Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (23 page)

"Just look at that hair," she said, and ran her fingers through Bleys' dark brown, slightly wavy, hair.

"No more of that, if you don't mind," said Bleys, instinctively pulling his head away from her hand.

Not so much the words, but the tone in which he spoke turned the heads of all the others within hearing toward him. The woman who had been about to say something teasing about his self-consciousness, on second thought said nothing. She got up from the arm of his chair and walked away.

Bleys suddenly realized he had spoken in a voice that he did not know he possessed. But he recognized whose voice it was. It was the voice of Henry, who was used to making no statements that were not orders, amplified and made even more potent by Bleys' recent training. At base was the fact that

Henry had never emphasized what he had to say, nor identified it as a command. But the absolute certainty that it would be understood and obeyed had always been clearly- broadcast in the tone of it. As it had been just now—only more so—in Bleys' voice.

Unconsciously, Bleys had taken that tone and put it to use. A feeling of sudden guilt in him was overwhelmed by the feeling of surprise. He could hardly believe that an attitude of command had come to him that easily. With that understanding came another one, close on its heels: that it would be a mistake for him now to apologize, as he had just been about to do, to the woman who had run her fingers through his hair. At one stroke he had taken the attitude of someone to be obeyed by all the rest of them.

Immediately, he was concerned by the fact that by doing so, he might have made enemies of all of them, all over again. But; looking around at the faces around him, he did not see resentment on any of them. Just as he had assumed that they would do what he said, so they had assumed that he was in a position to tell them what to do.

It was a very large discovery indeed. He tucked it away in the back of his mind to be thought of when he had more time to himself.

In the weeks to come he tried to make some amends for any harshness the others might have felt in his words; and went so far as to make easy friendships with a number of the women. Affection he found. Love, he could not find; by consequence of the very fact he was committed to setting himself apart from all other humans.

So he could not talk to any of them about his plans for the future, his vision of a race purified and set right upon its way; and the result was to leave him feeling more isolated even than before.

Still, in other ways during the next weeks, months, and years, he made as much use of this situation as possible; gathering information almost as one might gather a bale of straw, a single straw at a time. Likewise, he did the same with the several new classes of trainees that succeeded his first one.

At the same time, his own private lessons were beginning to have their effect. The fencing instructor and the special sessions with the
sensei
developed him amazingly, not merely in the area of physical strength but also in the way in which he handled his body. Eventually, these instructors passed him on to those who could give him more advanced teaching in the same areas.

The same thing took place as well with most of those who came to give him special or private lessons. The speech therapist extended his vocal range a full octave and a half both upwards and downwards and a teacher of singing eventually brought his voice to a resonance that made the voice itself arresting; so that he discovered he could use the tone of it alone as a means of focusing the attention of someone on whom he wished to use his personal control of the Exotic techniques—in which he took further tutoring from a true expatriate Mar an Exotic.

In the process, he stumbled upon a discovery. He had always studied what he had to, before. In the beginning, that had been those fields of information handed him by the caretakers; then, here on Association, it had become what he felt he required to reach the goal he had set for himself.

But now, he was free to learn anything he liked. Dahno was as good as his word. Bleys could spend whatever he wished on teachers and materials. For the first time he began to poke his intellectual nose into geology, archaeology . . . and other systems; ending finally with the arts—painting, sculpture, music and writing.

It was with these last that he made a marvelous discovery. He had never encountered any human, even Dahno or his mother, who had the power to stretch his own understanding to -the limit. But in the arts, he found it—in the time-proven classics of brushwork, knife-work, and the mind-work that went into poetry and literature.

Why,
he thought,
here they are, the people I could talk to and befriends with.

What the makers had to say was to be found in the results of their efforts, in their carvings, their buildings, their words.
No,
he thought; it was not
in
these things, it was to be heard and understood
through
them. For that which came through, spoke to him as no human being ever had—on his own level of ability. It was as if a soundless chime was heard in his head whenever he encountered what was held in the living material of their work.

Sadly, those who had made these things might have proved as disappointing to him as all other humans—for he no longer believed that anywhere would he find his equal—but they had all possessed the capability of meeting him on a level in what they had created.

The result was that he pushed aside all the other attractive things that beckoned him after his important studies were found; and found himself losing himself in the culture of the total race, as exemplified by the best it had done for centuries.

He learned Classical Greek only to read the
Iliad;
but then he read it, and the original words rolled musically and thunderously in his mind. And the colors of the centuries stained him through.

He found himself thinking that, if only he did not have this higher, more important duty that held him in an unbreakable grip, he could live exclusively with these shining things; and maybe even try his hand at equaling some of them himself, forgetting all responsibilities to the civilized worlds and those who lived on them.

But the higher duty to move the race up—even one step—continued to hold him with a hand more powerful than the movement of the stars; and it was in the ordinary things and people such as the trainees themselves, that he finally learned what he needed to progress most surely to that end. Slowly, bit by bit from them, he picked up information with which he was able to build bridges of conjecture out over the void of that part of Dahno's organizational activities which Dahno had kept hidden from him.

Not one, but many such cantilevered bridges of logical theory, he built; until at last they all locked together and he became certain at last that he had a strong grasp on what he had set out to find.

It happened then, four years after his confrontation with Dahno over the special tutoring, that he was waiting in the lounge of the apartment late one afternoon when he knew Dahno was expected in.

When the door from the hall opened and Dahno finally entered^ Bleys stood up to meet him and they met almost in the center of the lounge.

They stood eye to eye now. Bleys at last had the same height as his brother; but he was still slim, for all the hardness of his trained body. He had no illusions about becoming particularly dangerous physically. It was only that he conceived the work he would have to do with his mind needed a physical vehicle in the best possible shape. He had made it that way, accordingly; and he would work to keep it that way.

"Something on your mind?" asked Dahno.

"Yes," said Bleys, "why don't we both sit down?"

By custom they took the two chairs in which they usually sat facing each other in this room. As usual Dahno dwarfed the extra large size of his; but Bleys no longer seemed lost in its equally large partner. He sat easily, with his back straight, barely touching the back of the chair.

"It occurred to me right now there's something you might want to think about," Bleys said. "Also, I've got a suggestion about myself."

"Charge ahead," said Dahno, throwing himself back in his chair.

"The something you might want to consider," said Bleys, "is I think you've got a potentially explosive situation with those private gunmen of yours, or whatever they are, and wherever you've got them hidden; together with
this
newest political project you're involved in."

He delivered the bombshell of his words quite calmly, and ended looking at Dahno, waiting for his answer.

Dahno slowly sat upright in his chair.

"How did you get into the secret files?" he asked. "Neither the Hounds nor the project are in the open ones."

Bleys waved a hand dismissingly.

"I haven't," he said. "I'm only judging from deductions

made, from all the other information I've gathered over the past four years. There have to be many things in your secret files I don't know. But I know the general shape of a great many other things that have to be there. I've worked out only what I can; but it adds up to a pretty clear general picture of what you haven't been telling me." -

He waited. Slowly a broad grin spread across Dahno's face.

"Well, well, Mr. Vice-Chairman," he said, "congratulations on your graduation. Those milk-teeth seem to be all gone finally; and I'd say that's a pretty serviceable set of tusks you've grown in their place."

CHAPTER
20

"I
wouldn't call
them tusks," said Bleys.

"I would," said Dahno, and there was no humor or mockery in his tone. "Knowledge is power, you know that as well as I do. Those are knowledge tusks."

"Whatever you want to call them," said Bleys, "they're at your service."

"Good," answered Dahno, "welcome to the firm, Mr. Number One Vice-Chairman. We'll put you to use. You'll begin by answering a question. Why do you think keeping Hounds is dangerous?"

"Because any loaded weapon in reach is always dangerous," said Bleys. "If it was an actual gun, and you couldn't lay hands on it at a moment's notice, you might end up thinking twice before using it. Otherwise, the time may come when you'll reach for it automatically—and later regret it." . "And you think that's a danger with me?" said Dahno- "Do you think with what I've done and what I am, I'd be the kind of person who'd go off half-cocked in a situation like that?"

"I think anybody would be in danger of going off half-cocked in a situation like that," said Bleys. "When you were young, did you ever use your strength to get what you wanted, without thinking out all the possible results and what might result from them?"

"Yes," said Dahno slowly. "But that was when I was young. I don't agree with you that the Hounds are any danger to anyone unless I want them to be. And I never intend to want them to be. They're there to be used as a threat, instead of as a weapon. Now, are you satisfied?"

"Yes, Mr. Chairman," said Bleys.

"Then that's settled," said Dahno. "Now, what do you know about this political project you referred to that I'm supposed to be involved in?"

"I only know there is one," said Bleys. "I'm fairly sure it has to do with all the talk I've heard about the building of another Core Tap to provide power to the planet. What I've had to do has been like figuring out the orbit of a star around some dark body, by the eccentricities of its orbit. I try to reason from result to facts. As a result, my facts are merely educated guesses. But I'll bet I'm right about the Core Tap."

"And why would you think I was involved with the decision in the Chamber whether or not to build it?" asked Dahno.

"Because it's such a huge, technical job to reach down into a world's hot core to generate power for the southwest of this continent. So, it's a question of spending so much credit that the very economic balance of the world will be affected," said Bleys. "The truth of the matter is, from what I'm able to judge of this planet, it can't afford that expense yet, badly as the energy from another Core Tap would be needed. Scientists would have to be hired from Newton, engineers from Cassida, and the cost of their salaries would be high, as well as the payments to the worlds they came from—all that in interstellar credit. Which must come hard to a world that is largely self-sufficient because it is so poor in materials it can export to gain that credit. About all Association, here, and Harmony, have to export is their young men as mercenary soldiers to the other worlds; and mercenary soldiers don't bring in a great deal of interstellar credit, except in quantity. At the same time, those young men are needed here."

"Right you are, in everything about the Core Tap," said Dahno, "but you didn't answer my question. Why would I be involved?"

"Simply because so many of your clients are representatives in the Chamber. Because they're involved, you'll get drawn into it. You could find yourself giving answers to opposite sides of the question."

"Good for you," said Dahno softly. "Suppose I say everything you tell me is true. Still, you tied that in with the question of the Hounds and my own personal safety. What I'm hearing is, I'll be involved too deeply for my own safety and the safety of our organization of Others. Be a little more specific, Mr. 'Vice-Chairman."

"Do I need to be?" said Bleys with a shrug. "Certainly the situation has to mean that kind of danger for you."

He paused, watching Dahno.

"Don't you think that could be part of my job?" Bleys went on. "Keeping my eyes on the general picture, while you're focusing on what specifically is to be done; and warning you if I think I see trouble?"

Dahno nodded slowly.

"Maybe that's a good suggestion," he said. "I have to keep my nose close to the grindstone, and it does limit my field of vision. Very good, Mr. Vice-Chairman. Your job can be to look around while I'm getting things done and make sure nothing creeps up on us from behind." ' Dahno got up on his feet.

"Tell you what I'll do," he said. "I came home to change clothes before going to my regular table, but in honor of the occasion we'll stay away from that restaurant completely. I'm still going to change clothes; but we'll go have a private meal, just as we used to when I was bringing you in from Henry's place in the country. But first I'll take you by the office and I'll give you your key to open the secret files."

He was as good as his word. They stopped at the office first and Bleys was given a key to the secret files. Bleys' mind itched to be at them—for what he had been able to guess about them was only a fraction of what he knew he could discover from an actual look at them. But Dahno was there with him.

"I'm flattered," he said to Dahno. "Very flattered."

"You should be," said Dahno; "no one else has ever unlocked those files; and until you came to Association, I never thought anybody but me ever would."

He turned away.

"Now, for dinner," he said, "I know the place we want."

The place was all that two people could want who wished to keep their conversation private. The tables were enclosed in little alcoves so designed that sound did not carry from them, even to the most nearby of other tables and alcoves. Over the wine, which Bleys passed up, and of which Dahno drank copiously, his half-brother told him more about himself than Bleys had ever expected to hear.

Like Bleys, he had at first attracted their mother's hopes. Here, she had thought—as she had with Bleys—was someone she could show off; and who, in return could show her off. For if the child was that bright, people must think, how bright then must the mother be?

Dahno however, unlike Bleys, had never opposed her openly. He had pretended to go along with her while stealing more and more time for himself and his own activities; until she discovered this and—since by this time he was at an unlovely age and now looked entirely too old to be the wonder-child that she had first envisioned and in fact used him as—she locked him up. He broke out and ran away, trading on the fact he was already almost adult size. She had him recaptured and sent him on to Henry. Once again, this had been with the complaisant aid of Henry's brother, Ezekiel.

At Henry's, Dahno had worked his persuasiveness upon Henry, until he had Henry in a position to agree to the fact that for all Dahno's muscle, his mind and skills could be more help to the farm by putting them to use in the city.

Dahno was allowed to go, accordingly. Once there, by using his own natural ability to ingratiate himself with people, plus the Exotic techniques he had, like Bleys, picked up from their mother, he had soon climbed to a position in which he could find backers to start him in the business he was in now. He had made this a quite straightforward business deal; and had paid back all those who had lent him the funds originally to set him up. He was, in effect, a lobbyist-at-large—and not even restricted to politics at that.

To the astonishment and pleasure of those who first consulted him, his area of knowledge took in the whole scope of the economic situation on Association, and Harmony as well. Since then it had grown to where he could also take into account the situations on the other planets, the rest of the Younger Worlds as well.

From that point on he had begun to build his organization of Others. As Bleys had already discovered, there had been for some years a loose social group of the mixed-breeds on this planet, drawn together by the fact that they were different.

At the same time Dahno had been careful to pick from among them those who were strongly schooled in the Friendly attitude of mind. He wanted believers, people he could bring to a fierce adherence to his own plans and pattern; and who would find that more attractive than anything else.

Also, he had held up the chance of attractive rewards for their working with him. Following their training, which was indeed good training, not just make-believe, they felt themselves stronger and more capable—and even in the process of their learning they began to appreciate what Dahno was doing for them.

All this, aside from the fact that they would be going off, some of them even to their native worlds or at least to one of the worlds from which their parentage was derived, to set themselves up with the sort of rewards and power that Dahno enjoyed himself.

Also, Dahno made sure that in his dealing with them, what he let them see of him reflected the fact that his lot was indeed attractive as well as powerful. He had always paid his debts to those he had borrowed from; and first of all to Henry. He still made frequent gifts of money to the farm as well as the little gifts he brought, occasionally, for the building of Henry's tractor. He even made visits just to visit.

"—And how about you," he asked, at last, across the table to Bleys, "how do you like it here in Ecumeny?"

Bleys was touched, not merely by Dahno's unveiling of his personal past, but by a genuine reaching out of warmth from him to Bleys. It was something Bleys reciprocated, now; but with reservations, because he was aware how his brother—like their mother—was capable of changing attitudes completely at different times and different places. Dahno, like her, had the knack of being in his own mind completely truthful at any moment, believing he meant entirely what he said. But at another moment, somewhat removed in time, he could feel equally truthful with an attitude that was the exact opposite.

Nonetheless, for the time of this one dinner they were closer, and felt that closeness, more than they had ever been before.

Seeing the chance to get back to more immediate matters, Bleys ventured to say something of what he had in mind for himself.

"It'll take me some time to study those secret files," he told Dahno, "but if the situation warrants it, and you still think it's a good idea, maybe it wouldn't be a bad notion on my part to travel around to all the worlds on which we've got established organizations. That way I could not only get a firsthand picture of our people already there, and the organization they've built, but some idea of how they're developing. Also, how close they're following your overall plans for the Others as a whole."

Dahno nodded slowly again.

"Good idea," he said. "I'm not great for interstellar travel myself. I've got my hands full; and anyway, I'd rather stay here and mind the store. But this way you can do the two things at once. I'd like to know if any of
them are drifting out of the partern
I tried to set them in, without having to take time off from things here, to find out."

Bleys found it interesting that his half-brother considered affairs on Association so demanding that he had been willing to risk the natural drift in attitude of those in his organization on other worlds. Dahno had to know, as well as Bleys did, what happens when people are removed from any outside source of attitude control. The next day Bleys opened up the secret files and went to work on them.

On the surface they did not seem to offer a great deal more than he had already guessed. The main difference was that in the secret files people were given names and assigned places. So that now he was able to get the list of the personnel in all of Dahno's organization.

Also there were details about Dahno's work with the people he advised; particularly those who were members of the Chamber.

Bleys was interested to note that his half-brother had been either consciously or unconsciously jockeying for a position of direct control over those within that Chamber from his beginning as an adviser. At the present time, on crucial legislation, the Five Sisters, whom he did not influence as a whole, had control; as long as they spoke and voted together.

The reason for this was that most of the church representatives in the Chamber were not necessarily the leaders of the church they represented. All five of the Sisters were charismatic. Eighty percent of the representatives were deputies appointed by leaders who felt it far more necessary to stay close to their flock, and give all their attention in that direction, than to sit off at a distance in the Chamber passing laws. Since the actual heads of churches tended to be charismatic, and then-deputies tended to be less so, the Five Sisters were natural leaders of the rest.

Bleys also looked for—and found—evidence of those in the Others' suborganizations on other planets being less successful, and drifting away from Dahno's original purposes. Of this, he found no direct evidence, but some very convincing indirect evidence; which he printed off, and at his next talk with Dahno passed the pages to him to read, without comment.

It was a few days later, and they were in Dahno's office, together, on a bright, rainless winter morning. Bleys sat quietly while Dahno scanned through the sheets. Since Bleys'

"graduation," he had given up most connections with the trainees, keeping only a few of his special tutors whom he considered necessary; and these were those training him in the physical area and on the subject of phase physics. The result was that he was free to meet with Dahno like this early in the day. Also, this was the best time for Dahno, when he was most free of people wishing to see him and ask his advice. The meetings had become a regular thing.

Dahno finished the sheets, put them down and looked at Bleys.

"You expected me to see what this indicates?" Dahno said.

"I knew you would," said Bleys. "And I thought it would be best you see the evidence first, without any comment from me."

"Right," said Dahno. "Quite right, Bleys. Have you got any comment now?"

"Why no," said Bleys, "I leave it up to you."

"I think we understand each other." Dahno smiled grimly. "It looks like your tour of our outworld organizations is overdue. It's high time you met our other groups."

He smiled again. But Bleys read anger behind the smile.

"Naturally, it'll officially be only a friendly get-acquainted tour; so you can get to know them and they, you."