Oppuk glared at the human female, but she met his anger and didn’t turn away.
“She knew this would happen!” the Governor said, his body shifting from posture to posture without ever fully realizing any of them, as though he were babbling. “She must feed information to the Resistance! That is why we have been so disgracefully attacked!”
Kinsey carefully pried loose the wrench and laid it aside. “Her family has never been anything but loyal.”
Aille considered Oppuk’s charge, then discarded it. “I do not think she was at fault,” he said. “The attackers nearly killed her too at several points. I believe she was just as much a target as any of us.”
Sergeant Cold Bear came up to Kralik and saluted. “We have all the survivors on board now, sir. Do you wish us to make an attempt to retrieve the bodies?”
The Governor snarled. “Of what use is dead meat? Get us back to shore! I am going to destroy this nest of rebels before they have another chance to attack!”
“What do you mean, ‘nest of rebels’?” Caitlin asked. With her golden hair plastered to her small head by rain, she looked almost as sleek as a Jao.
Oppuk rounded on her savagely, his body now completely overwritten with crude, unalloyed fury. “I intend to scour this entire area of humans,” he said, “starting with the nearest large population center!”
Two spots of red bloomed in Caitlin’s pale cheeks as she glanced first at Aille, then Kralik. “You have no cause to do that!” she said. “Most of the people will be innocent. If you’re so determined to assign blame, look to yourself! You were being deliberately provocative! I warned you that this whale hunt would cause trouble and you got it! Attacking a town will accomplish noth—”
Oppuk seized her by the heartward arm and dashed her against the nearest winch. Something cracked and she cried out, then slumped to the deck, her arm at an unnatural angle and her mouth open in a rictus of soundless agony.
Oppuk motioned to the nearest armed jinau. “Put down this animal immediately!”
The soldier, a young male, looked nervously at Kralik. His grip tightened on his rifle. “Sir?”
Oppuk’s hands twitched. “I require her life! Put her down!”
Kinsey threw his body over the fallen female. “Governor, no! You can’t do that! Her father is the leader of your own government!”
Kralik’s hand went to his own sidearm, but Yaut shouldered him back and stood between them, stolidly neutral.
Tully’s green eyes went from Aille to Yaut, glimmering with some unreadable sentiment. He still had his weapon, however, and Aille knew that Tully was quite capable of turning it on Oppuk. Would probably do so, in fact. Something indefinable in his stance made clear that, whatever animosity he might bear toward Stockwell, he—like Kralik—would not accept her being put down at Oppuk’s command. The Governor’s unsane fury was driving the humans here to the point of killing him, whatever the consequences might be.
That same fury had also disarmed the Narvo against a more subtle form of defeat. Quickly, Aille stepped forward.
“This hunt was staged in my honor and the female is present at my invitation,” he said, his bearing shifted into a flawless rendition of the difficult tripartite righteous-honorable-anger. He surprised even himself with the heat of his emotions. Such complexity had never come easily to him. “Since you have dismissed her from your household, she is under the protection of Pluthrak, not Narvo! Pluthrak’s honor is at stake here and you will not impugn it for a petty, self-indulgent display of personal anger!”
“Crecheling!” Oppuk spat. He glanced around, but his entire service had perished in the attack on the Samsumaru. He was quite obviously without immediate support—and, even in his rage, was still sensible enough to understand that he was teetering on the brink of a chasm that would engulf him. The lines of kochan honor were clear here.
Oppuk pulled himself together, assuming the posture of regretful-recognition. It was impolite, to be sure, but acceptable.
“Very well, since you invoke Pluthrak’s honor, the matter is closed.” His ears wavered, then took on a crafty angle. “I will, however, expect you to conduct my reprisal.” He glared down at Caitlin, who was hunched in wordless misery at his feet. “It will be your first major combat command, a good chance to earn that honor you seem to be so eager to achieve.”