He looked up to find Caitlin Stockwell waiting. He was a bit surprised to see that Kralik was not with her, but then realized that the jinau general would be asleep. Humans did not recover as easily as Jao from exhaustion. Kralik would have tried, he was sure, but he was just as sure that Caitlin would have forced him to get some rest.
Her posture, he noted, was a finely executed patient-concern. Aside from the ears, no Pluthrak adult could have done better. She really was quite remarkable. “Yes?”
“There is a new development.” Now, her posture wavered, as if she were both hopeful and apprehensive at the same time. “A number of ships have arrived in the solar system—a great number—and they say they are from the Bond of Ebezon. They are ordering Governor Oppuk to refrain from using the bolides. Indeed, they have ordered him to dismantle them.”
Aille rose. “The Bond? Already here? But that is not possible.” He gazed at the wall, confused. “They would have only received word of the situation here very recently. In that short time, they could have dispatched at most a single vessel.”
Then came sudden clarity, and for a moment his posture slipped involuntarily into childish astonishment.
“They have been planning for this,” he half-whispered, “and for a long time. Their strategists are famously patient.”
“What does it mean, Subcommandant?” Caitlin asked nervously.
“How numerous is the Bond fleet? And what class of vessels?”
“Hami says at least sixty ships. And they seem to be very big ones. Hami calls them ‘harriers.’ ”
The Bond of Ebezon’s soldiers were named after that class of ships. The very largest, and the mightiest, ever built by Jao. Not even Narvo could match them, in size if not in number.
Sixty of them!
Aille composed himself. “It will mean whatever the Bond of Ebezon decrees that it means. Of that you may be certain. And there will be no bolide bombardment of this planet.”
The young woman’s fear was just under the surface, covered by a patina of self-discipline—and now, hope as well.
“Are you sure?”
Yaut entered that moment. “Sixty-three harriers. You understand what this means? The Bond’s strategists must have been planning this stroke for a very long time. Pity Narvo!”
The fraghta gave Aille a penetrating look, leaving unsaid what was now equally obvious. The Bond’s strategists and the Pluthrak kochanau must have been working together in secret.
Thus, Aille, in his innocence and youthful vigor, sent to Terra. Namth camiti, used as a scalpel to cut open a festering wound and expose the corrupted flesh to the light. With, needless to say, the scalpel never being told what it was supposed to do.
Clever, that. A self-aware scalpel would not cut cleanly, or deeply enough. Aille had cut to the bone.
Yaut turned to Caitlin. “Is he sure of what?”
“That Oppuk won’t . . . won’t be able to destroy the Earth?”
It was Yaut’s turn—just for an instant—to lapse into astonishment. The embarrassment that caused him leant extra force to his growled words.
“Of course he won’t! How could he? The Bond has decreed otherwise.”
She still didn’t really understand, Aille saw. More gently than Yaut, he said: “Caitlin, believe it true. This is why the Bond exists. No Jao will defy them. Even should Oppuk’s unsanity drive him to, his soldiers would refuse to obey.”
She sagged weakly against the wall behind her. Then, to his surprise, began that peculiar form of human laughter known as giggling.
“I guess that means I’ll have to start looking for a wedding dress, after all. And Tamt! She’ll have conniptions when I tell her about being a ‘maid of honor.’ ”
Yaut stared at her. “Sometimes I still think humans are all insane.”
* * *
Oppuk bristled with pure fury, every line, every angle, crossed and recrossed until no one could look at him and not feel the extent of his anger. All of his subordinates and servitors wisely stayed as far away from him as possible.
They were all Jao. He had killed the last of his human servitors a short time earlier, displeased at the condition of the salts in the miserable little pool provided for him aboard the ship.