14
Dragon
Having been wrested from my long dalliance with Alnese history and swept into Alnese history-in-the-making, I determined to hunt down the few analyses—O’bonne or other—that might give me some insight into the unique dynamics of the present situation. I returned to Eden Tower—which Eden very thoughtfully vacated—and used his links to generate subspace access to our master files. It took a few days for request and clearance to wind their way through sub-space channels, and the inevitable space static played the usual havoc with the netted files, but in the end I had a reasonably satisfactory collection of studies at my disposal. I went to work.
I made short shrift of our contributions on the subject: Even O’bonne scholarship, for all its breadth, had rarely encountered an immigrant assimilation problem stemming not so much from exclusion by the host society as from a flat refusal by the immigrant group to adapt to their new world. The few documented cases, however, proved quite instructive, since, as was the case here, the unassimilating frequently based their refusal on religious convictions.
One of the more troublesome attitudes I had encountered during my period of Island observations was the utter contempt of Alnese spiritual practices exhibited by the newcomers. The Alnese use of the unflattering and ominous term “alien” for the settlers was matched by the latters’ almost exclusive use of the word “pagan”—a term that didn’t even exist in Alnese and for which we all used a Kobran loan word—for their hosts. After several days of hearing them whining about the “cults” practiced on Alnos, and after eliciting some less guarded comments several days into Eden’s attempted mediation, I realized to my horror that the settlers saw Alnese religious orders as a collection of witches’ covens which they associated with their own anti-god. They had no understanding whatsoever of Alnos’ spirituality. Their attitude amounted to an incompatibility I couldn’t begin to unravel!
The Alnese refusal to grant their new population full Alnese citizenship was not arbitrary. It stemmed mostly from a flat-out rejection by immigrants to engage in important social and religious practices considered concomitant with being Alnese. To be Alnese meant to participate fully in the never-ending inter-clan dynamics of rivalries and alliances. It meant accepting the clan as the basis of all social and familial relationships, and that included a certain mindfulness of ancestors and ancestral inheritance the newcomers equated with ancestor worship. Professional and occupational participation in Alnese society meant entering into the parallel system of Alnese orders, many of which also combined occupational discipline with certain spiritual practices. The unassimilating settlers rejected both systems with uncommon vehemence. Their rather rigid religious and social convictions clashed with Alnese beliefs in both areas.
I had proposed to Lady Ciani that the Alnese explore conferring clan status on the Heshti settlements; now I realized just how impossible that would be. On the surface of it, turning settler family groups into clans was an easy transformation. In reality, it meant re-structuring immigrant family life. The settlers had fairly fixed ideas about social and family roles, and adhered to a patriarchal family system maximizing the accumulation of property. By Alnese standards, the settlers were quite obsessed with amassing material wealth. That tended to discourage exogamy, and thus inhibit the formation of the inter-clan alliances on which the entire Alnese social order was based. The goal of material accumulation also created a whole other layer of conflict with the Alnese, who did not consider nearly as many “material” things alienable enough to be owned and traded, and thus tended to see them as not negotiable. Instead, to the consternation of their newcomers, the Alnese viewed many social and familial relationships very flexibly.
How to resolve incompatibilities like these? The only opening lay in the Alnese flexibility in defining social and familial roles. Perhaps that flexibility could allow the Alnese to see some of the less extreme male-dominated extended settler-families as transitional clans, and perhaps they could pursue some temporary relationships with them. Once nursed into being, such transitional clans and their temporary alliances with their Alnese neighbors could at least set the inter-clan alliance dynamics in motion. I couldn’t afford to be overly optimistic. For one thing, the only working linkages I could imagine for the foreseeable future were between Alnese men and settler women. And whichever way I extrapolated from my models, the integrative process between the two groups would be slow.
As I mulled over my reports and demographic models, it become clear to me that Eden understood a good deal more about the problems brewing beneath the still calm surface of things than I at first had thought. He knew that an inevitable confrontation was in the works, and that the religious nature of this show down could make it intractable. Having ruled out the possibility of a win-win type of agreement, and knowing full well what the Space Gypsies were capable of should they feel their world threatened, he was trying to avert such a worst-case scenario. I began to understand why he was so unyielding on the question of land tenure, and on granting any clan-rights to the unassimilating settlers. It was of paramount importance to keep up the pressure on the settlers so alternative clan processes like the ones I was concocting would at least be tried. It was equally imperative to minimize contact between settlers and Alnese so as to minimize provocations.
Of course the settlers were not particularly cooperative. When, in keeping with our devil’s bargain, Eden had told me about a challenge he received after closing in on his suspects, we both agreed that his initial dismissive appraisal of the motives behind the island murders had been wrong. Justiciar Eden had been challenged to a duel by a member of the martial Order of Tomrys, a group of enforcers particularly popular in the Islands. Though we still didn’t know how the settlers had incited the islanders, we concluded that something quite outrageous must have occurred. The challenge also told us who might be behind Kuan Kim’s little band of would-be fighters, and that made me privately appreciate the measures Eden had taken. If Justiciar Eden’s Tomryd challenger could count on sympathizers in his Order, the next little band of fighters would surely be of a different caliber, and that could precipitate a chain-reaction.
I shuddered at the thought of a Tomrys-led movement against the settlers. Not only would it make the island-murders look like a picnic, but it would also set one martial order against the other. Then it would be only a matter of time before the Alnese would unite against the common foe—and Arthmis would have to cede.
As Eden told me in one less guarded moment, “Then what? If my people close in on them, where could the heshtis retreat to? We have no other world to give them.”
