The Alien Way
“What special actions, Keysman?”
“I would like to point out,” said Jase, “that as the Muffled People are new in our experience, the ways of Honor in dealing with them may also be new—including the importance of the knowledge of them I have within me. Therefore, I ask that this gathering not act at once upon my report once I have included it here, no matter how clear the path of honorable action seems to be. But that this gathering delay action for at least a day, during which it consider whether the clear path of honorable action is truly honorable, and whether it should be taken rather than a new path of Honor not yet suspected.”
There was a little silence from the room when Jase had finished.
“Keysman,” said the presiding elder, after a moment. “This is not in the usual manner. Let me make it clear—you ask this Gathering to refrain from any action toward you, any judgment of whether your actions were honorable or dishonorable, any response of reward or retribution? No matter how clearly the matter appears to us when you have finished your report?”
“For one day only,” said Jase. “I want you to refrain and consider your judgment for one day only.”
There was another hesitation.
“Does any among the elders wish to object?” asked the presiding member at the end of that time. There was a rustle of movement, but no voice spoke from the ranks of seats. “Very well,” said the presiding elder. “One day’s delay and our consideration during that time can make no difference if it is a question of Honor, since all questions of Honor must be clear to an honorable man. We grant you this, Keysman. Now, you will give us your report?”
“Yes, sirs, and thank you,” said Jase, inclining his head. “I think I need say no more now than to repeat what I said earlier, that the Muffled People represent a new perception to us and possibly therefore require new ways of Honor to deal with them. And now I will show you my additional recording.”
Jase stepped to one side of the open space and touched the control at his harness.
“You have seen,” he said, “how I escaped the Muffled guards and returned to the ship of the Expedition to find all the crew dead. Since they had thought me dead and return to Homeworld was impossible without the Keys of the ship and the Keysman, they had suicided—as was honorable for them under the circumstances. I had, as you may have deduced, tricked them into this action so that I might be the only one to return with the knowledge of the Muffled People necessary to colonize their world in the face of their native oppositions—”
He broke off and looked up at them for emphasis.
“As was,” he said, “honorable for me under the circumstances. To a man committed to Founding his Kingdom, such actions which contribute to his success are honorable. Are they not?”
“They are,” answered the voice of the presiding member of the Gathering.
“However,” said Jase, slowly and sorrowfully, “once I was back aboard the ship and headed Home, I viewed what was in my recorder, up to and past the moment of my fall in the native factory. And what I saw there caused me to renounce my ambition—“
“Renounce?” It was half a dozen voices speaking at once from the seats. “Keysman! A man cannot renounce ambition once he has begun his actions to Found a Kingdom!” It was the voice of the presiding member, sharp and clear above the other voices.
“I know,” said Kator, his face stiffening with anguish. “Let me show you my reason. You’ve seen the copy in the log of what my recorder recorded up until the moment I fell unconscious in the factory. Let me show you now what I found following that record, in my own recorder that was part of the Mufflings I wore as disguise. It was this I saw when I got back to my ship that not only caused me to renounce my ambition—but, in Honor, to refrain from joining the suicided members of the Expedition and return to you, here.”
“Joining—,” began the voice of the presiding member. But Kator had already activated the control button on his harness. He was no longer visible to those in the seats. Instead; they saw a projection of sight and sound, filling the empty space beneath them.
For a second they saw only the bright flicker of an interrupted recording where some of the sensitized surfaces had been destroyed. Then this cleared, and the fifty-two of them, counting the Brutogas, looked down to face a native of the Muffled People—the native who had spoken to Jase earlier on the recording, when Jase had crossed the bridge over the creek.
Now the native took the container of burning vegetation out of his mouth, .knocked the embers out on a rock beside him, and laid down his stick with the line attached as he put the container away. He spoke in Rural as perfect as the alien vocal apparatus could produce.
“Greetings,” he said, “I trust I am among friends. Greetings to Kator Secondcousin Brutogas and to all those honorable Heads of Families who will be viewing this back on Homeworld. As you know, I am a member of that race of intelligent beings you Ruml refer to as the Muffled People, because of our habit of wearing body coverings, unlike yourselves. We are, however, correctly to be referred to as humans.” The alien’s lips pronounced the native word carefully for them in the way a Ruml would pronounce it, “Heh-eu-mans. With a little practice you should find it not too hard to say.”
A babble of voices was beginning to rise from the seats of the Gathering when the voice of the presiding member spoke.
“Quiet!” he said sharply. “Listen!”
“…we humans,” the image of the native was saying, twisting his face in an odd fashion that lifted the corners of his mouth upward, “have a warlike history. But we prefer not to war. Our honor does not have the same basis as your Honor. Therefore, let me show you some of the means we have developed to do for us what your Honor does for you.”
The scene changed suddenly. The assembled Rural saw before them one of the small, long-tailed scavenging native animals Kator had used as a model for some of his collectors of information. This one, however, was smaller than the ones the Expedition had used as models, and white-furred. It was nosing its way up and down the corridors of a topless box—here being baffled by a dead-end corridor, there finding an entrance through to an adjoining corridor.
“This,” said the voice of the native, “is a device called a ‘maze’ in the human tongue. We use it to test the intelligence of the experimental animal you see. This device is one of the investigative tools used in our study of a division of knowledge known as ‘psychology,’ which corresponds in some respect to what you Ruml call your system of Honor, which you believe is developed of necessity in any civilized, intelligent being.”
The picture changed to show the native once more facing and speaking to them.
“Psychology,” he said, “teaches us humans many useful things about how other organisms must react. This is because, like your system of Honor, it is based on primal and universal desires, such as the urge of the individual or race to survive.”
He reached to one side and picked up the stick he had held, with the string attached. He held it up for them to see.
“This,” he said, “though it was used by humans long before we began to study psychology as a conscious effort, operates on psychological principle—”
The view slid out along the rod, down the line attached to the rod, and—surprisingly—into some water that those watching had not been aware was there earlier. The line continued underwater until it terminated in a dirtworm like the one Kator had kept and sealed in a transparent cube. Then it moved off to the side a few inches and picked up the image of a native underwater-living creature possessing no limbs but a fan-shaped tail and minor fans farther up the body. The creature swam to the worm and swallowed it. Immediately it began to struggle, and a close-up view revealed a barbed metal hook in the worm. The creature, however, for all its struggling, was drawn up out of the water by the native, who hit it on the head and put it in a woven box.
“You see,” said the native, once more imaged and speaking to them, “that this device makes use of the subject’s—a so-called
fish—desire to survive, on a very primitive level. To survive, the fish must eat. We offer it something to eat, but in taking what we offer, the fish delivers itself into our hands. It fastens itself to the hook hidden in the offering we placed before it, and we secure it by means of the attached line.”
The native paused, as if to let his words sink in. There was silence among the Ruml of honorable age in the amphitheater seats.
“All intelligent,” went on the native, “space-going races conceivable to us must exhibit the universal desire to survive, like the fish, though on a much more complex level.”
He seemed to lean forward toward those watching, confidentially.
“The worm on the hook,” he said, “is known as 'bait.’ Similarly, the worm Kator found on the space wreckage resembling part of one of our spaceships was ‘bait.’ It was intended to operate upon unknown races and cultures as the worm operated upon the ‘fish.’ The object on our part is, of course, to study whoever or whatever takes the “bait.’ Now, when Kator took the spaceship wreckage in tow, there was a monitor device following it at a distance of only a few thousand miles that followed it-and him-back here to Homeworld.
“When your Expeditionary ship came, it was allowed to land on our moon and an extensive study was made, not only of it but of your methods of gaining information about our world and people. Again, of course, our purpose was to learn as much as possible about you Ruml, on the basis that he who knows about a potential competitor when the competitor does not know about him has an undeniable advantage.”
The native straightened up.
“After as much as could be learned by such observation had been recorded,” he said, “we allowed one of your collectors to find one of our underground launching sites, and for one of your people—Kator—to come down on to our world and actually enter the underground area.
“We ran a number of maze-level tests on Kator while he was making his entrance to and escaping from the underground site. You may be glad to learn,” once more the native’s face twisted in the odd fashion that lifted the corners of his mouth, “that your racial intelligence tests highly in our opinion, although you aren’t what we’d call maze-sophisticated. We experienced little difficulty in influencing Kator to leave the conveyor belt and follow a route that would lead him on to a surface too slippery to cross. As he fell, we rendered him unconscious—”
There was a collective sound, half-grunt, half-exclamation, from the listening Heads of Families.
“And, during the hour that followed, we were able to make complete physical tests and studies of an adult male Ruml. Then Kator was put back where he had fallen and allowed to get his senses back. Then he was allowed to escape.”
The native put aside the stick with the string attached, to which he had been holding all this time. There was something about the gesture that signalled the end of his words.
“We know,” he said, “all about your honorable race. And you, as a race, and with the single exception of Kator, know nothing about us. Because of what we have learned about you, we are confident that Kator’s knowledge will not be allowed to do you any good.” He lifted a finger. “I have one more scene to show you.”
He disappeared. In his place, against a backdrop of stars none of them recognized in the Gathering room, there stretched inconceivable numbers of space ships, great shape beyond great shape, like dark, giant demons waiting.
“Kator,” said the voice of the native, “should have asked himself why there was so much empty space in the underground site we let him enter. Come see us on earth whenever you’re ready to discuss contact between our two races that does not involve violence.”
The scene in the open space of the Gathering Room winked out. In the glare of the lights, Kator stood small and alone with the Fifty-two Heads of Families staring down at him.
For a moment, they sat silent and unmoving. Then, as if in response to some unconscious, instinctive, primitive signal-reflexive as the signal which causes the wolf pack to turn on a crippled member—they rose from their seats and swarmed down upon him.
“Wait!” cried Kator desperately. “Wait and think! You’re throwing away your only advantage, just like the native said you would! Can’t you see I’m your only chance, and this is different from anything we’ve—”
But they were already on him. He was young and strong, but there were fifty-two of them, including the Brutogas, and instinct fought against him as it fought for them. He went down, hardly feeling the claws piercing and tearing at him.
“I die in Honor!” he managed to shout while there was still breath in his body.
And, as he died, the body of Jase back on Earth rose fighting among the seats of the viewers around him, then fell lax and empty as Jase felt the darkness of death take him finally into her arms and bear him away from all that was, on Homeworld and Earth alike.
Chapter Twenty-Three
To die, thought Jase idly, is to stop. To experience stopping without dying is to go a long way away and have a long way to come back.
He did not know how long it had been since he had stopped, with Kator’s death and the feeling of the claws tearing the life out of him, but it had been some days since he had first become conscious of the white ceiling above this hospital bed in which he lay. Daylight and dark alternated in coloring that ceiling. People came and went about the bed. Occasionally they spoke to him, but for a long time he did not bother to answer.
After you have stopped, he thought, nothing, not even stopping again, is very important It is only necessary to let go a little in order to stop again-this time for good. Sometimes Jase wondered, vaguely, why he did not do so. There seemed to be some reason for not doing so, but he was too indifferent to inquire into it.
Then, after a while, Mele began to be among those who came and went. Gradually he became aware that she sat by the side of his bed for as much as several hours at a time. And, very slowly, after a while, he found himself answering now and then to the questions she asked about how he felt or what he was thinking. And in this way, imperceptibly, he drifted back into awareness of the world and conversation with her.
“…No,” he said, in answer to something she said, “Kator was a very rare, brave, and unusual man—Ruml I mean. For one like him there’s a million among the Ruml who would never have tried what he did. That’s one thing Swanson and the rest couldn’t understand. Another—“
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” said Mele. “This room is wired for sound, you know. They just want to get information to help them try you for treason or something. That’s why they let me come here, hoping you’ll talk to me.”
“That’s all right,” he said, indifferently. “I want them to understand. What was I saying? Another thing people here don’t understand—but they will, eventually—is that neither Kator nor the other Ruml wanted to conquer earth, in the sense we think of it. Kator wanted to win the right to Found a Kingdom—which means he could start a family of his own and have as many sons as he could. Ordinary Ruml can only have one.”
He saw Mele sitting close to him, watching him.
“You say you want people to know?” she said.
He nodded, absently. He was already drifting off on the receding tide of his indifference.
“If you really want them to know, I’ll ask questions,” she said. “Do you want me to ask questions?”
He considered the question idly. Slowly, as if from some sluggish reflex, came the response. He woke up a little.
“Of course,” he said. “But I just told you.”
“I know what you told me,” she said. “But why did he want a lot of sons. Just so he could be proud of them?”
Jase shook his head.
“You’re thinking like a human being,” he said. “The chance he could be proud of one of his sons was very remote. But by having a lot he increased the chances.”
“What chances?”
“Of having,” he said, “another like himself-eith
er among his sons or their sons, and so on. There might crop up one or more who would also Found Families.”
Mele, gazing at him, slowly shook her head.
“Why?” she asked. “I don’t understand. He Founds Families-or Kingdoms—”
“Same thing,” murmured Jase.
“So that some descendants of his can do the same thing? It’s a circle. The same thing repeating itself.”
Jase shook his head upon the pillow.
“It’s survival of the fittest, their way,” he said.
For a moment she did not answer. Then she burst out, suddenly.
“I see! I understand!” she said. “So that finally all the Ruml will be descended from those who Found Families, the leaders!”
“Yes…” Jase said. He was beginning to drift off again.
“But Jase…"
However, he was already drifting beyond reach of her voice. The extended talk had tired him. In the next few days he grew stronger, but he resisted her efforts to get him to talk again. It was no use. It had been mere reflex telling her as much as he did. People were emotionally blocked against understanding Ruml reasons—as the Ruml Family Heads had been against understanding Kator and letting him accept the shame of living. There was no point trying to explain.
Then, suddenly, he woke one bright morning to find Mele physically shaking him.
“Wake up!” she was saying in a low voice, but fiercely. “Wake up, Jase! The Ruml have cornel A great fleet of them is in orbit around the world, right now. You’ve got to wake up! I wasn’t supposed to know, but it was on the radio in the nurses’ room and I overheard. And I heard you’re going to be taken away—someplace. And probably shot. The night nurse was telling the day nurse! Jase—wake up! Maybe we can get out of here first, somehow. But you’ve got to wake up!”