by Matt
"Peter pushed me behind him at the last minute before they fired," she had told Shane. "I couldn't pull myself out with my leg broken. I felt sure someone would come and then, when they didn't, cold as it was... I just went to sleep."
"I'll be back!" he shouted at her fiercely from the corridor, as he was finally led away by Shepherd.
"Where are we going?" he demanded of the other man. They had been caught up with and surrounded by half a dozen men also in cloaks and carrying staves, some with the same faces as those who had taken him through the crowd to the House of Weapons. "Where's your friend Wong?"
Shepherd coughed dryly.
"Mr. Wong and I belong to different areas of thought," he said. "Now that the Aalaag are leaving, we more or less find ourselves on opposite sides of the table again. But nevermind mat. A few others have come out of the aliens' Headquarters building since you did; and we managed to save some of them from the crowds of pilgrims roaming the streets. The word they give us is that the chief Aalaag—the one you worked for personally—is just about to leave for their Fleet, which is up in orbit; and he won't be back. We didn't expect that—I suppose we expected like a ship's captain he'd be the last to leave when the ship went down. If he does go, the question it leaves us with is—who down here speaks for the aliens until the rest of them are all gone? We need you to go back into the Headquarters building and find that out for us."
They were getting into a car—no, into several cars, for cloaked attendants were evidently once more going to escort them. Shane let himself be bundled into the back seat of one large car and was joined a second later by Mr. Shepherd.
"What on earth do you want to know that for?" Shane asked, staring at the other man. "With the Aalaag there'll always be someone in command; but what difference does it make to you who it is?"
"It's just that there could be things to discuss," said Shepherd, as the car pulled away. "The ownership of what they're leaving behind them, for example, whether they ever intend to come back, whether we'd be welcome if we ever get out into space and run into their people again—that sort of thing."
"My God!" Shane stared at him. "You don't suppose one of the Aalaag'd speak to you, or any other human about things like that, do you?"
He put his hands to his head.
"When are people like you going to understand that the Aalaag aren't like us?" he demanded. "Would you let yourself be stopped and oinked at if you were leaving a farmyard full of pigs—or stopped and baaed at if you were leaving a flock of sheep? They don't care about anything they leave behind; and they care less than that about us."
"But we need to know as much as we can, in any case, don't you see?" said Shepherd persuasively. "Knowledge is valuable; and we've still got a little while in which to learn things from them. If you could find even one who'd be willing to come out and explain just why they're leaving—"
"They're leaving because we showed them we'd rather die than go on being their slaves," said Shane. He stared at the older man. "Don't you understand that? They do!"
"Of course. But—"
'To this day," said Shane, "there isn't one of them who can make sense out of more than one or two stray sounds in any human language. You couldn't talk to one of them in anything but Aalaag; and when you talk to him or her in Aalaag, you'd automatically be talking about the universe as they see it. There's no way to describe to them the universe as we see it—or even this world and us—in any terms but theirs; and their terms automatically describe it and us the way they see those things, not the way we do. So what's the use of your knowing who's in command, or getting any one of them to talk to you? Even if you had a language in common, he'd never understand you; and you—God help you and those like you—you'd never understand him!"
Mr. Shepherd seemed to draw in on himself, sitting more stiffly.
"We thought you'd be willing to do this one last thing for us," he said. "We thought you'd want to be helpful."
"Helpful!" echoed Shane.
He thought of what it must be like now in the House of Weapons. He thought of the news that Lyt Ahn was about to leave; and suddenly his attitude changed. Maybe, after all, there were things to be done by going back in there as Shepherd wanted; particularly if Shane could talk to Lyt Ahn himself, before the First Captain took off—as he would be doing eventually, in his own personal ship from the landing area on the roof of the building.
There was nothing Shane could do about what Shepherd and his friends wanted to learn from the Aalaag; but there was just a chance he might be able to reach through to Lyt Ahn in a different way, with a different message that would be more worthwhile to Earth's children in coming centuries than anything else that could be said to any Aalaag, if Lyt Ahn would listen to it.
"All right," said Shane. 'Take me there. I'll go in if they let me and do what I can."
So the car he was in, preceded and followed through the streets, and flanked once it entered the square, by the other vehicles accompanying it, brought Shane at last to a point where the scattered bodies left no more room to drive closer to the entrance. The entrance itself was still open, wide, tall, dark and unguarded.
"Wait for me here," Shane said, getting out. "And I do mean—wait!"
He went in.
Unlike the last time he had walked these halls, there were fewer humans to be seen and almost no Aalaag, but all moved with a definite purpose and none of the humans this time made any attempt to talk to Shane.
He went toward Lyt Ahn's office; but when he got there he found its door open and no Aalaag either at Lyt Ahn's desk or at the desk of his aide. His heart suddenly pumping with urgency, Shane turned and headed toward the roof landing area.
He took one of the elevators that had traditionally been forbidden humans; and it was fortunate that he did so, for he stepped out of the elevator inside the square of armed and armored Aalaag who were plainly on guard around the landing area. The back of a tall, armored figure that the years of experience had taught Shane to recognize as the First Captain in full war panoply was striding toward the waiting personal vessel.
"Stop!" said the nearest Aalaag on guard, swinging his long arm around toward Shane. Shane ignored him.
"First Captain!" he shouted after the retreating figure. "You are still First Captain and still have a duty to hear what I have to say—for the sake of your duty to the Aalaag!"
The tall figure took two more steps as if it had not heard, then checked and slowly turned. The face was obscured. The silver protective screen over the helmet was complete.
"Let it come to me," said Lyt Ahn's voice from the featureless helmet.
The Aalaag covering Shane with the potential death in his long arm moved that weapon aside. Shane walked forward toward Lyt Ahn. It had been so long since he had seen the First Captain in full gear that he had forgotten what an imposing sight the other made. It was not until he halted, an Aalaag pace from the First Captain, that the facial area cleared of its protective screen and the features of Lyt Ahn looked down at him.
"What duty to the Aalaag do you speak of, beast?" he said.
"Have you forgotten who I am so soon?" answered Shane. "I am Shane-beast. I was the Pilgrim and also in my duties to the Aalaag a faithful servant to you. I spoke the truth."
"What have the noises of a beast to do with my duty?"
"I am Shane-beast. Call me by that name."
"All beasts are but beasts to me. Answer quickly, or you will be destroyed."
"I have faced destruction many times. Now is no different," said Shane; and was surprised to realize that he meant what he said. "What happens in this moment is more important than my life—or yours, First Captain of the Aalaag Expedition to this planet."
"We will both pass away, soon enough," said Lyt Ahn, expressionlessly. "I will give you one more chance to say something that will justify my listening to you."
"You must not go on that reconnaissance to discover what has become of your son."
There was a brief but tense
Aalaag silence.
"I must not? Do you use those words to me, beast?"
"You will not, for the sake of your duty."
"My duty forbids it? You are truly unwell, beast." Lyt Ahn began to turn back toward his waiting vessel.
"Your duty to the survival of the Aalaag," said Shane. "Your own knowledge that to some extent, Laa Ehon, though unwell, was correct."
"Correct? What beast-nonsense is this—even assuming a beast could know if an Aalaag was correct or incorrect?"
"Listen to me, First Captain," said Shane. "I said once in your office that in some ways the Aalaag and we humans were too much alike. The Aalaag would not endure conquest. We humans found we could not endure conquest. But we still live and grow. The Aalaag have stopped growing and are beginning to die. You know this."
Shane stopped, waiting for a reaction from the tall figure.
"Go on-—while you can, beast," said Lyt Ahn.
"Laa Ehon would have taken the first step in giving up the old, old dream of recovering your home worlds; and beginning to live and grow all over again as a new race on new worlds. I would not have understood that myself a year ago, but my mate has helped me to see it. On new worlds, in partnership—not as conquerors and conquered—with whoever own the worlds they settle on, the Aalaag can begin again that growth without which a people must die. It's too late to have such a partnership here, with my people. But the Aalaag can be saved if they look for it elsewhere with a people that, like them and like us, will not be subjugated, but can be lived with."
He stopped speaking. Lyt Ahn made no response.
"That is the duty I spoke of," said Shane swiftly. "Not to go on the reconnaissance, but to stay with your people, alive and speaking out for that truth that you knew to be in part of what Laa Ehon was attempting, and the truth that lay in the fact that in the end, here, we you call beasts chose death rather than to go on being your servants."
He stopped once more.
Again there was silence. Finally, Lyt Ahn broke it.
"You are a beast," he said. "You cannot help being a beast, but you are a beast. There were times past when we were together that I almost forgot that. Listen to me, beast."
He paused.
"I am listening," said Shane.
"You told me you were aware of the useful things that the Aalaag rule had brought to your kind on this planet. You even listed some of them, such as peace among yourselves and cleanliness. Such is the Aalaag way. We improve the lot of those beasts we find on the worlds we occupy."
"In some senses," said Shane.
"In all senses," said Lyt Ahn, "though in the beginning, during the early years, the beasts are not capable of appreciating all that is being done for them. But where they endure, serviceable and appreciative, we continue also, and the time comes when the beasts fully understand and appreciate what has come to them with our coming."
He paused, briefly.
"When that time comes, they are attached to us by stronger bonds than they were ever able to imagine. Life, without us to order and guide them, becomes unthinkable. From that time on, we gradually educate them over hundreds of years in the Aalaag way, and they learn to follow it with gladness. In the end, they are such that we could rely upon them to give us what they should give us and do for us what they should do, even if there was not a single Aalaag on their world to command them to it."
He paused again.
"At last, they become small imitations of the Aalaag," Lyt Ahn said. "They can never become as we are, because they are not—cannot be—us; but they come as close as the beast-limitations of their natures allow them. And these, mark me, beast, are from then on numbered among those destined for special favor."
"And what favor is that?" Shane stared up at him.
"When the time comes that we return to recover our worlds, if they volunteer—and we would never ask them—to follow and spend their strength and their lives to help as far as they can in that great work—we will allow them to so come."
"You will allow them?"
"We will allow them," said Lyt Ahn. "If and when. That was the great possibility that you and your kind have now lost by your behavior. Listen to me, beast."
"I am listening," said Shane.
"Some of our younger officers were unduly impressed by the manner in which some of your ordinary cattle, armed only with rods, attacked and overwhelmed members of my Corps of Interior Guards, who were on duty outside this place that was once my House. In years to come, these young officers will age and grow wiser. They will be disabused of their false admiration."
"It is not false," said Shane.
"It is not surprising that you should hold to that illusion," said Lyt Ahn. "You were correct in that the impetus for it came from your primitive past. But what animated those who attacked was not courage, as you and these young officers seem to believe, but a reflex only, a reflex of unwellness. Your kind is indeed unwell, all of them."
"No," said Shane.
"Your refusal to believe it makes no difference," said Lyt Ahn. "What makes a difference is the fact that we who are Aalaag recognize this unwellness; and so, at my order we have rejected you from the chance of development we have held out to well beasts. You called after me to tell me something you believed of use to me and the Aalaag. I have just told you something that is of use to you and your kind—but you will never believe it."
Shane continued to stare at the heavy, white face looming above him. At last, he was out of words; out of arguments that would touch this one individual among all the Aalaag, whom he had imagined had an open mind.
"You understand now," said Lyt Ahn. "You conceived the conceit that we were leaving because you had shown yourself too brave and independent of nature for us to control. It is not so. We, who do as we wish, build or destroy at our pleasure, choose to abandon you. Not because you have shown that you prefer death to service, but for a far different reason."
"Because we will not be slaves," said Shane thickly.
"No," said Lyt Ahn. "Because you are unworthy."
The silver protective screen flowed back over his face. He turned and strode away toward the ship. Shane watched him go. In the cold sky above there were no clouds and his armored figure loomed enormous. The sun gleamed and radiated from all his silver shape, sparkling in the joints that were the connections between the various parts of the armor as if these were filled with jewels. And it seemed to Shane that he smelled the dust of time.