by Matt
"When I arrived here," Shane answered, "there were twenty-five cattle on the staff of this project. That number has since increased to thirty-two—"
"You need not tell me what I already know," interrupted Laa Ehon. "I'm interested in your opinion of these beasts, only."
"I am corrected, immaculate sir," said Shane. "My opinion of those who have joined the staff since my arrival lacks the benefit of the time I have been able to give to observing those who were here when I came. Nonetheless, all seem trainable, some more so than others, of course, but all are of a level of ability which seems to be adequate to the tasks at which they are set, or about to be set."
"I expected no less," said Laa Ehon. "Are there any in which you find possible weaknesses or inadequacies which might prove a source of problems later?"
"I have observed none, immaculate sir," said Shane. "This is not to say that such may not exist in certain cases. There are two possible sources of future problems that might be mentioned to the immaculate sir. Since the Project is so new and the staff has been together such a short time, it has not yet had time—"
He hesitated.
"Why do you not go on?" said Laa Ehon.
"I am searching for a word to describe something to the immaculate sir, since it is a characteristic of us cattle which the true race does not have and I know of no word for it in the true tongue."
"I understand," said Laa Ehon, which surprised Shane. "Take your time and describe it as best you can."
"One of the characteristics of us who are cattle," said Shane, "is that our relationships, one with the other, change over a period of acquaintanceship—"
"There is indeed a word in the true tongue which describes such a process," said Laa Ehon. "It is an archaic word, seldom used. Nonetheless, I am interested to find that one of Lyt Ann's celebrated translators lacks knowledge of it. The word is—"
The sounds he gave Shane, Shane translated in his own mind into the term 'familiarity.'
"I thank the immaculate sir. They lack, then, familiarity, which will build as time passes and they spend more of it working with each other. This familiarity may improve their working together, or in some cases, it may impede it. Only time will tell. But if I am to estimate which, I would say that my belief is that generally it will improve this group of cattle, although in a body of this number, it is almost inevitable that one or several individuals might later turn out to be beasts better replaced by others."
"Good," said Laa Ehon. "That, now, is the sort of information I want from you. Since I expressed my interest in the fact that you did not know the term 'familiarity,' I will also mention that I am also interested—favorably—in the correctness with which you pronounce it, after having heard it only once from me. So, at present the staff is satisfactory—as far as you can ascertain at this time—but as familiarity takes place within it, some beasts may need to be replaced. But you mentioned a second possible source of future problems."
"Yes, immaculate sir. The second is that, as you know, we cattle are prone to weaknesses which those of the true race do not share. One is that, given authority and over a period of time having become accustomed to having it, the temptation may occasionally occur to one individual beast or another to overuse that authority; perhaps even to put it to work to satisfy some personal desire, or protect it against a work failure on its own part from discovery by the cattle in authority over it, or even by one of the true race. But again, this is something that it will be necessary to wait to find out."
"I find what you say interesting indeed," said Laa Ehon. "I am pleased with your lack of hesitation in telling me of possible flaws in the staff members which would be the product of flaws you freely admit are common to your kind. I am to assume, am I not, that you also share the possibility of being hampered by these flaws?"
"I am obligated to admit so, immaculate sir," said Shane. "However, my lot has been cast as a servant of one of the true race and I find in the true race much of what I would like to find in myself. To yield to such flaws as I have described would put me beyond achieving an imitation of what I have seen in those of immaculate and untarnished nature. Therefore I am very unlikely to find myself tempted to so yield."
There was a slight pause.
"For a beast," said Laa Ehon, "you speak with unusual boldness in saying you desire to model your conduct on that of the true race. I would caution you, in speaking to me, that you do not allow that boldness to be confused with license to go beyond what should properly be said by one of the cattle to one of the true race."
Back to Shane's mind came the junior Aalaag officer at Laa Ehon's Headquarters in Milan saying: "I am not one of those who allows his beasts to fawn on him."
"I will remember the words of the immaculate sir and keep them in mind at all times henceforward," said Shane.
"Good. Now, I am particularly interested in those three beasts who are in authority—Tom-beast, Walter-beast andJack-beast. What have you, if anything, to report to me about them?"
"They seem singularly able, immaculate sir," said Shane. "Beyond this, the immaculate sir might find interest in the fact that Tom-beast in particular is unusually happy to have been given this work to do. He foresees a result of it in which we cattle may much more efficiently serve our masters."
"So that particular beast has given me to understand," said Laa Ehon.
He rose to his feet suddenly, towering over Shane, with only the width of the desk between them—a width that abruptly seemed to have shrunk.
"I leave immediately for my District of Milan," said Laa Ehon. "I will be gone at least three days and in that time Mela Ky will speak my words."
Shane's spirits leaped. He had calculated during his trip to London that Laa Ehon, no matter what his interest in this project, could not afford to be absent from his post of main responsibility in Milan for a full, uninterrupted two weeks. Shane had been waiting for word that the other would need to leave London, even if only for part of a day, listening to all the Aalaag conversation he could overhear, reading all Aalaag hard copy that he could come close enough to read. Still, it was not surprising that he had been unable to find out the time of Laa Ehon's leaving until now. Laa Ehon himself might have made up his mind to go only a matter of a few hours or minutes before.
"This beast will listen to the untarnished sir Mela Ky in all things," Shane said.
"Good. You may go."
The privacy sphere disappeared from around them.
Shane went out. A little more than twenty minutes later, he saw Laa Ehon leave for his personal courier ship, which was kept in a cradle on the roof of their building; and fifteen minutes after that he was at the door in the basement that was the entrance to a room, the name of which translated from the Aalaag to a place that was at once a museum and an arms locker.
There were three other Aalaag on the premises—the nucleus of the alien staff to come later. They were Mela Ky and two others. The three took shifts of being available for Laa Ehon's orders and running the Aalaag end of the office. Mela
Ky, as senior officer and the commanding officer's direct assistant, took the main, daytime shift with Laa Ehon. The other two took, respectively, the evening and the early morning shift, so that at all times there was an Aalaag awake on the premises.
Right now, the one on duty was Mela Ky; but with Laa Ehon's leaving he was now in Laa Ehon's position of responsibility, which meant he had moved directly to his desk in the office he shared with his commanding officer the moment Laa Ehon had flown his courier ship out of the cradle overhead and up toward airlessness. The other two Aalaag would be in their rooms.
Shane made a tour of the premises to make sure that this was indeed where they were. But it was so; and nothing to be surprised at. The Aalaag when off duty spent nearly all their time in their quarters. They seemed to have three primary activities besides work and exercise, of which they also did a great deal in their officially off-duty hours. The primary off-duty activity was viewing on their wall screen
s scenes which seemed to be from the thousands of years past when they had lived on their native worlds—and this was close to being, if it was not in fact so, a religious exercise. Of the other two activities, one was sleeping—for the aliens apparently needed something like ten hours' sleep out of the twenty-four; and the last was the playing of some incomprehensible game that could be two-handed or played by a single individual. It involved a screen set flat in the surface of a desk and a bank of lights that formed shapes both in the screen and in the air above it, as controls were pressed by the players.
The two off duty would not be playing against each other now, however, because the one who would take the early morning shift would necessarily be sleeping in preparation for that. The other, left to himself, would be either viewing the past, working, or playing one-handed with the game screen in his room.
That meant that Shane had at least a fair chance of getting into the arms locker without being caught at it. Laa Ehon might have known that Lyt Ahn had supplied his human courier-translators with keys that opened most ordinary doors that were locked to those who were not Aalaag. It was almost certain, however, that his subordinates did not; unless the Milanese Commander had specifically warned them of the fact—and there had been no reason to give them such a warning. Not only did crime not exist among the Aalaag; anything they considered of any importance—such as weapons— would not operate except when handled by an Aalaag.
Also, it was an almost inconceivable possibility that a beast might possess an Aalaag key. Only the unique nature of the duties to which the courier-translators were assigned, which made it occasionally necessary for them to use routes through Aalaag Headquarters and elsewhere that were normally restricted only to the aliens themselves, had made keys available to such as Shane.
Facing the door of the arms locker—which looked like a simple slab of wood, but which he knew to be far more than that—Shane took from his pocket the rectangle of dull material that was the key and touched the end of it he was not holding to the door.
The door dissolved, first to a brown mist, then into nothingness, before him. He stepped through the opening that had appeared and looked back. The door was once again solid and closed behind him. He looked forward again.
The arms locker was more spacious than might have been suspected from the ordinary appearance of the door. It gave the impression of a large room carved out of white plastic or snow-colored rock, cut into innumerable niches and crannies, most of which held a single item as if it was on display. A soft, white light flooded the area, seeming to come from nowhere in particular but be everywhere equally. Underfoot, the uncarpeted flooring was soft—softer than any floor of Aalaag construction that Shane had walked on, except in the arms locker at Lyt Ann's Headquarters, which was a many times larger duplicate of this place he was in now.
The single items, each displayed in its own niche, were all weapons. Every Aalaag had his personal weapons that were, in effect, heirlooms, having been passed down from generation to generation since the time they had been carried against those who had driven the Aalaag from their home worlds. Others, duplicates of these arms, were carried when ordinary use required, such as when mounting guard, either in a Headquarters or when on display or patrol of the cities of Earth they had conquered.
The originals, these precious inheritances, were taken from their niches only for ceremonies of the highest importance, and immediately thereafter returned to them. Where the individual Aalaag went, his or her ancestral weapons went. They were seldom touched; but, like all arms possessed by the aliens, they were charged and ready for use at all times.
Still, they were symbolic rather than real. In the final essential, the only enemy the Aalaag really feared was the race that had dispossessed them of their original homes; and if that race should come this way, hand weapons such as these would be of little use—like lighting matches in the face of a blizzard. But symbolically, they were everything.
Each of the four Aalaag connected with the Project had his private area in the arms locker. In the case of the subordinate three officers these were filled with all their weapons. In the case of Laa Ehon, by only a token few; since most of the Commander's heirloom arms would be still in Milan. Shane, about to move toward the back of the locker, paused for a moment to gaze at the long arm—the weapon that was closest in likeness to a human rifle—that Laa Ehon would carry if he rode abroad on one of the riding beasts that to the aliens were almost as symbolic as the weapons. The long arm lay dark against the white nest that held its narrow, two-meter length.
He had seen such weapons many times before. Not only were those like this one hung on the walls of Lyt Ahn's Headquarters, the House of Weapons, but he had also seen them in the arms locker there. He had even seen the equivalent long arm of Lyt Ahn, himself, on one of those occasions when he had been sent to fetch something from that arms locker. What he had been sent for had been something of small importance and nonmilitary, always. Humans—beasts—were never allowed to touch Aalaag weapons. In fact, to do so incurred an automatic death penalty for any one of them—even one such as Shane. Not because of the danger involved—for there was the fact that no weapon would discharge in the hands of any not an Aalaag—but because the touch of a lesser being was to the aliens like a stain upon any such weapon.
For a second, Shane was swept by an overwhelming urge to lift Laa Ehon's long arm from its niche and hold it. A mixture of feelings had him in its grasp. Partly it was made up of defiance of the rule that said he should never touch such a thing. In part it was also a wild urge to test for himself the truth of the belief that the weapon would not work for a human. But overlaying all this was a fascination of which he was half-ashamed but which he could not help feeling.
He had been, he discovered, around the Aalaag long enough to have become at least in some small part affected by the mystique about their weapons. Some buried part of him wished to hold the long arm, as a child or savage might yearn to hold an object reputed to possess great magic, to see if some of that magic and—face it—the courage and single-mindedness of the Aalaag, might not flow from it into him.
He made himself turn away without touching the long arm and went toward the back of the locker. As he went, he passed in turn each of the sections given to the cherished, inherited weapons of each officer in this building, then passed the weapons for everyday use, racked all of one kind together, since none of them had a specific owner. Finally he came to what he was searching for, the area that held what had brought him here. It was the section that held clothing and other lesser items, such as those he had been permitted to carry or fetch for Lyt Ahn in the House of Weapons.
These, a beast might touch. These, hopefully, would work for a beast. At least, some of them had, when he had been left alone in the arms locker at the House of Weapons long enough to try some of them out. He had had time then to experiment with nearly a couple of dozen items, picked at random; for they had been like adult toys in the sorcerous results they produced when properly activated... and yet they were nothing but the simplest of everyday tools to the Aalaag.
The first item he searched for now was a device that would lift him up the clock tower at the north end of the Houses of Parliament, to the face of Big Ben itself, the clock there; and after a moment he did find such an item, an exact duplicate of the one he had experimented with in the House of Weapons' arms locker. It was a ring made for an Aalaag finger, which made it far too big for both his thumbs placed together, with a smaller ring which could be slid around it.
He put the device loosely on his middle finger, held it there by closing his fist and slowly tried sliding the smaller ring a tiny distance around the curve of the larger. For a second it seemed that he felt no difference, and then he was aware that his feet were not pressing upon the floor with the weight they had pressed before. Cautiously, he moved the smaller, controlling ring farther, and felt himself float free of the floor entirely and start to ascend ceiling ward. Hastily, he pushed the contro
lling ring back to its original position and put the device in the right-hand pocket of his pants.
The next item was one of the privacy tools. To locate this called for a longer search; and he was on the point of giving up when finally he found it. Seen up close, it was a thin box-shape, apparently of metal and as large as his hand. A sliding stud was set in the center of one of the faces of the box. Once more he cautiously advanced the control stud while holding the device.
For a moment, again, he thought that nothing had happened. Then, very quickly, the silvery sphere appeared around him. He sighed with relief, returned the control to its original position and put this into his jacket pocket. It made a noticeable bulge there, and, after a moment, he changed it instead to his left pants' pocket. Here it also bulged, but the overhang of his jacket disguised the sharp outlines of its shape as seen through the cloth.
Hastily, he used his key again and left the arms locker, with its door apparently undisturbed behind him. His intention was to get away from the building as quickly as possible. But as he was reaching for the front door, the Interior Guardsman on duty at the desk in the lobby checked him with a message.
