The Course of Empire(8)

"Markau is no longer being contested," the Dano said abruptly. "Reports have just come that the Complete Harmony faction of the Ekhat appears to have routed True Harmony and the Melody. There are early indications they will now sweep this way. Flow is inconclusive, but it feels as though it will be sooner rather than later to most of the experts."



Aille's eyes flickered back to the holomap and he stepped closer, trying to make sense out of the tiny rose, green, and amber lights which were even now in motion. "Why would they, so soon after a major contest?"



"Who can say?" Kaul said. "No one has ever decrypted what the Ekhat want, except to be alone in the universe."





Chapter 2




"I just found out the new Subcommandant's clan is very highly ranked," Professor Kinsey told Caitlin Stockwell, the moment he came into her study cubicle. "Pluthrak, no less! Do you think he would grant me an interview for my book?"



Startled, she looked up from the computer terminal where she sat surrounded by piles of musty books she'd carted over from the library. Professor Kinsey was a perpetually rumpled man of middle height with a broad brow, his skin color coffee-and-cream, his silver hair tightly curled.



Caitlin had been attending the University of New Chicago in central Michigan for almost five years now. Having gotten a bachelor's degree the previous winter, she was currently working toward her doctorate in history and serving as a research assistant for her graduate adviser, Dr. Jonathan Kinsey.



Kinsey was a specialist in American history, but two years ago he'd gotten it into his head to do a book on the history of the Jao. He'd even managed, somehow, to secure permission from Earth's Governor, along with a vague promise of cooperation. Caitlin suspected the authorization originated more from inattention and misunderstanding than actual approval, since Jao seemed to lack the cultural concept of "history" as humans understood the term. Not that they didn't have a sense of their own past—quite a keen one, in fact—but it seemed to have more in common with clan oral traditions than a modern human concept of history as a specialized intellectual craft. As a rule, Governor Oppuk, even more than most Jao, gave short shrift to what he considered frivolous human intellectual pursuits.



She'd grown very fond of Kinsey in the months since she'd met him. But, not for the first time, Caitlin found herself wishing that the man's impressive scholarly acumen was not accompanied by all the other stereotypical features of an absentminded professor.



"I really don't advise it," she said, as forcefully as she could while keeping her voice low. Caitlin's Jao guard, Banle, was lurking in the corridor just outside the cubicle.



"Are you sure?" he persisted. "Your knowledge of Jao customs is far better than mine—I'll be the first to admit—but . . . the opportunity! He's Pluthrak, Caitlin. Probably the most prestigious kochan there is, among the Jao."



Caitlin glanced at the door, wishing that Kinsey's voice was as low as his common sense. Unfortunately, Banle was fluent in English—and her full name was Banle krinnu nao Narvo.



"Perhaps." Then, almost hissing: "Except—quite possibly, Professor Kinsey—for Narvo."



That finally jolted Kinsey. Caitlin saw him glance nervously at the door himself. Her terse comment had reminded him that Narvo, the kochan which had overseen the conquest and been given Terra to rule, was Pluthrak's long-standing and most bitter rival in the complex world of Jao politics. And that Narvo considered itself to be every bit the equal of fabled Pluthrak.



So it seemed, at least, insofar as humans had been able to figure out how the Jao managed their internal affairs. The human term "politics" was only a rough approximation of the way the Jao looked at the matter. Kinsey had told her once—in private, of course, when Banle wasn't around to overhear—that for all their technological mastery, what he could see of Jao society reminded him more of ancient human barbarian tribes than civilized societies. The complex and convoluted interactions between their clans—what they called "kochan"—carried as much if not more weight than what modern humans would consider politics.



There were times that Caitlin herself thought Jao notions had more in common with her now-dead grandmother's amused descriptions of the clan bickerings and dickerings of her family's back country Appalachian ancestors than they did with anything modern humans generally meant by the term "government."



Your great-great-uncle swiped one of our pigs but I'll let it pass on account of your great-great-aunt married my great-grandfather's second cousin and seeing as how their third oldest son helped my great-grandfather put up the fence on what used to be great-grandpa's uncle's land until the uncle's wife died and he married the Widder Jones and after he died that no-account daughter of the Widder's by her first husband Tom Hobbs got it. So I'll give you a fair price on this moonshine, seeing as how you ain't properly responsible for the fact that them Hobbs is all a bunch of no-account . . .