Way of the Pilgrim

by Matt

  "I have no intention," said Lyt Ahn, "of abandoning the First Captaincy to Laa Ehon, or anyone else."

  "Consider the situation honestly," said Adtha Or Ain. "The possibility is there. The possibility means that no expedition would ever be sent to find my son; and not only that, it means I would lose you as well, since I think you would not merely accept duties under another's command."

  "That much is true," said Lyt Ahn. "If it were shown to me that I was no longer worthy of the post of First Captain, I would consider myself excess to our effort here and make sure that the Expedition was no longer burdened by my presence."

  Shane felt a new sense of shock. This was the first intimation he had had that something like honorable suicide was practiced among the Aalaag. But the fact that there was such a practice made sense. It made very good sense for this race of male and female warriors. He thought of Laa Ehon in the post of First Captain of Earth; and, if anything, his inner fears increased.

  His own life was just barely endurable now under Lyt Ahn. It could become literally unbearable under Laa Ehon; and if it became literally unbearable, sooner rather than later a fit of yowaragh would take him again and he would do something that would lead to his own end. The best he could hope for under those circumstances would be that it would lead him to a quick and relatively painless end, though, considering his own post, there was less reason to expect it might, than that it would not.

  "You may go, Shane-beast," said Lyt Ahn.

  Shane went. The next two days were a blur of duties in attendance on Lyt Ahn, during one of the periodic twice-yearly internal inspections of all services housed within the House of Weapons. On the third day, however, he was summoned back to Lyt Ann's office, where an assistant Aalaag officer handed him a hard copy message to be hand-delivered to Laa Ehon. Laa Ehon, he was told by Lyt Ahn, had already set himself up in London with the staff of the project he had described to the Council.

  "... I deduce from this, small Shane-beast," said Lyt Ahn, once the underofficer had left and they two were alone in the office together, "that the immaculate Commander of Milan had already picked and trained the individuals he would need for his project before mentioning his plan to the Council. You will find his offices already in place and staffed. I would desire you to take particular notice of what kind of humans he uses. You will be in a better position to judge your own kind than myself or any of the true race. Also, report to me anything else you think I might find of interest. I'll want to know, of course, about the general arrangement. I have the plans on record, of course, but that is not the same thing as receiving a direct observation report from a trustworthy pair of eyes."

  "I will do as the First Captain orders," said Shane.

  "You may go."

  "I thank the immaculate sir."

  Two hours later, once more in a courier ship and headed toward London, Shane watched from the window beside his seat as the vessel lifted until the world's horizon was a perceptible curve and the sky overhead was black with the airless-ness of space. Curiously, now that he was on his way, for the first time he had a moment in which to think, and to his surprise, he found himself strangely clearheaded.

  It was remarkable—remarkable almost to the point of bitter humor. After the episode in Milan he had yearned for the sanctuary of his small cubicle in the House of Weapons, as a retreat where he could sit down and take stock of what had happened, and was happening, to him. Then that imagined oasis of peace had ceased to be an oasis, when he found Sylvie Onjin waiting for him there.

  In the end, in the House of Weapons, he had found no time—no moment of personal freedom at all in which to try and think of some way of avoiding what seemed to be a greased slide to inevitable self-destruction. Now, here, in the last place he would have looked for it, he had found it. He was on duty. Therefore the eyes of the Aalaag were momentarily off him, and he was free at last to stand back and consider his position, to think his own thoughts for a small while before they touched down in the British Isles.

  It was freedom-on-duty. There was no human word for it, but there was an Aalaag one, alleinen. It meant the supreme authority and freedom of being under orders—one's own master or mistress within strictly specified limits.

  He pronounced it now, silently in his mind—alleinen— and smiled grimly to himself. For of course he did not pronounce it correctly, in the strict sense. The truth was he did not speak Aalaag as well as even his masters gave him credit for doing. Certain sounds were physical impossibilities to his human throat and tongue.

  The actual truth was that he, like the other successful linguists in Lyt Ann's corps of courier-translators, cheated in all his Aalaag-speaking. The alien word that had just come to his mind should properly be pronounced with something like a deep bass cough in the middle syllable; and that deep bass cough, which was so much a part of many Aalaag words, was simply beyond his capabilities. He had always gotten away with pronouncing it without the cough, however, because he was able to hide behind the fact that his voice was too high-pitched to manage the sound. He had learned to pronounce words containing such a sound as the similarly high voice of a very young Aalaag child would say them; and while the ears of such as Lyt Ahn, and even of Laa Ehon and others, consciously noted the lack, they unconsciously excused him for not making it, because of the otherwise excellence of his pronunciation—and because the word as heard resembled what they had heard so many times from the high voices of their own children.

  So, in just such a manner, humans had always excused, and with familiarity become ear-blind to, the mispronunciations of their very young children, foreign-born friends and acquaintances. The Aalaag, he thought now, were indeed humanoid. Or humans were Aalaagoid? In any case, similar physical environments on similar worlds during the emergence of both races had shaped them not only physically, but psychologically and emotionally, in remarkably similar ways. Yet they were not really like humans in the fine points—any more than, for example, the average human was nine feet tall. In the fine points, they differed. They had to differ. One race could not catch the other race's diseases, for example.

  There had been a time when he had dreamed of a plague on Earth that would decimate the aliens but leave the humans untouched—a sudden plague that would wipe out the conquerors before those conquerors had time to pass, to their own kind on other worlds, the word that they were dying. Of course, such a plague had never come; and probably, long ago, the Aalaag had devised medical protections against any such happening. He pulled his mind away from such woolgathering. The important problem was finding a solution to his own situation. In the silence of the hurtling courier ship, caught between the blue and white of Earth below and the black of space above, he forced himself to face that question squarely, now, while there was a chance.

  Leaving Milan, several days earlier, headed back to the House of Weapons, he had faced the fact that yowaragh had twice driven him to do foolishly desperate things against the Aalaag regime; and that therefore, it was only a matter of time until he would be drawn back—for powerful emotional reasons with which the last words of Maria had been connected—into contact with this human Resistance, this Underground that he knew, if those in it did not, was doomed to certain discovery and destruction at Aalaag hands.

  He had faced the fact then that, given sufficient provocation, he would not be able to help himself; as he had not been able to help himself earlier this year, when the urge had driven him to draw that first Pilgrim symbol. As he had not been able to stop himself when he had seen, through the viewing screen in Laa Ehon's office, Maria awaiting questioning.

  Normal human cattle, according to the way the Aalaag thought, were not supposed to have such reactions as yowaragh. But for one of them to have it was not a deliberate fault in them when they did, only a weakness in the one afflicted. But of course one who showed signs of it was obviously untrustworthy and sick, and must be disposed of.

  Even when they were as valuable as Shane-beast.

  Therefore, l
eaving Milan, he had finally faced the fact that what had happened twice would happen again. Eventually, a third attack of yowaragh would catch him in a visible situation where either he had no choice but to appear openly as one of the Resistance people and share their fate, or else he would simply make some wild, personal attack upon one of the aliens, which would result in his death. He did not want either of those fates—as he did not want Maria to share either one of them with him.

  Maria had moved him, and the thought of her moved him now, in memory, as nothing had ever done since his mother had died.

  But there seemed no way of avoiding one or the other of these probable ends, and it was this dilemma he had carried back with him to the House of Weapons, with a desperate need to study the situation for some kind of solution.

  But now, out of nowhere, events pushed by Laa Ehon's ambition seemed to have offered him a possible way out. The basic situation had not changed; but just now, sitting here in his first moment of alleinen peace, for the first time, unexpectedly, he saw the glimmer of a hope that there might be something with which he could bargain for his own life and possibly that of Maria as well. It was a wild hope, a crazy hope, but it was nonetheless a hope where before there had been none.

  As he considered it, the small glimmer of that hope suddenly expanded into a glare like that from a doorway suddenly opened to outer sunlight. It would be a matter of setting two dragons to destroy each other, of using one evil to eat the other up.

  The operative factor behind it all was the fact that even after three years together, the two races did not understand each other. Humans did not understand Aalaag and the Aalaag did not understand humans.

  Basically, the obvious solution to Shane's problem was no less than the destruction of Laa Ehon. It was a far-fetched thought, like that of a mouse deciding to destroy a giant. On the face of it, ridiculous; but he had one advantage which even Lyt Ahn—who was even more of a giant than Laa Ehon—did not have. He, Shane, was not restricted by the Aalaag mores. In fact, he was restricted by no mores at all, alien or human; but only by his own need to survive and, if possible, to save Maria.

  The operative factor was that the two races did not really understand each other. He repeated that to himself. Humans did not understand the Aalaag, with whom they had never had any real chance to have contact on what might be called a person-to-person basis; and the Aalaag could not possibly understand humans, walled in as they were by the armor of their own alien attitudes and traditions.

  This was why what had been planned at the Council table would not work. The theory of bringing up the children in the Aalaag households would never turn out as Laa Ehon and the others hoped. Shane thought of the human babies to be used this way and his stomach curled up inside him. He remembered his own loveless upbringing and the difference in human and alien emotional responses.

  The bitter part of it would be that the scheme would actually seem to work at first, as the human youngsters began to pick up the Aalaag tongue and get responses that would seem at least friendly, if not loving, from these large creatures who sheltered and fed them. The children would respond automatically with affection, which would last up until that devastating moment when they were rebuked by the large creatures for not realizing that they were only beasts. In that discovery, as the children matured and began to have minds of their own, was more fertile ground for yowaragh than in anything else the Aalaag had done on Earth since their arrival; and it would be yowaragh by humans who knew the overlords, and the weaknesses of those overlords, better than these had ever been known before by any of the underraces.

  For a similar reason, Laa Ehon's plan to set up human Governors would not work. The Aalaag, who lived under unquestioned authority among themselves, could never really understand that a human Governor would be no more palatable to most other humans than an alien one would—perhaps even less so. The Governor would simply be included in the detestation in which the mass of humanity already held all servants of the Aalaag, such as the Interior Guards and translators like Shane, himself. Noncooperation would be the order of the day, automatically. Unless...

  It was in exactly this area that he might be able to do something—at least for himself and Maria. For the rest—he owed nothing to the Resistance groups, he told himself once more. They had no hope of success—no hope at all, though it would be impossible to tell them that. Inevitably they would be caught and executed by the Aalaag. He shuddered, thinking of what would happen to them. But he reminded himself that that happening was unavoidable, no matter what he might do or not do. Meanwhile, they could be the instrument which would save him; and, possibly even more important, aid Maria and himself, in destroying Laa Ehon, at one and the same time.

  He looked more closely at the plan that had just begun to take shape in his mind.

  It would be risky. It would necessitate his achieving some sort of dominance over the humans Laa Ehon had picked to make his Governors' Project work. At the same time, he would have to appear to lend his aid to the Resistance groups; and without letting Lyt Ahn suspect. For Lyt Ahn would never countenance what Shane was planning, although he might well concur with what Shane had done, once Laa Ehon had been frustrated as a result of the translator's efforts.

  It would also be necessary for Shane to keep his identity as secret as possible from the Resistance people themselves.

  Those few who had captured him in Milan already had some idea of who he was. But if it could be done, they should remain the only ones. That would be difficult because he would have to do more than just join them; he would have to effectively take charge of their movement, as well as dominating the humans in Laa Ehon's plan.

  This could be possible with the Resistance people, however, since he knew more about their enemy than they did themselves. His scheme itself was simple in the extreme. It would merely be a matter of coordinating all the Resistance groups—and there must be some in at least every large city and they must know each other, already, even if they were not already part of one overall organization. With their help he could cause an apparent cooperation to take place with the governorship organizations by the ordinary human public; so that to the Aalaag in general these would seem to be an unqualified success. While, at the same time, the organization of the Resistance into a single coordinating unit could appear to the humans involved to make possible a plan for a worldwide uprising against the aliens everywhere; which was what people everywhere dreamed of.

  Only he, of course, would know that such a revolt could stand no chance of success. In fact, it would almost certainly never reach the point of taking place. Long before it was ready to explode, he would have pulled the plug of the cooperation that had been given the Governors; and Laa Ehon's plan —in which by this time the Aalaag would have invested deeply—would reveal itself as a total failure. For which Laa Ehon could only take the blame.

  And, if some sort of honorable suicide was indeed part of the Aalaag tradition, Laa Ehon might thereupon remove himself. Even if he did not, his power within the Council and his presence as a threat to succeed Lyt Ahn would be destroyed. Shane could then allow Lyt Ahn to understand how at least part of all this was due to Shane's efforts, and with luck a grateful First Captain would aid him in bringing Maria into the Courier-Translator Corps, or some similar position of relative safety.

  Meanwhile, of course, the other Resistance members, who by this time would have exposed themselves, or become easily identifiable, would be rounded up and disposed of by the other Aalaag. Shane set his thoughts against the mental picture of what that would mean, reminding himself fiercely that he had a right to think of his own survival first; and, again, that there had never been any hope for such fools, in any case.

  It was a purely selfish and heartless plan. It had no justification beyond the fact that its success might save him—and Maria. Just at the moment he was not sure just how her rescue should be worked; but the beginnings of some ideas were working in the back of his mind, all of them dependent upon
the claim he would have on Lyt Ann's good graces after Laa Ehon was taken care of.

  One immediately necessary matter would be to get the Resistance's agreement to Maria's helping him personally. Later on, therefore, to Lyt Ahn, he could credit part of his success to her association with him, which he would make appear to be a willing and informed one.

  The strange thing, he found himself thinking, was that he should be contemplating doing what he had earlier been deathly afraid of doing—associating with those who were subversive to the aliens. The equation of life and death for him in any association like that had not changed; and yet he found himself now feeling good, almost buoyant, about the plans he had just considered. He felt in fact more alive than he had felt since word had first come of the Aalaag landings on Earth.

  A feeling very close to that of triumph possessed him. He was still engrossed in it when a slight jolt announced the landing of the aircraft.

  "Out, beast!" said the pilot.

  He gathered up his small travel bag and left the ship to find himself in the special airport for Aalaag use only which the aliens had blasted out of the heart of London. Walking out of here even in the business suit he was wearing could attract unwelcome attention to him. He went looking for the human in charge of Maintenance and Supply, and found him—a young man with a lower Alabama accent, a round, almost childish face, but a steady, cold stare that would have done credit to an Aalaag.