The Course of Empire(69)

"Tell me of your Pluthrak homeworld," she said, in an effort to change the subject. "I don't recall a member of your kochan being assigned to Earth before."



"There is no one homeworld for us. Pluthrak is spread across twenty-nine planets," Aille said. The lines of his body flowed from polite-inquisition into what she thought was wistful-remembrance, without the slightest awkwardness or any indication of conscious attention. "The kochan-house that spawned my birth-group was located on Marit An, a green and gold world whose oceans possess almost the same fragrance as this room."



Personally, she thought the room reeked of decaying seaweed and fermented fish, but kept the observation to herself. "Twenty-nine worlds," she said. "Isn't that a lot, even for a great kochan?"



"It must seem so to a species that has never possessed more than this one world," he said, his ears dancing through a multitude of expressions too rapidly for her to decipher any of them, "but we do not maintain a high population on any one world, which would make it an attractive target for the Ekhat. Jao breed for ability rather than numbers, in any event."



Unlike humans, Caitlin thought—who according to Jao opinion, bred like rabbits, yielding to sentiment and lust where practicality should have been employed.



Banle appeared at her shoulder and took up her post, rigid with disapproval. "You approached the Governor without invitation," she said. "That was badly done."



"I regret my clumsiness," Caitlin said in Jao. "I have been too long among humans at the university and forgotten my manners."



"True," Banle said, turning her back on the Subcommandant so that he was excluded from her field of vision, effectively in Jao terms making him simply not-there. "I have often counseled your father against indulging you so. He should assign you a strict fraghta."



Aille gave the guard a penetrating look and moved off, a tasteful exit in Jao terms, though rude in human context. Caitlin repressed a smile. She suspected this new Pluthrak, though young, was going to be a thorn in Narvo's side. She certainly hoped so.



"Here," Dr. Kinsey said, pressing a tepid glass of water into her hand. "That's the best I could do, I'm afraid."



"Thank you." She sipped gratefully, then gazed out over the crowd with a tight face. No doubt, that sniveling rat Matasu had only brought it up because he knew how Americans felt about such things. It was a childish display of one-upsmanship. Japan had fared far better beneath the Occupation than her former enemy turned ally. The archipelago's native government now didn't hesitate to rub it in, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

* * *



The entire hall was abuzz about the expedition to be held in Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak's honor. Most of the Jao were uninterested in a quaint native hunt, but Tully found the attending humans' reactions varied from eagerness to utter disbelief.



Aille turned to him after leaving the Stockwell girl in the care of her escort. "The idea of a 'whale hunt' distresses some of your fellow Terrans," he said. "Why should this be so? Is it not one of your ancient rituals?"



"For some people," Tully said. "Certainly not all. I don't know about Jao, but humans do not necessarily share the same customs and values."



Yaut was watching him with glittering black eyes. Green burst across them, then faded to ebony, revealing nothing.



"It is but one whale," Aille said, "one unthinking animal. Why should it not make itself of use?"



"Why indeed?" Tully kept his face blank, his hands locked behind his back, his shoulders braced. His eyes were trained on the pool, the frolicking Jao, the uneasy, milling humans, some of whom wanted nothing more than to be Jao, and others, to be a million miles away from here. The air was filled with spray, as the Jao dove, and more than a few of the humans were soaking wet.



The death of a single whale was of little consequence, as Aille had said. But the principle involved did matter, as well as the predictable reaction of many humans. The Resistance had a stronghold in the Pacific Northwest, which had largely originated out of old environmentalist groups—some of which had been fanatics even before the conquest. They would be almost sure to try to strike back.



Which would be stupid, in Tully's opinion, given the inevitable Jao retaliation that would follow. The Jao committed crimes against humanity every single day—hell, twice a day on Sundays, as the old geezers in the refugee camps liked to say—big crimes like the destruction of Chicago, events from which the human race would never recover, even if the Jao were to pack up and leave tomorrow.