Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (24 page)

"Of course," said Bleys.

"But it goes without saying," Dahno went on, "that if you find evidence of deviations, you'll let me know about it right away."

"I plan on sending letters by spaceship to you from each world, as often as ships from there leave for Association," said Bleys.

"Good," said Dahno. He slapped his enormous hand down on the stack of printout. "If changes are needed, make them—in my name."

"It might not be a bad idea," said Bleys, "if you gave me some sort of authorization to show them
..."

"Of course," said Dahno. "You can count on it. No reason for your not leaving on the first ship out, is there?"

"None. But I've a list of the order in which I'd like to visit

these worlds," said Bleys, "and it's not always the shortest way around. So I'll have to wait for the first vessel to Freiland. If you like, I can show you the list."

"Give me a copy of it," answered Dahno. He rose from behind his desk. "Well, I've got to get busy. I've appointments."

CHAPTER
21

"—Something to drink
, sir?"

"No thank you." Bleys' low-pitched but resonant voice was polite but very definite. "Nothing at all. I've got a problem on my mind; and I'd appreciate not being disturbed."

"Of course, sir." The spaceship lounge attendant vanished.

Curiously, as in his last spaceship trip, years before, he was once more having to ward off lounge attendants; who offered to supply him with something to read, or something to drink or eat. Only now, it was for a different reason. It was not because one of them had felt a touch of pity for what she considered a lonely, inwardly lost, boy. Now, it was because of something that he almost radiated.

It was the effect for which he had used his life so far to prepare himself. Tall, now—far beyond the ordinary— handsome, straight, athletic and unforgettable, with his memorable voice and dark brown eyes that seemed to look deeply into people even when he gave them a casual glance, he was not easily ignored.

He was now someone whose attention people, including cabin attendants, instinctively found themselves wishing to draw upon themselves, in hopes he might find something in them as interesting as they found in him. It was an effect he had on everyone he met nowadays. He was conscious of it, but his realization of the full impact of it on other humans was yet to come.

In any case, the total effect was to cause him to be disturbed by attention he did not want. Courteously but firmly, he dismissed them; and, eventually, regretfully, they left him alone.

He needed privacy to contemplate this moment. For the first time in his life he was free to set about breaking loose on the path he had chosen. And there was something about gazing at the starscape from here in the spaceship, separate and solitary in its path through space, that reminded him of his own, familiar image of himself as someone isolated and alone, that made him able to look more clearly at the whole panorama of the race. Not merely at the point of time in which it lived now, but at its record up to this moment. All his study of art and history spread that record out before his mind's eye.

Against that panorama he saw the way he had picked out for himself more clearly.

It was now plain to him, the work that had laid itself upon him, to save humanity. It was something no one else had recognized, or there would have been mention of it and voices raised on its behalf before this. Over the years with Dahno he had come to see it with a clarity he could never have imagined earlier.

The duty was undeniable, correct, complete—part of the great evolutionary imperative he had found on Association. Humanity must obey it or dwindle and perish. Basically, the cause of all the race's troubles was the fact it had left the world of its origin before it was ready to do so. Now, it must go back, to start again.

What he foresaw he must do to-make it return would mean doing many things personally repugnant to him. But that was the price. For the first time he felt the sort of peace and certainty that Henry MacLean had found in his smaller way. To Henry, God was the answer to all things.

But Bleys knew there was no God—except for the one that the human race had invented to fill the great hunger in them all for guidance. There were only the inexorable workings of a universe too big to be grasped just yet in its entirety. Even by him. But he could feel a corner of its completeness, the working of its inexorable laws.

It would be his job to do the God-work, bring the race back into synchrony with those laws, working inside them—instead of against them, as a human race drunk on technology had done, these past three hundred years. To correct that would require his gaining more power, and a far greater use of it, than Dahno had ever dreamed.

He smiled, a little sadly, at the stars. The race would not thank him for what he must do to it. They might well curse him . . . some of them now, all of them later. But finally they would come over generations to understand the benefit of what he had done.

There was no pride for him to feel, no credit, no feeling of personal reward as a result of the eventual success of what he would do. He had not invented, created, designed or plotted this task—he had only recognized it and submitted himself to the work. As many of the God-believers would say, he had been "called" to it. But not by any deity. By the necessity of the evolutionary imperative that required humanity to progress in accordance with the universe's laws, or be discarded.

Nor would it be important that others understand what he and they must do. It was only important that they, like him, submit to it.

He must not expect understanding—not even from Dahno. Had others understood, they might have tried to do before this what he would do now. But they had been blind and therefore could not be blamed for not understanding. He, who was gifted with the ability to see, must therefore turn and embrace the isolation that, as a child, he had hoped to escape from. Embrace it as his birthright.

But first, the power. One step at a time; and the first step

was toward the beginning of his control of Dahno's organization of the Others. That done, he could move further to make the Others much greater as an instrument; and eventually, with
them
for leverage, gain control of all the worlds—even Old Earth.

He drifted into musing about what he must do on Freiland, first. Freiland—the oldest of Dahno's other-world organizations of the Others. The Vice-Chairman in charge there was Hammer Martin; and his file in Dahno's office had said he had all three—Dorsai, Exotic and Friendly—in his ancestry. But he had been raised a militant Friendly before he had broken with his family in his early twenties. The Vice-Chairmen in charge of the sub
-
organizations were all ambitious or they would not have competed with the other trainees of their class to graduate first and lead part of the organization.

It seemed to Bleys that the combination of Friendly roots and ambition suggested a way to handle Hammer.

Chapter 22

"You're the first
Dahno's ever sent out with a team to expand the organization to other worlds," Bleys said to Hammer Martin over the main course of their evening meal, that first day on Freiland. It was a simple enough statement, but the richness of Bleys' voice and the warmth in his steady brown gaze upon Hammer's own washed-out blue eyes, implied a strong compliment.

The restaurant that Hammer had taken Bleys to had a different decor than that of Dahno's favorite restaurant back on Association. It was somewhat more luxurious, but also more designed so that people there could view clearly more of the other tables with their occupants. It was plainly a place to see and be seen.

"Yes, I've always appreciated that," said Hammer. Like Bleys he was not taking wine, or any other type of drink or relaxant with his meal. So much of his Friendly sternness still showed. "It was a great opportunity for me; and I've tried to make the most of it. I flatter myself I have. The secret is subtlety, always subtlety, never force."

Bleys recognized the last sentence as part of the graduation speech that he had heard Dahno give three classes of trainees now. Hammer enunciated the words as if he had originated them; and—thought Bleys—at least in the surface of Hammer's mind, he probably felt he had.

"The situation's different here, of course, than on Association," Hammer went on, "it's bound to be in a more free society. So I've found even more scope for getting things done here on Freiland."

"I'm sure," murmured Bleys, "I'm looking forward to you showing me what you do; and how you make the differences work."

"You've got my time completely—well, almost completely," said Hammer, "until you leave. It'll be two weeks, you said?"

"Two weeks before I can get a ship direct to Cassida and Newton."

"While you're close here," said Hammer, "I'm a little puzzled you don't stop at New Earth first."

"I'll be stopping on my way back, first to Harmony and then Association," said Bleys, lightly. "The itinerary works out more conveniently that way. By the way, you were saying something about having to make adjustments in the local organization, because of the difference between Freiland and Association."

"Small adjustments. Small adjustments only," said Hammer. He had taken advantage of Bleys speaking to eat some of his entree and he had to hurry to get it swallowed and speak. "I'll be showing them all to you. Be sure to look them over and report to Dahno. If he disapproves of any of them—"

Hammer let the sentence hang in mid
-
air. Clearly he did not expect Dahno to disapprove. With part of his mind Bleys was considering the irony of this thin, hatchet-faced man with all the visible appearance of a Friendly, sounding and acting like a smooth-tongued Exotic.

"You saw the office today," went on Hammer, "nothing new there, of course. I'll show you the group of trainees we're working with right now tomorrow."

"There's still the file room at your office," demurred Bleys. "I'd like to go through the files there."

"Oh? Of course." Hammer waved a dismissing hand in a very non-Friendly gesture. "It's the same old information, most of which has been shipped on to your Association office in any case. But if you'd like to."

"I would, indeed," said Bleys courteously. "It's a matter of being able to go back to my brother and tell him I've covered everything."

"Of course." Hammer nodded.

"That ought to take me the next few days, even if I start early and work late. I might even drop over tonight and start looking at the files," said Bleys. The first thing he had done with the authority of Dahno's authorization was to get copies of all keys that Hammer said were connected with the organization and its activities. "I suppose you've early appointments in the morning, so I won't expect to see you until about midday, if then."

"Well," there was a note of relief in Hammer's voice, "if you don't mind, the schedule is pretty busy, just now. Freiland's a very open planet, as you know. That means that business interests are scattered all over, and there's a couple of out-of-town visits I should make in the next day or two. They could be put off, of course, but it'd be better if I didn't have to—"

"You won't have to," said Bleys. He smiled at the other man. "We'll make this visit of mine as pleasant and easy as possible."

Bleys could have gone directl
y from parting with Hammer after the meal to the man's office. He was not tired. But instead he chose to return to his hotel suite, to let the information, and what he had observed in Hammer, soak a little in his mind. Many things benefited by being put aside that way for a short while, to see if they did not then produce further information.

In the case of Hammer, Bleys was already certain that he might uncover something that would be both interesting and something Dahno might take strong objection to. He was also fairly sure that Hammer was making, or already had made, efforts to hide any such thing from him. But circumstantial evidence, in the form of implications and conclusions drawn from what the regular open files could tell him, would either back up or destroy that notion.

After all, the man was still seven-tenths a Friendly. What Bleys felt suspicious in him might be simply the result of his own unexpected appearance—a brother of Dahno's, whom Hammer had scarcely known existed. Particularly, a brother with such a sweeping letter of authority.

After a time of lying on his bed and thinking, a thought occurred to Bleys. He had visited Freiland, but only when very young, with his mother. It might be important to taste the flavor of the society from an adult point of view. He knew its history. Its first settlers had been some very rigid-minded groups from western and northern Europe. These, however, had not taken full advantage of the fact that the planet was self-sufficient in metals and power sources—there was no need for a Core Tap, anywhere on Freiland, for example. Its land masses had a sufficiency of mountains offering power sources in the form of water and sun-power collectors placed in the proper positions on them.

He got up and went downstairs to wander first through the bars and dining areas of the hotel, and then out into the immediate area of the city around the hotel to observe what else he could of the populace.

The natives he saw did not show anything like the self-discipline that was supposed to be the hallmark of the Dorsai, nor the inner calm and assurance of those from the Exotic worlds. Generally speaking, they were smaller, noisier and apparently less disciplined—in their hours of relaxation, at least.

He saw a great many more individuals either drunk or partially drunk than he had remembered seeing, even as a boy on New Earth and some of the other worlds. There was almost something of the frontier-town-grown-up about the Freiland city scene at night.

If this looseness and freedom were reflected in their politics, he would expect a lot more overt illegalities among the governing members of its three houses, though only one of those was a real power when it came to enacting laws and governing the country.

The other two represented established interests and—on paper at least—had little or no power. It had been interesting for him to note that business groups, as well as population sections, elected representatives to that one powerful governing body.

Bleys was at Hammer's office before dawn. It had been interesting to him when he had first seen it yesterday to notice that it was laid out and set up exactly the same as Dahno's. Even the desks for the two employees were in the same position in the same-shaped room; and the file and research room had a similar hidden door off Hammer's personal office, which opened to a touch of one of his keys.

He began his search through the files.

His study of Dahno's files had developed in him a quick ability to assess the value of a file he looked at. He went through them rapidly; and the greater majority of them were just as Hammer had implied—completely harmless and uninteresting.

But there were others that implied something else. What Bleys was looking for were patterns of organization or reportage which indicated things hidden. No human could do anything, day after day, without falling into habits that showed themselves in patterns in the way he or she did it. If part of that pattern was designed to hide something that the person writing the file did not want suspected, then comparison of enough files could find it cropping up often enough to waken suspicion.

There was nothing complicated about the process. Only, it required somebody with Bleys' ability to scan the files at remarkable speed, to identify the suspicious patterns and keep them in mind; ready to be triggered if a similar pattern showed up. When enough patterns had been gathered, it was then merely a matter of ordering the research machines to gather samples of the patterns, put them together and print them out.

Once with enough patterns in his hand, and remembering their context, it was possible for him to begin making conjectures about what Hammer was attempting to hide. The more Bleys deduced, the more he knew what to look for in the way of other patterns; and the closer he came to what the other man had tried to conceal.

Still, capable as Bleys was, it took him a day and a half to gather any solid picture of what might have been obscured by these apparently complete, open files; and it was a long day and a half after that, before he was ready to talk to Hammer about it.

He chose to bring up the subject once more when the two of them were having dinner, after a certain amount of food and casual conversation had relaxed the other man. Then, with the main course dishes ready to be cleared away he reached into his pocket inside his jacket and brought out a paper which he handed to Hammer.

"I've seen that," said Hammer with a smile, "you showed it to me as soon as you landed."

"Yes," said Bleys quietly, but with his eyes very steadily on Hammer's eyes, "and you've obeyed it to the letter, haven't you?"

Hammer looked back at him puzzled, and as the silence continued and Bleys continued to hold his gaze, the smile slowly faded from the other man's face.

"I don't understand," Hammer said, "what are you getting at?"

Bleys took the letter back, rolled it up and put it inside his jacket pocket again.

"I'd hate to take that response of yours just now back to Dahno," he said.

For the first time, Bleys began to read minute, but undeniable, instinctive signals of alarm in Hammer. The general light of the restaurant reflected a little more brightly from his forehead, indicating moisture on the skin. His breathing accelerated—slightly but unmistakably—and his hands closed about items of tableware. One picked up a fork, the other clasped the stem of his water glass.