It had happened erenow. Someone would hear Jaan preach, and afterward request a private audience. Customarily, the two of them went off alone upon the mountain.
Several jealous pairs of eyes followed Jaan and Ivar out of town. They spoke little until they were well away from people, into a great and aloof landscape.
Behind and above, rocks, bushes, stretches of bare gray dirt reached sharply blue-shadowed, up toward habitation and the crowning Arena. Overhead, the sky was empty save for the sun and one hovering vulch. Downward, land tumbled to the sullen flatness of the sea. Around were hills which bore thin green and scattered houses. Traffic trudged on dust-smoking roads. Ilion reared dark, the Linn blinding white, to north and northeast; elsewhere the horizon was rolling nakedness. A warm and pungent wind stroked faces,” fluttered garments, mumbled above the mill-noise of the falls.
Jaan’s staff swung and thumped in time with his feet as he picked a way steadily along a browser trail. Ivar used no aid but moved like a hunter. That was automatic; his entire consciousness was bent toward the slow words:
“We can talk now, Firstling. Ask or declare what you will. You cannot frighten or anger me, you who have come as a living destiny.”
“I’m no messenger of salvation,” Ivar said low. “I’m just very fallible human bein’, who doesn’t even believe in God.”
Jaan smiled. “No matter. I don’t myself, in conventional terms. We use ‘destiny’ in a most special sense. For the moment, let’s put it that you were guided here, or aided to come here, in subtle ways”—his extraordinary eyes locked onto the other and he spoke gravely—”because you have the potential of becoming a savior.”
“No, I, not me.”
Again Jaan relaxed, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “I don’t mean that mystically. Think back to your discussions with High Commander Yakow. What Aeneas needs is twofold, a uniting faith and a uniting secular leader. The Firstman of Ilion, for so you will become in time, has the most legitimate claim, most widely accepted, to speak for this planet. Furthermore, memory of Hugh McCormac will cause the entire sector to rally around him, once he raises the liberation banner afresh.
“What Caruith proclaims will fire many people. But it is too tremendous, too new, for them to live with day-today. They must have a … a political structure they understand and accept, to guide them through the upheaval. You are the nucleus of that, Ivar Frederiksen.”
“I, I don’t know—I’m no kind of general or politician, in fact I failed miserably before, and—”
“You will have skilled guidance. But never think we want you for a figurehead. Remember, the struggle will take years. As you grow in experience and wisdom, you will find yourself taking the real lead.”
Ivar squinted through desert dazzlement at a far-off dust devil, and said with care:
“I hardly know anything so far … Jaan … except what Yakow and couple of his senior officers have told me. They kept insistin’ that to explain—religious?—no, transcendental—to explain transcendental aspect of this, only you would do.”
“Your present picture is confused and incomplete, then,” Jaan said.
Ivar nodded. “What I’ve learned— Let me try and summarize, may I? Correct me where I’m wrong.
“All Aeneas is primed to explode again. Touchoff spark would be hope, any hope. Given some initial success, more and more peoples elsewhere in Sector Alpha Crucis would join in. But how’re we to start? We’re broken, disarmed, occupied.
“Well, you preach that superhuman help is at hand. My part would be to furnish political continuity. Aeneans, especially nords, who couldn’t go along with return of Elders, might well support Firstman of Ilion in throwin’ off Terran yoke. And even true believers would welcome that kind of reinforcement, that human touch: especially since we men must do most of work, and most of dyin’, ourselves.”
Jaan nodded. “Aye,” he said. “Deliverance which is not earned is of little worth in establishing freedom that will endure, of no worth in raising us toward the next level of evolution. The Ancients will help us. As we will afterward help them, in their millennial battle…. I repeat, we must not expect an instant revolution. To prepare will take years, and after that will follow years more of cruel strife. For a long time to come, your chief part will be simply to stay alive and at large, to be a symbol that keeps the hope of eventual liberation alight.”