“We cannot leave him here,” he said, forcing his ears and shoulders to reflect sober-reason, “so he will have to go. At least, that way you will be able to supervise him properly.”
“If you had let me put him down,” Yaut said, “no one would have to supervise him!”
Tully straightened, tucking his long-fingered hands underneath his arms. Aille had noticed him assuming that posture before, and decided it was Tully’s way of expressing contained-distress. Aille thought it must be an individual posture, since he’d never seen it duplicated on another human.
“I think he will behave,” he said, turning to the yellow-haired human. “If he does not, he will have your displeasure to deal with, and he understands that very well, do you not?” He made eye contact with the human.
Tully looked away almost immediately, his jaw muscles working.
“The Subcommandant asked you a question!” Yaut raised his hand to strike.
Aille restrained him gently. “It is a simple question,” he said to Tully, straightening the human’s jinau uniform, brushing off specks of dust with the absorption of a kochan-father grooming one of his own get. “Will you give me honor in the Jao way, as I am sure you very well know how, or shall I heed Yaut and let him deal with you in his fashion? You must decide. Flow quickens and I must admit I am more than a bit tempted to let Yaut do as he wants. He is my fraghta, after all, and knows better than a humble young officer what is most efficacious in such situations.”
“You’re just going to kill me anyway. So why not go ahead and do it now?”
Again, that tantalizing hint of secrets so important. And, again, that almost Jao-like directness in the face of death. Tully would gladly make himself of use to his species by dying to put his secrets forever out of reach. Impressive, looked at the right way. Aille found himself all the more determined to bend this one to his will and not allow him to escape, even through death.
“He will come,” he said to Yaut. “He will advise me on proper behavior toward the human guests and keep a respectful demeanor at all times, or you will take him outside and rip appendages off his body until he repents. The small ones from the feet, ‘toes,’ I believe they are called. Then the ears.”
“Good idea,” Yaut said, his face crinkling into agreeable-mollification. “Those knobby ears are their ugliest feature.”
Tully’s hands strayed toward his head and the mentioned ears, which had turned an unsettling bright red.
“Do you understand, Tully?” Aille brushed a last bit of lint off the shoulder of the dark-blue jinau uniform. “At the first hint of insubordination or disrespect, you will leave with Yaut and then return after being disciplined.”
Tully nodded stiffly. After taking the locator from Aguilera, Yaut disabled the doorfield and the three of them set off toward the reception. They questioned a human servitor at the first opportunity and were directed from there through a series of convoluted corridors into a huge light-filled room dominated by no less than three pools. Many of the Jao attendees were already swimming and Aille felt immediately drawn to the water.
The air bore the pleasant scent of seawater and wet rocks, with just the ozone hint of an approaching storm, well done, indeed, he thought. A number of humans, most of them jinau, were watching from the periphery, conversing with one another and sampling Jao tidbits, which had been arranged in traditional fashion on thin slabs of rock at various stations.
Oppuk krinnu ava Narvo saw them from across the largest pool and motioned for them to approach. Aille fell back to allow Yaut and Tully to lead as he threaded through the crowd. Tully glanced around, as though to see if anyone were watching, then fell into place, thereby saving his toes and ears, just barely.
Oppuk’s service was thoroughly insinuated throughout the attendees. Many of them were Narvo themselves, by their distinctive vai camiti, similar to the Governor’s, but Aille picked out a number of other familiar facial patterns too. Mostly those were of subordinate kochan, such as Sant, allied to Narvo as Yaut’s Jithra had been long allied to Pluthrak. The matched pair of males who had escorted him from the landing field were there as well, conspicuously armed and waiting only a few steps away.