“Yes,” she said, interpreting the two words correctly. “Even those who oppose him now understand that much. He is a kroudh of legend. The greatest of all Jao, because they will hold us all to vithrik.”
* * *
There was a flurry of movement out on the tarmac and Caitlin rose to watch. As though they had but one mind between them, Jao were streaming toward the center of the landing field.
“I would say flow has completed itself,” Kralik said. “It must be time for the Subcommandant’s hearing. I thought they’d wait till the morning.”
“I see,” she said, but she really didn’t see at all. No human ever would. That she was sure of.
Chapter 42
Now. The moment was now. Flow strengthened, summoning Aille across the base to the landing field with its flock of ships. It was strange to be surrounded by so many different kochan, he thought, as he walked out to the meeting stage. During the entirety of his youth on Marit An, he had only known individuals born of Pluthrak and its associated submoieties. On all sides, eyes, bright-green with curiosity, tracked him like targeting mechanisms, and whispers closed behind him like a wake. Flow surged and he felt how matters rushed to their conclusion. He tightened his perception, giving him time to consider each placement of his foot, each flick of a whisker. So much scrutiny required his carriage to be flawless.
A number of minor kochan had been represented, along with Narvo and its subsidiaries, throughout the expeditionary forces on Terra. But the Bond pulled members from all of the kochan. Aille wished he could sit down and speak with the elders who had come to tease apart the tangles in this dilemma, especially the Preceptor. Their accumulated wisdom must be great indeed.
Dau krinnu ava Pluthrak and Yaut preceded him across the field, allowing him status, for perhaps the last time. They really should not. Having become kroudh, he was not entitled to their regard, but they would not yield to his arguments and so he let them have their way.
Occupying the central-most portion of the landing field in a loose ring, the Bond of Ebezon ships were of a black alloy imbued with a rainbow hue that shimmered in the fading sunlight. Their members, the Harriers, were harnessed in gleaming black, which complemented their enigmatic eyes. Their bodies were beautifully neutral, neither curious, distracted, angry nor accusing.
Bond forces, under the loose direction of the Naukra Krith Ludh, outnumbered those of any single kochan except Narvo, Pluthrak and perhaps Dano. They possessed enough firepower to enforce whatever decisions would be made here on Terra. No kochan ever opposed their rulings once they had been formulated, much less rulings formulated in full Naukra assembly. It was shameful enough not to be able to forge association and solve one’s own difficulties. How much worse then would it be to have compromise forced upon your kochan?
He’d heard creche tales of kochan so shamed by their failure to form association that their entire adult population had laid down their lives in order to end discord and allow the rest of the Jao to preserve alliance. Such incidents had been very rare, even in ancient times, and did not happen since the Naukra Krith Ludh had been formed. But the possibility was always there. Above all, Jao could never forget that the Ekhat, who had long ago made them for their own complicated reasons, now unmade them at every opportunity. Division among the kochan only allowed that grim ambition to be more easily achieved. The Jao had to fight together or die, and if they lost, the rest of sentient life in the universe would eventually die along with them.
Oppuk waited in the clearing, where the temporary tribunal had brought in black rocks of pleasing harmonics and placed them strategically to properly structure thought. They had been shaped by wind and wave and were curved so perfectly, there was not an edge anywhere on their gleaming ebony surfaces.
Within that boundary, he knew flow would be rich and smooth. Marit An had possessed such a circle. He had been allowed to experience it a few times, before achieving emergence and being assigned to Terra. He halted beyond the first outcropping and studied the configuration, trying to judge its influence before he submitted himself to it.