by Matt
Now, at last, once he had made some sort of show of examining the candidates, he would be free to go to the apartment in which he had established Maria; and learn from Peter what was happening as a result of the message he had asked her to phone him from Minneapolis.
He already knew in what part of the building the courier-translator trainees Laa Ehon had mentioned had been assigned living quarters, classroom and relaxation lounge. He made his way to the last of these places, accordingly, confident that was where they would have been required to wait, for as many minutes or days as it took him to get to them.
They were all well enough acquainted with Aalaag ways to scramble to their feet the moment he appeared in the entrance. He might have been someone from Housekeeping come to clean the room, for all they knew, but it paid to take no chances.
He looked them over. There were no women among them, which might indicate some fanciful notion of Laa Ehon's—or it might simply be a matter of chance. They ranged in age from what looked like the late teens to the middle fifties and were of all shapes, sizes and appearances.
"I'm Shane Evert, acting First Officer for this Corps," he told them in Italian. "I'll see you no later than midmorning tomorrow, and in the meantime you're to write me up your personal histories, with lists of the languages you can speak, and how well you speak each one. That's all for now."
He turned and left, like them following ordinary Aalaag custom, which made no provision for hellos and good-byes, or get-acquainted speeches. He was there to give orders, they were there to take them. Each side had now acted as was proper and he would see them tomorrow.
Still, as he walked away, he found himself worrying how best to deal with them. At the very least he would have to keep them occupied; and he had probably better find some way of appearing to show progress to anyone—but specifically to Laa Ehon—who might come to check on how he was executing his orders.
It was as he left the Headquarters building for his walk to the apartment where he had left Maria that the inspiration came to him. He had already had the experience of trying to teach Maria enough Aalaag to make it appear that she not only knew some of the alien language, but would be quick to pick up more. He had already discovered phrases composed of sounds that were easiest for her to say. He could begin by teaching these trainees the same phrases. Being talented to at least some extent, linguistically, they should pick them up even more quickly than she had. They would not really be able to speak Aalaag, but they could be brought to appear to do so—and they also should be faster than Maria at learning to understand the Aalaag questions that would cue such answers.
Happily, a human's main contribution to conversation with one of the masters was simply to say "yes" politely to whatever he or she had just been ordered to do. Ordinary beasts were not asked questions, as Lyt Ahn, and now Laa Ehon, had asked him. Even if the language problem had not been there the average Aalaag would assume that any response one of the cattle might make to a request for information would be either not understandable or unreliable.
He breathed deeply of the cool outside air as he began to walk the four blocks which were all that separated the Headquarters building from the apartment. It was perhaps an hour or so past dawn. A sunny morning, but with a new crispness to the atmosphere now in his lungs that reminded him suddenly that it was November and that the day was, if anything, warm for this time of year.
It came as something of a shock to realize that winter was once again moving in on the Northern Hemisphere of Earth, which was his main area of travel. Time was going fast. It had gone fast, in fact, with all that had happened, since the day on which he had rescued Maria and met members of the Resistance for the first time. He looked about him, seeing things with a curious clarity of vision like that of someone just released from prison. Above, the sky was an empty blue that seemed to reach up to infinity beyond the tops of the surrounding buildings. The wind was not cold, but it had a sharp edge to it which swirled the robes of those among the large number of those walking by him who were dressed as pilgrims with robe and staff. It was still surprising to him to realize there were now so many of them. He found himself walking more briskly and feeling a sense of urgency for some reason he could not at the moment identify.
He reached the apartment building where they now lived and climbed the three flights of stairs to the apartment. When he unlocked the door and let himself in, he did not see or hear either Maria or Peter; but since it was hardly possible that they would not be here, he went toward the back of the apartment which, like the others above and below it, had an open balcony overlooking a small walled garden behind the building.
He came down the long corridor that gave access to the row of rooms that made up the apartment and looked out through the door at its end. He paused at the murmur of voices. He smiled. They were there.
He looked out. The morning sun, striking in at an angle as it rose, had evidently made a pool of warmth at the far end of the wind-shielded balcony. There, on rather uncomfortable wicker chairs, Peter and Maria sat across from each other at a small, round-topped glass table, talking. They were both clad in dark-colored, bulky sweaters, thrown in bright contrast by the sunlight against the green-painted concrete that made up the wall on one side, the floor beneath them and the waist-high barrier between them and the open air beyond. Above that short wall, the concrete had been extended upward to form arched openings, so that both Peter and Maria looked strangely out of place, like people transported back in time.
Their talk was too low-voiced for him to make out the words; but it was a very intent conversation, for their arms were extended across the little table and both hands of each clasped with each other's in a single grip. Still smiling, Shane went in.
"Well, here I am!" he announced in English.
They broke their grip and straightened up, putting a space between them as he came up; and Maria jumped to her feet, throwing her arms around him and kissing him almost violently.
"Hey," he said after a moment, gently disengaging her grip, "you're going to squeeze me in half. I know I was kept longer than we expected, but I haven't been gone that long!"
It was then he noticed there were tears in her eyes.
"Why, what is it?" he asked, cupping a hand around her chin and lifting her face for a closer look. "What's got you upset? I'm all right."
"It's nothing," she said, breaking away from him and brushing the dampness from her eyelashes. "Peter and I were just talking about how life used to be—before the aliens came—and how it's been since; and when I saw you I remembered that, bad as it is now, if it hadn't been for their coming, we'd never have found each other...."
"My fault for bringing the subject up," said Peter from his chair at the table. "No point in dwelling on the dead past, anyway."
Shane pulled another chair up to the table and sat down. Maria sat down again as well. They all looked at each other across the small tabletop and he turned to Peter.
"What's the answer?" he asked. "How soon can I expect gatherings of Pilgrim look-alikes around the Aalaag Headquarters buildings?"
Peter made a wry face.
"You realize what you were asking?" he said. "You not only wanted thousands—millions, possibly—to gather in robes where you want them, but you wanted them to do it simultaneously all over the world; and you're talking about people who aren't under orders, or even mostly in direct communication with either the Resistance or the professional group."
"All right," said Shane. "I know it was a tall order. The thing is, it's got to be done. All I expected you and the Organization to do was pass the word and give me an estimate of how quickly it might produce results."
"Nonetheless," said Peter, "I want you to understand how impossible it was—what you were asking for."
"I understand!" said Shane impatiently. "What have you got to tell me? That's what I want to hear now."
Peter gave him a lopsided smile. It was the kind of smile evoked from someone who has finally shrugged and g
iven up on argument.
"All right then," he said. "Here it is. What you asked for was effectively impossible. We decided to pass the word right away for people to start coming into the cities—just into the cities, they weren't told any more than that. They were to wear Pilgrim garb and gather in the cities, and wait."
"Wait?" Shane stared at him.
"Wait for the Pilgrim, who would have a message for them very soon now," said Peter. "This leaves it all up to you. When you think there're enough of them gathered, when you're ready yourself, you pass the word to me and it'll be passed to everyone everywhere—where to go, what to do and what to expect. And if you want our guess as to how long it'll take you to get, say, fifty thousand people to fill the streets around the alien Headquarters in each city, it's that anywhere from another five days to another ten days will do it. There, now, you have it—as much as we can give you."
Shane heard the words echoing in the cavern of his mind. The moment of silence that followed seemed to stretch out forever. His physical ears, in the silence that followed Peter's voice, recorded the distant sounds of the city, traffic and far-off street sounds of voices.
He felt once again as he had felt on the way here, when he had noticed the blueness of the sky and the brightness of the morning. It was not so much a clarity of vision like that of someone released from prison, he thought, as that of a prisoner who at last with a sort of relief hears announced the day and hour of his execution. That execution itself his mind refused to picture. His thoughts went forward until the moment when he would stand and speak to Lyt Ahn as the Pilgrim— but beyond that point they would not go.
Instead, inside him, there was a strange sort of peace. He could feel the warm-bodied, three-dimensional nearness of Maria and Peter along with the three-dimensionality of the world about him in this moment and they were like members of his own family. Maria was a part of him; the part he would leave behind to go on with the world after... after Lyt Ahn. Peter was like a brother, or some other close, loved relative.
They had never been together like this before. They would never be again. But it was not something to regret in its passing, for one such moment was enough for a lifetime.
28
He took Maria with him to his trainees at the Headquarters building. But first he went through the channel of command, deliberately, to get permission.
He had been given no authority to approach Laa Ehon directly, therefore he went to the office of the Officer of the Day—or rather to the senior human underling of that office, the equivalent of a Chief Clerk—who told him that the OD was very busy and that Shane must compose himself for a wait of an unknown length of time. Meanwhile, what was the subject on which Shane wished to talk with the Officer? They began their conversation in Italian and Shane changed almost immediately to German as he identified the other's accent.
.. Actually," said Shane, "there's no need for me to speak personally with the Officer. You can simply relay my request to him. Tell him I need to bring in my assistant to help me demonstrate the conversational use of the Aalaag language to the trainees I'm educating in that tongue; and will he therefore honor us by issuing permission for her to be admitted with me to the building here?"
"Oh?" said the Chief Clerk, suddenly agreeable. "Perhaps after all you should speak to the Officer directly about something like that. I'll see how soon I can get you in to him."
"I hope indeed it won't be too long," said Shane wistfully. "Laa Ehon was most emphatic about my getting these trainees to speak Aalaag as soon as possible—"
"Wait just a moment," said the Chief Clerk. "I think the Officer may have just come upon a free moment unexpectedly, just now. Just a second...."
He vanished into the inner office of the Officer of the Day and returned a moment later to usher Shane in.
Standing at attention in the customary manner, Shane politely repeated to the Aalaag his request to bring in Maria. The Officer of the Day stared at him, going into a silence. Shane smiled inwardly. He had no way of knowing what the alien mind of the other was thinking; but he knew he had now presented him with a problem.
As Officer of the Day, during his hours of duty the other was a little like the captain of a flagship on board which the admiral was sailing. The admiral—in this case, Laa Ehon— might make the large decisions as to the overall use of the Headquarters building and its occupants, human and Aalaag; but the general operation of the building was the prerogative and responsibility of the Officer of the Day. Laa Ehon would have given no specific commands about allowing Shane to bring in any otherwise unauthorized human. On the other hand, the Commander would have ordered that Shane be given all facilities needed. Bringing in Maria was not clearly covered by this command; on the other hand to refer so small a matter to Laa Ehon himself would be to make the authority of the Officer of the Day himself appear petty.
It was not that the Officer feared Laa Ehon's anger if he made the wrong decision. When on duty his own right to decide was unquestionable. Rather it was what he would think of himself if he made the wrong decision.
"If it is of interest to the untarnished sir," volunteered Shane, "my assistant is, of course, like myself, a member of the Courier-Translator Corps of the First Captain...."
"I see," said the Officer. "Certainly, in that case, I cannot doubt its worthiness to be admitted to this place. The permission is given. Chief Clerk, you will attend to the necessary orders of record for such admission."
"At once, untarnished sir," answered the Chief Clerk, who had been standing back a pace, deferentially. He spoke a simple and somewhat blurred, but passable Aalaag, at least as far as these common phrases went.
"You may both go."
"We obey, untarnished sir," said the Chief Clerk, and led Shane out.
So it was that Shane brought in Maria; and put her through a series of answers in Aalaag to questions which he made to her in that tongue, for the edification of his small class. The trainees listened as if their lives depended on it—as it could be they did—and Shane was left with the feeling that at least some of them were reassured that they had not been put to an impossible task of learning.
But he was most pleased by the oldest of the group, a man named Julio Ramarco, a short, grizzled man of fifty-eight whose list of known languages had shown only eleven known intimately, but over twenty known to some extent. At the bottom of the list had been an apparently reasonless note: "I also have perfect pitch."
What had impelled Ramarco to mention this apparently irrelevant musical ability, Shane did not ask. But the note had started him thinking. He himself had perfect pitch, as it happened, and so did a sizable minority among the courier-translators in Lyt Ahn's Corps. It had not seemed to give the ones having it any greatly noticeable advantage—but there might be some connection. Meanwhile, the long list of partially known tongues was evidence that Ramarco was likely to have a real interest in languages in general.
Accordingly, Shane had given some special attention to the man, and this had paid off. Ramarco was by far the surest and fastest learner in the class. Shane had named him acting Second Officer and trained him to run the rest of the class through a drill consisting of the easier phrases in Aalaag, repeated over and over in an attempt to improve their pronunciation. As a result, Shane now had a sub-teacher who could fill in for him in his absence.
Shane was now able to retire Maria from the classroom and the Headquarters building; and, in fact, it was only the day after he had done this that they received an unannounced visit by Laa Ehon.
Shane had been expecting it, but not this soon. It was the reason he had maneuvered the Chief Clerk into letting him speak directly to the Officer of the Day. While the latter had been effectively compelled to give Maria permission to enter the building, he had been almost as obligated to mention his decision to Laa Ehon—unofficially submitting the decision for his superior's judgment.
That Laa Ehon would be drawn to visit the class as a result, to see what was going on, was not so
certain—but fairly sure.
So it was that the door to the classroom opened one day and Laa Ehon walked in.
The class was on its feet in an instant and, like Shane, at automatic attention. It was not on them, however, that Laa Ehon's gaze settled first, but on Shane.
"I am informed you have brought an assistant into this matter," he said abruptly.
"That is correct, immaculate sir," answered Shane. "I made use of my former assistant in the Courier-Translator Corps of the First Captain, who is aiso my mate and of which the immaculate sir will remember we spoke on my arrival."
Laa Ehon considered him for a moment.
"Yes, I remember," he said. "I would like to see this mate-assistant of yours. Have it step forward from the rest."
"This beast regrets, immaculate sir," said Shane, "the beast to which the immaculate sir refers is not here. Having finished its most recent duty, it now sleeps in its lodging elsewhere in the city."
"Ah," said Laa Ehon. For some reason even Shane had never been able to understand, the Aalaag were extremely punctilious about not disturbing each other on their off-duty time; and this punctiliousness extended to allowing even their human cattle rest and sleep when these were due them—although nothing other than the most alert attention was tolerated when a beast was on its job. "You will bring it, then, for me to view at the first convenient opportunity."