Way of the Pilgrim

by Matt

  A house of weapons it was indeed; but its military potency lay not in the awesomely destructive, by human standards, devices on its walls. Behind the silver protective screen that covered the building were larger, portable devices capable of leveling to slagged ruin the Earth surrounding, to and beyond the horizon in all directions. For a moment Shane was reminded of what he had not thought of for years, of those human military units that in the first days of the Aalaag landing on Earth had been foolish enough to try resisting the alien invasion. They had been destroyed almost without thought on the invaders' part, like hills of ants trodden underfoot by giants.

  To all destructive devices known to human science and technology, including the nuclear ones, even a single Aalaag in full battle armor was invulnerable. Against the least weapon carried by an individual Aalaag, no human army could, in the end, survive. Nor would an Aalaag weapon work in the hands of any but one of the aliens. It was not merely a matter of humans understanding how to activate it. There was also some built-in recognition by the weapon itself that it was not in Aalaag hands, which in others' hands turned it into no more man a dead piece of heavy material; at most, a weighty club.

  Walking down the wide, high-ceilinged, solitary corridor where no other figures, human or alien, were to be seen, Shane felt coming over him once again the sense of shrinking that always took him over in this place.

  It was a feeling like that which Swift's hero, Lemuel Gulliver, had described in Gulliver's Travels, as happening when he had found himself in the land of the giant Brobdingnagians. Like Gulliver, then, each time Shane found himself in this place, a time would come when he would begin to feel that it was the Aalaag and all their artifacts which were normal in size, while he, like all other humans and human creations, was shrunk to the scale of pygmies. Shrunk, not only in a physical sense, but in all other senses as well; in mind and spirit and courage and wisdom, in all those things that could make one race into something more than mere "cattle" to another.

  He checked abruptly, passing a door that was uncharacteristically human-sized in one wall of that overlarge hall, and turned in through it to one of the few rooms on this corridor equipped to dispose of human waste. There was no telling how long he might be in the presence of Lyt Ahn, and there would be no excusing himself then for physical or personal needs. No Aalaag would have dreamed of so excusing himself while on duty, and therefore no human servant might.

  He stood before a urinal, emptying his bladder with a momentary sense of stolen freedom, only secondary to that which he yearned for in his own quarters. Here, too, for the moment, in theory he was free of Aalaag observation and rules, and the Gulliver-like sensation lifted, briefly.

  But the moment passed. A minute later he was toy-sized again, back outside in the corridor, walking ever nearer to the entrance of Lyt Ahn's private office.

  He stopped at last before great double doors of bronze-colored material. With the tip of the index finger of his right hand, he lightly touched the smooth surface of the panel closest to him.

  There was a pause. He could not hear, but he knew that within the office a sensor had recorded his touch as being that of a human, and a mechanical voice was announcing that "a beast desires admittance."

  "Who?" came an Aalaag voice from the ceiling. Unusually, it was not that of an Aalaag secretary or aide—but of Lyt Ahn himself.

  "One of your cattle, most immaculate sir," answered Shane. "Shane-beast, reporting as ordered, following a courier run to the immaculate sir in command at Milan, Italy."

  The right-hand door swung open and Shane walked through it, into the office. Under a white ceiling as lofty as that of the hall, and large enough for a small ballroom by human standards, the gray-colored desk was a surface afloat in midair, the chairs, the couches standing on the rugless floor of the same black-and-white tiles, were all simple blocks, with no back rests. Also, they were all built to the scale of the nine-foot aliens. There was no padding or upholstery on any of them, but the material of which they were made was resilient.

  Lyt Ahn was indeed alone; seated, looming behind his desk, which held in its surface a screen like that in the desk of the officer in the corridor, plus a scattering of some small artifacts, each tiny enough to be encompassed in Shane's merely human hand, but showing no recognizable shapes or purposes. In a like situation, on a human desk, they might have been miniature sculptures. But the Aalaag owned no art, nor showed interest in any. What they really were, and their purpose in being there, was still an unsolved puzzle to Shane. On the wall to his right as Shane entered was a larger screen, now unlit, some three-by-two meters in area. In the left wall was an Aalaag-sized single door that led to Lyt Ahn's private apartments.

  Lyt Ahn raised his head to look at Shane as the human stepped through the doorway, taking one pace and then halting.

  "Come here," the alien Commander said; and, both permitted and ordered—for the two words were one in Aalaag— Shane came up to the far side of the desk.

  The First Captain of all Earth gazed at him. Just as Aalaag had difficulty distinguishing between individual humans, so most humans, aside from the fact that they saw their overlords most commonly in armor and therefore faceless, were not adept at telling one Aalaag from another. Shane gazed back. He had been in close contact with the alien Commander since Lyt Ahn had formed his corps of human interpreters, nearly three years before. Shane not only recognized the First Captain, he had become expert at studying the other for small clues to his master's momentary mood. Like all humans nowadays he was dependent; in this case, dependent upon the First Captain not only for food and shelter but for a continuance of life itself. He studied his master daily, as a lamb might study the lion with which it was required to lie down each night; and just at the moment, he thought now that he read fatigue and a deep-seated worry, plus something else he could not identify, in the visage of the towering individual before him.

  "Laa Ehon, of the sixth rank and Commander of the Milan garrison has received your sending, most immaculate sir, and sends his courtesies to the First Captain," said Shane. "He returned no message by me."

  "Did he not, little Shane-beast?" said Lyt Ahn. Shane's name was uttered in what was as close to an affectionate diminutive as the alien language possessed; but the words were obviously spoken more to Lyt Ahn, himself, than to the human.

  Shane's heart took an upward leap. Lyt Ahn was clearly in as warm and confidential a mood as it was possible for an Aalaag to be—and more so than Shane had ever seen any other alien permit himself. Nonetheless, there was also in the other that impression of worry and concern with some problem that Shane had noted on first entering the room; and he continued covertly to study the heavy-boned face opposite. There was a greater impression of age about his master than he had ever seen before, although the face was barely lined, and there was no way that age could have made the hair of the Earth's Supreme Commander any whiter than that of any other adult Aalaag. It would have been yellowish at birth, but purely snow-colored by puberty, which in the aliens seemed to come about the age of eighteen to twenty-five Earth years.

  Nor was there anything else different about the grayish eyes in the pale Aalaag skin that never appeared to tan. With its great, sharp bones and colorlessness it gave the impression of being carved out of a soft, gray-white stone. But still, somehow, it also managed to give Shane not only the impression of great age, but of that same weariness and emotion that currently seemed to be at work in the First Captain.

  As Shane watched, the massive figure got slowly to its feet, walked around from behind its desk and sat down on one of the long blocks that did duty as couches. The change of position was a signal that the meeting had now become informal. Lyt Ahn was dressed in black boots and a white, single-piece suit, like any other alien on duty. Shane turned as the other moved, in order to keep facing his master, and, after a moment, saw the eyes that had been looking more through him than otherwise focus directly upon him.

  "Come here, Shane-beast," said L
yt Ahn.

  Shane moved forward until he stood one alien-sized step from the seated alien. Lyt Ahn studied him for a long moment. Their heads were on a level. Then, reaching out, he cupped an enormous hand gently, for a moment, over Shane's head.

  Shane checked his body from tensing just in time. Physical contact was almost unknown amongst the Aalaag themselves, and unheard of between Aalaag and human; but Shane had learned over the last two years that Lyt Ahn permitted himself freedoms beyond those generally used by those lesser in rank than himself. The large hand that could easily have crushed the bones of Shane's skull rested lightly for a moment on Shane's head and then was withdrawn.

  "Little Shane-beast," said Lyt Ahn—and unless it was his imagination it seemed to Shane that he heard in the Aalaag voice the same tiredness he had suspected in the First Captain's face—"are you contented?"

  There was no word in the Aalaag language for "happy." "Contented" or "very interested" were the closest possible expressions of it. Shane felt a sudden fear of an unknown trap in the question, and for a second he debated telling Lyt Ahn that he was, indeed, contented. But Aalaag could accept nothing but truth, and the First Captain had always allowed his human interpreters a freedom of opinion no other Aalaag permitted.

  "No, most immaculate sir," Shane answered. "I would be contented only if this world was as it was before the untarnished race came among us."

  Lyt Ahn did not sigh. But Shane, used to the First Captain, and having studied him as only children, animals and slaves have always studied those who hold their life and every freedom in their hands, received the clear impression that the other would have sighed if he had only been physiologically and psychologically capable of doing so.

  "Yes," said the First Captain, absently looking through him once more, "your race makes unhappy cattle, true enough."

  Fear came back to Shane and chilled him to the bone. He told himself that Lyt Ahn could by no means have discovered this soon what he had done illegally in Milan, but the words the alien Supreme Commander had just now used came too close to his knowledge of guilt not to cause him to stiffen internally.

  For a second he debated trying to entice Lyt Ahn to be more explicit about whatever had caused him to make such a remark. Ordinarily, a human did not speak unless ordered to do so. But the First Captain had always allowed Shane and the other translators unusual freedom in that respect. Shane checked, however, at the thought, for two reasons. One, his uncertainty of how such a question could be phrased without offense; and two, a fear that if Lyt Ahn did indeed suspect him of some violation of proper conduct, any such asking would only confirm the suspicion.

  He stood silent, therefore, and simply waited, in the helplessness of the totally dependent. Either Lyt Ahn would speak further, or the First Captain would dismiss him; and neither of these things could Shane control.

  "Do you find your fellow cattle in any way different these days, Shane-beast?" asked Lyt Ahn.

  5

  Shane's heart jumped. He thought involuntarily of the large, grimy, tenement room in Milan to which he had been kidnapped.

  "No, most immaculate sir," he answered, and felt the danger of his lie like a heavy weight in his chest.

  There was another pause that could have been a sigh from Lyt Ahn.

  "No," said the alien Commander, "perhaps... perhaps even if there were, it would not be such as you they would admit their feelings to. Your fellow cattle do not love those who work for us, do they, little Shane-beast?"

  "No," said Shane, truthfully and bitterly.

  It was that very fact that required him to wear the pilgrim's cloak and carry the pilgrim's staff when he moved about the Earth on Lyt Ahn's business—as Lyt Ahn knew well. The First Captain was in a strange mood today, with his mind off on some problem which at this moment was still unclear to Shane, but which had plainly directed his attention elsewhere than at Shane himself. It occurred to Shane suddenly that now might be an opportunity to cover his tracks in regard to the lesser matter of his having lied to Laa Ehon when that alien had asked him what price Lyt Ahn might put upon him.

  "If the most immaculate sir pleases," Shane said, "this beast was asked a question by the sir who is called Laa Ehon. The question was what price my master might put upon me."

  "So," replied Lyt Ahn, his thoughts clearly still occupied with that primary concern Shane had noted in him. The First Captain's response was in fact no response at all, merely an acknowledgment of the fact that he had heard what Shane had said. Shane allowed himself to hope.

  "I answered," said Shane, "that to the best of my knowledge, the most immaculate sir had valued all of his translator-beasts at half a possession of land—" Shane tried to keep his voice unchanged but for a fraction of a second his breath caught in his throat—"and the favor of my master."

  "So," said Lyt Ahn, still in the same tone of voice.

  He had heard, but clearly he had not heard. Internally, Shane felt the weakness of relief. He had gambled that the First Captain would not remember whether he had or not— and the gamble had now paid off.

  A single musical note from the door leading to the private apartments of the First Captain interrupted the thoughts of both Shane and Lyt Ahn.

  The door swung open to let in a second Aalaag. But this one was a female—and Shane recognized her with something close to panic. She was Adtha Or Ain, the consort of Lyt Ahn; and the panic arose from the fact that Shane was, for the first time in a long time, encountering a situation involving Aalaag mores with which he was not familiar. When, on rare occasions before this, he had anything to do with the consort of the First Captain, it had been with her alone, when he had been sent about the planet with one of her private messages.

  His encounters with her had been purely formal and conducted entirely within the known code of behavior between Aalaag and human beast. On the other hand his private meetings with Lyt Ahn had, like this one, largely come to be informal. There was no way of telling how she would react to the informality he was used to being permitted by Lyt Ahn. On the other hand, it would raise the question of his disobeying Lyt Ahn's authority if he suddenly reverted to the formal mode, after Lyt Ahn, by sitting down on the couch, had, in effect, ordered him to abandon it. There was no way for him to tell whether, if either should address him, he should respond in the formal or the informal mode. Either mode could be a response that would offend either Lyt Ahn or Adtha Or Ain.

  Shane stood motionless and silent, praying that he would be ignored by both aliens. He studied Adtha Or Ain as he had studied Lyt Ahn earlier—and for the same reasons. There was something like a bitterness that he had always noted in her, but it had always seemed to be hard-held under control. In this moment, however, that control seemed to have loosened.

  For the moment, his luck seemed to be holding. Lyt Ahn had risen from the couch and gone to meet Adtha Or Ain. They stopped, facing each other, an Aalaag arm's length apart, looking into each other's faces.

  Adtha Or Ain was slightly the taller of the two, but, aside from that, if Shane had not come to recognize the slight sexual differences in Aalaag bodies, it would have been hard to tell the two apart. Their dress was identical. Only the slight individuality of their features, that individuality which Shane had finally taught himself to look for over these past years, and the individual difference of their voices, marked them apart. Adult Aalaag females, like human ones, tended to speak in somewhat higher voices than the males of their race—although the difference was nowhere near as marked as in humans—particularly in the case of an older Aalaag female like Adtha Or Ain, whose voice had deepened with age.

  Now, the two stood facing each other. There was a tension between them that Shane sensed strongly, and with that feeling came another wave of relief. If these two would just stay completely concerned with each other, he would in effect be invisible—of no more importance to them than the furniture in the room, and the chances of either requiring an answer from him would be almost nil. For the first time, Shane dare
d to look on them as an observer might, rather than as a potential victim of their meeting.

  They did not touch. Nonetheless, Shane's experience with the Aalaag, and elsewhere, let him read into their confrontation a closeness—love was a word that did not exist in the Aalaag language—which implied that, had they been humans, they might have touched. At the same time, however, Shane felt a sadness and an anger in Adtha Or Ain and a sort of helpless pity in Lyt Ahn.

  The two ignored him.

  "Perhaps," said Lyt Ahn, "you should rest." "No," said Adtha Or Ain. "Rest is no rest to me, at times like this."

  "You make yourself suffer unnecessarily."

  She turned aside and walked around the First Captain. He turned also to look after her. She went to the wall bearing the large screen; and although Shane could not see her make any motion to turn it on, it woke to light and image before her, the starkness of what it showed dominating the room.

  The three-dimensional shape on it was the last that Shane could have imagined. It was of an adult male Aalaag, without armor, but carrying all personal weapons and encased in a block of something brownishly translucent, like an insect in amber.