"Yes, sir, the day before my Scarring. Shall I continue?"
"Go ahead." Davis touched "Record" again, and nodded.
Tarlac described his schooling and wilderness experience with no particular emphasis, and then had the screen show Kranath's Vision, as he and Godhome remembered it, translating the Language. He waited, ready to give the Emperor the same emotional support he'd given Ch'kara if it were needed.
It wasn't, quite, though Davis was shaken enough to stop recording again when it ended. "Good God, Steve! You know what'll happen when the newsies get their hands on that!"
"Yes, sir, and there's worse to come. At our first meeting, the First Speaker promised me a tape of the initial contact. I gave you Kranath's Vision first, for background. Now here's the contact tape."
He showed it, feeling Davis' helpless rage, so like his own when he'd seen it, as it played and was recorded. The Emperor hit the "Stop" button with his clenched fist when it was over, cursing in a language Tarlac had never heard but which sounded remarkably well suited for that purpose. Davis spun the tape back and watched the first contact again. When it ended the second time, he looked haunted. "All right, Steve. Finish your report."
Tarlac did so, conscious that after the contact tape, the story he was telling sounded a bit anticlimactic. "I had to tell them about our common heritage, of course," he finished, "and to be believed, I had to finish the Ordeal. So here I am, with Honor scars. And that's it, sir."
Davis touched his controls again, and Tarlac was suddenly conscious of his intense scrutiny, his reputation for almost telepathic discernment. "Is it, Steve?" he asked quietly.
"He is close to the truth," Kranath's thought came. "Will you deny it to him?"
"No," Tarlac replied. "I told him it was up to the individual, and if he figures it out, okay. Working it like this, not many should, even though the Traiti won't keep it any secret."