Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (38 page)

"That's providing," said Bleys, "that all our Hounds get away without being caught, questioned and revealed as belonging to our organization."

"Well, they don't belong to our organization," said Norton; "actually they know nothing about it—even Ahram. They know about Dahno's public face, that's all. But even Dahno's safely off-world now."

"Are you positive," asked Bleys, "that the Hounds are fully prepared? It looked to me as if they could use some more time in practice when I was out at their place yesterday."

"What gave you that idea?" said Brawley. "They looked perfectly all right both to Dahno and myself even a week or more ago, when we last saw them. Also, McKae's speech itself is still three weeks off. If there's something you want sharpened up on their training, I'm sure that can be done."

"What's been done about getting them to where the speech is going to be held?" Bleys asked.

"Why," said Brawley, "of course, they'll be flown in, in private atmosphere ships with our own men driving them—the ships, that is. Then they change to five cars, six Hounds to a car, and move down into the area of the main auditorium here, a good hour ahead of time. Particularly with the badges, they ought to be able to get inside the building, so that they're behind McKae when he leaves. If they shoot him down on the steps it can't help but look like a fight of factions within his church itself. That sort of thing happens all the time. Church members get definitely lined up on one side or another."

"And then the Hounds just slip away to the cars, correct?" Bleys said.

"Exactly," answered Norton, smiling.

"And what if the police have any reason to investigate the ground cars on their way in, or what if any of our Hounds are caught, trying to get away from the scene after the shooting?" Bleys said.

"Surely, Bleys Ahrens," said Norton, "you must know all mat. As far as the police are concerned, we've arranged through our connections on the city force, that the cars are to be let through no matter what the situation is. As far as other police at the scene, or the church members, or McKae's own guards—I believe our intelligence tells us that he'll only have guards who're simply self-trained individuals. Men who've perhaps had a little experience in wars between the churches. He'll be counting on the mass of people in his church for his main protection; and his so-called 'security' people'd be no match, man on man, for our Hounds, anyway."

"It does sound excellent," said
Bleys, in a thoughtful tone of
voice, "provided nothing unexpected goes wrong. I still think the Hounds involved in that could stand a little more practice, though."

"Well, that's easy enough to arrange, Bleys Ahrens." said Norton. "Do you want me to take care of it?"

"Yes," said Bleys, still thoughtfully, "perhaps you'd better do that rather than I, since they've had more contact with you than with me and they probably only know you and Dahno at all well."

"Certainly, absolutely. I'll take care of it the moment I get back to my office," said Norton. "I'll phone out there."

"Better go in person," said Bleys; "I'd like you to impress on them the urgency that I feel about their being in top training."

"If that's what you want," said Norton, rising, "but I do think you may be concerning yourself a little more over this than is necessary."

"Better safe than sorry," said Bleys.

"But what I don't see," said Norton as Bleys walked with him to the door of the apartment, "is why you consider this something of a crisis. You could simply have called me and given me the message to take out to them."

Bleys smiled down at him.

"I thought perhaps I ought to impress you, too, with my own feeling of concern and urgency," said Bleys. "I hope I've done that."

"Indeed you have, indeed you have," said Norton. He offered his hand to Bleys and they clasped. "Yes, it probably was wise for you to see me now as soon as possible, if you're feeling this way about it. But I do promise you there'll be nothing to it when the time comes."

Bleys let him out and closed the door behind him; then went back to sit down in the chair he had been occupying when they were talking. What was facing him was obvious. He would have to look into McKae's church and at McKae's top people, somehow. He had to get a much clearer picture of McKae's vulnerability.

He had fished for most of the information he wanted from

Norton Brawley and got it. But it had been information he was not particularly happy to have. Norton, clearly, was no more able to plan and put together the kind of thing the Hounds were to be sent on, than anyone in the Hounds, themselves.

In short, the necessity was to avoid the risk of bringing the name of the Others into newsprint exposure as assassins. The militia would not be long in making that connection, once Ahram had pointed Norton Brawley out to them. The publicity would bring the name to total and utter ruin—which he, Bleys, could not afford now or in the future. Particularly, with the plans he had for it on a much more advanced scale.

Clearly he would have to do something about the situation, himself. He got up and went down to the exercise room in the apartment building, to give his body something to do, while his mind had time to work out the situation.

The answers he wanted were buried in the back of his head, and took time to surface, as he had expected they would. He had been under a great temptation today, with Norton, to plunge into an investigation of McKae's church, trusting that his mind would sort out what needed to be done as he went along.

However, experience with his own ways of thinking had taught him better than that. He was always best when he had a chance to let his unconscious ponder the situation until it began to come up with all the answers on it.

Two days after his talk with Brawley, it had.

Chapter 32

The new and
small, but active Arise! congregation in an old Ecumeny church, abandoned and outgrown by whatever other church had owned it originally, paid little attention at first to one of the newest worshipers, except to remark on his exceeding height. Tall as he was, his clothes were still a little too big on him; and were old and shabby, giving the impression that he had not perhaps eaten as regularly lately as he should.

Eventually, at his second meeting, when some of the other members of the congregation ventured to make his acquaintance, he admitted that he was out of work at the moment. He had grown up on a farm not too far from Ecumeny and was taking his time trying to find something in the city that he thought he would like to stay with. His name, he said,.was Bleys MacLean.

Bleys had given some thought to what name to call himself. Sooner or later, if he got close to McKae, he would be checked back on. To a large extent, he intended to tell the truth, using Henry's farm as his background and with only the small
difference that Henry was his father, rather than his uncle. He felt fairly safe with this. The members of a congregation of a country church were very clannish toward any outsider— particularly an outside investigator.

They might not have liked Bleys, and might still not like him, but that did not mean that they would correct someone who was inquiring about him under an altered name. They would simply go along with the fact that Bleys' last name was MacLean and if necessary direct the person to Henry.

Henry, who was even more protective of his family than the congregation was of one of its former members, would give away nothing. So, Bleys felt fairly sure that his background as a country boy growing up on Henry's farm would hold up under any investigation McKae's people might give his background.

"And what brought you to our Church?" another member of the congregation asked.

"I heard our Great Teacher Darrel McKae speak; and I realized at once that it was him I should be listening to," said Bleys.

"Oh, you heard Darrel McKae himself?" said the man who had just spoken. "What church of ours was that at?"

Bleys swayed a little, uncomfortably, and looked down at his large, worn boots as if embarrassed. He seemed to have a permanent stoop to his shoulders; as if he was continually and apologetically trying to get down to the level of the people to whom he talked. Outside of this, he gave the impression of not being too bright.

"Actually," he said, "it wasn't a church. It was on the floor of the Chamber. I was in the visitors' gallery, there."

They stared at him a little.

"The visitors' gallery?" said the man who had been doing all the talking so far. "What were you doing in the visitors' gallery? You need a special pass even to get into the Chamber building."

Bleys looked even more embarrassed.

"I found a pass in the street," he said; "it was only for one day, and someone must have thrown it away; but the pass was for the same date as that day, so I put it on and went inside, just to see what I could see. The guard on the door of the gallery wasn't too happy about someone like me visiting"—Bleys smiled awkwardly—"but he let me in. Our Great Teacher was talking about the Core Tap and how the people who worked on it had to be Godly people, people who were steady church attendants, no matter what world they came from."

"Quite right, too," said a woman who was part of the group, "he really told them! Read it in the newsprint."

"And that made you go looking for one of his churches?" asked the same man who had been asking so many of the questions.

"Yes," said Bleys, "I saw one church, but it was pretty grand. I thought I'd look for something a little more . . . homey. Like the church we used to have out near the farm."

"So you came to our church. Quite right," said the woman. "God and the truly religious have little use for mere size and ornament!"

There was a general agreement from those in the group standing around Bleys.

"And I like it here very well," added Bleys.

"And we're happy to have you, Bleys MacLean," said the same man. "You'll find friends here. You'll find True Faith-holders, every one of us!"

"Thank you, thank you," murmured Bleys, "I try hard to be a True Faith-holder myself."

"Have you met our Teacher, yet?" said the man.

Bleys shook his head.

"Well, come meet him, then," said the man, taking Bleys by the arm and literally pulling him forward. Bleys hung back for a second, then followed. The other church members with them tagged along.

They went up to the front of the church and around a small corner. Behind a fretted wooden screen there, they found a middle-aged, rather plump man with, by contrast, a remarkably thin face, washing his hands. He had evidently just taken off and hung up the black robe he had put on for the service.

"Teacher," said the man who still had his hand on Bleys' arm, "I want you to meet a new member of our congregation. Bleys MacLean. He saw the bright light of our Arise! Church as a result of listening to our Great Teacher Darrel McKae, himself, speak. Teacher, this is Bleys MacLean. Bleys, this is Teacher Samuel Godsarm."

With his hand on Bleys' arm he literally pulled Bleys forward to confront the church-leader.

"I'm very honored to make your acquaintance, Bleys MacLean," said Samuel Godsarm. He offered his hand to Bleys' clasp, and Bleys took it briefly, hesitantly, as if he did not want to hold the other's hand too long in his long-fingered grasp, or press too hard. "This is your first time here?"

"No, no," put in the woman, who was still among the group behind Bleys. "He's been here once before, but he sat in the back, by himself; and he's been a little bit shy about coming forward to make friends. We thought the best thing was for him to meet you, and know mat this Arise! Church is his religious home."

"Well said, Martha Aino," replied Samuel Godsarm. He smiled up at Bleys. "We're all your friends here, Bleys MacLean. Just take that for granted."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot," mumbled Bleys.

"What is your occupation, Brother Bleys?"

Before Bleys could answer, the people he had just been talking to in the group around him began to answer for him, telling the church-leader of how Bleys had found a pass, wandered into the visitors' gallery of the Chamber, and heard Darrel McKae speak about the Core Tap.

"Well, well, well," said Godsarm, "you may not believe it, Brother Bleys, being new among us, but many of us have not had the good fortune you've had of hearing the Great Leader directly. I have, myself, of course. It was the reason I was inspired to found this particular church. But many of our people who've come to us from other, false, churches, have merely heard the message of the Leader, and at once known that they wanted to follow him."

"Have you preached?" asked the woman who had followed diem up to this point.

Bleys had considered the chance of being asked this, but only briefly. He was familiar with the fact that most of the sects on both Friendly Worlds expected all their members to be ready to preach at a moment's notice. It was assumed that if they were truly in touch with the Lord, that the words would come to them from the Lord, as needed. This was a matter of belief and not to be set aside.

"I have
..."
said Bleys, sounding only a little more unwilling than he actually felt. It was not mat he could not preach if he had to. It merely went against his grain to do something for which he had not prepared.

"Most of the members are still in the church yet, Samuel," said the woman who had come along and spoken up before. "Do you suppose that our new Brother Bleys here could preach us a short sermon; and perhaps tell us about his experience in listening to the Great Leader from the visitors' gallery?"

"A very good idea, Martha," answered Godsarm. He stepped back from the sink, turning to Bleys. "If you will oblige us, Bleys?" he asked.

"Of course," said Bleys, a little hesitantly. In truth, he was not hesitant. He had no doubt of his own capability to give them a short sermon or tell them about McKae's speech.

Seeing that Godsarm was still standing back from the sink, obviously inviting Bleys to use it, Bleys realized that the Arise! Church must be one of those in which the practice of the preacher washing his hands before his sermon and again afterwards was adhered to. He stepped to the sink, laved his long hands in the stream of water from the tap, rubbed on some of the rough homemade soap from the soap shelf, and rinsed the hands off. Turning off the tap he dried his hands on the loop of toweling that hung nearby, and turned back to Godsarm.

"I'm ready," he said.

Everyone else except Godsarm, Bleys saw, had left; undoubtedly they had gone back into the body of the church.

"Come with me then, Bleys," said Godsarm. "I'll introduce you to our members."

Bleys followed him around to the front of the screen and up to the lectern that stood on the platform three steps above the general floor of the church. Buzzing with interest, the people still there after the regular service, who must have numbered forty or fifty, were sorting themselves out and taking seats in preparation for what they had probably already heard was going to happen. It was quite common for church members to linger in a church like this, not merely for minutes but sometimes for hours. For many of these people it was the one social occasion of the week available. Godsarm stepped up to the lectern.

"Quiet, everybody," he said.

The congregation quieted and those who were still on their feet sat down. They sat in expectant silence.

"I have to introduce to you today," said Godsarm in the rolling tones of a practiced preacher, "a new member of our church, Bleys MacLean. He saw the light of our way, when by chance he found himself in the gallery overlooking the floor of the Chamber; and heard our Great Leader speak words of fire about those from off-world who should work on our new Core Tap, if indeed the Core Tap is voted into being."

He turned to Bleys.

"Brother Bleys," he said, "our Brothers and Sisters wait to hear from you."

Bleys stepped up to the lectern, which came barely to his waist. He had been an actor almost from the time he could toddle, thanks to his life with his mother, and he saw instant advantages in what was happening. For one thing, he could let himself go in the sermon and the telling. The audience would credit it, not to him, but to inspiration by the Lord.

He gripped the outer edge of the lectern with his hands so that the long, powerful fingers were visible. It was a gesture of strong theatrical effect, and it worked on the congregation. The people in the body of the church were already silent, but now the hush about them became one in which everyone seemed to hold their breaths at the same moment.

"Brothers and Sisters," he said, with all the power and command of his trained voice; which, following closely on

Godsarm's announcement, was like the carrying notes of a trumpet, after the notes of a flute.

"I speak to you with the words the Lord gives me to speak. First, let me remind you of one of the laws of the Lord. When I was a boy, on our farm we had a neighbor. This neighbor had many goats, but after a while they began to sicken, one by one and die; and finally he came to ask my father if he would come and look at these sick goats; and tell him perhaps what was wrong with them, why he could not keep them in good health.

"My father went and saw the goats. They were in clean quarters, they were warm—for it was wintertime and they liked the shelter of their barn better than the outside and the chilling winds. There was food in front of them but they were not eating.

"My father turned to his neighbor and said,
'Do you talk to these goats?'

" 'What do you mean, talk to them?'
asked the neighbor.

" 'Do you know them by name? Do you call them by name? Do you spend a few moments each day perhaps in brushing their coats and speaking to them?'

"
'I
do not,'
said the neighbor, ‘
I
have never heard of such a thing.'

" 'Do so,'
said my father,
'then, after a week come and ask me to see them again.'

"A week later the neighbor came over and his face was lit as a lantern is lit from inside by a candle.

" 'Come and see my goats now!'
he said.

"My father went over with him and saw the goats. They were still in the shelter of their shed, but they were entirely changed. Their coats shone, their ears stood up and most of them were eating from the mangers in front of them.

"'Tell me,'
the neighbor asked my father,
'how did you know that what you told me to do would have such a marvelous effect on them?'

"
'It
is one of the laws of the Lord with all his creatures,'
said my father.
'They will sicken and die if they receive no attention from he who controls and directs every moment of their lives. Even as you would not ignore your children, if you had some'
—for the neighbor was unmarried and had no progeny—
'you must give your beasts some attention, some care and even some love. Do that and your flock will flourish.'

"Members of this congregation, I have never forgotten that," went on Bleys, "and it is so, what my father said. I have looked all my life for leaders who cared for their flock as my father had said it should be done. The other day, sitting in seats high above the floor of the Chamber where laws are made for all our world, I listened to just such a leader, enunciating just such a law.

"That leader was our Great Teacher, Darrel McKae. He was speaking about the Core Tap, which we hope to add to those two that already provide power to this hard and hungry planet of ours. His words were better than any I could use to tell you of what I heard, so I will repeat now to you what he said then—word for word—for, from the time I could first talk, I have been blessed with a memory that loses nothing of value in God's eyes."

Bleys began to repeat from memory, for his verbal memory was as good as his visual memory, McKae's speech on the floor of the Chamber. When he had at last ended and stepped back from the platform, there was a long moment of almost frozen silence from his audience. And then everyone began to call out at once, blessing McKae and blessing Bleys.

"Your memory is a true gift of the Lord," said Godsarm, when he and Bleys were together behind the screen and Bleys was washing his hands again. This time no one had ventured to come up from the floor. They had looked at Bleys, at the end of his speech, in fact, with awe and almost disbelief.

"Yes," said Bleys, returning to the uncertain voice with which he had talked to everyone before he stepped up to the lectern. "I am indeed thankful to God that I have been so blessed."

"I think, Brother Bleys," said Godsarm, judiciously, "that perhaps it would not be the Lord's will for you to be wasted here in this small congregation, when our Great Leader might have better uses for you. Accordingly, with your approval, I will send you to him, with a letter—which will be sealed, for it is for his eyes alone—telling him of what you did here and leaving it to him to make such decision as God would want." Bleys looked at him.

"Thank you," he said. When he left the church, some twenty minutes later, after being thronged about by the members, most of whom would have liked him to stop and talk to them, he headed not for the hotel that was McKae's headquarters in the city and to which Samuel Godsarm had directed him; but only far enough to make sure he had thrown off any secret pursuers. After that, he called on his monitor for an autocab and rode back to his apartment.

Back at the apartment, he skillfully, with a heated knife, lifted the wax seal of the envelope with its imprint of a lion bowing its head before a cross and took the paper out and unfolded it.

The message on it was very brief.

To: Our Great Leader

From: Samuel Godsarm of the Thirty-second Church of Arise!

Dear Leader:

I am sending to you one of our new members, Bleys MacLean, whom you may, in your greater wisdom, see better ways to make use of than our poor, small church deserves.

He
has a perfect memory and has been brought up in a lifetime of hard work, on his father's farm. So both his strength and his memory may prove to be of use.
If
this is not so, perhaps you, or one of those with you can send him back to us.

With praise to God, who directs us all, Samuel Godsarm

Bleys resealed the letter, and took it into his bedroom, where he put it in a small bedside file drawer.

Returning to the living room, he sat thoughtfully in one of the overstuffed chairs for a long moment; then turned to the phone beside him and punched the stud.

The screen lit up with the cheerful face of a young man with neatly combed, straight brown hair. He looked almost too young to be working as an information operator.

"At your service," he said.

"Your equipment there should show you my address," said Bleys.

"Yes," answered the operator, glancing down briefly, "it does."

"Could you find me the number of the nearest college to my address, and the number in particular of their athletic department?"

"Just a moment," said the operator.

The screen blanked out. A moment later it lit up with an eight-digit number in large numerals. Behind the numerals the voice of the operator went on.

"There it is if you wish to copy it down," it said; "would you prefer that I simply connect you with it?"

"I have it, now," said Bleys, "but why don't you connect me anyway?"

"It'll be my pleasure."

The screen blanked out, the soft chime of a phone bell at the far end was heard. After four chimes, the screen lit up again, this time with the white-haired, capable face of a woman in her late fifties or early sixties.

"This is the Athletic Department," she said. "Can I be of assistance?"

"Yes," said Bleys, "I'd like to talk to your wrestling instructor, if you have one and he's there at this time."

"Did you particularly want a male instructor?" asked the woman.

"It makes no difference," answered Bleys.

"Well, let me see." She glanced aside from the screen for several seconds. "Professor Antonia Lu is here at the moment. Do you want me to ring her office?"

"Please," said Bleys.

Once more the screen blanked, the phone-chime was heard. And another young male face, looking remarkably like the telephone operator in some way, even though his hair was black and his face was long and rather thin, appeared on the screen.

"Professor Lu's office,
' he said, "can I be of assistance?"

"I'm Bleys Ayr
ens," said Bleys, "and it will be most kind of you if you could ask the Professor if she could take a few moments to speak with me on the phone right now."

"May I ask—does she know you, Bleys Ahrens?" asked the face. "She's out on the gym floor right now; if she doesn't know you, could I ask the reason for your calling?"

"She doesn't know me, as a matter of fact," said Bleys. "You might tell her, though, I've had quite a broad grounding in a number of the traditional Japanese disciplines, particularly judo and the judo-based arts. I need to know about the differences between the kind of wrestling you do there at the college and what I studied."

"I'll take her that message," said the young man at the other end. "It'll probably be a little while yet before she can get back to you. Will you leave your number?"

Bleys pressed a stud on the control board below the screen, which automatically transmitted his phone number to the screen of the party he was talking to.

"Thank you, Bleys Ahrens," said the man at the other end; and the screen went blank.

Bleys resigned himself to waiting several hours, if necessary. But it was actually only a little over ten minutes before his own phone chimed; and when he answered, it lit up with the face of a woman in her late twenties or early thirties, with blue eyes, remarkably matched to nearly black hair; and facial boning that made her, Bleys thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her voice was light and cheerful.