The savagery of the humans had been incredible. They, too, had poured everything into the battle. Oppuk had not really believed the reports he was getting—from Narvo and affiliated commanders, now, not Hariv—until he finally descended from orbit to observe from a close distance. What he had seen in the days that followed horrified him, as it would have any civilized being. The natives combined insensate fury with a gruesome penchant for self-immolation. They thought nothing of surrendering their lives, as long as it meant taking Jao with them. They set ambushes everywhere, even baiting traps with the bodies of their dead comrades, mates and offspring. And their weaponry had been far more effective than Oppuk had assumed, having dismissed Hariv’s reports as self-serving twaddle.
The experience had come as a complete shock to the young Oppuk, the proud namth camiti—as he had been then, so long ago—of great Narvo. The hatred he had developed for the natives had settled into his bones, and never left. They were altogether vile creatures: naked and uncouth, hideous beyond belief with their flat, expressionless faces, without sophistication or merit or vithrik of any description. Yet, in the end, he had barely defeated them—and then only by giving up the battle and ordering the outright destruction of the area. And again, shortly after, when another great battle began to take shape along the southern coast of the continent.
He’d thought, at the time, that the worst was past. But the many solar cycles that followed had been no better. The vicious beasts were no easier to rule than they had been to conquer.
Even still, pockets of resistance smoldered back in those misbegotten mountains. And elsewhere, in other mountains and other forests on other continents. He could reduce the camps of the vermin to slag, with enough bolides, but that would render much of this continent and other parts of the planet uninhabitable. Then everyone would know he had missed enough of the stragglers to allow them to breed replacements for those he had killed. And such action would expend many resources at a time when quickening flow suggested the Ekhat might be headed this way, as long predicted.
More troops and materiel had already been lost here than in conquering all the other worlds under Jao hegemony put together. Even now, a huge garrison was required just to hold it, without the potentially vast resources of the planet being released for the war against the Ekhat. Few in the Naukra Krith Ludh would overlook that once it became obvious, and Oppuk was sure the Bond’s suspicions were mounting all the time.
The situation was maddening, and there was no end in sight. None, at least, that would come quickly enough to salvage his once-promising life. Maddening, and for much too long. Oppuk knew, in some part of his mind, that his own grasp on sanity was weakening. Indeed, was already badly frayed.
And this was a time when he needed to think clearly. Pluthrak, obviously, had concluded that Narvo’s hold on Terra was weakening. So, much as Narvo itself had done with Oppuk, they had sent a namth camiti to begin the challenge.
But he did not allow himself to think about his mental state very often. It was not the Narvo way to dwell on such inner subtleties. That road led to paralysis. The Narvo stance toward the universe was direct, shaping it rather than being shaped. Oppuk had defeated Jita, but Aille would not do the same to him. Narvo, after all, was not Hariv. He would crush this Pluthrak upstart.
Finally, he let himself rise to the pool’s surface and blinked up into the carefully expressionless face of Drinn, his castellan. “The transport is ready, Governor,” the servitor said, “at your convenience.”
Oppuk heaved himself out onto the broad black rocks, then shook the water out of his nap. “And the female?”
Drinn did not even flick a whisker. “Which female, Governor?”
“The Stockwell progeny,” he said. “Is she still in residence?”
“You have not yet given her leave to depart, Governor.”
He had not, had he? The thought pleased him. He had suppressed his awareness of her to the point he had forgotten about her for the moment. He was pleased, too, that his ploy, put into action so long ago, had apparently been successful. After his dispatch of her brother, this little female had applied herself quite diligently in the learning of Jao. Her diction was flawless, and she even moved well—for a human. He would employ her skills in the approaching days, when the Ekhat arrived and her fellow humans would need to be exhorted to both fight and die well.