The woman who had approached Aille, though, had looked familiar, the cropped blond hair, the large blue-gray eyes. She wore a long, shimmering silver dress that must have cost a bundle. He sorted through his memory, seeking until he had it. She was Caitlin Stockwell, daughter of the ultimate collaborator, so-called “President” Stockwell!
Ice flooded through him. She was allowed access to this kind of luxury, while, outside, America deteriorated just that much more every day. Only the Jao and those who played ball with them were allowed to be civilized now. The rest of America could go to hell for the crime of having fought the hardest for their freedom.
Over in the pool, the Subcommandant broke the surface, gazed about, then made eye contact with him. He stepped back, unnerved, feeling almost as though Aille could read his thoughts. As surreptitiously as he could manage, he eased back into the tapestry of milling bodies, gold, brown, and russet naps of the Jao threaded with the more flamboyant colors of human clothing. He couldn’t get far, he knew, not with the damned locator on his wrist, but he needed a bit of privacy to collect his thoughts.
Why had Caitlin Stockwell sought out the Subcommandant? Was she looking for some way to betray her country even more thoroughly than her family already had? He thought of the children back in the refugee camps in the Rockies, the shabby blankets, the few stained books available for their education, and their wide eyes at night when one of the older men or women would tell stories of the glory America had once been—before the conquest.
What did prissy Miss Caitlin Stockwell, with her silver dress, clean hair, and manicured nails know about any of that? His hands clenched.
“Here I am,” a low voice said in his ear.
He jerked around and met the Subcommandant’s green-black eyes.
“I did not mean to avoid your notice,” the Jao said, looming over him so that he was inundated in the wet-carpet smell of the other’s nap. “Eagerness simply overcame me and I slipped into the water when your attention was elsewhere.”
Yaut thrust the Subcommandant’s harness, trousers, and cape into Tully’s arms. Numbly, he shook out the dark-blue trousers as though he performed duties of batman every day. The Subcommandant accepted them matter-of-factly and put them on.
He would never get used to casual Jao attitudes about nudity, Tully thought. The situation was all the more grotesque because Jao sexual organs were not much different from human. When clothed, the females were hard to distinguish from the males, because of the absence of breasts and the fact they were just as large and muscular. Naked, however, the difference between the two Jao sexes was obvious. But the Jao seemed completely oblivious to the matter.
He glanced at Stockwell again, who was now talking to a man in a jinau uniform. He was in early middle-age, not particularly tall, but had a powerful-looking physique.
Aille followed his line of sight. “Are you acquainted with that female?”
His eyes turned back to the Jao, widening a little. “Everyone in America knows who she is.”
“Then enlighten me,” Aille said, forcing a wet leg into his trousers.
“That’s Caitlin Stockwell, the only child of Ben Stockwell.” Forcing himself to be honest, he added: “The only surviving child, I should say. Her older brother was killed fighting Jao during the conquest. Nobody quite knows what happened to the other one, but he’s dead too.”
That still didn’t seem to register on the Subcommandant. Tully added: “Ben Stockwell was the former Vice-President of the United States, before the conquest. He’s now the appointed President of your puppet—uh, your native government of this continent.” He watched the girl tuck dark-gold hair behind her ears then and smile, a solemn Jao bodyguard keeping watch at her shoulder. The gray-haired man linked arms with her, and the two moved off, speaking to a number of the humans present as they walked.
“The scion of a prestigious kochan, then,” Aille said, settling his halfcape back into place across one shoulder.
Tully started to protest that humans didn’t have kochan, then stopped. He didn’t precisely know what the Jao term “kochan” meant, but it seemed to approximate the human notion of “clan.” Now that Tully thought about it, the Stockwells were probably as close to a true kochan as you could find in North America. Old Eastern money, on the father’s side, with a long tradition of public service.