Her first words were as unpleasant as he remembered her.
“You fool!” She regarded him with angry angles and a jumble of displeased lines.
“Have I not already been abused enough?” Oppuk’s posture was one of crude and undisguised outraged-anger. “First, you maroon me on that dreadful, primitive world, and then, when I defend it against Pluthrak and Ekhat both, you join Pluthrak in accusing me of incompetence!”
Her eyes went a preternatural green, so bright, they might have been lit from inside. He had seen them so during her infamous furies, only twice in his long ago youth. “Do not assume that posture with me, crecheling!”
Startled, he stepped back. Even now, the old female possessed the power to intimidate him.
“What more can you do to me?” he said, ears lowered. “Do you wish me to offer the Pluthrak my life?”
With a visible effort, she restrained her fury. “You will stand before the Naukra and tell of your most earnest efforts to subdue this recalcitrant world,” Nikau said. Darkly: “I do not care in the least whether they believe you, providing you shame Narvo no further.” Her posture was one of threatened-imminent regret.
He gazed at the new harness and fresh pale-green trousers laid out on a bench for him to don. “The natives are demented, that is all which can be said of them. I have done the best anyone could. This young Pluthrak is much smitten with these creatures. They flatter him with lies, and, because he is foolish, he listens. Leave him in place an orbital cycle or two and they will fight him as hard as they ever fought me. Almost, I would like to see it.”
“Then that is what you must say.” Nikau picked up the trousers and threw them at his feet. “I will speak the truth, arrogant crecheling. So long as our honor is not further sullied, I will be perfectly willing—delighted—to see another kochan given oudh over this planet. These wretched Terrans have drained Narvo’s resources enough. Let some other kochan have the misery of dealing with them.”
He began to remove his clothing. “Even Pluthrak?” he demanded, with as much visible outrage as he dared.
Her posture shifted to sour-regret. “No, not them, much as it would be pleasurable to see them founder in this swamp. But that would be too great an insult. As it is, Narvo’s status has slipped greatly with respect to theirs, thanks to your misconduct.”
A cold shiver ran through his body, and, for a moment, he wished he had perished in the Ekhat attack. He could see now that he would be blamed for this crisis by everyone, even his own, despite the true cause being Aille’s treachery.
Fury came, to drive away the moment’s despair, though he kept it from his posture. His only crime was having failed to make the natives fear him enough, while Aille krinnu ava Pluthrak wished Terrans to believe that he was their fraghta. In that, Oppuk knew, the youth was doomed to failure. Terrans respected no one and nothing, not even each other.
He finished donning the trousers, his self-confidence returning with the anger, then shrugged into the stiff new harness. He had nothing for which to make excuses. He had done only what he had been sent here to do, and had done it well, until the Pluthrak had arrived. He would make the Naukra see that. Narvo should still be oudh here. They would listen. Would even, he found himself certain, chasten the Bond for their hasty actions.
“Fool,” he heard Nikau repeat. But the word did not really register. The female was old, her fury nothing more than a decrepit spasm. He was as sure of that as he was of anything.
* * *
Aille went out to the landing field early in the next solar cycle, when the Bond representatives descended to Pascagoula. Once their diplomatic ships committed themselves to landing, a bevy of smaller ships also converged on the same spot with that unerring timing that baffled humans so.
Aguilera, Tully, and Kralik stood before Aille, now automatically giving him status without being directed. The sun beat down, bright and brash. A breeze gusted inland from the sea, bearing the steamy fragrance of brine-soaked seaweed.