The Jhan stopped, with one foot on the gangway to his vessel. He turned about and saw the dockside Military Police all now at attention, facing the nearest command screen three meters wide by two high, which had just come to life on the side of the main docking warehouse. The Jhan’s own eyes went to the image on the screen—to the open grave, the armed soldiers, the chaplain and the bugler.
The chaplain was already reading the last paragraph of the burial service. The religious content of the human words could have no meaning to the Jhan; but his eyes went comprehendingly, directly to Dormu, standing with Whin on the other side of the gangway. The Jhan took a step that brought him within a couple of feet of the little man.
“I see,” the Jhan said. “He is dead.”
“He died while we were last speaking,” answered Dormu, without inflection. “We are giving him an honorable funeral.”
“I see—” began the Jhan, again. He was interrupted by the sound of fired volleys as the burial service ended and the blank-faced coffin began to be let down into the pulverized rock of the Outpost. A command sounded from the screen. The soldiers who had just fired went to present arms—along with every soldier in sight in the docking area—as the bugler raised his instrument and taps began to sound.
“Yes.” The Jhan looked around at the saluting Military Police, then back at Dormu. “You are a fool,” he said, softly. “I had no conception that a human like yourself could be so much a fool. You handled my demands well—but what value is a dead body, to anyone? If you had returned it, I would have taken no action—this time, at least, after your concessions on the settlements. But you not only threw away all you’d gained, you flaunted defiance in my face, by burying the body before I could leave this Outpost. I’ve no choice now—after an affront like that. I must act.”
“No,” said Dormu.
“No?” The Jhan stared at him.
“You have no affront to react against,” said Dormu. “You erred only through a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?” said the Jhan. “I misunderstood? I not only did not misunderstand, I made the greatest effort to see that you did not misunderstand. I cannot let you take a Morah from me, just because he looks like a human. And he was a Morah. You did not need your records, or your physicians, to tell you that. My word was enough. But you let your emotions, the counsel of these lesser people, sway you—to your disaster, now. Do you think I didn’t know how all these soldiers of yours were feeling? But I am the Morah Jhan. Did you think I would lie over anything so insignificant as one stray pet?”
“No,” said Dormu.
“Now—” said the Jhan. “Now, you face the fact. But it is too late. You have affronted me. I told you it is our privilege and pleasure to play with the shapes of beings, making them into what we desire. I told you the shape did not mean he was human. I told you he was Morah. You kept him and buried him anyway, thinking he was human—thinking he was that lost spy of yours.” He stared down at Dormu. “I told you he was a Morah.”
“I believed you,” said Dormu.
The Jhan’s eyes stared. They widened, flickered, then narrowed down until they were nothing but slits, once more.
“You believed me? You knew he was a Morah?”
“I knew,” said Dormu. “I was Liaison Officer with the Intelligence Service at the time Edmonds was sent out—and later when his body was recovered. We have no missing agent here.”
His voice did not change tone. His face did not change expression. He looked steadily up into the face of the Jhan.
“I explained to the Morah Jhan, just now,” said Dormu, almost pedantically, “that through misapprehension, he had erred. We are a reasonable people, who love peace. To soothe the feelings of the Morah Jhan we will abandon our settlements, and make as many other adjustments to his demands as are reasonably possible. But the Jhan must not confuse one thing with another.”
“What thing?” demanded the Jhan. “With what thing?”
“Some things we do not permit,” said Dormu. Suddenly, astonishingly, to the watching Whin, the little man seemed to grow. His back straightened, his head lifted, his eyes looked almost on a level up into the slit-eyes of the Jhan. His voice sounded hard, suddenly, and loud. “The Morah belong to the Morah Jhan; and you told us it’s your privilege to play with their shapes. Play with them then—in all but a single way. Use any shape but one. You played with that shape, and forfeited your right to what we just buried. Remember it, Morah Jhan! the shape of Man belongs to Men, alone!”
He stood, facing directly into the slitted gaze of Jhan, as the bugle sounded the last notes of taps and the screen went blank. About the docks, the Military Police lowered their weapons from the present-arms position.
For a long second, the Jhan stared back. Then he spoke.
“I’ll be back!” he said; and, turning, the red kilt whipping about his legs, he strode up the gangplank into his ship.
“But he won’t,” muttered Dormu, with grim satisfaction, gazing at the gangplank, beginning to be sucked up into the ship now, preparatory to departure.
“Won’t?” almost stammered Whin, beside him. “What do you mean… won’t?”
Dormu turned to the marshal.
“If he were really coming back with all weapons hot, there was no need to tell me.” Dormu smiled a little, but still grimly. “He left with a threat because it was the only way he could save face.”
“But you…” Whin was close to stammering again; only this time with anger. “You knew that… that creation… wasn’t Edmonds from the start! If the men on this Outpost had known it was a stinking Morah, they’d have been ready to hand him back in a minute. You let us all put our lives on the line here—for something that only looked like a man!”
Dormu looked at him.
“Marshal,” he said. “I told you it was the confrontation with the Jhan that counted. We’ve got that. Two hours ago, the Jhan and all the other Morah leaders thought they knew us. Now they—a people who think shape isn’t important—suddenly find themselves facing a race who consider their shape sacred. This is a concept they are inherently unable to understand. If that’s true of us, what else may not be true? Suddenly, they don’t understand us at all. The Morah aren’t fools. They’ll go back and rethink their plans, now—all their plans.”
Whin blinked at him, opened his mouth angrily to speak—closed it again, then opened it once more.
“But you risked…” he ran out of words and ended shaking his head, in angry bewilderment. “And you let me bury it—with honors!”
“Marshal,” said Dormu, suddenly weary, “it’s your job to win wars, after they’re started. It’s my job to win them before they start. Like you, I do my job in any way I can.”
ON MESSENGER MOUNTAIN
It’s hard to pick out a best or favorite story by an author as good and prolific as Gordon R. Dickson, but “On Messenger Mountain” would definitely make my short list. In this one, he adds ingredients from such milestones of sf as Murray Leinster’s “First Contact” and John W. Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” and comes up with a very different story from either of those classics. Someone once categorized conflict in fiction into three types—man against nature, man against man, and man against himself—and argued that the third type produced the “highest” quality of fiction. Whether or not that is true, this story certainly explores man against nature and man against man (not to mention man against alien and alien against nature), but might seem to ignore man against himself… until that very last line (and don’t go look at it now, dammit—read the story first!) that suddenly makes it clear what the story was really about.