The Alien Way

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” demanded Thornybright.

  “But—,” Jase went on, “as I was going to say, they’ve only encountered worlds so occupied twice before. And in neither case were the intelligence of these races, or their civilization, anywhere near level with our own. The higher of the two was perhaps on a level with Pithecanthropus of over two hundred thousand years ago on earth, with a brain two-thirds the size of present-day man. There’s nothing in the Ruml gestalt so far that leads me to believe that they’re incapable of nonviolent contact and association with their mental and cultural equals, such as us. The business of sending an expedition is merely normal procedure with them—”

  “Jase,” interrupted Dystra, quietly. Jase fell silent. “I think,” said the physicist, “we’ve cleared up the meaning of the word ‘conquest’ in this context. Anyone anything more to say about that?” He looked around the table. “All right, suppose we get to a question that I think is considerably more to the point. Jase—” His eyes under their tangled and bushy brows swung back to center on the face of Jase. “You seem to be assuming that your contact, Kator, is going to win this duel.”

  “I think he will,” said Jase.

  “You think” said Dystra. “This fencing master—Brodth—doesn’t seem to share your confidence, and he’s supposed to be their expert.” He turned to face down toward the blond-headed, brilliant young man who was the only physician on the Board. “Alan, what about it? If Jase’s in contact with this Kator, and Kator’s killed in the duel, what happens?”

  Alan Creel pursed his lips.

  “I can only guess,” he said. “We weren’t exactly in a position to kill off one of our human volunteers when we were testing this linkage equipment to find out what would happen to the other. If the Ruml’s killed… well—” He hesitated.

  “I'll put it bluntly,” said Dystra. “Would Jase die, too?”

  “Well…” said Creel, “there’s no definite reason why he should… On the other hand, the psychic shock would have to be extremely severe. Someone with a weak heart, say, would be inviting a fatal result. Jase, of course, is in top physical condition or we wouldn’t have picked him for this work. But, even at that, he’s going to share Kator’s reactions. He’ll die, psychically, at the same time Kator does. Of course, maybe the linkage between their minds will fail just before the actual moment of death, in which case there’d be no psychic shock at all. Jase would just find himself out of contact.”

  “But on the whole,” Dystra pounded softly on the table with one heavy fist, you wouldn’t advise staying in contact with a mind as it dies?”

  “Advise it? Certainly not!” said Creel. “I’d advise against it. In fact—” He turned to look at Jase. “That’s what I do right now. Advise against it.”

  “I don’t think,” said Jase, deliberately, “Kator’s going to lose that duel.”

  “But if he does?” Dystra demanded.

  “If he does—” Jase broke off and then started again. “Well, if he does, we still can’t risk losing what we might learn from my contact with him between now and then. Once broken, chances are the contact can’t be renewed—you remember we established that on our tests with humans. And if two humans can’t get back into contact again after breaking it, what’s the chances of a human and alien managing it—when the alien doesn’t know he’s contacted and they’re two hundred light years apart?”

  “I don’t think,” put in Thornybright, “that we’ve got the right to decide to risk Jase’s We, or whatever damage might come to him.”

  “You don’t have to—,” began Jase. But Thornybright broke in on him.

  “I'm not through, Jase. What I started to say—” The psychologist tapped deliberately on the polished surface of the table with a spatulate forefinger. The ticking of his fingernail against the table was emphatic in the quiet room. “—And I don’t mean to insult or blame Jase in any way when I say this-the situation in this experiment is getting completely out of hand.”

  “Completely?” asked Heller, raising his eyebrows.

  “I chose the word deliberately,” Thornybright glanced at the biologist who had been Jase’s teacher before turning back to address the gathering as a whole. “All of us here—except Mele—sit in a position of responsibility toward an experiment that involves not only a human guinea pig but possibly the future of the whole human race. As it stands right now, there’s a chance our world may be attacked by an alien race many times our number and with a longer history of space travel and experience. Our single human contact with this race—our peephole on their Homeworld—is showing signs—forgive me, Jase, but it’s how I feel—of being at least partisan, if not actually subconsciously influenced by the alien mind with which he is in contact—”

  “Just a minute!” broke in Jase. “I can’t let that go into the record without saying something. I deny any influence, subconscious or otherwise. As for any desire to be partisan—”

  “You wouldn’t have to be consciously partisan,” said Thornybright. “Merely sharing Kator’s emotional drive toward his own goals could cause you to identify with those goals to the point where your human judgment might be biased. Can you look at me right now and guarantee me that nothing like that can have happened to you since you first made contact?”

  Jase opened his lips and closed them again. Then he spoke.

  “I’m positive,” he said, “nothing like that has happened.”

  “You don’t guarantee it, however,” said Thornybright. “I’ll go on. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, we’ve got a situation coming up in which our human guinea pig may be risking his own life, if not lesser damage. Now,” Thornybright looked deliberately around at all the faces at the table, “I don’t say we ought to vote to make Jase break contact before the danger of the duel threatens him. I do say, as I’ve said before in this room, that it’s time to turn this experiment over to the proper authorities. It’s not for us to decide—either on matters of Jason’s life or on matters of possible attack on our world by an alien civilization.”

  “As far as my own life’s concerned,” said Jase, “I claim the right to make the decision about that.”

  “The other half of the decision remains, in any case,” said Thornybright. “Now—” He leaned forward. “I brought in a man for lunch today at the Foundation building here. An Air Force three star General, William Coth. I introduced him to Jase and Mele just now. He’s a good man, he does special jobs for the Administration, and he has a strong background in the sciences combined with a proper respect for the research process. If we move now—instead of waiting until the last minute—to turn this project over to the government, I’m sure our wishes as to the man to take authority over it will be respected. Coth is ideal for the job, from our point of view.”

  He swung about to face both Jase and Mele.

  “You two met him,” he said. “I leave it up to you. How did Bill Coth impress you?”

  “I—,” began Mele hesitantly, but Jase cut her off.

  “He impressed me a good deal,” said Jase. “I believe he’s everything Tim here says he is. But the question before us here isn’t yet who to turn the project over to. It’s whether to turn it over. Probably—and I trust Tim in this—we couldn’t find a better man than Coth. But I still say we ought to stay independent on this experiment until the very last minute. I repeat—there’re elements and qualities to the Rural culture which I haven’t been able to render to you. There’s just no way of getting across what I’ve felt in the process of being Kator. Maybe, once I completely understand these things I can explain them to you. At least I’ll be able to let you know that I can’t do anything with them. Now, this upcoming duel with Kator is crucial. I want to go through with it. With no one but the Board behind me.”

  “Move we put the matter to a vote,” said Dystra.

  “Second!” said Heller, quickly.

  “Object,” said Thornybright. “I move for further discussion of this po
int.”

  “Vote on the prior movement,” said Dystra. “All in favor…?

  The vote was straight down the middle. Everybody looked at Jase.

  “I vote,” said Jase, slowly, “to keep control of this experiment in the hands of this board and to go through the duel with Kator, whether he is killed or not. —I vote aye.”

  He looked at Thornybright. The eyes of the psychologist were unreadable in a poker face. Turning away from them, he came face to face with the staring eyes of Mele.

  Those eyes were harder to turn away from. He remembered what Creel had said about the possibilities for him if Kator should die while Jase was in linkage. And he remembered what at times he came close to forgetting—that Mele loved him.

  Chapter Nine

  The day the Examination of the Artifact was completed, Jase was standing in his room, adding the ceremonial kilt for official functions to his weapons’ harness, when the door spoke to him.

  “Bela Firstcousin wishes to enter,” it said.

  Jase turned toward the door.

  “Enter,” he said.

  The door opened, and Bela Firstcousin came in. He looked at Jase with a strange new combination of liking and respect.

  “I’m sent to you with a message,” he said. “The Brutogas wants to see you in his office, before you leave the Castle.”

  “The Brutogas?”

  Jase’s hands hesitated on his kilt. He understood now the reason for the sudden, almost shy, respect in his older cousin and occasional companion outside the Family walls. A sudden bitter sadness of superstition assailed him. He had liked Aton Maternaluncle, his scout partner—and he had been forced to kill Aton. Bela, here, had been his one close acquaintance within the family, and now he was leaving Bela behind. Solitary are the great men, said the proverb; and it was true. He became aware that Bela was watching him in surprise.

  “Why do you mourn?” Bela asked. “It is a great Honor as Family Honors go.”

  “I know. It’s just—I feel the passage of time, suddenly,” said Jase. His hands finished adjusting the kilt. “You talk,” said Bela, watching him, “like a man who has already achieved an honorable age.”

  “That, too?” said Jase, a little bitterly. “I’m ready. Are you conducting me?”

  “I'll take you to the top level of the Castle and point the way for you,” said Bela. “I can’t go any farther with you, and none of the immediate family can honorably be the guide of a Secondcousin. Come on.”

  He led Jase out of the room, along corridors, and up two sweeps of curving ramps to a heavy, tall, white door with a golden handle. Bela took hold of the handle, turned it, and with effort pushed open the door enough to admit the body of Kator.

  “The Brutogas has four attendants to open such doors,” said Bela with a grimace. “Hurry through.”

  But Jase hesitated for a moment. Through the partial opening of the door he looked down a long, lofty corridor of white marble pierced with tall windows along its right wall. The morning sunlight through those windows lost its white harshness upon the marble and became soft and glowing.

  “Hurry!” repeated Bela, straining against the weight of the door. “Water, shade, and peace go with you.”

  “Thank you, cousin,” said Jase, gratefully—and walked through into the sunlit corridor. Behind him he heard the door close with a solemn boom, but now he did not look back. Bela had told him the route to the office of the Brutogas. Jase followed it.

  Early in the morning as it was, he passed over the whole route without encountering any of the immediate family/When he came at last to the smaller, white door with a gold handle that was his destination, memory awoke in him. He did not remember how he had got here, but he remembered being here on the single previous occasion of his life—and the single only occasion normally allowed to those not of the immediate family. It had been on his naming day, the traditional third hour after he had left his mother’s pouch. Of course, he had seen the Brutogas on a number of Family ceremonies and occasions since then—though never close up. But now, raising his hand to the golden handle of the office door, it all came back; and he remembered the Head of his family not as the grayed and stooping man of honorable age he had seen at ceremonies, but as a mysterious towering figure who put a hand on his head and rumbled some deep, incomprehensible sounds that he was later to learn were “Kator Secondcousin Brutogas.”

  Jase’s neck trembled under its black fur with the memory. He put his hand to the handle, opened the door without speaking—for here on the top level there were no Keysmen, locks, or door speakers—and entered the office.

  It was a smaller room than Jase’s memories pictured it. Before the tall window and behind a desk on a low pedestal, squatted rather than curled the Brutogas. He was now in person as Jase remembered him from the Family occasions and ceremonies—a gray, stooped Ruml of honorable age. Kator approached the desk and inclined his head.

  “I am Kator Secondcousin, sir,” he said.

  The Brutogas considered him, almost ponderingly.

  “Yes,” said the Family Head, at last, “you were an active youngster. They could hardly keep you still in here on your Naming Day. Well,” he pushed the papers on the desk aside. “We understand you have ambitions to lead the expedition shortly to be sent to the Homework! of the Muffled People.”

  “Sir?” said Jase, blankly.

  “You don’t know? That’s the name they’ve pinned on those aliens who originated that artifact you found and brought back because they evidently wrap themselves in cloths. But you haven’t answered my question about wanting to lead the expedition?”

  “Sir,” said Jase, carefully, “I’ve no idea what the Examination Center has discovered and deduced about the artifact—“

  “Quite right,” the Family Head nodded approvingly. “Don’t go off half-cocked until you know what you’re getting into. As it happens, I’ve got a copy of the report here. Would you like to know what the Center found?”

  “Yes sir,” said Jase, standing as stiffly straight as the hinging of his spine with his pelvis allowed. I would.”

  “Well,” said the Brutogas, flicking back the top sheet of a sheaf of papers lying before him on the desk, “the conclusions are that the aliens are about our size, biped, of a comparable level of civilization—“

  A small sound of excitement escaped Jase in spite of himself.

  “That’s right,” said the Brutogas, looking up, and repeating himself, slowly. “A comparable level of civilization. The challenge of a race like that will be greater than anything in the history of man. But to go on…” He resumed reading, “A comparable level of civilization but probably loaded with taboos from an earlier, more primitive stage which would take the place of a system of Honor. They—you have a question?”

  “Sir?” asked Jase. “Can any intelligent beings grow to a level of civilization without developing a concept and system of Honor?”

  The Brutogas nodded approvingly.

  “The report considers that question,” he said. “The conclusion is: No, of course they can’t avoid the concept of Honor. Development of a civilization requires a racial self-awareness, self-awareness means that they must become conscious of the duty of racial survival as an intellectual matter, and the evolution of a concept of Honor to insure that survival would be inescapable.”

  He looked thoughtfully at Jase.

  “On the other hand,” he said, “it is almost as much a foregone conclusion that our own system of Honor would be utterly incomprehensible to them. The chances of it occurring spontaneously in an alien race are too small to be reckoned in any sensible numbers. What the Examination Center considers most likely—as I repeated to you—is that this race will have a system of primitive taboos elaborated to fit the complexities of a technological civilization. So that while they will, in effect, operate within a sort of system of Honor for the sake of survival, they will not understand it.”

  “But, sir,” said Jase, “that means that any expedition
sent against them stands a very good chance of success!”

  “Secondcousin, Secondcousin,” said the Brutogas, shaking his head. “Do you think one advantage insures success? They may have either personal or technological advantages of their own over us.”

  “But, surely,” said Jase, “no material or characteral advantage could compare with an advantage a system of Honor has over any system?”

  “Abstractly speaking, of course not,” said the Brutogas. “But practically speaking, there may be serious stumbling blocks in the matter of mere alien numbers or ability of alien weapons. It is an honorable endeavor to die to a good purpose, but it is not honorable to risk bleeding the race dry. If all the fathers are killed, who will engender the sons?”

  Jase stood silent, feeling rebuked.

  “There remains as well,” said the Brutogas, after a pause, “the possibility that they do have—not the same system of Honor as ourselves—but a comparable one we cannot yet identify. Possibly even a superior one.”

  “Superior?” Jase stared at tie Head of his Family.

  “Theoretically, it’s possible,” said the Brutogas. “Remember how it’s said, ‘Honor is without limit, effort is without limit. Only Man has a limit.’”

  Jase inclined his head.

  “Now,” said the Brutogas, “will you answer me about your desire to lead the expedition to this Homeworld of Muffled People?”

  “Sir,” replied Jase, "I desire it very much.”

  “Yes. I was sure you did.” The Brutogas breathed out softly through his nose and stroked the stiff, gray whiskers around his mouth and nose, which were twice as long as those of Kator Secondcousin. “And, of course, it would do our Family reputation no harm to have a member of our name Keysman on such an expedition.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “No, that’s all right. However,” said the Brutogas, slowly, “there’s something you have to understand. It’s the reason I called you here today. The political climate at the moment is such that I cannot in Honor risk the prestige of the Family in attempting to help you capture the Keysman post in this expedition—or even the post of Captain—“