The Course of Empire(52)

He dropped his gaze. "Forgive him," he said in Jao, as humbly as gritted teeth would allow. "He is tired from working all night and forgets himself. Orders will be followed, of course."



Other men had stopped and were watching, their faces grimy, their hands full of tools that could become weapons on a moment's notice. They bunched together, muttering. Tully pulled Aguilera to his feet. "Tell him!" he whispered forcefully.



"Forgive me," Aguilera said, weaving and unable to focus. "I meant no disrespect."



The Jao sniffed, then strode off. Tully stared after him for a moment, his face tight with anger. "That was stupid," he said finally.



"Yeah." Aguilera passed a hand over his pale face. "Get back to work," he said finally to the watching men. "This isn't doing any good."



"But the tanks—" Ed Patterson began.



"They want them with lasers," Aguilera said, "so they'll get them with lasers. Then, maybe, if these Ekhat do ever show up, they'll kick their fuzzy butts and they'll all have to go somewhere else to have their war."



Tully eyed the locator control box on Aguilera's belt. He should have plucked it off when the other man was half out on his feet. Then he could have been off the base in fifteen minutes.



Aguilera caught his eye. "Want it?"



He flushed and looked away.



"What's it like, back there in Rockies?" Aguilera's voice was low. "Plenty of medical supplies, enough to eat, warm clothes? Can the kids go to good schools? Is there fuel for cars? Munitions for guns?"



There was damned little of any of that, Tully thought, but whose fault was it? Certainly not the Resistance's!



He was not surprised that Aguilera had figured it out. Collaborator or not, the middle-aged ex-soldier was no dummy.



"Just let me go, Rafe," he said in a low voice. "Sooner or later, this Subcommandant and his goddamned fraghta are going to crack me like a nut, and then I'll spill everything." He hooked his thumbs in his belt. "You're human. You can't want that."



"What I want," Aguilera said, "is what's best for humanity. We've lost this battle, but we don't have to lose the war. If you keep your head down and stop making trouble, you might just learn enough to help down the line when things are different." He glanced around the refit floor where most of the workers had resumed the morning's tasks. "Right now, there's no chance of getting rid of the Jao. We have to survive and learn as much as we can."



"You mean collaborate!"



"I mean, as Patton once said, 'no one ever served his country by dying. You serve by making the other dumb bastard die for his country.' The first rule here is to survive and get as much out of the Jao as we can in the process."



Tully glanced over his shoulder, but the Jao guard had wandered to the far end of the row. "Then you think the day will come when we boot the Jao off Earth?"



"I do." Aguilera straightened, then grimaced at a kink in his back. "Maybe not in my lifetime, or yours, but at some point; history has proved that empires always fall. Hell, when you get right down to it, we Americans thought we were on top of the world—and then the Jao came."



"But all those empires, Rome and England and even America, were human," Tully said. "You can't count on the Jao being the same."



"No," Aguilera said, "but it's all we've got left to hope for. Until then, we have to survive."





Chapter 12




"Miss Stockwell," a gravelly Jao voice said as a pair of immense oak doors swung open and Caitlin's party entered the palace.



How strange, she thought, glancing back over her shoulder at the surprising wooden panels. Jao ordinarily preferred doorfields to crude physical barriers such as these.



"I am pleased," the voice continued, "that you and Dr. Kinsey accepted my invitation."



The "invitation," of course, had been a command. She ran fingers back through her short wind-blown hair as an excuse to hide her expression. The entrance hall, constructed of cool gray stone and a ceiling that loomed far overhead, was dim, as Jao quarters so often were, but also unexpectedly primitive. It had actual corners and huge pillars framing the doorway carved in the likeness of ceremonial bau. Like the flowers outside, they were a form of human decoration, adapted to Jao sensibilities. Jao just didn't do that, in her experience.



"Governor Oppuk," she said with a feeling of dread as she waited for her eyes to adjust.



Kinsey stepped forward, a smile on his face. "This is an extraordinary opportunity, being allowed to put together a history of the Jao! I can't thank you enough for giving me permission to do so!"