“I see.” Cold dread prickled along her spine. The one thing she could be certain about was that Jao cared nothing about what made more work for servants. Especially not a Jao like Oppuk, who used mainly human servants. So, what did he want? His own posture was intricate, and she was not good enough at reading formal movement to depend on her own interpretation.
He turned back to her and, in the lay of his ears, she thought she caught a flash of . . . jealousy?
“What did you think of him?” he said, as though they’d been having some other conversation altogether. His body assumed the sharp lines of bold-insistence.
She flinched. “I regret I do not know who you mean.”
Banle, who had taken up a stance of readiness back by the wall, glanced at her. Caitlin could read her unease.
“The Subcommandant,” Oppuk said. “Young Pluthrak.”
“He was very . . .” She wracked her brain for something innocuous, yet complimentary. “Very gregarious. We had an interesting exchange of words.”
“So,” he said, and his eyes danced with ominous green, “even a human can see that much. I should have known.”
She longed to look away, but dared not take her attention off him.
“Your clutch-mate, Brent,” he said. “Do you remember him?”
“Brent was my brother,” she said, her throat aching with tension, “and I do remember him, but humans are born singly most of the time, not in clutches as are Jao. We were not clutch-mates.”
Oppuk’s head canted and his eyes were again the black of onyx, unreadable. “I was told that,” he said, “when I first came to this wretched world, but never credited such foolishness.”
She waited, fingers trembling.
“Jao offspring are whelped in clutches for convenience, but each is born of a single female.” He lumbered forward to loom over her. “If humans reproduce only one child at a time, how did their numbers reach such incredible proportions?”
“I cannot say,” she said in a strangled whisper. “I only know what I am told.”
“Of course, since you have not been permitted to breed yet,” he said, “you do not possess all the facts about the act and its consequences. I will interview you again after your kochan has selected your marriage-group and you have produced your first progeny.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes trained on his muzzle. The fierce whiskers gave him the aspect of a walrus; and, although he was not as large as one, Oppuk was far more dangerous. Her cheeks heated, but she took solace in the fact he would not understand the reaction indicated embarrassment in a human. “I—I would find such a conversation instructive.”
Without another word, Oppuk slipped into the small pool with only a faint splash and dove to the bottom. There, he settled on his back, watching his visitor up through the rippling water as though she were prey.
Banle motioned at the door and then stalked through, without waiting to see if Caitlin would, or even could, follow. She launched herself at the field, arms outstretched, and managed to struggle through on her own. Though, for a minute, blood pounding in her ears, she thought she might not make it.
Just beyond, Banle was standing still, facing the long hallway before her, arms akimbo, ears pinned back in a posture Caitlin had never encountered before. The Jao must have been in a hurry indeed to have gone first.
“Did you understand what that was all about?” she asked.
“You do not want to know,” Banle said in English and shook herself. “Hope you never have occasion to find out.”
* * *
Aille counted the morning at the base well spent. The jinau unit Kralik had selected to be his escort—a “company,” as the humans termed it—was rich in experience, and most of those he interviewed agreed with Rafe Aguilera. He’d deliberately left Aguilera back at the palace with Tamt, not wanting him to influence the unit’s testimony in any way, but it seemed his advice had been accurate.
Humans had indeed devised a number of low-tech methods for neutralizing Jao lasers, which, though not always effective, had worked often enough to make considerable trouble for the invading troops. With more time on their side, or the strength of a united planet behind them instead of one riddled with quarreling factions, they might have influenced the invasion’s outcome in a very different direction.