Way of the Pilgrim

by Matt

  Way of the Pilgrim

  Gordon R. Dickson

  To Dave Wixon

  Without whom, not only this book, but a number of others would have had serious trouble seeing the light of day.

  "Peregrinus expectavi "Pedos meos, in cymbalis..*

  * "I, wanderer, stand awaiting the signal..." From the musk of the film Alexander Nevsky and the Alexander Nevsky Cantata, both by Sergei Prokofiev.

  1

  In the square around the bronze statue of the Cimbrian bull, the crowd was silent. The spring sky over Aalborg, Denmark, was high and blue; and on the weather-grayed red brick wall of the building before them a man was dying upon the triple blades, according to an alien law. The two invokers, judges and executioners of that law, sat their riding beasts, watching, less than two long paces from where Shane Evert stood in the crowd of humans on foot.

  "My son," the older and bulkier of the two was saying to the younger in the heavy Aalaag tongue, plainly unaware that there was a human nearby who could understand him, "as I've told you repeatedly, no creature tames overnight. You've been warned that when they travel in a family the male will defend his mate, the female and male defend their young."

  "But, my father," said the younger, "there was no reason. I only struck the female aside with my power-lance to keep her from being ridden down. It was a consideration I intended, not a discipline or an attack...."

  Their words rumbled in Shane's ears and printed themselves in his mind. Like giants in human form, medieval and out of place, the two massive Aalaag loomed beside him, the clear sunlight shining on the green and silver metal of their armor and on the red, camel-like creatures that served them as riding animals. Their concern was with their conversation and the crowd of humans they supervised in this legal death watch. Only slightly did they pay attention to the man they had hung on the blades.

  Mercifully, for himself as well as for the humans forced to witness his death, it happened that the Dane undergoing execution had been paralyzed by the power-lance, called by the Aalaag a "long arm," before he had been thrown upon the three sharp lengths of metal protruding from the wall twelve feet above the ground. The blades had pierced him while he was still unconscious, and he had passed immediately into shock. So that he was not now aware of his own dying, or of his wife, the woman for whom he had incurred the death penalty, who lay dead at the foot of the wall below him. Now he himself was almost dead. But while he was still alive all those in the square were required by Aalaag law to observe.

  "... Nonetheless," the alien father was replying, "the male misunderstood. And when cattle make errors, the master is responsible. You are responsible for the death of this one and his female—which had to be, to show that we are never in error, never to be attacked by the native beasts we have conquered. But the responsibility is yours."

  Under the bright sun the metal on the alien pair glittered as ancient and primitive as the bronze statue of the bull or the blades projecting from the homely brick wall. But the watching humans would have learned long since not to be misled by appearances.

  Tradition, and something like superstition among the reli-gionless Aalaag, preserved the weapons and armor of a time already more than fifty thousand Earth years lost and gone in their history, on whatever world had given birth to these nine-foot-tall conquerors of humanity. But their archaic dress and weaponry were only for show.

  The real power of the two watching did not lie in their swords and long arms, but in the little black-and-gold rods at their belts, in the jewels of the rings on their massive forefingers, and in the tiny, continuously moving orifice in the pommel of each saddle, looking eternally and restlessly left and right at the crowd.

  "Then it is true. The fault is mine," said the Aalaag son submissively. "I have wasted good cattle."

  "It is true good cattle have been wasted," answered his father, "innocent cattle that originally had no intent to challenge our law. And for that I will pay a fine, because I am your father and it is to my blame that you made an error. But you will pay me back five times over, because your error goes deeper than mere waste of good cattle, alone."

  "Deeper, my father?"

  Shane kept his head utterly still within the concealing shadow of the hood of his pilgrim's cloak. The two could have no suspicion that one of the cattle of Lyt Ahn, Aalaag Governor of all Earth, stood less than the length of a long arm from them, able to understand every word they spoke. But it would be wise not to attract their attention. An Aalaag father did not ordinarily reprimand his son in public, or in the hearing of any cattle. The heavy voices rumbled on and the blood sang in Shane's ears.

  "Much deeper, my son..."

  The sight of the figure on the blades before him sickened Shane. He had tried to screen it from himself with one of his own private imaginings—the image he had dreamed up of a human outlaw whom no Aalaag could catch or conquer. A human who went about the world anonymously, like Shane, in pilgrim's robes; but, unlike Shane, exacting vengeance from the aliens for each wrong they did to a man, woman, or child. However, in the face of the bloody reality on the wall before Shane, fantasy failed. Now, though, out of the corner of his right eye, he caught sight of something that momentarily blocked that reality from his mind and sent a thrill of unreasonable triumph running through him.

  Barely four meters or so beyond and above him and the riders on the two massive beasts, the sagging branch of an oak tree pushed its tip almost into the line of vision between Shane's eyes and the bladed man. On the end of the branch, among the new green leaves of the year, was a small, cocoonlike shape, already broken. From it had just recently struggled the still crumpled shape of a butterfly that did not yet know what its wings were for.

  How it had managed to survive through the winter here was beyond guessing. Theoretically, the Aalaag had exterminated all insects in towns and cities. But here it was, a butterfly of Earth being born even as a man of Earth was dying—a small life for a large. An utterly disproportionate feeling of triumph sang in Shane. Here was a life that had escaped the death sentence of the aliens and would live in spite of the Aalaag—that is, if the two now watching on their great red mounts did not notice it as it waved its wings, stiffening them for flight.

  They must not notice. Unobtrusively, lost in the crowd with his rough gray pilgrim's cloak and staff, undistinguished among the other drab humans, Shane drifted right, toward the aliens, until the branch tip with its emerging butterfly hung squarely between him and the man on the wall.

  It was superstition, magic... call it what you like, it was the only help he could give the butterfly. The chances for the

  small life now beginning on the branch tip should, under any cosmic justice, be insured by the larger life now ending for the man on the wall. The one should balance out the other. Shane fixed the nearer shape of the butterfly in his gaze so that it hid the farther figure of the man on the blades. He bargained with fate. I will not blink, he told himself, and he butterfly will stay invisible to the Aalaag. They will see only the man...

  Beside him, neither of the massive, metal-clad figures had noticed his moving. They were still talking.

  "... in battle," the father was saying, "each of us is equal to more than a thousand thousand of such as these. We would be nothing if not that. But though one be superior to so many, it does not follow that the many are without force against the one. Expect nothing, therefore, and do not be disappointed. Though they are now ours, inside themselves these new cattle still remain what they were when we conquered them. Beasts, as yet untamed to proper love of us. Do you understand me now?"

  "No, my father."

  There was a burning in Shane's throat, and his eyes blurred so that he could hardly see the butterfly clinging tightly to its branch and yieldi
ng at last to the instinctive urge to unfold its crumpled, damp wings and spread them to their full expanse. The wings spread, orange, brown and black—like an omen, it was that species of sub-Arctic butterfly called a "Pilgrim"— just as Shane himself was called a "pilgrim" because of the hooded robe he wore. The day three years ago at the University of Kansas rose in his mind. He remembered standing in the student union, among the mass of other students and faculty, listening to the broadcast announcing that the Earth had been conquered, even before any of them had fully grasped that beings from a far world had landed amongst them. He had not felt anything then except excitement, mixed perhaps with a not unpleasant apprehension.

  "Someone's going to have to interpret for us to those aliens," he had told his friends cheerfully. "Language specialists like me—we'll be busy."

  But it had been for the aliens rather than to the aliens that interpreting had needed to be done—and he was not, Shane told himself, the stuff of which underground resistance fighters were made.

  Only... in the last two years...

  Almost directly over him, the voice of the elder Aalaag rumbled on. 'To conquer is nothing. Anyone with power can conquer. We rule—which is a greater art. We rule because eventually we change the very nature of our cattle."

  "Change?" echoed the younger.

  "Alter," said the older. "Over their generations we teach them to love us. We tame them into good kine. Beasts still, but broken to obedience. To this end we leave them their own laws, their religions, their customs. Only one thing we do not tolerate—the concept of defiance against our will. And in time they tame to this."

  "But—always, my father?"

  "Always, I say!" Restlessly, the father's huge riding animal shifted its weight on its hooves, crowding Shane a few inches sideways. He moved. But he kept his eyes on the butterfly. "When we first arrive, some fight us—and die. Only we know that it is the heart of the beast that must be broken. So we teach them first the superiority of our weapons, then of our bodies and minds; finally, that of our law. At last, with nothing of their own left to cling to, their beast-hearts crack, and they follow us unthinkingly, blindly loving and trusting us like newborn pups behind their dam, no longer able to dream of opposition to our will."

  "And all is well?"

  "All is well for my son, his son, and his son's son," said the father. "But until that good moment when the hearts of the cattle break, each small flicker of the flame of rebellion that erupts delays the coming of their final and utter love for us. Inadvertently here, you allowed that flame to flicker to life once more."

  "I was in error. In the future I will avoid such mistakes."

  "I shall expect no less," said the father. "And now the beast is dead. Let us go on."

  They set their riding beasts in motion and moved off. Around them, the crowd of humans sighed with the release of tension. Up on the triple blades, the victim now hung motionless. His eyes stared as he hung there without twitch or sound. The butterfly's wings waved slowly between the dead face and Shane's. The insect lifted like a colorful shadow and fluttered away, rising into the dazzle of the sunlight above the square until it was lost to the sight of Shane. A feeling of victory exploded in him. Subtract one man, he thought half crazily. Add one butterfly—one small Pilgrim to defy the Aalaag.

  About him, the crowd was dispersing. The butterfly was gone. His feverish elation over its escape cooled and he looked about the square. The Aalaag father and son were more than halfway across it, heading toward a farther exiting street. One of the few clouds in the sky moved across the face of the sun, graying and dimming the light in the square. Shane felt the coolness of a little breeze on his hands and face. Around him now, the square was almost empty. In a few seconds he would be alone with the dead man and the empty cocoon that had given up the butterfly.

  He looked once more at the dead man. The face was still, but the light breeze stirred some ends of long blond hair that were hanging down.

  Shane shivered in the abrupt chill from the breeze and the withdrawn sun-warmth. His spirits plunged, on a sickening elevator drop into self-doubt and fear. Now that it was all over, there was a shakiness inside him, and nausea. He had seen too many of the aliens' executions these last two years. He dared not go back to Aalaag Headquarters feeling as he did now.

  He might well have to inform Lyt Ahn of the incident which had delayed him in his courier duties; and in no way while telling it must he betray his natural feelings at what he had seen. The Aalaag expected their personal cattle to be like themselves—spartan, unyielding, above taking notice of pain in themselves or others. Anyone of the human cattle who allowed his emotions to become visible would be "sick," in Aalaag terms. It would reflect on the character of an Aalaag master—even if he was Governor of all Earth—if he permitted his household to contain unhealthy cattle.

  Shane could end up on the blades himself, for all that Lyt Ahn had always seemed to like him, personally. He would have to get his feelings under control, and time for that was short. At best, he could steal perhaps half an hour more from his schedule in addition to what had already been spent watching the execution—and in those thirty minutes he must manage to pull himself together. He turned away, down a street behind him leading from the square, following the last of the dispersing crowd.

  The street had been an avenue of small shops once, interspersed with an occasional larger store or business establishment. Physically, it had not changed. The sidewalks and the street pavement were free of cracks and litter. The windows of the stores were whole, even if the display areas behind the glass were mainly empty of goods. The Aalaag did not tolerate dirt or rubble. They had wiped out with equal efficiency and impartiality the tenement areas of large cities and the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens; but the level of living permitted to most of their human cattle was bone-bare minimal, even for those who were able to work long hours.

  A block and a half from the square, Shane found and turned in at a doorway under the now dark shape of what had once been the lighted neon sign of a bar. He entered a large gloomy room hardly changed from the past, except that the back shelf behind the bar itself was bare of the multitude of liquor bottles which it had been designed to hold. Only small amounts of distilled liquors were allowed to be made, nowadays. People drank the local wine or beer.

  Just now the place was crowded, with men for the most part. All of them silent after the episode in the square; and all of them drinking draft ale with swift, heavy gulps from the tall, thick-walled glasses they held in their hands. Shane worked his way down to the service area in the far corner. The bartender stood there loading trays with filled glasses for the single waitress to take to the tables and booths beyond the bar.

  "One," he said.

  A moment later, a full glass was placed in front of him. He paid, and leaned with his elbows on the bar, his head in his hands, staring into the depths of the brown liquid.

  The memory of the dead man on the blades, with his hair stirring in the wind, came back to Shane. Surely, he thought, there must be some portent in the butterfly also being called a Pilgrim? He tried to put the image of the insect between himself and the memory of the dead man, but here, away from the blue sky and sunlight, the small shape would not take form in his mind's eye. In desperation, Shane reached again for his private mental comforter—the fantasy of the man in a hooded robe who could defy all Aalaag and pay them back for what they had done. He almost managed to evoke it. But the Avenger image would not hold in his head. It kept being pushed aside by the memory of the man on the blades....

  "Undskylde!" said a voice in his ear. "Herre... Herre!"

  For a fraction of a second he heard the words only as foreign noises. In the emotion of the moment, he had slipped into thinking in English. Then the sounds translated. He looked up, into the face of the bartender. Beyond, the bar was already half-empty once more. Few people nowadays could spare more than a few minutes from the constant work required to keep themselves from going hungry—or,
worse yet, from being forced out of their jobs and into becoming legally exter-minable vagabonds.

  "Excuse me," said the bartender again; and this time Shane's mind was back in Denmark with the language. "Sir. But you're not drinking."

  It was true. Before Shane the glass was still full. Beyond it, the bartender's face was thin and curious, watching him with the amoral curiosity of a ferret.

  "I..." Shane checked himself. He had almost started explaining who he was—which would not be safe. Few ordinary humans loved those of their own kind who had become servants in some Aalaag household.

  "Disturbed by what you saw in the square, sir? It's understandable," said the bartender. His green eyes narrowed. He leaned closer and whispered. "Perhaps something stronger than beer? How long since you've had some schnapps?"

  The sense of danger snapped awake in Shane's mind. Aal-borg had once been famous for its aquavit, but that was before tiie Aalaag came. The bartender must have spotted him as a stranger—someone possibly with money. Then suddenly he realized he did not care what the bartender had spotted, or where he had gotten a distilled liquor. It was what Shane needed right now—something explosive to counter the violence he had just witnessed.