by Matt
"All right," said the heavy-jawed man at last. "I'll listen. If I can believe you, I'll go with you."
Slowly, one by one, the mutter of an assent sounded about the table.
"Anyone still not ready to listen and give me credit for knowing what I'm talking about?" asked Shane. No one moved or spoke.
"All right," said Shane. "Then I'll go back to what I said in the beginning. From the start you've thought of the Aalaag as equals and assumed they thought of you as equals. They don't. They call you beasts, and they not only don't think of you as anything but beasts, they'd find it unbelievable to think of you as anything else. Now, contrary to what you believe, the things that make them think that way aren't their superiority in weapons and armor at all—they take those things for granted, as the sort of advantage that superior beings like themselves would naturally have."
He paused, smiling.
"Don't any of you have any idea why they think so little of you? So little, in fact, that they've never really made a serious effort to get rid of those like you, here, who meet to plan how you'd fight against them?"
"Now wait a minute," said the thick-bodied woman, "you can't tell us they aren't out to get rid of us Resistance people!"
"Of course they are, when they stumble across you marking on a wall or breaking one of their laws. But they know— which you don't—that there's no way you can do them any real harm. So most of your secrecy and your organizational mumbo-jumbo isn't necessary. The Aalaag destroy you when they find you, not because they think of you as dangerous, but because they consider anyone who doesn't obey the law as insane; and insane animals should be destroyed before they infect others of their kind. That's all."
He paused to give them another chance to object. No one spoke up.
"Let's get back then to why the Aalaag simply take it for granted you're an inferior race of beasts. All the evidence, from their point of view, points to that. Before they came, crime was common in all parts of our race. To an Aalaag, any crime—even the telling of the smallest lie—is unthinkable. Do you know why?"
"We don't know they don't lie," put in Peter.
"I do; and you'd better take my word for it I'm right," said Shane. "To lie, to disobey an order, to do anything that's been established as forbidden is unthinkable to them, because it would be contrary to the survival of their race. And it's that survival, not the survival of any individual one of them, that's the first concern of each one of them. Where we humans have an instinct for individual self-preservation, they've got a reflex for race-preservation."
"You call ours an instinct, theirs a reflex?" said Peter.
"That's right. Because theirs is something they've only developed over the last few thousands of years in order to survive. I think there was probably a time when they didn't have it. But that was before they were driven from their own worlds by some race with either numbers or powers superior even to theirs."
"Who were they?" asked the heavy-jawed man.
"I don't know," answered Shane. "I haven't been able to learn the whole story. I get the impression they were more like a swarm of bees than an animal-type race. But that's just an impression. From what I can gather, the Aalaag fought back hard at that time, with pretty much the weapons they have now—but they lost, because at that time they were a people as varied in occupation as we are. Only a handful of them then were trained fighters—though they all had to fight before they were finally forced to turn and run for it. They've been something like interstellar gypsies ever since; and in that process they've given up every profession but one. Now, every individual among them's a fighter, and as a race they live under the fear of being followed and attacked again by whoever it was that drove them from their home worlds in the first place."
"Given this as all true," said Peter, "how does knowing it help us? It seems to me you've just made a case for the aliens being less vulnerable, rather than more."
"No," said Shane, "because in making themselves over into a race in which everyone was a warrior, they were left without people to fill the support jobs and positions. They solved that problem by finding and taking over worlds, each of which had a race which had developed some technology but was not by Aalaag terms 'civilized.' Our world, for example. These subject races filled the support vacuum. They could be made to supply the needs not only of themselves, but of a certain number of Aalaag overlords. That way the problem was solved."
"As Peter says," spoke up the female voice Shane had failed to identify before—he turned his head quickly enough this time to see her now, still speaking. She was a tall, dark-haired young woman only three chairs from him on his right. "How does that make them vulnerable?"
"Why," said Shane, "because to control a subjugated race like ours and make it produce for them means that a large proportion of the Aalaag here have to spend all or most of their time making sure the individuals of that race do what needs to be done, from the Aalaag point of view. If you like —call it an economics of power. So much in the way of supplies for the Aalaag requires so much time and effort spent in maintaining control over us."
"But what can we do about it?" asked the heavy-jawed man.
"Make it too expensive to maintain that control," said Shane.
"How?"
Shane drew a deep breath.
"That," he said, "is what I'll tell you only after I'm sure you understand the Aalaag and me; and after a worldwide structure of Resistance members has been set up, so that we can act all together and at the same time—as we'll have to when the time comes. What I've just told you is all I'll tell you for now."
"You can't leave us like that," said the thick-bodied woman. "You've still given us no proof of any kind, no real reason to believe you."
Shane hesitated.
"All right," he said. "I'll tell you this much that you don't know. Right now, in this city, a pilot program is being set up by the Aalaag, which involves the establishment of a human Governor for Britain, Ireland and the islands around them; a Governor who with his staff will be responsible to the Aalaag for all production from this Area, and who'll have the powers of the Aalaag behind him to enforce any rules or laws he cares to make. I'll be heading directly to that Governor's new headquarters now, when I leave you."
There was a long silence as those around the table stared at each other.
"It'll never get off the ground," said the heavy-jawed man. "We'll make sure nothing about that Governor arrangement works."
"No, you won't," Shane said. "Just the opposite. You'll cooperate in every way—if you're going to be part of what I have in mind. What we want to do is gain control of that organization—which we can do, because it's to be human-staffed—and use it, not destroy it. For now, if you'll just get used to believing the fact that you can never win by going against the Aalaag in any head-on fashion, we'll have taken the first step together. I'll leave you to think that over for now. Remember, the only way is to make the Aalaag defeat themselves."
Shane stopped talking and took a step back from the table.
"Peter," he said, looking directly down at the other man, "you and I need to talk, privately."
Peter was already on his feet and coming toward him, up around the table, behind those there, who were also on their feet but had fallen into a buzz of conversations with their near neighbors.
"Have you got a vehicle of some kind?" Shane asked quietly as the other came up to him.
"My car's outside. Yes," said Peter. He grinned. "And I've not only got a permit to have it on the streets, but a full tank of gas."
"Then you can drive me where I need to go and we can talk on the way," said Shane. "I've got to report in at this Governor Unit I told everyone about. I'll give you the address."
Once in the car and proceeding down streets that were already beginning to shine oilily under a fresh, light rain, Shane looked at Peter's profile outlined against the street-lit, wet window beside him.
"Well?" Shane asked. "Did I convince them?"
"You
left them with damned little choice," said Peter. "As for telling them anything specific, you didn't."
"What do you expect, when you introduce me to a room full of people who work for you and tell me they're the heads of independent cells in the Resistance?" Shane replied.
"And you didn't think they were?" Peter's tone was guarded.
"I knew what they weren't. First, they all gave in to you and waited for you to lead things; secondly, you couldn't get together a group of your equals that quickly—to listen to someone they knew nothing about and about whom you hardly knew more."
"I might," murmured Peter, "be somewhat more important than you think, in certain circles."
"Even if you were—but let's not waste time on that," said Shane. "I've got two things to talk to you about. What other languages does Maria—that girl in Milan I saved—speak besides her native Italian?"
Peter glanced sharply at him.
"I don't know certainly," he said slowly. "What most educated Europeans speak, I'd expect. English, with an accent. In her case also almost certainly good French, German of God-knows-what quality, and as many other languages as well or as badly as may be. Why?"
"I'm going to need someone to work with me who's a Resistance member, and it has to be one of those who've already seen my face, to keep the number knowing it down to as few as possible; and I'm going to try to get her accepted into the Courier-Translator Corps as someone with an unusual aptitude for language. Of all those who got a look at my face in Milan only you and she fit the bill, and I'll give you this much credit—you're too important to play second fiddle to me."
"Thank you oh so very much," murmured Peter, guiding the small car expertly down the almost deserted, but slippery-wet streets. "I don't know that Milan would want to let her go. For that matter, I don't know if she'd be willing to work with you."
"She'd better and they'd better," said Shane. "Now, on this other matter. In addition to someone to work directly with me, I'm going to need a liaison to the Resistance's Supreme Council, or whatever it'll end up being called. I want you for that."
"Thank you again."
"Don't bother. You just happened to be the first Resistance leader I met; and you've got the same qualification Maria has, you've already seen what I look like. But I eventually want you to run that particular Supreme Council, or whatever, so that between the two of us, you and I, we can make decisions and act on them without putting everything to a vote and getting bogged down in argument over details."
"I see," said Peter. Almost absentmindedly, he wheeled the car smoothly around a corner.
Silently watching the other man out of the corner of his eyes, Shane felt a sense of relief. He had guessed that Peter was ambitious. His reaction now seemed to support that idea.
"The first thing I'll need you to do," said Shane, "is to get together a meeting of all those in other nations who could be called leaders of the Resistance—"
Something very close to a splutter from Peter interrupted him.
"Are you insane?" Peter exploded. "Do you think you've stumbled onto a worldwide organization already set up on strict military lines? Resistance is a game anyone can play—"
"I know what I've stumbled onto," Shane interrupted. "But something pretty close to that sort of organization is what I'm going to need before I'm done; and you're going to help me get it. Now, if there's no such thing as national leaders to the Resistance groups here and across Europe, who is available, if we try to get a congregation of European leaders together? Because that's what we're going to need."
"For what?"
"Eventually, for putting the unified pressure on the Aalaag that'll be needed to get them to leave this world."
"You know," said Peter, glancing sideways at him for a second, "you're talking nonsense. It may have been all right for those people back there. But you've got to tell me something to convince me first you aren't either mad or some kind of con man."
"That's a ridiculous statement," said Shane. "It implies a question you'd already answered for yourself when you asked me to get in touch with you again, back in Milan—nevermind the fact that just now I was able to tell you and the others about something happening in your own territory that you ought to have known about, but didn't—all about the new Governor set-up. I'm your pipeline to Aalaag Headquarters— something so rare and valuable to you, you never even dreamed of having anything like it. You know it. I know it. That's why you'll take me on my terms or not at all. Besides, you're not unintelligent. When I tell you that I act and talk this way to you because I understand the Aalaag a few orders of magnitude better than any of the rest of you, you ought to be able to see why I'm telling the truth—and take me on faith until you've got some further evidence to judge me by."
"But you want us all to follow you blindly," said Peter.
"That's right. It's the only safe way for me; so those are my terms, to start off with at least," answered Shane, losing patience. "Now look, if there's nothing resembling an international organization of the Resistance, you still must know people of authority on the Continent I could talk to. Am I right, or wrong?"
"Well," said Peter slowly. "Every large city has its important Resistance figure. Anna ten Drinke in Amsterdam, Albert Desoules in Paris, and so forth. We can invite them to get together with us, but—"
"Good. You take care of that," said Shane. "I want them here for a meeting on a date no more than two weeks from now."
"Two weeks! It'll take most of a week just to contact them. It can't be done in as short a time as that—"
"It better," said Shane grimly. "I'm only supposed to be here for three weeks; and even at that something could come up that would make the First Captain call me back early. If there's to be any margin for unavoidable delays, two weeks is the most we can give any of them to get here."
"Next," said Peter, equally grimly, "who says they'll come? There's no reason for any of them to risk the trip. They don't know you from Adam. I can invite them, but if any show up, it'll be a miracle."
"It's up to you to convince them to come," said Shane. "If they're the kind of people to deserve their reputations, they ought to be smart enough to see the advantages of having someone like me on their side—just as you did. I think if you tell them about how I can get them information from Aalaag Headquarters—but don't tell them anything else you know or think you've guessed about me, if you don't mind—I think you can get some of them here. Those who don't come will just have to regret that they didn't and hope to hop on the bandwagon later on. Now, about Maria, how soon can you get her here?"
Peter did not answer immediately.
"I don't think you really need her," he said finally.
"As it happens, I do," said Shane. "My needing her isn't a debatable point."
"Well," said Peter, "I can't just whistle and get her here. The situation in her case is the same as it is with the leader types you want me to call in. I can send her a message, say you want her and ask her to come. I don't know that she'll want to come. I don't know that her people in Milan are going to approve of her coming. It'll take three days at least to get a message to her, too. We don't trust the mails—"
"No, you wouldn't," said Shane wearily. "For what it's worth, the mails are as safe as any courier's pouch. The Aalaag haven't the time or the interest—you remember my telling your people just now about the mice in the walls—to monitor all the mail that's written in the hope of catching a few Resistance people or other insane beasts. But, do it your way."
"We pass messages from hand to hand, then to small boats crossing the Channel to the Continent and so on," said Peter with a touch of stubbornness in his voice. "At any rate it'll take three days."
"Just so she comes; and you better do your best to get her here," said Shane. "I've got to have her. We've got to have her—"
"We're here," interrupted Peter, putting his foot on the brake of the car.
"Keep going!" said Shane swiftly. He glanced at the structure Peter had indica
ted with the wave of one hand. It was a large, brick building, with an entrance to what seemed a courtyard through which could be seen some ordinary human vehicles parked. "Turn a corner and drop me off out of sight, so I can walk back."
"What's up?" demanded Peter, accelerating nonetheless. "The most they can guess if they see you is that you came here in one of the free-lance cabs. There's lots of those nowadays. Anybody with the gas to burn who needs money for something on the black market—"
"It's not me, it's you," said Shane. "One of the Interior Guardsmen they'll be sure to have there might just be watching; and he just might be someone who recognizes you as a member of the Resistance."
"Me?" Peter hooted. "If one of those bastards in the Interior Guard'd suspected me, I'd have been picked up by them months ago—years ago."
"There's another example of ignorance of how the Aalaag, and those who serve them, work," said Shane. "Any Interior Guardsman with any experience makes it a point to find someone arrestable and then keep that information tucked away until he needs it, either to gain points with his superiors or to balance off some infringement of the rules they've caught him at. It doesn't always pay off for them, but most older Guardsmen have the equivalent of a whole pocketful of bits of information like that. You can let me out here."