Oppuk felt the rage drain away, and the lines of pleased-anticipation overtaking him. There was a trap here, waiting for the Subcommandant. Oppuk would give him the space to stumble into it.
Chapter 20
The next day dawned cool, gray, and wet, though fortunately the main storm had not reached the shore, as Aille had thought likely. Rain slanted out of the direction humans called “west,” blowing across the sea in great glittering sheets. Obviously, he was not familiar enough yet with weather patterns on this world to make accurate judgements.
Outside the hant, both Tully and Aguilera, awaiting ground transport to the docks, managed to project aggrieved-discomfort without a fragment of Jao body-speech between the two of them. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, Tully muttered something about “drowned rats,” a phrase for which Aille had no reference. Aguilera was his usual reticent self, but hunched his shoulders against the driving rain and futilely kept wiping his face as though to emphasize his condition.
Tamt, being Jao, gloried in the wet, and for the first time since Yaut had called her into Aille’s service, looked actually pleased. Her stance was unrefined, but genuine, and Aille had to admit the fraghta had done well with her. Of course, instruction was a fraghta’s specialty. He supposed he should not be surprised Yaut had been effective. It did make him wonder how well the fraghta would do with him in the end.
Caitlin Stockwell emerged from the hant to stand at Oppuk’s side. Her stance was subdued, as neutral as Aille had ever seen it. “Miss Stockwell,” he said, and she glanced at him, seeming startled before she damped that out as well.
“Is ‘Miss’ the correct honorific?” he said. “I have undergone English imprinting during every dormancy period since I arrived on this world, but my usage is not always accurate.”
“Yes,” she said, crossing to his side with a backwards glance at Oppuk. “It’s quite correct. I’m sorry if I gave any impression it was otherwise.”
“I assumed, after my invitation, you would be using my transport to this area,” Aille said, “but I see you came with the Governor instead.”
“I had hoped to travel with you and General Kralik,” she said, “but the Governor requested otherwise.”
“An honor,” Aille said, though he thought by the slope of her shoulders perhaps she did not find it so.
“He has officially attached me to his household,” she said. “I am to be tutored in formal movement by a Jao master, as soon as one can be found.”
She was to be a mere servitor, then, not a member of the Narvo’s personal service. Aille thought that was a mistake on Oppuk’s part. But, of course, Narvo did not see things as Pluthrak did. He cocked his head, trying to read her lines, but they were ambiguous at best. “This does not please you?”
“It—” She gripped her hands together, twining her fingers in a quintessentially human gesture he couldn’t decipher. “I had hoped to continue my education at the university. This—development—will disrupt my plans.”
She was wearing a slick outer covering with a hood that shed the rain and did not seem to be suffering as were his own two humans. He touched the yellow material with his fingertips, finding it pliable and cool. “Your species is not fond of rain?”
“Not—generally.” She managed a wan smile. “Especially not when it’s chilly, like today.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “Our bodies do not regard such things very much, a small legacy of the Ekhat. We were designed to be comfortable in a wide variety of circumstances.”
At that moment, the ground transport arrived to take them down to the docks at Tillamook Bay, where the Japanese trawler awaited them.
The groundcars were of human design, though converted to maglevs, and showed signs of deterioration, including rusted patches on the vehicle bodies. The roads betrayed a lack of maintenance as well, and what habitations they passed were in very poor condition, with refuse strewn about and a number of starved looking small beasts skulking in the brush, including one lithe white-furred creature Aille had never encountered before. Humans appeared to watch the groundcars pass, despite the species’ apparent distaste for getting wet.