“Yes, sir. But we’ll also need to get volunteers with submarine and tank experience. There’s no time to train anyone from scratch. I’m not sure I’ll have enough experienced men in my division alone.”
Aille considered. He had a point. “Very well. I will place you in overall command of all jinau forces in North America. Among the three divisions, there should be enough experienced soldiers, yes?”
Kralik nodded, and began to turn away.
“One moment, General. You will need a promotion. What is the next rank up, in human parlance, from ‘major general’?”
” ‘Lieutenant General,’ sir.”
Aille stared at him. “You will forgive me, Kralik, if I still often find human customs purely bizarre. In what possible sense does a ‘lieutenant’ outrank—? Ah, perhaps you can explain to me later. ‘Lieutenant General’ it is.”
Now, Aille turned to Tully.
“I suspect the Resistance forces around the globe are going to take advantage of this crisis. You had best resolve it quickly, or things are going to get out of hand.”
Tully’s chin was very high, the light in his eyes unreadable. “What about this?” He held up his wrist with the black locator band. “I can’t ‘resolve’ anything on my own. I’d need to get to the Rockies—quick—and talk to . . . His name’s Rob Wiley.”
“You have held your own vithrik for some time now,” Aille said as Yaut approached. “How does it feel?”
Electricity crackled between the three of them, as though they were all linked in some unlikely fashion. Though the flow of the situation had been swift up to that moment, suddenly it was slow and deliberate. Tully poised on the brink, clearly caught between one impulse and the other, undecided.
Yaut flipped Tully’s wrist over and applied the deactivator disk. The black band released into a long coiling strip and clattered to the floor. Tully stared down at it and rubbed the white flesh that had lain hidden beneath it with his other hand.
“You are a member of my service,” said Aille, “trusted above all others. We have need of you in this moment and you have the opportunity to be of use as no other among your kind can.”
Tully looked from Yaut to Aille, his face tight, his eyes narrowed. He was breathing at a much more rapid rate than usual. “Okay,” he said finally, “I’ll do what I can.” He kicked the black band into the pool as though it were a living thing capable of attack. “But a radio call won’t do it. I have to see Wiley in person. He’d never believe I wasn’t being coerced, otherwise. The Rockies are a long way off. How do I get there?”
Aille and Yaut stared at each other. Bizarre customs, indeed.
“You are a member of Pluthrak’s service,” growled Yaut. “Requisition what you need. Command whomever you must. How is this difficult?”
Perhaps the most bizarre thing was the way Tully laughed, all the way out.
Chapter 34
Being shut up on the ship put a dangerous edge on Oppuk’s temper. He was accustomed to having the resources of his palace at hand, the many luxuries acquired down through his interminable assignment on this tawdry world. Of course, he availed himself of the tiny pool on his vessel, but it was inadequate, to say the least. The salinity and mineral mixture were badly skewed from his personal preferences and he had no expert aboard, indeed, none even within the system, who could satisfactorily adjust it to mirror his home seas back on Pratus.
Nostrils flaring, he shook the execrable water out of his nap. “This slop is not fit to soak a corpse!”
The only member of his service present, Ullwa, bowed her graceful head. “Shall you require my life, Governor?”
He considered accepting her offer, but then decided against it. “Surely even an idiot like you realizes that would leave me with an even less adequate service and still would not improve the water!”
Ullwa bowed her head in perception-of-truth. She had a lovely vai camiti, four dark-brown parallel stripes across the muzzle that merged on her cheeks, and she knew how to position herself so that it showed to the best advantage. He had elevated her for that reason and no other, because she was appealing to look upon.