he would form association—and there would be a multitude. No kochan was more adept than Pluthrak at creating a web of associations. "Subtle as a Pluthrak." Mighty Narvo could think itself Pluthrak's equal, but no other Jao shared that opinion except their affiliates and close allies.
He lurched onto his feet, his trousers redolent with tak, and headed for the door. It was not yet full-dark. Perhaps he could speak with this Pluthrak before dormancy overtook him.
The eyes of his distantkin watched as he left, but, though at least a few must have overheard, no one offered to come with him and attempt to mend what was probably irretrievably broken.
* * *
Aille received the two Binnat gravely, his arms at quiet-attention for their benefit. The newly acquired nameless female guard skulked in the background, but had realized at some point earlier that the even lower status Tully was in his service too, so had recovered a bit of her equilibrium. Yaut stood at the room's perimeter, whiskers writhing as though seeking prey.
The Binnat, a male and a female, settled in the chairs before the desk. Aille thought of switching off the three dimensional internal diagram of a submarine he had been studying, but they seemed intrigued, so he left it on. It rotated slowly in the air above the desk's gleaming black surface, light playing over its outline.
The shorter Binnat, a stubby male with several shiny scars on his windward side, leaned forward, his joints set in unmitigated frankness. "Your fraghta said you wanted to know of the Battle of Chicago, Subcommandant."
Not a sophisticated or subtle fellow, Aille surmised, just an old soldier, direct to a fault and unwilling to play complicated games of vithrik, no doubt unable to rise in rank because of it. "Yes," he said, his own body shifting into unmodified attention. "How would you say the Terran troops fought?"
"Like wild beasts, but very cunning ones." The Jao's eyes flared green at the memory. "Beasts not smart enough, though, to understand when they were already defeated. We gave them every opportunity to surrender, but they kept coming at our lines, hundreds and hundreds of them, trained, untrained, old and young, fighting long past the point of sanity. We had to crush them in every way possible, destroy their infrastructure down to the last bridge and road, even kill their young, before they accepted defeat."