Dennis Schmidt - Wayfarer 1 - Way-Farer

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WAY-FARER
Copyright © 1978 by Dennis Schmidt
Portions of this novel appeared in somewhat dif-ferent form in the October 1976 and May 1977
issues of Galaxy Magazine.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, except
for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.
An ACE Book
Cover art by Ben Venuti
First Ace printing: June 1978
Printed in U.S.A.
PROLOGUE
Something’s got to be wrong. It’s just too damn perfect! Paul Suarez leaned on his shovel, let
his gaze pass over the gently rolling hills to the distant mountains, purple in the slight haze.
No question about it, it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen: oh, sure, the light’s a little
bluer than Sol’s, and the vegetation’s a bit queer-but these are little things. He’d been, he knew,
con-ditioned to absorb much greater stresses.
So what could it be? Why do I feel so uneasy? A shadow swept over him. He looked up
quickly: more of the one-way orbit-to-ground airfoil type transports, with their loads of Pilgrims
and their meager possessions. The transports would slip gently to earth not far from where he
was working, there to be unloaded and then dismantled to sup-ply building components for
Base. As he watched, a bigger, multiple-use type shuttle came to a roaring touch-down farther
off in a separate area al-ready blackened by exhaust flames.
That must be about the last load. Even the kids are down. Nobody left in orbit except for the
Flag-ship’s Command Staff-and the Admiral, of course. They must still be re-checking the
Planet-ary Analysis data brought in by the probes and survey teams. They had been 95 percent
sure be-fore they’d let even the first landing party go down, 99 percent before they’d
dispatched the Main Sur-vey. Before the first load of Pilgrims had debarked that “99” had
been carried to four decimal places. But the Admiral was still checking, and would continue to
do so until the Flagship left its parking orbit for the return trip to Earth. Suarez knew all this.
So why do I feel this way? Kensho has no intelli-gent native life, nor any animal remotely
danger-ous to an armed man. No inimical micro-organisms. No weird proteins. It’s like
somebody had set out to create the perfect planet for human colonization ... or the perfect trap.
Death wears many beautiful masks.
For the Virgin’s sake, stop! This is not the slums of Ciudad-this is Kensho, a new planet. Your
new planet! For you the rat-infected ruins of Earth no longer exist. You’ve escaped; you’re free!
Your children will grow up proud and strong, and their children, and their children’s children. Be
happy, idiot!
But somewhere in the back alleys of his mind a cynical little voice chuckled: “You may not
get what you pay for,” it whispered, “but you always pay for what you get. Did not all your
years in the street teach you that there is no such thing as a free lunch?”
Jesu! Basta! Silence! The voice snickered quietly.
“Sure beats that damn cesspool, Earth, eh, Mex?” commented a gruff voice beside him.
Star-tled, Suarez turned his head to find Wes Banner-man leaning on another shovel. “Yeh,”
he replied laconically, not really in the mood for conversa-tion.
Bannerman had no such reluctance; he obvi-ously wanted to talk. “Damn, but I’m sure glad
I joined the Pilgrimage! She-it, hornbre, nowI got a chance to do all the things I always
wanted to do! You know what? First thing they get the animals quickened and matured, I’m
gonna apply for a horse. They brought ‘em-I saw the manifest while we were unloading the
zygotes. And when I get my horse I’m gonna make mea saddle and ride across those hills, like
a goddamn Texan should! This colony’s gonna need explorers, and Fm gonna be one or know
why!
“By God, Mex, don’t you laugh-I mean it! It’s something I’ve dreamed of all my life.”
Suarez smiled in spite of his dark mood. Bannerman’s rough good humor and enthusiasm were
conta-gious.
Hell, Texas is damn near as bad as Ciudad. It took quite a few hits during the Co-Dominium
War. Mostly slagged rubble and desert now. Yet look at Bannerman. The big loco jerk is as
excited as a kid. Rarin’ to go, not wasting any energy worrying about how good things have
turned out, just accepting his luck and riding with it.
The big Texan straightened up and looked over at Suarez out of the corner of his eye,
uncertainly, with a quality almost of coyness that would have been hilarious were it not so
touching. “You’d... uh. . . maybe you’d like to ride with me, amigo?”
For a moment Suarez continued to gaze out over the hills. “Hell,” he finally said, “maybe I
would.” He turned to look directly at Bannerman.
Why don’t I hate this gringo? He calls me, “Mex” all the time, and he uses pidgin Spanish
whenever he talks to me. . . but he doesn’t seem to mean anything bad by it-it seems to be his
way of showing affection. I think he wants to be my friend.
Friend. It was a new idea to Suarez. One didn’t have friends in the teeming warrens of
Ciudad. It was every man for himself, and root, hog, or die. Friend. . . it made him feel good
and strange at the same time.
Bannerman held out his hand. “Compadre, I’d be proud to have you.” Suarez took the
hand and shook it.
“Well,” the big man turned back to his shovel, “guess we better quit the jawbonin’ and start
diggin’ muy pronto or that damn Looie will be over here beatin’ out chingas.” Suarez glanced
over his shoulder and nodded. Bannerman continued, his words matching the rhythm of his
work. “Don’t know why ... the Admiral couldn’t. . . let us use.. . lasers. . . for this damn job . . .
what’d it hurt?. . . gonna hafta work. . . hard enough once the Flagship leaves . . . deserve a
little help now. . . you know. . . break us in. . gradual like . . .“
Murmuring token agreement, Suarez dug steadily. Bannerman knew as well as he did why
Admi-ral Nakamura was making them set up Base with hand tools. Once the Flagship left, the
Pilgrims on Kensho would be without the advanced technol-ogy of Earth. Oh, they’d have a
basic industrial capacity of their own, the ability to manufacture the simple tools and
implements needed for their spread over Kensho. But they were destined to be an agricultural
society for many generations to come.
When they were ready they’d build their own technology, based on the information stored in
the Central Library here at Base. For now, though, the Laws of the Pilgrimage demanded that
they prepare themselves for the kind of lives they and their children would be living. And they’d
be dig-ging with shovels for a long time to come.
Suarez stopped and leaned on his shovel again.
What was that? Maybe I’m working too hard. There it was again! A strange tingling feeling,
almost like heat, at the edge of his mind.
Odd. Maybe the sun. The feeling came stronger, in a great wave. He stood, looked wildly
about.
I need help! Others were also standing. Oh, my God-the lunch isn’t free after all!
Bannerman looked up. “Hey, Mex, you OK?”
Mex! That hated slur again! Fucking Gringo spitting . on la Raza! Hijo de puta! Filthy Texan.
‘bastard! Always giving me all kinds of shit, spouting rotten Spanish! Jesus howl hate that pedaze
de carraco! Hate him! HATE HIM! HATE!
Screaming, Suarez split his friend’s skull with the blade of his shovel.
(background of hunger hunger hunger hunger)
Flicker of awareness
Tentative search
Energy source!
Alertness of totality.
Viable energy source!
Quantity? Extensive and growing.
Quality? Superior.
Decision of totality:
Gather and await full realization of potential.
Acceptance.
(gather gather gather gather gather gather)
TOTALITY UNIFIED
Period of waiting.
Analysis of potential.
Judgement.
Decision.
Attack!. Attack!
Feed!!!
Feed!
Feed.
Satiation.
Qulessence.
Awareness of status.
Quantity of source seriously diminished.
Concern.
Viability endangered? Possibility.
Recall of previous experience:
Source attacked.
Viability destroyed.
Source destroyed.
Hungerhungerhunger...
Totality diminished.
DANGER!
Problem. Grave concern.
Solution? Withdraw. Wait.
The whole area was littered with corpses. Here and there a body writhed in its final death
throes, or a drooling, jibbering hulk shambled insanely by, while a few stunned survivors huddled
off to one side, clinging to each other for mutual support against the horror of the scene. In a far
corner, one last dying killer was tearing at the throat of another.
Admiral Y. Nakamura, Commander of the Flag-ship Mushima, Leader of the Pilgrimage
Expedi-tion, High Master of the Universal Way of Zen, switched off the hologram and sat back
with a sigh. It was his twelfth time through the scene. Un-pleasant, but necessary.
He sat alone in the Command Conference Room aboard the Flagship, which hung in
synchronous orbit directly over First Touch. His crew and offi-cers had been sent down to
organize relief for the survivors of the attack, and to gather information.
So far, he had reached several conclusions. First, whatever had decimated the Pilgrims at Base
was either invisible or microscopic. He had viewed the event in everything from infra-red to
ultra-violet light and found no sign of the attacker. A vastly enlarged projection had been equally
un-productive, nor had a scrutiny of the records of the ship’s other sensors turned up anything of
interest.
Forced to choose between an invisible enemy or a microscopic one, he chose the latter and
checked the autopsy reports on several of the victims. There was no sign of any foreign body,
cellular, viral, or chemical. Indeed, the only unusual thing about the dead Pilgrims was that their
systems were flooded with adrenalin and the synapses of some of their neurons appeared to have
“burned out,” as if overloaded. He had never heard of such a thing and had no idea what it could
mean.
Reluctantly returning to the alternate theory- that the source of the attacker was invisible-he
realized his only source of information would be the actions of the men who had experienced it.
He ran the hologram through twice more at normal speed, then slowed it down considerably,
espe-cially the opening sequences.
In creeping slow motion, he watched a calm Pilgrim turn into a raving beast. He could see the
first shock, the fear, the growing, upward-spiraling surge of horror that finally exploded into
madness. Again and again, he watched the same process unfold in other victims.
Having discovered the similarities, he began searching for differences. The first that caught his
eye was the time differential in the passage from calmness to insanity in each individual. Some
seemed literally to erupt. Others appeared to be able to fight it off for a time.
Then he remembered the survivors. Quickly he ran the hologram to the end, identified one of
those who had not succumbed, and followed that indi-vidual backwards to the opening sequence.
In-tently, from the beginning, he watched that face.
There was the same initial fear. But what followed was not increasing terror. Rather there was a
brow-wrinkling, sweat-producing effort to fight back, to control the emotions, to get hold of
one’s self! A cross-check on other survivors produced confirmation.
Sure of what he would find, Nakamura punched up the psych-profiles of the survivors and a
ran-dom sample of those who had died. Even a quick survey showed what he had suspected: to a
man, those who had beaten off the attack had stable, strong personalities. Curious, he
cross-tabulated the data in terms of religious affiliation. The result was revealing: 50% of the
members of sects which practiced mind control had lived through the at-tack, against 14% for
other groups. Only one fol-lower of the Universal Way of Zen had died, a pickaxe sunk eight
inches into his neck.
Nakamura’s third conclusion was now obvious. Whatever it was, it affected men’s minds. It
started small, apparently working within the mind on whatever emotional instability was present. It
grew rapidly, perhaps enhancing the existing in-stability by feeding it back into the mind in ah
ever-increasing spiral of emotion. If the individual did not clamp down on it with iron control, he
would quickly be driven into raving madness.
He sighed again and rubbed his temples with tired fingers. He had learned all he would learn by
reviewing the past. Precious little it was, too! Now it was time to bring himself up to date on the
current ‘situation. His officers would have had time to beam up their respective reports by now. If
he needed more data, he could probably ferret it out of the ship’s computer.
Within an hour, he knew the worst. About 80% had perished in the first attack. Things were
temporarily quiet, but it was clear that the assault could be renewed at any moment. Given the
condi-tion of the survivors, he doubted any would be able to withstand the shock. There was no
way he could organize a defense since he only knew what the enemy did, not what it was. Hence
the only sensible choice was to cut and run for it.
Which was impossible. The fatality rate among the crew and officers who had been present at
First Touch when the attack struck, and had been caught in the middle trying to stop the
slaughter, had been even higher than among the Pilgrims. There were barely enough Men left to
man the Flagship, let alone the four Arks.
In addition, the vehicles that had taken the Pil-grims down had been one-way transports with
just enough fuel capacity to enter atmosphere safely and make minor course corrections; once
grounded they could never fly again. And all but one of the heavy-duty shuttles had been
planetside at the time. They all had sustained heavy damage and would require extensive repairs
before they could be made spaceworthy. He had neither the engineers to do the work nor the time
in which to do it. And even if he had both, there was insufli-cient fuel to evacuate more than a
third of the survivors.
So he couldn’t run.
And he couldn’t stay.
A logical analysis of the problem indicated that the answer was a-logical. So much for
Aristotle! So much for Science, too, he mused. Even before the third Probe had returned, the
planet had rated over 97%. At the time of the attack, the computer was just completing a final
analysis which would have put the figure so close to 100% that the differ-ence would have been
meaningless. A paradise! Hanging there in space, its beauty had so im-pressed him that he had
named it Kensho after one of the stages of Enlightenment. But now 80% of the expedition’s
personnel-Pilgrims, crew and officers-were dead. And the survivors couldn’t stay and couldn’t
leave. Since they couldn’t do either, they’d have to do both. Or neither.
Well, he thought, since neither Aristotlian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer
much hope, it’s time to go beyond them.
He stood, turned the holoiewer off, and walked slowly over to his meditation spot. On the wall
was a scroll bearing his favorite koan, brushworked by a 13th Century Japanese master. Directly
in front were zafu and zabuton in black. He knelt, bowed, and then arranged himself on the
pillows. Drawing a few deep even breaths, be en-tered a mental state practiced only by Masters of
the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and
pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no
longer inhibited him. Preconceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things,
those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by
acquiring an absolute value, revealing relation-ships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads
strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of
existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all
others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but be-came Problem, destroying
Subject-Object by be-coming them.
Time passed, unheeded.
Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on
his face and the light of laughter in his eyes.
He had a plan, one that delighted him. It took advantage of all the important aspects of the
situa-tion, even the apparently negative ones, and used them all to positive effect. It was as natural
as a river finding its way to the sea. Once set in motion, it would proceed as inevitably as a ball
rolling down an inclined plane.
Initiating it, however, called for rather harsh sacrifices. His own death was least among these.
And he feared that the fate in store for most of his officers, who otherwise would have returned to
Earth, was even worse. As for what the Pilgrims would suffer. . . well, only the end results-and the
lack of alternative-could justify such means.
Calmly, his back straight and proud, almost as if walking in a ceremonial procession, he
ap-proached a small chest against one wall. He knelt before it and bowed his respect. Then he
lifted the lid and took out two long bundles wrapped in silk. Reverently, he folded back the cloth
to expose a long, slightly curved, two-handed samurai sword in an inlayed ebony scabbard, and a
shorter match-ing dagger in an identical sheath. He pulled the dagger slowly from its sheath and
looked thoughtfully at the glistening blade. It was sharp enough to cut a falling hair. Satisfied with
what he saw, he replaced the dagger in the sheath and stuck it in his obi belt on the left side. With
great care, he rewrapped the sword. He bowed once more, then stood and walked over to the
scroll and cushions. On the floor, about two-thirds of the way to the wall from the cushions, he
laid the silk-enfolded bundle.
He paused for a few moments of quiet contem-plation, letting his eyes wander about the room.
Goodbye, he said silently.
Giving himself a slight shake, he turned and strode briskly to the center of the room. Aloud he
commanded, “Enter Passive Mode for 200 of this planet’s circuits around its primary. Maintain
cur-rent position with respect to the planetary surface. All external sensors, both planetary and
local are to remain in operation. Continue accumulation and correlation of data. Establish and
keep con-stant contact with the Admiral’s launch after it lands on the surface. Re-establish Active
Mode in both the launch and Flagship immediately upon contact with any descendent of the crew
or pas-sengers.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came quiet acknowledgement from the air. “Assuming Passive Mode, mark
l0,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,l,0.” The lights dimmed and a thousand little noises, barely discernible before,
ceased, their absence startling in the silence.
Nodding satisfaction, Admiral Nakamura turned and walked toward the lift that would take him
to his launch. His face was relaxed and a slight smile played about the corners of his mouth.
And now, he thought; to the end . . . and the beginning.
This, then, is the Koan of Nakamura. Hear it well and commit it to memory. Think on it day and
night, for therein lies salvation for Mankind on Kensho, salvation from the Mushin and the
Mad-ness.
To be free, a man must follow the Way
that leads to the place where he dwelt before he was born.
Chapter I
THE PRACTICE YARD fell silent. Sensing a presence behind him, Jerome lowered his sword
and turned slowly to face Father Ribaud, the Sword Master. Behind Ribaud, standing nervously
at the edge of the yard, was a young Messenger dressed in the black robe of one who served the
Grand-fathers.
A thrill of anticipation ran shivering up Jerome’s spine. A Message from the Grandfather!
Perhaps his request for Audience was being answered!
Ribaud nodded somberly. “Yes, it’s for you. From the Grandfather.”
Jerome tried to read the old man’s face for in-formation. “Did he say what it’s about?”
The Sword Master suppressed a look of amusement. “The simple way to find out is to go over
and ask the lad. He’s the Messenger, you know, not I. And from the looks of him, he’d be only
too glad to deliver his message and be off.” Ribaud gestured towards the Messenger, who was
anxiously shift-ing from foot to foot. “He’s nervous as a cat, what with all the Mushin floating
around this yard. His mind isn’t trained to handle it.” He turned to the silently standing students.
“Which reminds me that no one told the rest of you to stop training and gawk around like a bunch
of Novices. Back to work, the lot of you. Start off with five hundred each; head, chest, and wrist
cuts; slowly. Control your breath and calm your mind.”
Practice began again, each student reciting the Chant of Calmness as he swung his sword in
uni-son with the others. Ribaud watched for a mo-ment, then motioned to Jerome and walked
with him over to where the Messenger stood waiting.
“Messenger-Brother Jerome,” Ribaud said, and stepped back out of easy earshot, though
Jerome knew he would hear every word. He might be old, but Ribaud was still in possession of all
his faculties, including an incredible, catlike swift-ness.
The Messenger licked the sweat from the upper lip and focused distressed eyes on Jerome.
With pity, Jerome noticed that he already had the glazed, hunted look of those who dealt with the
Grandfather on a regular basis. Eventually his gaze would turn blank and dead. Jerome shud-dered
inwardly. One paid a fearful price to serve the Grandfather.
“Brother Jerome,” the Messenger began, his voice cracking a little. “Grandfather bids me call
you to his presence. Father Ribaud is to prepare you for Audience. Come as soon as you are
ready. I . . . I . . . uh. . . that is all.” Abruptly the black-clad youth turned and fled the practice
yard.
A sardonic grin on his face, Ribaud sauntered over to where Jerome stood gazing after the
re-treating Messenger. “So. Audience it is. Face to face with the Grandfather. And I’m to prepare
you. No easy task, that. I assume you haven’t changed your mind, that you’re still determined to
go through with it?” The young man nodded firmly. The Sword Master shook his head and
sighed. His tone had been bantering, but his con-cern was obvious.
While Jerome racked his practice sword and changed from padded practice robe to a regular
one, Ribaud carefully outlined the proper procedure for Personal Audience with the Grandfather.
From time to time the young man would nod or grunt, but otherwise gave no indication he was
listening. Ribaud knew otherwise. Nothing really passed Jerome by. He was incredibly quick and
bright.
Even while talking, the old man’s mind went back some fifteen years to the day he had found
Jerome. The lad had been sitting amid the smoking ruins of the farmstead at Waters Meeting,
trying to straighten his dead mother’s clothing. Ribaud knew the child had witnessed his father’s
torture, his mother’s rape, and the slaughter of both at the hands of the Ronin who had raided the
farm.
It still seemed like a miracle that the boy had escaped The Madness. Those few who survived
the Ronin were always mad. Death was usually a kindness. Yet that small boy had not only
survived, but had somehow retained his sanity. Oh, true, true, rage and madness lurked deep in
his eyes. Yet it was not the Madness. It was something deep within him, shaped and hidden away
in the dark place at the center of his being, not something brought on by the Mushin. It was a
madness and rage he owned and controlled so well even the Mushin could not sniff it out.
The routine details out of the way, Ribaud pon-dered what else he ought to say. At the least he
felt he should give the lad some sort of advice; Audi-ence was not without its peril. Men had been
known to break in the presence of the Grand-father. And the Mushin hovered constantly, wait-ing
for just such a break to swoop down and bring the Madness.
Not that I’m really worried about Jerome, be hastened to reassure himself. The lad controls his
mind very well. Perhaps better than any other Son in the Brotherhood. At times he felt the young
man’s control was perhaps a little too rigid, too brittle, but there was no question it was effective.
Still, the Sword Master felt a vague, gnawing worry over the idea of Jerome facing the
Grand-father. What the young man was asking for had clearly been forbidden by the Grandfather
himself. The request could only meet with a refusal. And how would Jerome respond to this
inevitable, final denial of his long-cherished dream? Ribaud hon-estly didn’t know, but the
possibilities disturbed him. He decided he had to make one last effort to dissuade the lad. There
was still time to avoid the danger of Audience.
“Now, my Son, listen as you’ve never listened before.” Jerome looked up, surprised by the
Sword Master’s sudden urgency.
“This isn’t some Brother you’re about to face, Jerome. It isn’t even a Father. You’re up
against something you can’t deal with the way you would another human being. You can’t argue,
or bluff, or threaten. No amount of wheedling or cajoling will work. Even logic won’t have any
effect.
“No, this is beyond your experience, my Son. You’re about to face a Grandfather. Think what
that means! The Grandfathers saved Mankind from the Madness. They gave us the Way of
Pas-sivity to protect us from the Mushin. Directly or indirectly, they rule the lives of every man,
woman, and child on Kensho. They’re our saviours and our leaders.
“But even after seven generations, they remain a complete mystery to us. We don’t know
where they came from. There was certainly no sign of them here when we arrived. We still don’t
under-stand the nature of their existence or the scope and limit of their powers. And most
important, we can’t comprehend their motivations. Why did they, an alien race, save us?” The
Sword Master shook his head in wonderment.
Jerome smiled. “I’m not afraid of the Grand-fathers, even if they are aliens. I don’t pretend to
understand their motivations, but I really see no reason to quail in their presence just because they
look a little odd. No, Father, I have my fear, and my mind, under better control than that.”
Ribaud looked grim. “There’s more to it than that, young man. There’s something about being
in the presence of a Grandfather which goes beyond your fear and your control. You’ve seen
what hap-pens to those who serve the Grandfathers, the Messengers. Look into their eyes before
you scoff at the danger of being near a Grandfather.”
“But I’m only going to be there long enough to ask my question and get his answer,” the young
man protested. “I’m not going to don the black robes.”
“Ah, now we’re getting to the crux of it all! Your question. It isn’t merely that you are going
into the presence of the Grandfather, Jerome. The real problem lies in the reason why you’re
going.”
The young man shook his head wearily. “We’ve discussed this before, Father. Over and over,
we’ve talked this out. And we always come to the same point.”
“But can’t you see that what you are doing is challenging the Grandfathers? They’ve very
specifically decreed that the Way of Passivity is the only Way for men on Kensho. Any other
Way is too dangerous, too active, too open to Desire and the inevitable chain that leads to
Madness.”
“But, Father,” Jerome interrupted, “the Way of the Sword . . .“
“The Way of the Sword especially has been forbidden,” the old man overrode his protest.
“After that experience with the Old Master, the decision of the Grandfathers was very clear: No
man may walk the Way of the Sword.”
“That was thirty years ago! And besides, you were there. What was so horrible about what
hap-pened up on the Mountain? Nothing!”
“You call three Brothers struck down by the Madness nothing?”
“That could have happened right here in the Brotherhood! The Mushin attack wherever they
find weakness. Those Brothers were weak.”
“One of those ‘weaklings’ was my best friend,” the Sword Master smiled bleakly. “But no,
you’re right, nothing horrible happened that couldn’t have happened right here. I admit that I still
remember the experience with fondness.
“But that isn’t the point. The point is that the Grandfathers saw danger in the experience. And
with their greater understanding and wisdom, in their role as guardians of the human race, they
decided that the Way of the Sword was too dangerous. That decree has never been questioned or
defied. Until now.”
“I’m not defying,” Jerome protested. “I’m simply asking the Grandfather to reconsider a
rul-ing that was made long before I was even born. It isn’t a question of the whole human race
abandon-ing the Way of Passivity for something untried. The issue is simply whether or not one
insignifi-cant Brother can try something different from what the rest of Mankind has been doing
for the last 200 years.”
Ribaud looked Jerome straight in the eyes. “No. It is not that simple. By this action you’re
challeng-ing the authority of the Grandfathers, questioning the rightness of their decisions as
leaders of our race. You’re calling into the doubt the experience of seven generations of Mankind
striving to follow the Way of Passivity and fend off the Mushin. And perhaps worst of all, you’re
denying and rejecting the words and wisdom of Nakamura. The Way of Passivity is the Way
alluded to in Nakamura’s Koan. It has saved us from the Mushin and the Madness.”
The young man’s face was hard with determina-tion and resolution as he replied to the Sword
Master’s accusations. “Nakamura’s Koan promises Mankind ‘freedom,’ not ‘safety.’ But we’re
not free, even if we are safe. Who’s to say that the Way referred to in the Koan is the Way of
Passiv-ity? You? Me? The Grandfathers? Only Nakamura himself knew for sure, and he died
before the Grandfathers appeared and brought the Way with them, so he never had a chance to
state his feelings one way or the other. I know, I know,” he hurried on, forestalling Ribaud’s
objection, “the Grand-fathers claim they got the idea for the Way from Nakamura’s mind as he
lay dying. I know they say it’s based on his profound knowledge of the Uni-versal Way of Zen,
tailored to meet Mankind’s needs here on Kensho. Believe me, I fully ap-preciate the reasons
everyone assumes the Way of Passivity is identical with the Way mentioned in the Koan. But still,
it’s only an assumption. Only Nakamura could confirm it.”
In a more conciliatory tone he continued. “Father, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t ques-tion
that the Way was probably the best defense that could be organized at the time. We’re indebted
to the Grandfathers for showing us the Way.
“But is defense enough? For seven generations we’ve defended ourselves. We’ve never struck
back. How can we? We know nothing about the enemy. Only what the Grandfathers tell us, which
is virtually nothing.
“And what have seven generations of following the Way of Passivity gained us? A degree of
safety and peace. Or better yet, safety and stagnation.”
The older man opened his mouth to protest; but Jerome hurried on.
“Yes, stagnation! Look, Father, how many new Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods have been built
in your lifetime? How many new farmsteads have been founded? None! Not one. In fact, some,
like ours at Waters Meeting, aren’t even occupied any longer.” A look of remembered pain flicked
momentarily in the black depths of Jerome’s eyes, like the barely visible tail of a fish at the bottom
of a pond. Just the barest movement. Then it was gone, instantly slammed behind the iron wall of
his con-trol.
“It’s as if . . . as if . . .“ For a moment the young man groped for an idea just at the edge of
under-standing. Finding it, he rushed in pursuit. “Yes! It’s as if we’ve reached some optimum
level, some point the Grandfathers don’t want us to pass. We’re like cattle, penned up in the
Brotherhoods or on the farmsteads, completely domesticated and unable to roam the surface of
the planet we came to colonize; unable to grow. Instead, we’re kept safe and stagnant, cowering
under the watch-ful eyes of the Grandfathers, controlled by the Way of Passivity, defending
ourselves against an enemy we can’t see and don’t understand.
“Father, when the path you’re on leads nowhere, you must seek a new path. The Way of
Passivity gives us survival-but it leads nowhere. We must find a new way, a way to fight back, to
strike out at the things which keep us hiding like frightened cattle in the safe little pens the
Grandfathers have built for us.
“I don’t know the answer. I don’t know what the path should be. But I feel the Way of the
Sword may have something to offer, something the Way of Passivity is lacking. I don’t know.
Unless I have a chance to follow the Way of the Sword I never will know. All I ask is that
chance.”
Ribaud shook his head with weary sadness. “Jerome, my Son, at times wanting must give way
to acceptance.” Jerome made to reply but the Sword Master held up his hand. “The Way of the
Sword, followed to the end, leads to the Madness. Look at the Ronin, boy, look at the mad
animals that slaughtered your family. Didn’t they carry swords?
“Jerome, the Grandfathers are right, even though you are too young to see it. All young men
have strong emotions. And you have reasons to harbor the strongest of all: hate. You control it
摘要：

WAY-FARERCopyright©1978byDennisSchmidtPortionsofthisnovelappearedinsomewhatdif­ferentformintheOctober1976andMay1977issuesofGalaxyMagazine.Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyanymeans,exceptfortheinclusionofbriefquotationsinareview,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher....

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