Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (7 page)

He gazed down for a long moment, the smile on his face gradually broadening until he finally burst into full-throated laughter.

"I knew she'd send you eventually!" he said.

He was still laughing, when, with a casual flip of the back of one of his massive hands, he knocked Bleys clear off his feet and against the wall of the barn. Bleys, dazed, slid down it to the ground below.

Bleys lay where he had fallen, in the rank grass by the goat barn. He was barely conscious, half-knocked out from even the light blow of that massive hand; and it took him several moments for his senses to come back. For a minute after they did return he felt merely odd, lying on the ground; and then a sharp headache burst into life behind his temples.

"Up with you," said Dahno. Bleys felt his wrist and right hand enclosed in a massive fist; and he was hauled to his feet.

Bleys was still not sensible enough, not enough fully recovered from the blow, to guard his tongue as he usually did.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

Dahno laughed again.

"Because you had to learn, Little Brother," he said, "you're very fortunate to have me for a half-brother—you know that? But if you're really going to be fortunate, and I'm really going to find a use for you, you're going to have to start out understanding what I'm really like."

The first fierce burst of pain was receding from Bleys' head and his mind was beginning to work.

"I'd have found out shortly, anyway," he said.

"Ah, the little brother has teeth," said Dahno, "but they're milk-teeth, young Bleys. Don't try to use them on me. Yes, you'd have found out. But I decided I wanted you to find out right away. Now you know. I'm not exactly the laughing boy that everybody takes me for."

"You're like our mother then," said Bleys.

"Ah, quick. Even quicker than I'd thought!" said Dahno. "Yes, that's exactly it. I am like mother in that particular; but that and one other are the only ways. The other is that I always get my way. That means I'm going to get my way with you, too. I want you to get that straight, right from the beginning. Have you gotten it straight?"

"Yes," said Bleys. He put a hand to the side of his head briefly. "I have it very straight."

"Good," said Dahno, "because what I just did to you is nothing to what I'll do to you if I have to. There's no limit to what I'll do to you if it's necessary. But I don't expect to. I think we're going to work together, hand in glove. Like brothers indeed, Little Brother. But we won't come to it quickly. There's a few things I have to do first; and it won't hurt you to have a little seasoning here on the farm of our 'Uncle' Henry."

Bleys' mind was finally fully back in working order. He recognized that what Dahno
said was true. This man was one
person he was not going to be able to control—at least, not for a long time. He retreated behind the barrier of childhood.

"What are you going to do with me?" he asked.

Dahno did not answer directly. Instead, he looked at Bleys for several long moments, thoughtfully. Even his smile was gone.

"You know," he said, "I was just like you when I came here. Oh, there was the difference that I was as big as Henry himself, even then, even though I wasn't much older than you are—and twice as strong as Henry, if it came to that. But it was still my intelligence I used to protect myself from him, and this whole way of life of his. You'll already have started to do that. Haven't you?"

"Yes," said Bleys. There was no point in trying to explain himself to someone like this.

"Yes, you would've," said Dahno, thoughtfully, "and we'll put that mind and those abilities to good use eventually, you and I, Little Brother. But not just yet. You still have a lot to learn. So far, by and large you've been working only on people who were halfway ready to be agreeable to you in the first place. The test comes when you work on somebody who is ready to disagree with you at the very sight of you. That's the real test. So, as I say, you stay with Uncle Henry."

"And finally? Someday?" asked Bleys. "What happens then?"

"Then you move to where I am, in Ecumeny—in the city," said Dahno. "By that time I'll have a place ready for you in what I'm doing."

"What are you doing?" Bleys asked.

"That, you're going to have to wait to learn," said Dahno.

He turned away.

"We probably ought to be getting back to our relatives," he said.

",Wait—" said Bleys. "How long do I stay here?"

"Some weeks? Some months? Maybe even a few years," said Dahno, looking over his shoulder back at him, "it all depends."

"On me?"

Bleys had to follow him to ask the question, because Dahno was already walking toward the end of the goat barn.

"On you to a certain extent, yes," said Dahno, "but on other things as well. Don't worry. I'll come and see you from time to time. Meanwhile, you can be finding out what you can do in the way of handling the relatives."

Dahno led the way back around the barn. Henry and Joshua were out in the yard. Will, presumably, was inside, still doing the cleaning up after lunch. Bleys hardly saw the two in the yard, for the hard knot of emotion that was in him at the moment. In his mind there was just a single thought.
Never again!
Never again would Dahno hit him!

Then the knot dissolved, and his mind was clear once more—and he understood. He realized that of course Dahno would never hit him again. His older brother had no intention of it, knowing it would never be necessary.

The blow was not a blow in the ordinary sense of the word, as much as a signal. Bleys was being notified that Dahno was taking over the role that their mother had played in Bleys' life.

Delivered in that heavy-handed slap from Dahno, the message was unmistakable. Dahno now owned him. Nor was there anything that Bleys was in a condition to do about it now. As Dahno had said, only too truly, Bleys still only had his milk-teeth, compared to the weapons of his older brother. But time would change things. Bleys tucked the whole episode away in the back of his mind for future study.

Dahno waved his hand at Henry.

"If you don't mind, Henry," he said, "I'll take my little brother here into town and buy him some clothes. Now, if you'll come around to the trunk of the car, I'll give you those engine parts I brought you."

"That'll be quite all right, Dahno," said Henry. "Bleys and I thank God for your generosity."

As he spoke he was coming to meet them at the back of the hovercar. Dahno sprang open the trunk and took out a couple of paper-wrapped packages, each one of which filled one of his large hands. He handed them to Henry, who received them in his arms.

"And I thank the Lord for your generosity to me in this," said Henry.

CHAPTER
6

Henry stood back
and Dahno went around one side of the hovercar, while Bleys went around to the other and opened the door there. The two seats inside were separate and swiveled. There was a control stick in front of each chair, and Dahno took hold of his as the two doors were closed.

"You know enough not to touch the spare control rod while I'm driving the car, don't you?" he said to Bleys.

"Of course," said Bleys.

Dahno laughed.

Below them the under-fans roared to life. The hovercar lifted, spun about, and began to go back between the trees toward the highway, along the dirt road from the farm.

Dahno, Bleys saw, as they left the farm behind, was a fast and excellent driver. By the time he hit the main highway and had found a strip for hovercars where he could let the vehicle out at full speed, the meter on the dashboard showed that they were doing over two hundred fifty kilometers an hour.

Bleys had assumed that they were just going to the local

store. But Dahno took him clear into Ecumeny. Once there they shopped in some of the larger stores for various kinds of work clothes, jackets, and boots for Bleys—and one formal suit of soft, black material like that Dahno himself was currently wearing.

"That'll be for Sundays," Dahno said, speaking of the suit. "It won't hurt if you outshine Uncle Henry and his two boys a little bit. Not too much—but a little bit. And that suit should do just that, as well, to any
thing the others at the church'll
be wearing."

They stopped for a snack at a restaurant, and Bleys found himself enjoying the day. Dahno was a different person, now. He was a warm and friendly companion; and he poured out information about Ecumeny, about Henry's church, and a hundred other things that would be useful to Bleys. It was clear he knew that it was information Bleys would need; and therefore it was information he supplied.

By the time they had eaten, it had reached late afternoon. They left the restaurant, found the hovercar and headed back out toward the farm. As they went, Bleys' spirits sank in spite of himself.

Today had been the sort of day he would like to have always. Comfort, pleasant company—and an unending spate of interesting information to be garnered up and stored away for future use in the back of his mind. Now he was going back to where the rooms were cold at night, the bed was hard under the stuffed mattress, and with the next daybreak there would be household duties to do; but there would be no conversation of any worth.

Dahno was no longer talking, finally, and Bleys did not feel like talking himself. He stared out the windshield ahead; and the silence lasted between them until they drove at last up the dirt road to the farmyard.

"Don't look so down, Little Brother," said Dahno. The half-mocking note that had been in his voice when he first spoke to Bleys was back there again. "There'll be other days and I'll make other visits; and we'll go into town again. Just do what you have to, here, and learn as much as you can."

He reached across and opened the door on Bleys' side.

Slowly Bleys got out, reached back in for his purchases, and looked back at him for a moment through the open door. "I had a good time," said Bleys.

"Good," answered Dahno; and there seemed to be a note of real approval in his voice.

Then he shut the door in Bleys' face, and the hovercar rose again on its fans, spun about and disappeared away down the road from the farm to the highway. Bleys found himself standing alone in the farmyard with his hands full of boxes and bundles that were the fruit of their shopping.

He turned numbly to the house to take these things inside. But before he could reach it Will came out rather hurriedly, stopped very briefly to close the door softly behind him and then came swiftly down the steps.

Will would have dashed on past Bleys without even looking at him, if Bleys had not stopped him. The younger boy's face was white, so that here and mere a freckle that Bleys had not noticed before stood out against the paleness of his skin.

"What is it?" asked Bleys, catching Will's arm with one hand and holding him.

"One of the goats got its head caught between a fallen fence bar and the bar below, and strangled," said Will. He wrenched himself loose from the grip of Bleys' hand and left at a run, disappearing around a comer of the barn.

Wondering, Bleys went up the steps and in through the door.

Henry was seated in a chair half-turned from the table, and standing before him was Joshua. Joshua's face was not pale but his expression was solemn and still.

"—You didn't see it die then," Henry was asking Joshua.

"No, Father."

"That means you didn't see the rail come loose and fall down to trap her?" "No, Father."

"One of our best milk goats." There was a regretful note in Henry's voice; and he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Joshua. He looked up at his son.

"Well," he said, "you won't let a loose rail like that happen again, will you?"

"No, Father."

"Yes. Well, see me after dinner then." Henry got to his feet. "You can go back to work, son."

Joshua turned and went out the door without looking at Bleys. Henry caught sight of him and beckoned him over to the table where, Bleys saw, there were a number of slips of paper spread out.

"Bleys," said Henry, then interrupted himself, "—take those things your brother must have bought you into your own room and leave them on your bunk. Then come back here. I've got some questions I want to ask you."

Bleys did as he was told. When he got back, Henry was seated in the chair again, apparently sorting the slips which he had laid out in rows stretching away from him, like the cards in a game of solitaire.

"Bleys," said Henry, looking up as Bleys appeared, "these are the records each day for each milk goat as to how much milk they gave. They vary in amount, but also in quality. Is there anything in the mathematics you say you learned in school that would help me figure out which are the most profitable of my milk goats?"

Bleys looked at the slips. Each was simply a small piece of paper with a date, a name—which he assumed was the name of the goat—and a figure that must be for the amount of milk mat animal had produced.

"Are those figures volume or weight, Uncle?" he asked.

"Volume—oh, I see," said Henry, "yes, they're the number of liters and part-liters we got from each one. Why?"

"I just thought
..."
Bleys hesitated. He was raking through the back of his mind, putting together several things picked up from different people at different places and different times. "If you weighed the milk they gave each morning, instead of just measuring it, you might be able to get an idea of how rich it was. I think the richer the milk the more fat mere is in it. So kilogram for kilogram the goat giving richer milk should be worth more."

He hesitated again.

"I think that's right, Uncle," he said, "I can't be sure.