Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (40 page)

Within he went up to the desk, produced the letter Samuel Godsarm had given him and explained why he was there.

The clerk behind the desk sent him over to sit and wait in the lobby lounge, and he did so, refusing the voice that spoke to him over the annunciator in his small chairside table, that offered him something to eat or drink. A moment later, the clerk came over and handed him a work application blank; which he filled out under the name of Bleys MacLean, with Henry listed as his father, Joshua and Will as his brothers. After about an hour, the clerk called him from behind the desk, took the filled-out form and handed him a badge and a key.

"The key is for the special tower elevators," the clerk said. "Take one of them to the top floor and show your badge to whoever you meet when you step off the elevator."

"Thank you," Bleys said t
o him. But the clerk had turned
away and did not bother to a
nswer. Bleys crossed the lobby,
conscious of a number
of other men and women lounging
around in seats and at the sma
ll tables where late breakfasts
were being eaten, who looked
closely at him as he passed. He
put his key in the elevator, its doors opened and he stepped
inside.

The silent elevator whisked him up some forty stories. When he stepped out of the elevator he was confronted by two men almost as tall as he, and outweighing him by anywhere from twenty to forty pounds apiece. Without a word, Bleys handed over Godsarm's letter.

One of the two took it wordlessly. He carried it off while the other stood with his arms folded, facing Bleys. He showed no animosity, only alertness.

He stood squarely and his balance was good, thought Bleys. But folded arms were not the most sensible position to be in, if you really had to defend yourself against a skilled opponent. That, and a general feeling that he got from the other man, made Bleys feel that he would have no trouble with this particular guard, if it was a situation in which just the two of them were concerned. After a few minutes the other guard returned and beckoned with his head. Neither of the two men had yet said a word to Bleys.

Bleys followed the guard who had beckoned with his head, and the other stayed at the elevator. Bleys made no attempt to look as if he was in any way dangerous; but, at the same time, he also made no attempt to look particularly impressed by what was around him.

Bleys was led from the lobby in front of the elevators into a typical hotel corridor, and at the end of it they stopped before a door that was also typical; but Bleys noticed that it was at the very end of the corridor; and deduced that beyond it there was not simply a single room, but a suite, since the large luxury suites were normally found in the position where they could have at least two windowed walls.

"Boris," said his guide to the
door, after knocking lightly at
it.

There was a second or two of delay, then the door swung open. Boris put his hand on Bleys' back, lightly directing him through the doorway.

They stepped, as Bleys had expected, into the spacious lounge of what must be one of the hotel's most luxurious suites. The furniture, however, had obviously been altered from what was customary. There were several armchairs along the side walls. But the main piece of furniture in the room was a large desk, behind which sat Darrel McKae.

He was wearing ordinary gray trousers and a light blue shirt. A black cape was thrown over the high back of his chair.

"All right, Boris," said McKae. Close up, his voice had a curious ringing quality that might have something to do with the effectiveness of it when he had been making the speech Bleys had heard. "Stand over there by the door. Just wait."

Boris disappeared from Bleys' field of vision. Bleys himself stood alone on the far side of the desk looking across it at McKae. The desk itself was covered with paper, but on top of everything there, and right in front of McKae, was Samuel Godsarm's letter that Bleys had carried. Its seal was broken and it had been unfolded for reading.

"Bleys MacLean," said McKae, looking up at him.

"Yes, Great Leader."

"I've just been talking to Samuel Godsarm on the phone," said McKae. "I see he didn't exaggerate your size. But I'm a little at a loss as to why he thinks you might be particularly valuable to me here. Suppose you tell me all about going into his church, from the time you first entered until he sent you off to me."

Bleys did so, using simple but straightforward language.

"And it was after you preached and told the congregation what I had said on the floor of the Chamber," said McKae, after Bleys was through, "that he decided to write this letter?"

"Yes, I think he made up his mind then," said Bleys; "he could see how deeply I'd been moved by you, watching from the visitors' gallery and listening to you."

"Tell me," said McKae, "I take it your sermon was well received by the congregation?"

"I think so, Great Leader," said Bleys, "but it was my repeating to them the words of your speech on the floor that moved them most deeply. I don't believe they'd been so moved in their lives."

"You must have rendered it well," said McKae, smiling a little. Unexpectedly the smile became a friendly one, only for Bleys. "I suspect Samuel of worrying you might be a better preacher than he. Perhaps he was more interested in getting rid of you, than sending me someone who might be of use. On the phone he told me you'd grown up on a farm and that your father kept goats. Where was this?"

"It's Green Pastures District," said Bleys, "maybe ninety miles from Ecumeny here."

"Yes. I see," said McKae.

There was a shrewdness in the man, Bleys noted, that was at odds with his religious appearance. If this had been any world but a Friendly one, he would have suspected McKae's religiousness to be merely a front behind which his ambition worked.

However, since this was one of the Friendly Worlds and McKae had grown up on it, it was highly unlikely that he would be a charlatan in any sense of the word. In short, thought Bleys, McKae was in somewhat the same position as Bleys himself. He wished to gain control, but only in order to direct what he controlled in the path that he believed was right.

McKae had obviously been taking a few moments out to think. But now he spoke
up
again.

"What can you do, then?" he asked Bleys.

"Any farm work, Great Leader," said Bleys, "and I can handle goats of course, harness them to a cart or a plow and care for them. Outside of that, not really anything. I was hoping there'd be work to be done with my hands, here in the city, because we need the money back on the farm. So far I haven't found any."

"Have you ever handled a gun?" asked McKae.

Bleys hesitated, as he knew that someone who was what he was pretending to be would do, in case of a question like this. It was normal for all but the poorest of farmers to own some sort of weapon, both for hunting rabbits as well as for defense against raids from an opposing church group. But McKae's question also hinted that Bleys might be involved in such raiding himself.

McKae would be unlikely to be concerned over such, but the man Bleys was pretending to be would be cautious about admitting it.

"I've done a little shooting with a needle gun," he said. "We had our land posted to keep foreign rabbit hunters off. But they come anyway, you know. One of them must've left his gun behind, because I found it in the tall grass. It was pretty dirty, but I got it working and we used to use it ourselves, to hunt rabbits."

McKae, who was clearly country-bred himself, let these words of Bleys' story about how he came to have a needle gun pass without comment. Of course, thought Bleys, he knew better.

"How good a shot are you?" he asked Bleys.

"Pretty good," said Bleys, "usually I always came back with some rabbits when I took the gun out. And—I'm a powerful wrestler."

"Powerful wrestler, you say," said McKae with another sudden smile, broader than he had given Bleys before. "Now that's interesting. With your size, and if you're any good with a needle gun and as good a wrestler as you say, there might be a way you could serve our church and me."

He got up unexpectedly and came around from behind the desk. He was about four inches shorter than Bleys, but his shoulders were nearly as broad and he tapered down to a slim waist. "I'm a fairly powerful wrestler myself. Do you think you could throw me?"

"Oh, Great Leader," said Bleys, "I wouldn't want to hurt you."

"Don't worry about that," said McKae. He stood with his body perfectly balanced, one foot a little behind the other and apart, his elbows bent and his hands out and half curled, ready to grab. It was the typical country wrestling style that Bleys had seen a number of times during the years he had been
at Henry's. "You see, I don't th
ink you can throw me. Do you think you can?"

"Great Leader," said Bleys in a distressed voice, "I really don't want—"

"Do as you're told," said McKae. "Now, you better throw me or I'm going to throw you." He began circling Bleys.

"If you say so, Great Leader," said Bleys with a sigh. There were very few rules in country wrestling, Bleys knew. He would have known more about it if he had gone to the local school near Henry's, since wrestling was one of the primary recreations for rural males of all ages.

He took a step toward McKae, his forearms half upraised; and with very creditable speed, McKae seized his left arm, stepped in and attempted a hip throw. Bleys dropped to one knee however, and with one arm holding McKae's arm and the other grasping his collar, levered him over the bent leg and onto the carpet. He let go immediately and stood back. McKae bounced back to his feet.

"Very interesting," said McKae, looking at him. "I've done more than a little wrestling and I never ran into that before. Boris!"

The last word was a summons to the man by the door. He came over to them.

"No, no, Boris," McKae's voice stopped the other man before he could lay hands on Bleys himself, "I don't want you to try him out. Take him off, run him through Weapons and Unarmed Combat; and then come back and tell me how he did."

He turned to Bleys.

"I'll hope to see you again, Bleys MacLean," he said. "Thank you, Great Leader," said Bleys. He followed Boris out the door.

They went down several floors to one whose long central corridor had been turned into a practice range for shooting with needle guns. The door at the far end of it that led to whatever room or suite was beyond it—probably a suite—had been blocked and heavily padded to stop any of the fired needles from going through and doing damage. When they got there Boris turned him over to another man who was easily into his fifties. A lean, dried, brown man with a sharp nose and a narrow mouth, but with a pair of very bright, brown eyes under his thinning brown hair on a brown skull.

"Bleys MacLean," said Boris, "this is Seth Tremunde. He'll tell you what to do."

Bleys offered his hand but Tremunde merely waved it aside.

"We don't waste time in courtesies here," he said. "What are you down here for?"

"He's to be tested with a needle gun and anything else you're set up to test with. Great Leader's orders."

"All right," said Tremunde.

He turned to a large cupboard set up along the wall of the corridor, slid its door back a little and brought out a transparent case holding a needle gun in its two parts. He stripped the case off the two parts and handed them separately to Bleys.

Bleys grinned. It was an old trick. Someone who was well used to needle guns could snap the stock and trigger assembly part to the barrel-section in half a second. Anyone who had not handled a needle gun repeatedly over a period of time would have to fumble, getting the two to lock together. Bleys snapped them into one piece in the blink of an eye.

Tremunde did not look impressed; although, Bleys knew, he had scored on the other man.

"All right," said Tremunde, waving at the far end of the corridor, "there's a target pinned up down there. Let's see what you can do with it."

Bleys looked down the corridor and lifted the needle gun to his shoulder, pressing the
target-read
button with his thumb as he brought the sights in line with the white square of the target.

This, he knew, was a second test. One of the things that was important about shooting a needle gun was to adjust your pattern of needles to the size you wanted at the distance the target was from you. The needles spread in a ring-pattern as they went out, and if distance was not known, or misjudged, then the pattern might well be so wide when it at last reached the target, that it simply encircled it without doing any real harm. At the same time as Bleys set the pattern size for the distance he got off the
target-read
dial—for the
target-read
went by light reflected off the surface it was aimed at and had to be adjusted for the ambient lighting—he blinked twice, very quickly together with both eyes.

An invisible, transparent telescopic contact lens dropped down into his right eye, his sighting eye.

Bleys was a good shot without any artificial aids; but in this case he wanted to make no mistake in impressing them with his marksmanship. The lens that he had kept tucked up under his lid and practiced with until he could put it either up or down with the proper blinking move of his eyelid, was adjusted in rings from its outer circle inward so that he was able to focus not only on the target but on both the rear and front sights of the needle gun.