Mack Reynolds: The Space Barbarians

She cocked her head. “Were you? All of you?”

“Yes!”

“Even the clannless ones? Even the widows and orphans of those who died in your endless raids upon each other?” He took a deep breath and stared at her in silence. She went on. “Happiness is an elastic word. The savage or barbarian, disease racked, inadequately fed, continually on the verge of want of one type or another, ground down by rituals and taboos, may not understand that the coming of progress will eventually result in a longer, healthier, happier life. How can he understand? He’s never witnessed it.”

“We were happy. We wanted none of your changes, your so-called progress.”

She shook her head at him sadly. “They would have come whether or not we did. We are just speeding things up. For instance, John Hawk, what was your rank before you were expelled by your clannsmen?”

His head went up. “I was a Supreme Raid Cacique of the Loch Confederation.”

“Ah? I have studied Caledonian institutions. I have never heard of the office before.” John scowled. “I was the first.”

She made an amused moue. “Ah, then you can adapt? Supreme raid cacique. The rex , in embryo.”

“Rex?”

The democratically elected war chief of the ancient Romans. Later, the office began to evolve into carrying the prerogatives of a king. And tell me this, John—do you have a priesthood that is freed of the necessity to contribute to the clann economy?”

He wasn’t sure he completely understood, but he said, “We have bedels and Keepers of the Faith. They are too busy with the Holy Books and maintaining the observance of the bann to spend time in the fields or with the herds.”

“Ummm,” she nodded. “Class divided society already begins to rear its head; a leisure class. And you have clannless ones, I understand, who work for you as servants but cannot participate in clann government and decisions.”

“But they are clannless ones!” he retorted.

“Aren’t they, though? And tell me, John, in this ultra-free, ultrahappy society of yours—do those clann members who possess a larger number of horses and cattle or other private property have a greater voice in the councils, are they more quickly listened to, more often elected to clann office? Do they sometimes control the vote of less prosperous clannsmen?”

He simply scowled at her.

Nadine Pond chuckled. “John, your Caledonian culture was at a crossroads even before the Golden Hind first landed and discovered you. Probably within your lifetime, regardless of our arrival, you would have seen institutions crumble and new ones arise. Possibly you would have tried to fight it and would have gone down, or possibly you’re enough of a slick to have been one who profited, but willy-nilly, the changes would have taken place.”

“I understand only a little of what you say, Nadine of the Ponds.”

“Nadine Pond,” she corrected. “John, I understand that you Caledonians recall nothing of the history of your people, the Picts and Scots of northern Britain.”

“I have read very little of Earth history, in the books we have captured from you of Beyond.”

“Suffice its to say that when they were first discovered they were…”—she twisted her mouth in amusement—“to use some idiom of yesteryear, reckless mountain boys that made the Hatfields and McCoys look like a bunch of flower children. Their favorite entertainment for an idle weekend was raiding their neighbors, stealing the cows and horses and anything else portable, murdering anyone who got in the way and burning their houses—sometimes with the inhabitants amusingly barricaded within. This was generally considered just good, clean sport, not to be taken really seriously.”

John nodded. “They were honorable raiders.”

“Weren’t they! Neither the Romans, Anglo-Saxons nor Normans invaded the Highlands; instead, they went in for building walls to keep those horrible barbarians out. Even the Vikings didn’t raid Scotland, as they did Ireland, England and France. When they tried, with an army of forty longboats, they were received so joyously by the local Highlanders that they decided against a return engagement. Of the forty longboats, after the battle, only two took off down the loch, and only one of those got home.

“They were not slinks, these ancestors of mine!” John said, a touch of pride in his voice.

“That they weren’t. However, time marched on, and primitive clan institutions began to be affected by the arising English civilization to the south. And there’s always some native talent around that’s sharp enough to see that it’s not merely the way the wind is blowing, but the inevitable direction of cultural evolution. Fighting a change in the weather is one thing; trying to fight a change in the climate is something else entirely.

“Over a period of generations, such clans as the Campbells gradually got the idea of law and order instead of war and raiding. The MacGregors were another. Rob Roy, the Scottish national hero, something like Robin Hood, belonged to the MacGregor clan, the one that was too thoroughly given to stealing and murdering for even the Scots to stand, so that the Scots’ Privy Council passed a law making it illegal to be a MacGregor. He was, in full, Rob Roy Campbell MacGregor.

“At any rate, such prominents among the Scots learned to adapt to changing institutions and wound up owning Scotland. When feudal ways took over from primitive clan ones, the slicks became the feudalistic lords.”

John said in puzzlement, “Why do you tell me all this?”

“Because, John, the changes are coming to Caledonia, as once they came to early Scotland. There are those among you clannsmen who will see that the current cannot be bucked. Perhaps they will be looked upon as traitors by the rest, but it is they who will survive and lead the people.”

“ Lead them into slavery,” he growled. She looked at him for a long, thoughtful moment Finally, “Perhaps what immediately might seem slavery to a clannsman, John Hawk, but in actuality a step forward in man’s development. In nature, a species that does not develop usually dies. And in society a culture that fails to progress eventually dies, as witness both the Egyptian and the Mayans.”

“Who?” he scowled.

“Never mind.” Nadine Pond came to her feet and frowned down at him thoughtfully. She said at last, “John Hawk, there’s something about you I am not sure of. You are possibly one of the poorest recruits that has ever come over to us. Or possibly, the best. I am going to check back with Cornet DeRudder before going further with you.”

He stood as well and attempted to cover. “You must realize,” he said, “that only this morning I was John of the Hawks, Supreme Raid Cacique of the Loch Confederation.”

“So I am told. You have not had the time, even if it was in your nature, to learn to dissimilate. For the present, goodbye, John Hawk.”

He saw her to the door, not actually knowingly gallant, as she thought, but to be sure that the door was closed behind her after she left. He stood there looking at it for long moments when she was gone.

But then he turned abruptly and made his way to the bedroom Sam DeRudder had assigned him. He went to the bed and took up the field worker’s kilts he had discarded earlier. He carried them into the dining-kitchenette, where he located a sharp steak knife. He carefully inserted this into the strong hem at the bottom of the kilts and cut the threads.

A plastic card dropped into his hand, and he looked at it carefully. Only part was understandable to him. It read, ID CREDIT CABD M-16-A-15.643, CORNET SAMUEL DERUDDER, PRIORITY M-3. Otherwise, there were obvious code letters, a portrait of DeRudder and a thumbprint, as well as several punched holes.