The Crucible of Empire (49 page)

"If I come, I would bring an escort," Caitlin said. "How many would you have room for?"

Jihan thought. She was not sure. The building she had selected had once supported a medium-sized
elian
. "Half, maybe," she said. "I have not lived in this house long and Jaolore is still small, being very new, so we have not filled it."

"Jaolore is new?" Caitlin said, canting her small head to the side as she sometimes did when perplexed.

"Long ago, there must have been a Jaolore but at some point it died out," Jihan said. "This Jaolore formed after I realized that Jao fought with the Ekhat in this system."

"But that was not long ago," Caitlin said slowly. Her strange blue eyes blinked.

"Yes, yes, a short time." Jihan looked around at the Humans and Jao. "You come now?"

"Jihan, how old are you?" Caitlin asked, watching the Lleix closely as though the answer were important.

"I am five years out of the Children's Court," Jihan said, puzzled. Surely it was obvious to all that Jihan was woefully short?

"And when are children released from this court?" Caitlin was still studying Jihan, and her changeable face had now lost its ruddiness.

"At sixteen years," Jihan said. "Is it not so with humans and Jao?"

"Then you are only twenty-one?" Caitlin said.

"Yes," Jihan said. "I am the youngest of all the Eldests, and, even worse, I broke
sensho
when I realized the Jao had come back. No one in the Han wishes to listen to me now."

"Twenty-one!" Caitlin seemed to be distressed.

Perhaps that number had some sort of ceremonial significance for humans. Jihan waited.

"Ooomigod!" Caitlin said in English, looking aside at Tully; then she took a deep breath. "We will accept your kind offer to stay at Jaolore," she said, reverting to Jao. "And then, when there is time, there are some matters we should discuss."

"You can't tell her," Tully said as they hiked back through the elegant city, past trees painstakingly pruned into pretzel shapes and tiny sculpted waterfalls. Frost rimed the greenish light-posts lining the narrow roads and the handrails over the bridges. They trod carefully, watching their footing. "At least not yet. Wait until Ronz gets back."

Caitlin glanced ahead at Jihan, but the young Lleix was striding ahead, presumably out of earshot. Although, Tully cautioned himself, who knew how acute their hearing was?

"We have to be straight with her," Caitlin said. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold. "She's already very low ranked because of something she did when the Jao first turned up a couple of months ago. What's going to happen to her when the leadership finds out the Jao are not our slaves, but our conquerors? We'll have a full scale panic and they're going to consider it at least partially her fault for having been duped into fronting for us."

Tully indicated Nam, Mallu, and Kaln with a jerk of his chin. "We have a number of Jao along and they're not exactly raping and pillaging. By the time we have to lay our cards on the table, the Lleix won't be afraid of them anymore."

"They'll be terrified—of them and of us," she said. "And rightfully so, because we're willfully misleading them."

He couldn't think of an answer to that so they walked in silence until they passed another vacant house. "Why are so many of these places abandoned," he said, "when there are Lleix stuck out there in the
dochaya
? Couldn't they just homestead some of these houses so they'd all have a decent place to live?"

"Jihan tried to explain to me about the social set-up with the
elian
," Caitlin said as they turned down yet another narrow lane. A few flakes of snow drifted down from the leaden clouds. "It sounds like they're a bit like Jao kochan, but even more like fraternities and sororities back on Earth. At sixteen, the children are released from the Children's Court for the Festival of Choosing. They wander the city for twenty days, visiting the
elian
, trying to make a favorable impression so that they'll be invited to join."

Tully, who'd grown up in Resistance camps, had of course never attended a university, but he'd heard about snooty frat boys and their antics. He shook his head. "Sounds godawful."

"Some of them get a lot of invitations and can choose their future occupation," she said. "Some, like Jihan, get only one. At least half, though, receive none and are remanded to the
dochaya
as 'unassigned' for the rest of their lives, working in the city's common fields and factories while hoping for employment as servants in one of the
elian
."

Tully remembered the sea of silver faces surrounding the assault ship after they had landed, none of them concerned that a potful of aliens, including Jao, had just set down next to their homes, but instead desperate to simply work for them.

Hair prickled on the back of his neck. The Lleix were slumlords, the whole lot of them! "They won't let them live in those empty houses, will they?" he said.

"I guess not," she said. "How soon do you think the
Lexington
will be back?"

"Not goddamn soon enough," he said, scowling.

Caitlin was glad to escape the close quarters of the assault ship. It had never been intended for long-term habitation. The layout provided no privacy and the interior was, frankly, getting a bit rank. She hoped the skeleton crew left behind as guards would at least air it out before they all had to cram themselves in there again and return to the
Lexington
.

The Jaolore
elian
-house, on the other hand, was roomy and smelled pleasantly of oiled wood and herbs. She especially liked the exposed rafters overhead that created the sensation of even more space. Jihan showed them the back of the house with its many bed platforms. Evidently, the Lleix sleeping patterns were more like those of humans, with a substantial dormancy each night, rather than that of the Jao, who preferred short naps scattered around the clock. Unfortunately, though, the Lleix had never conceived of anything resembling a mattress.

According to Jihan, the Han was still considering whether they would allow the humans to assist them in fleeing this world. Really, Caitlin told herself, as she slung her small travel bag onto the low wooden platform, if this was any indication of their ability to respond to emergencies, it was a wonder they weren't extinct already.

Tully poked his head into the tiny room. "There isn't nearly enough space here for the rest of my troops," he said. "Jihan is going to help me find an abandoned house or two for the rest. Do you want to come?"

She nodded, though she was tired. That trip up the mountain had taken a lot out of her. The oxygen content of Valeron air was a shade lower than humans preferred, making her feet seem heavy. She retrieved her coat and scarf and joined him.

"Why are so many houses empty?" she asked Jihan, as they walked out of Jaolore into its winter-bare gardens. The slight male named Pyr dropped behind their small group and followed, head bowed, corona flattened.

"Before, when Lleix come to Valeron, there were many
elian
," Jihan said, her gliding pace, as always, difficult to match. "But over time, some die out, not replaced."

So they were losing their culture along with their populace, Caitlin thought as they turned the corner. Her lungs wheezed as she struggled with the thin air.

Jihan stopped before a large house. The wind was driving down off the mountains to the west and dead leaves were skittering across the frozen ground. "All abandoned houses needing cleaning and repair," the Lleix said.

"My troops can handle that," Tully said.

"No, no!" Jihan said, and entered the long fallow gardens surrounding this particular structure. She glanced at her fellow Jaolore and motioned with one arm. "Pyr will go to the
dochaya
and bring servants to do what is needed."

"Yes," Pyr said in Jao and scuttled in the direction of the grim slum.

Tully stared after the retreating figure. "But we cannot pay them."

Jihan's black eyes regarded him. "You say that word again," she said, walking up to the front doors. "We do not know it."

"To pay is to give something valuable in return for goods or services," Caitlin said, picking her way along the washed-out path to the empty house as she followed.

"Then work is 'pay,' " Jihan said. "Unassigned desire only to work—to be useful to colony."

"But how do they get food then, when they have no work?" Tully said. "Where do they acquire garments?"

"They draw what they need from the kitchens in the
dochaya
, which is supplied by the Distributionists." Jihan's corona shifted. "They give garments too. Is it not being so with humans?"

Soup kitchens for the needy, Caitlin thought. Shelters for the homeless. Humans were indeed only too familiar with the poor and indigent, especially in the early years after the Conquest when so many had been displaced. Still, this was something different. It seemed that for the Lleix, social status and custom completely overrode the economic concerns that humans would have been mostly preoccupied with. The well-off
elian
were perfectly willing to see to it that the unassigned were housed, clothed and fed. But they would not allow them any of the dignity brought by work that had recognized status.

"We have—something like that," she said, not knowing what else to say.

The vacant house's broad wooden doors were unlocked and swung open with a creak. Caitlin realized she had seen nothing like a lock anywhere in the city. Did the Lleix have even a concept of crime? "Jihan," she said carefully as Tully peered inside, rifle ready, "what happens when someone does something bad, hurts someone or takes something that is not hers?"

"Let me check the place out first." Tully disappeared within with a handful of jinau.

"Why would they do that?" Waiting just outside the doors, Jihan blinked in apparent surprise, her silver corona standing on end. "If one needs garments, one applies to the Patternmakers. If one is hungry, she goes to the Distributionists and draws food for the
elian
kitchen. If one needs a home, one joins an
elian
or sleeps in the
dochaya
."

"But if you took something, a robe or a bowl, perhaps, what would happen?" Caitlin persisted. It was so important that she figure out these people. Once she did, she might be able to find the right words to make them understand humans and Jao as well.

"No one would wear a robe that did not belong to her," Jihan said. "It would have the wrong pattern. For all else, there is
sensho
."

Jihan had mentioned that word earlier. "You said you had broken
sensho
," she said.

The Lleix's entire body stilled. "Yes," their guide said softly, gazing down at the frozen ground. "No need for humans to listen to Jihan about anything. I am quite in disgrace."

"What is
sensho
?" Caitlin said, edging closer.

"
Sensho
is—right way to behave always," Jihan said. "Listen to those who are older and taller, do as they say."

For Jihan, then, who was so very young, that would be just about everyone, Caitlin thought. "How did you break
sensho
?"

Jihan hesitated so long, Caitlin thought the young Lleix would not answer. "The Starsifters said the Ekhat had returned, which they had, but I knew from my study the Jao had fought in that battle too. This they did not believe. I went to the Han when Sayr made his report and would not let the error pass."

"You pointed out that they were wrong?" Caitlin said.

"Yes, yes, it was a great discourtesy," Jihan said, hunched as if expecting a blow. "The shame of it will be on me forever."

Caitlin blinked. "But the Jao had come back. You were right!"

"It does not matter," Jihan said.

"They would rather you be polite than correct?" Caitlin was having a hard time with this.

Tully reappeared. "The place is deserted except for a few vermin that look like a cross between a blue mouse and a grasshopper," he said in English. "Come in and see what you think."

Inside, it smelled musty. Something tiny leaped away as they approached. Stools and benches, some broken, were heaped against one wall and a layer of dust blanketed everything. "This place is larger than Jaolore," Tully said, brushing off his dark-blue uniform trousers. Evidently he'd gotten down on his knees at some point. "If we can find another this big, we'll be able to house the crew of all three ships until
Lexington
returns."

"Once Pyr brings servants," Jihan said, "we will select another. Then I will check with the Han and see if they have made decision yet."

"Right," Caitlin said, then turned over a battered bench and sat down. The more she heard about the Han and the way things worked here, the more she dreaded the revelation of the reality of the situation concerning the Jao. Exactly where did telling the truth fit in with the Lleix concept of
sensho
?